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Harvard Professor: Watching Donald Trump, I Understand How Hitler Came to Power

February 24, 2016
Jon Boldt

Writer

The Context

Danielle Allen, a liberal political theorist at Harvard University, recently wrote an article for The Washington Post urging fellow Democrats to register as Republicans in order to vote against Donald Trump. Why would she propose such a drastic measure?

Understanding History

There are people from all over the political spectrum sounding the alarm about Donald Trump, and Ms. Allen captured it perfectly in her article:

Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I've spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald J. Trump's rise, I now understand. Leaving aside whether a direct comparison of Trump and Hitler is accurate, that's not my point. My point is rather about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.

To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Naziism, I have generally relied on the Jewish German philosopher Hannah Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow, people can understand themselves as, quote, just doing their job, yet act as cogs in the wheel of a murderous machine.

This philosopher also offered a second answer in a small but powerful book called The Men in Dark Times. In this book, she describes all of those who thought Hitler's rise was a terrible thing, but chose internal exile or staying invisible and out of the way as their strategy for coping with the situation.

They knew evil was evil. But they too facilitated it by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of hopelessness.

The Republic Is at Stake

Ms. Allen makes the point that Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country, split by strong partisan ideologies. She also believes we have reached the moment of truth.

Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across any ideological divides. The only way to stop him is to achieve that just kind of coordination across party lines and across divisions within our own parties. We have reached that moment of truth.

Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I intend to vote for her. But it's also the case that she's a candidate with significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a head-to-head contest between Clinton to Trump is unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.

Noting that Jeb Bush did the right thing by dropping out, Ms. Allen urged Kasich and Carson to leave the race if they care "about the future of the Republic."

A Suitable Candidate

While Ms. Allen makes the case that Rubio is best suited to beat Trump head-to-head, Glenn explained why he doesn’t believe that to be the case.

“She says here that Marco Rubio is the one, but she's buying into the bogus narrative, and we'll know this by Tuesday," Glenn said Wednesday on The Glenn Beck Program. "Marco Rubio is not ahead in any state. He's not going to win any state. In fact, he's running third in Florida. Ted Cruz is still at this time, still winning in a few states, including a huge, huge state of Texas. He is going to win states on Tuesday. ...But whoever doesn't win states on Tuesday must drop out. They have to drop out. And if that's Ted Cruz, then so be it. If it is Marco Rubio, then so be it.”

Common Sense Bottom Line

The chorus against Donald Trump is growing. Even the outspoken former Greek finance minister compared the popularity of Donald Trump to the rise of fascism across Europe in the 1930s.

What happens to our nation when we have a totalitarian leader? After seven years of division, look at the difference in our civility toward one another. What will happen when we have a president that pits people against each other even more than Barack Obama?

"I have news for you," Glenn said. "When I said a few years ago, 'Man, I have to tell you, I didn't like Bill Clinton at all, but I'd give my right arm for Bill Clinton over this guy.' I'm warning you now, you will say after two years of Donald Trump, 'I'd give my right arm for Barack Obama.'" I know that sounds crazy, but mark it down.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Give you my analysis on what is coming here in the next week coming up in just a second.

JD in Nevada. Caucused in Nevada last night.

Hey, JD, what happened?

CALLER: Yes. I was at Silverado High School. I want to -- what I found interesting. I got there at about 4:30. I'm 71 years old, and I've been active since the Eisenhower administration in politics. So I think I know what I'm talking about.

There was 1400 yards of people in line, which you can calculate how many people. It went rather smoothly. They were running out of ballots. I sat with a woman, who was a Trump supporter, about 45 years old. She lived in Manhattan. And she had been in Vegas for 14 years. Very nice gal.

I think what Trump has tapped into, Glenn, is that we're winners. It's American nationalism. I'm 71 years old, like I said. My father won the Second World War.

STU: Wow.

CALLER: My grandparents got through the depression. All my life, I've been a winner because of this country. And I heard the chants in the last three or four times that I've seen Trump on TV, and it's, "USA, USA," like the 1980 Olympics against the Russian hockey team.

GLENN: Yep. Yep.

CALLER: I voted for Cruz. I'm a Cruz supporter. And I believe in Ted Cruz. But Trump doesn't have to say anything about how he's going to do anything. I believe the last pollster was 72 percent of the American people are against illegal immigration. So he taps into that. He taps into building the wall. He taps into making America number one again and making sure that he's a solid businessman that's going to make the government work and eliminate our debt.

I believe those are the things that Trump -- that is driving the Trump campaign. He doesn't have to talk about specifics. We're number one again. We're Americans.

He's appealing to patriotism. Build a wall. Stop the illegals. Stop paying for the schools. The police. The hospitals that all the illegal services eat up.

GLENN: I think you're exactly right. Thank you for your call, JD. He is attracting -- and it is the scariest form.

And this is why -- this is why the press is so out of control. Because they know this. Nationalism is extraordinarily dangerous. And it's why they made fun of everybody in the Tea Party: They're nationalists. They're Nazis.

You haven't heard them say this about Donald Trump, have you? And yet, let me give you this. This is from the Washington Post, written by Danielle Allen. She is a political theorist at Harvard University.

This is what she wrote: Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I've spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald J. Trump's rise, I now understand. Leaving aside whether a direct comparison of Trump and Hitler is accurate, that's not my point. My point is rather about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.

To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Naziism, I have generally relied on the Jewish German philosopher Hannah Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow, people can understand themselves as, quote, just doing their job, yet act as cogs in the wheel of a murderous machine.

This philosopher also offered a second answer in a small but powerful book called The Men in Dark Times. In this book, she describes all of those who thought Hitler's rise was a terrible thing, but chose internal exile or staying invisible and out of the way as their strategy for coping with the situation.

They knew evil was evil. But they too facilitated it by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of hopelessness.

I have to tell you, that's what I was feeling this morning when I got up. And all I kept hearing in my prayers was silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

She goes on. We can see both of this phenomena unfolding right now. The first shows itself, for instance, when journalists cover every crude and cruel thing that comes out of Trump's mouth and, thereby, help acculturate all of us and what we are hearing. Are they not just doing their jobs, they will ask, in covering the Republican frontrunner? Have we not already been trained to hear these things by 30 years of popular culture becoming more and more offensive and inciting comments?

Yes, both of these things are true, but that doesn't mean journalists ought to be Trump's megaphone. Perhaps we should just shut the lights out on offensive. Turn the mic off when somebody tries to shout down others. Reestablish some standards on what counts as worthwhile for the public debate.

That seems counter to journalistic norms, yes, but why not let Trump pay for his own ads when he wants to broadcast foul and incendiary ideas? He still has plenty of access to the freedom of expression. It's time, America, to draw a bright line.

One spots the second experience in any number of water-cooler conversations at dinner party dialogues. Yes, it's terrible. Can you believe what he said? Have you ever seen anything like it? Have we really as Americans come to this?

I know, it's terrible.

Then somebody says, "But what are we going to do?" And silence falls. Very many of us, too many of us are starting to contemplate accepting internal exile.

Are we joking about moving to Canada? Yes, but more seriously than usually. But over the course of the past few months, I've learned something else that goes beyond the ideas that were expressed in the 1940s in the Banality of Evil and the feelings of impetus in the face of danger.

Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is, the vast majority of voting Americans think Trump is unacceptable as a presidential candidate. But we're split by strong partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him.

In the same way, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is unacceptable, but they too thus far have been unable to coordinate a solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across any ideological divides. The only way to stop him is to achieve that just kind of coordination across party lines and across divisions within our own parties. We have reached that moment of truth.

Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I intend to vote for her. But it's also the case that she's a candidate with significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a head-to-head contest between Clinton to Trump is unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.

Jeb Bush did the right thing by dropping out, just as he did the right thing by being first alongside with Rand Paul to challenge Trump. The time has come. John Kasich. Ben Carson, leave the race. You expressed a powerful commitment to the good of your country and to its founding ideals. But if you care about the future of the republic, it is time to endorse Marco Rubio.

Kasich, there's little wind in your sails, but it's not enough. Your country is calling on you. Do the right thing.

Ted Cruz, I believe is pulling votes away from Trump. For that reason, he's useful in the race. But Mr. Cruz, you're drawing too close to Trump's policies. You should change course.

Now, she says here that Marco Rubio is the one. But she's buying into the bogus narrative, and we'll know this by Tuesday. Marco Rubio is not ahead by any state. He's not going to win any state. In fact, he's running third in Florida. Ted Cruz is still at this time, still winning in a few states, including a huge, huge state of Texas. He is going to win states on Tuesday.

Marco Rubio will win none on Tuesday. Now, that could change. But whoever doesn't win states on Tuesday must drop out. They have to drop out. And if that's Ted Cruz, then so be it. If it is Marco Rubio, then so be it.

But this guy has got to be stopped. That's my commentary.

Let me go back. Democrats, your leading candidate is too weak to count on as a firewall. She might be able to pull off a general election victory against Trump. But then again, she might not. Too much is uncertain this year. You too need to help the Republicans beat Trump. This is no moment for standing by passively. If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not yet come, reregister and vote for Rubio, even if like me, you cannot stomach his opposition to marriage equality. I would prefer Kasich as the Republican nominee. But pursuing that goal will only make it more likely that Trump will take the nomination, and the republic cannot afford that.

Finally, to all -- see, I disagree with her here because I don't think you beat a Democrat with another Democrat.

But, anyway: Finally, to all of you Republicans who have already dropped out, one more great act of public service awaits you. As candidates, you pledged to support whomever the Republican Party has nominated. It's time to revoke that pledge. Be bold. Stand up. And shout that you will not support Trump if he's your primary nominee. Do it together. Hold one big mother of a news conference. Endorse someone together. It's time to draw a bright line. You are the ones whom this burden falls. And no one else can do it.

Okay. So this is coming from a Harvard person. All right. Good. We don't like Harvard.

Let me give you this. Outspoken former Greek finance minister compared the popularity of Donald Trump to the rise of fascism across Europe in the 1930s. So we now have somebody in Harvard that's saying that this is the rise of the 1930s. I think this is the rise of the 1930s. Here is the Greek finance minister saying the same thing.

He ran Greece's economy during the crucial bailout talks and resigned last year. Monday, he spent 90 minutes asking -- asking questions on Quora.

Trump has provoked the left with his comments on Muslims. Blah, blah. But here's what he wrote when you think about Donald Trump's political success in the U.S.

Anger is prevalent. Common folks follow a good instinct when they want to punish an establishment that has lied to them for decades and treated them with contempt and considers them useful idiots to be bought by the highest bidder.

Unfortunately, this good instinct often leads fed-up conservatives to the wrong leader, camp, and campaign. We saw this in the 1930s. We're seeing it today in France with the rise of Le Pen.

Our duty as Democrats is to offer disaffected voters, including conservatives, a way to indulge their impulsive urge to punish the establishment without becoming hostage to people like Trump or Le Pen. We saw the rise of the right-wing autocratic fascist dictatorships in Italy, Spain, and Germany, while France Marine Le Pen leads in the far right national party, which recently enjoyed a boost in popularity.

Yada, yada. This is what's happening, America. And I saw it firsthand. Good Americans standing in line last night. And I talked to a lot of Trump supporters. Some I didn't. Because they were just the most nasty, vile -- I think some of the most dangerous people I've ever encountered. Some of them were reasonable. And I talked to them.

And I said, "Why Trump?" One lady said, "Well, I'm Jewish. And Ted Cruz is just going to baptize all of us." And I said, "That is crazy. That's not who he is. He's a constitutionalist." She

said, well, I am -- I said, "Who are you voting for?" She said, "I'm voting for Donald Trump." And I said, "The guy who said he's going to -- you're Jewish. He's remaining neutral between the Palestinians and Israel." She had just turned off. She said, "In the end, I just want change."

Okay. Next guy. Talking to a guy outside. Reasonable guy. I said, "Who are you going to caucus for?" And he said, "You're not going to like the answer." And I said, "It doesn't matter. We're all Americans. Who are you caucusing for?" And he said, "Donald Trump." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "You're not going to like the answer." I said, "I got it. I got it. Why?" He said, "I just want change."

Last night, the anger was more visible in Nevada than it was in South Carolina. The anger in our country is growing.

Donald Trump has already said that he's going to do universal health care. Let me ask the Republicans in the audience, how are you going to feel when Donald Trump puts through universal health care? When Donald Trump tells you to shut up and sit down, he knows what's right? What are you going to do when he starts doing the things that only Democrats would do?

And I know that's crazy. I know that's crazy. But we've seen it happen with Mitch McConnell. We've seen it happen when we have -- under George W. Bush, they have done things because we have to do it.

Donald Trump agreed with the bailouts. He even called for the nationalizing of the banks. When our economy collapses and he bails out or allows the banks to do a bail-in and then talks about nationalizing the banks, are you going to feel betrayed?

What happens when you feel betrayed by Donald Trump? Do you think he allows you to continue to speak out? For the good of the nation, should you be punished?

What do you think happens to our nation when we have a leader -- we've already seen what happens. Look at the difference in our civility to one another, between now and 2006. 2007. We had a guy who pitted people against each other, and look how vile we are to each other now.

What do you think is going to happen when you have a guy who is on the road, pitting people against each other, far more than Barack Obama ever did? I have news for you. When I said -- when I said a few years ago, "Man, I have to tell you, I didn't like Bill Clinton at all, but I'd give my right arm for Bill Clinton over this guy" -- how many of us feel this way, that I would give my right arm for Bill Clinton over Barack Obama? We all have said that. I'm warning you now: Donald Trump -- you will say in two years of Donald Trump, "I'd give my right arm for Barack Obama." I know that sounds crazy. But mark it down.

Featured Image: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a caucus night watch party at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino on February 23, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The New York businessman won his third state victory in a row in the 'first in the West' caucuses. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.