"With the end of Fidel Castro's nasty life Friday night, we can hope, if not reasonably expect, to have seen the last of charismatic totalitarians worshiped by political pilgrims from open societies. Experience suggests there will always be tyranny tourists in flight from what they consider the boring banality of bourgeois society and eager for the excitement of sojourns in 'progressive' despotisms that they are free to admire and then leave. ...

"Socialism is bountiful only of slogans, and a Castro favorite was 'socialism or death.' The latter came to him decades after the former had made Cuba into a gray museum for a dead utopianism."

Wishing you and yours a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

"Donald Trump scolded media big shots during an off-the-record Trump Tower sitdown on Monday, sources told The Post.

"'It was like a f-€“ing firing squad,' one source said of the encounter.

"'Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said "I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed,"' the source said.

"'The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down,' the source added."

"It's contrary to the laws of nature for a tabloid writer to tell the gentry media not to go berserk. It's like a cat telling his owner to stop coughing up hairballs or Iron Man asking Captain America to be less arrogant. Here at The Post, our mission statement does not include understatement. We provide journalistic Red Bull, not Sominex.

"Nevertheless, a word of neighborly advice to our more genteel media friends, the ones who sit at the high table in their pristine white dinner jackets and ball gowns. You've been barfing all over yourselves for a week and a half, and it's revolting to watch. ...

"Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds' characterization of reporters as 'Democratic operatives with bylines' is taking root in the American mind. Among independents, according to Gallup in September, the media had an approval rating of 30 percent; among Republicans 14. Almost everyone but Democrats think the media are biased, and support for that view goes way back."

"We teach our children that what matters isn't how we handle success, but how we handle defeat. Tell that to the collapsing Democratic Party.

"Here's what Democrats know: They got thumped last week. Donald Trump cleaned their clocks, despite his disorganization, controversies and lack of money. Senate Democrats blew at least seven competitive races, and they remain in the minority. House Democrats blew even more, and they remain in the minority. Democratic governors got thumped. Democratic state legislators got thumped. Democratic dog catchers -- if there were any on the ballot -- got thumped.

"What Democrats should realize, because everyone else does, is that voters rejected both their policies (which have undermined middle- and low-income families) and their governance (which has fueled rage at a power-hungry federal government). Hillary Clinton proposed more of the same. Coal workers said no. Blue-collar union workers said no. Suburban moms said no. Small businessmen, drowning under Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare, said no.

"Instead Democrats think last week was an accident."

"Former Senator Tom Coburn once called earmarks a 'gateway drug' to big government spending. He was right. Earmarks, once a small fraction of federal spending, ballooned into corrupt schemes by members of congress for often nonsensical or vanity projects. From bridges to nowhere to buildings named after spouses, your tax dollars were sought after by congressmen and their friends for personal projects.

"Earmarks became so outlandish over time that a conservative revolt led to them being banned. Now some Republicans want to bring them back and are up to the typical games the left plays -- re-defining and renaming. ...

"The addicts are restless and hoping to get out of rehab and back on the drug. Republicans just won an election to drain Washington's swamp. They do not now need to direct the sewer into the swamp by re-establishing earmarks. It is not a coincidence that the chief advocates of earmarks are also the most liberal Republicans in the Congress. They know their and the left's expansionist tendencies are dampened without earmarks. We should not give in."

"As much as Trump's voters were motivated by economics, they were also motivated by resentment toward what they viewed as an aggressive culture war being waged against them by left-wing politicians. It seems highly unlikely that a more leftist Democratic Party will be more tolerant of the religious minority groups that just rejected them, including Catholics, who went not only for Trump but also for House Republicans by 7 points, according to exit polls.

"If this year's election teaches us anything, it is that neither political party can be counted out forever. There can be no obituary for the Democratic Party, which could well come roaring back.

"But Democrats have just driven their party hard into a ditch, and their road to recovery isn't obvious. How they react could determine how long they are stuck in their rut."

"If in the first 100 days Trump can push through tax reform, deregulation, Keystone, clean coal, new leases for fracking and horizontal drilling on federal lands, an end to the crony-capitalist Solyndra-like subsidies, a cut-off of federal aid to sanctuary cities, support for school vouchers, the wall, deportations of those illegal aliens who committed crimes or have no work history, plans to rebuild the military, a freeze on federal hiring, trade renegotiations -- then surprising things will follow.

"Success in getting these initiatives passed will be proof of strong-horse leadership. And even Trump'€™s critics will for a while defer to his power, both in private admiration that he did what they could not, and in public out of fear that he might do even more -- and, again oddly enough, also in mordant curiosity about whether the Trump agenda might in fact jump-start America."

"Keep rioting, kids. Every car you set ablaze, every window you break, his poll numbers go up."

"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death."