There are few things more frustrating than to have been right about something and then for that not to matter. I’m not just talking about not being able to say, “I told you so.” Instead, I’m talking about your accuracy not being applied as a credit to your trustworthiness account. In theory, if you’re right most of the time, people ought to believe you and act accordingly. But in today’s America, the fact that conservatives have a staggeringly accurate record when it comes to correctly understanding or predicting events is irrelevant. They are modern-day Cassandras. We can only hope it won’t end up as badly for us as it did for her.

For those who are not enamored of Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. The god Apollo gave Cassandra a terrible “gift,” which was the divine power of prophecy to which he added a curse: No one would believe her. She was fated to see the future without being able to change people’s behavior. Indeed, she was seen as either dishonest or insane, and her father even locked her away.

Cassandra taken from the ruins of Troy (cropped). Photo by Falk2 from a fresco. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Even as her predictions about Troy’s inevitable downfall became true, Cassandra was still ignored. When she tried to destroy the Trojan horse, knowing that the Greeks hid within, the Trojans themselves stopped her. Ultimately, poor Cassandra was raped, taken as a sex slave by Agamemnon, and murdered by Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra. Prophecy without believability is a heavy, even deadly burden.

(As an aside, I happen to love the beautiful song ABBA sang about Cassandra.)

In 21st-century America, conservatives are Cassandra. They are right about everything, yet they are continuously belittled. Here’s just a short list of their successful analyses and predictions:

• COVID came from a Chinese biolab
• Masks would not prevent COVID’s spread and would make people sick
• Lockdowns would destroy the economy
• Lockdowns would destroy children
• The claims of Trump’s alleged Russia collusion were false
• The Steele Dossier was fake
• George Floyd did not die because of police brutality but because of his drug ingestion
• Printing money causes inflation that harms the working and middle classes
• Defunding the police brings crime to cities, especially in black communities
• Legalizing drugs massively increases destructive drug use
• Giving carte blanche to the homeless means that your cities turn into slums
• Polar ice caps are not melting
• Unlimited Muslim immigration to Europe will bring rape to Europe
• More guns mean less crime
• Hunter Biden’s laptop was real
• The 2020 election was riddled with fraud

The list goes on and on. I bet you can add dozens of items. But today, I want to focus on two very specific things about which conservatives were correct.

The first is that conservatives said that Joe Biden had violated national security laws when he stored classified documents in his garage. Robert Hur’s report confirms that this is exactly what happened. We were right.

But in the cesspool that is D.C., being right about national security violations is kind of meaningless. The rule of thumb is already in place: If you’re Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence, or other Democrats or Vichy Republicans, it’s a meh. However, if you’re Donald Trump, who had plenary power to declassify documents and then store those declassified documents in a locked room under Secret Service oversight, you’re a criminal facing a lifetime prison sentence.

The second thing about which conservatives have been correct is that they have repeatedly and consistently pointed out that Joe Biden has dementia. They haven’t just said he’s stupid, which has been known for decades, or that he’s dishonest, also known for decades. Instead, the charge has been dementia. Moreover, we made this claim during the 2020 election, warning Americans against voting for someone suffering from obvious, severe, and accelerating cognitive decline.

Now, as to that, too, we’ve been validated. Joe Biden, says Hur, is so confused and unreliable that he doesn’t know when he was the Vice President, nor does he even recall when his son died. And, indeed, if you want evidence of his dementia, just look at his response when asked about the fact that he’d forgotten the details of Beau’s death:

This is a classic dementia response. People with dementia who are still somewhat functional will deflect either with a joke ("I can't believe a handsome young man like you needs to ask me who's president!") or with anger ("How dare you ask me that question?")

— Andrea Widburg (@Bookwormroom) February 9, 2024

In a sane and just world, conservatives would be celebrated for their repeated accuracy in analyzing and predicting events. Not only that, but they would control the levers of power to institute the policies they advocate.

Instead, like Cassandra herself, they are reviled and consigned to watching America—their Troy—being eaten away from the inside by the leftists who have seized power and who insist that the real world is one in which borders don’t matter, governments can indefinitely print money, China is our friend, biological sex is irrelevant, and Biden is an intellectually astute and honest man, more than capable of guiding the American government.