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TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn: "We are going to double down"

November 07, 2012
Wilson

Writer

I'm sorry if ‑‑ for those people who want to lick their wounds and have a pity party, this show is not for you today. If you want to talk just about politics, you want to talk about the Republican strategy for, you know, 2016, this is not your show today. This is not the one. This is not the place you should be. I am not interested quite honestly in hearing the concession speech of Barack Obama. I turned it off. He could be the nicest man in the world; he could be the Antichrist. Doesn't matter to me anymore. I am really, really ‑‑ you know, I've been saying to you for a while and I've been saying it even stronger off air to my business partners and everybody else: I don't know how we survive. If he doesn't win, meaning Mitt Romney ‑‑ and I didn't think Mitt Romney was the savior. I disagreed with a lot of Mitt Romney's policies. But what I agreed with an Mitt Romney was he was a decent, honest, honorable man. And half of the country doesn't put value in honor anymore. In honesty. It seems half of the country, they voted for assisted suicide, and it's funny because we're talking about actual physician‑assisted suicide and then figurative national suicide.

So I sat there on my set last night and what I said, I think about this time yesterday, was I caught myself halfway in the middle of a monologue and I think I cleared my throat and I said, I'm biting my tongue here to say things that I ‑‑ hopefully I won't have to say tomorrow. But I got up yesterday at 3:00 in the morning and I knew. And I couldn't sleep and I started to say my prayers and I got up and kneeled down by the edge of my bed and I knew that ‑‑ or I suspected that my mind's not God's mind, and the peace and the comfort that he had given me and so many of my friends was not about an election. God's about a bigger picture than an election or a candidate. God is about the freedom of mankind. God is about the Constitution, which is a divinely inspired. Just like those Christians that rolled up the Dead Sea Scrolls and put them in pots. I don't know what happened to those Christians but they hid them. They hid them and they preserved them because it was important. The Bible was never wiped out, but the people who originally wrote the Bible were scattered. I don't know what the future holds for the country, I don't know what the future holds for business, I don't know what the future holds for the dollar but I will tell you this: Do your own homework. I said over the summer, you know what really scares me is I'm always wrong about politics. I can't ‑‑ I can't tell you what's going to happen in politics, and I guess my arrogance or misunderstanding of the peace and comfort that I felt in my prayers that I thought I did understand politics. No, I didn't understand politics and I also didn't understand God, and I also didn't understand the American people, or at least half of them. But the other half I know. The other half I know because I'm just like the other half. There are times that I'm afraid, there's times that I'm discouraged. There's times that I don't want to go on. I said to my wife, this is what led me to wake up at 3:00 in the morning yesterday. I had said to my wife, "Honey, when Mitt Romney is elected, things will settle down a bit and we'll be able to ease up a little bit." I hadn't seen my wife really for more than five minutes a day or spoken to her on the phone for more than five minutes a day in the last four or five weeks. I was always on the road, she was on the road. I was busy doing other things. And I went to sleep that night with the comfortable feeling that I believed the lie that I had just shared with my wife and that is that things would calm down. And when I woke up at 3:00 in the morning, I realized, boy, that's not going to work because we have way too much work to do and we haven't fixed it for that cliff, if you invert that fiscal cliff or the cliff that we have made for ourself on almost every front, the educational cliff, the societal cliff, not just the fiscal cliff. If you invert that, it's a mountain. And we hadn't even begun to climb the mountain yet. How could we possibly take the steam out of our shovel? We can't.

His work and his glory is not for a presidential election. It's for the salvation of all mankind. And that requires freedom. So his agenda is freedom, and we have esteemed it too lightly.

Last night literally minutes after the election was called, I went to ‑‑ I went to work, first understanding what we had just witnessed and then quickly moving into what needed to be done. By 6:30 this morning I sat in my studio and brought my staff in, and some had red, puffy eyes. Some of them just because they were tired and they're like, "You are a slave driver!" And others because they had a very bad night.

At the time where there is a reason to tell you right now to hunker down, at the time when there is a reason to tell you pull in the oars, pare back to essentials, prepare for the worst, I came in this morning and I ‑‑ first thing I said to the president of my company: Double down. We're going to double down.

As our meeting broke this morning, I instructed my staff to develop a plan to expand, and I ask anybody with business sense to try to grab me by the shoulders right now and say, "What, are you nuts?" But I know I will look you in the eye and say probably. But it's suicide to sit back. And not just for my company and your company but for the country. We don't have the luxury of time. I've been telling you for a while and I've been telling my own staff, if the president wins, I don't know how we survive. I don't know how we survive the regulation that is coming from my country. I don't know how we're going to survive the pressure and the tactics because he has more flexibility now and they remember their enemies I don't know how we're going to survive because I won't compromise. I won't make a deal with the devil. And I urge you to hold me to that because I have a feeling it's going to get tough. My faith in God and the continued promise of this country has led me to take other steps other than to cower, other than to pare down. I thought we would have two to four years to be able to get this to be a voice of truth, and if you have been following at all on TheBlaze, I have ‑‑ I have stuck a stick in almost everybody's eye, in the book publishing world and the radio world, as we are now our own publishers and now our own radio network as well, in the Internet world, as we are now just Buzz Feed just said that we are the equivalent of the Huffington Post in so many words. We're much smaller, but they're AOL Time‑Warner. We're the rights, the Huffington Post, and we're only a year old. I have stuck a stick in all of the networks because I believe that they are a thing of the past, and the only way for them to survive is on government dollars which will eventually make them the government shill.

I don't owe a man a dime, and I'm building a network that is very different, and I'm building a network and the things that I will show you in March, I'm building a whole system, an ecosystem that will be afraid of no man because we will help each other. And it's way beyond news and information and entertainment. It is all really truly about small business, and I'll reveal those plans to you as we get closer in March.

I told my staff this morning over the next few months we have to add programming to our television and radio network and expand our news‑gathering capability on TheBlaze.com. We are no longer going to be a blog site. We are going to be a news site. We are no longer going to be a fledgling Internet and small satellite‑driven television network. We are going to be a real television network with a real news department. We are going to hyperfocus our attention. We are going to provide courage and inspiration and truth. We will expose and we will lift up. We will not tear down.

I asked this morning the head of our news programming to develop the following: First, a Nightline‑style show that tracks the elements in the world that works toward the demise of our country and the Western way of life and our most precious ally Israel. This is something that I have been quietly working behind the scenes for a while but it's going to cost me about $4 million a year to do it and do it right. It will have assets in Israel, it will have assets in Europe, in Canada, in South America, in Asia, and here in the United States. The production cost alone is $4 million and that's if I cut corners.

I told my news developer today that I want to launch a replacement for 60 Minutes. Not today's 60 Minutes but the ones from years ago that actually pursued the truth regardless of politics and held those accountable based on right and wrong, not left and right, one that doesn't have to worry about sponsorships, one that holds people accountable and to hell with the consequences; it's the truth. You'd be shocked to learn how many influential people contact TheBlaze, either directly or through intermediaries with stories the mainstream media chooses to ignore, and I mean every, every corner of the mainstream media, stories of tantamount importance to you and the country. We must expand our ability and we must do it now. No one is going to tell the truth soon. Have you noticed the changes and the drift in the media? And I'm not talking about MSNBC. Have you noticed the drift in the media? You have to ask yourself why. The answer is fear. Sponsors. Investors. Debt. And did I mention fear?

I also ask for a show concept that teaches the real history of our country, that will focus on the Constitution. I ask this morning to have an actual banner made will that will hang from the studio of my offices here in Dallas and also in New York and soon in Washington D.C., our studios there. It will say these words: The Constitution now and forever. We're not going to look at the revisionist and apologist version of history contained in our textbooks but real history and actual constitutional principles. We have to know it. And finally one thing that I hadn't planned on debuting really truly for about 18 months, not in a show form, and I don't know. It might be 18 months, it might be two years from now, unless I have your help. But the American Dream Labs television show. This is a program that will highlight the dreams and dreamers of this country, that are absolutely essential and key. We must teach them to our children. We must show the way out. We must find the way out together. I'm tired of talking about green energy. Real solutions that are here, now. Who can build them, how can we build them, and education. New and sometimes outrageous ideas. Any one, any one of these could transform an economy and restart the magic furnace of innovation that defined this country for so many years.

I also ask to look immediately at expanding the reporting capabilities of TheBlaze.com. We are not going to be a blog site. We are not going to take other people's work and just mirror them on our site much longer. And I am asking you for your help on a couple of things. These steps are vital, but I have to have your help. This network, this company is funded by me and by you. That's it. And I'm at my limit. It cost tens of millions of dollars. I've been told not to say how much but it's ‑‑ I was told, and I said, good God almighty, what? I'm not the guy who does the finances. I'm the guy who spends the money unfortunately. I need you to help me on this. We have to double our subscriptions. I wasn't planning on asking you this until this morning, but I thought we'd have more time and I'm telling you we're going to run out of time. I need to double our subscriptions. I promise you I'm going to spend every single dime on innovation. I promise you I'm going to spend every dime on telling the truth. I am not doing this to get rich. Believe me I don't think money's going to be worth an awful lot very long. The truth is going to be worth a fortune.

If you haven't subscribed, I need you to go to theblaze.com/TV and sign up now. Please. Please. Please. Right now about 300,000 people keep this network up and running, and may God richly bless your sacrifice, as you give us the strength and the power to deliver value for your investment. Find a friend or two or three and introduce the network to them. If you have friends or family who would benefit from the service we provide, maybe they can't afford the expense; give them a gift subscription. I guarantee one of the most meaningful gifts you'll ever give it to your kids, your friends, anybody. And let me give you my word: This is about expansion and investment, not padding the bottom line. I give you my word on that. Expansion and investment. To date we have poured every single dime that has come in through subscription right back into improving our network and it's not going to stop. Already I've lost quite a tidy sum, in fact figures that I never thought I would earn in my lifetime, let alone lose. But I have walked around these studios now for the last few months making plans, drawing some things up, and I thought I had time. I need your help. Please subscribe. TheBlaze.com/TV.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.