Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

Should We Fear a Pandemic That Wipes out Humanity?

December 22, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Author A.G. Riddle recently joined Glenn to talk about his “Extinction Files” book series and the future of humanity. In “Pandemic” and “Genome,” Riddle explored the fear that a rapidly spreading disease will wipe out millions of people and change our world forever.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

  • Stephen Hawking’s warning that humanity may not survive on Earth

  • The continued evolution of humankind

  • What the “next great leap” for our species will look like

  • How robotics and artificial intelligence will change everything

What do you think? Tell us in the comment section below just how worried you are.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So I did something after -- I was on holiday, and I downloaded a whole bunch of books. And one of them, I think was Pandemic. I think that's the first one that I read. And I've never done this. You know, at the end of the book, it says, hey, write to the author. Tell me what you think. So I did. And so I wrote, hey, just finished one of your books. And I really enjoyed it. And he wrote me back right away and said, hey, thanks so much. Would like to send you an autographed copy. And I'm like, oh, thanks. No recognition of who I was. I don't even know now if he really knows who I am.

But -- so I said, I'm already into the second book. And it's really great.

Well, probably much to his surprise, I've -- since that, I've read all of his books. Because he is looking at a problem that I am really interested in. And he has some -- kind of some facts that he builds his fiction and a lot of his -- I wouldn't classify it as sci-fi I guess in a way. He builds his fiction around some facts that I want to find out more about. So I want to introduce to you A.G. Riddle. He's the author of Pandemic. And also The Atlantis Gene. And I think the new one is called -- what is it, A.G.?

RIDDLE: It's Genome.

GLENN: Genome. No, no, no. Departure. I thought that was the new one.

RIDDLE: Well, Departure actually came out before Pandemic. So it's a standalone. But it may be the most recent book you've read.

GLENN: Okay. So, anyway, they're all great. They're all great. So let me -- first of all, thank you for coming on the program.

RIDDLE: Oh, of course.

GLENN: You really kind of look into a couple of things that interest me. You know, Stephen Hawking has said -- he just said it again this weekend that homo sapiens are going to be a thing of the past by 2050. And people freak out. And they think, oh, my gosh, we're going to be all wiped out. I don't think that's what he means. He means that homo sapiens as we know them, as we are now, are going to be so transformed, that you won't be able to recognize the current homo sapien next to the -- the new homo sapien of 2050. Does that make sense to you?

RIDDLE: It does. And I think he's right in that we're -- I believe we're in the midst of this radical transformation, that we're just now getting our heads around.

GLENN: So in your book, you talk about something called The Great Leap. And I was only familiar with the great leap forward of China, which was a nightmare. But you talk about the great leap. Can you describe that?

RIDDLE: Sure. One of the interests and one of the themes in my work is, you know, humanity's genetic history. So what we now believe is the current -- you know, that our rates of humans, the homo sapiens sapiens are about 200,000 years old. And so when we first evolved, we know that Neanderthals existed on earth for maybe two or 300,000 years before us. And there were these humans called Denisovans and homo floresiensis on the island of Java. So there were other human species. And so we coexisted with them for about roughly 150,000 years. And it was status quo.

You know, life went on, on earth, as it had for a very, very long time. And then something happened about 50,000 years ago. And we see it especially in Europe, this explosion of creativity.

We see these cave paintings, and sort of this advent of figurative art, and so making, you know, clay sculptures and these other things. And so we also see the advent of complex language. And so these are things that really had not existed on earth before.

I mean, there were species that were -- that homo erectus had made tools and other sort of breakthrough. You know, we had learned to control fire.

But we -- no human species had ever done anything on this level, cognitively. So we call -- a geneticist called this The Great Leap Forward. And so the only thing that we know for a fact is that after that, all the other human species went instinct.

And so this -- I think this coincides with the extinction of other archaic humans. So I think there -- you know, to me, it feels like we're in another great leap forward.

GLENN: Okay. Wait. Wait. Before we go to the other great leap forward, let me just ask one thing. Because in your books, you kind of -- and I don't know what's fact and what's fiction here.

You -- you allude to the fact that those -- that, you know, the other species were kind of killed by us for competition of meat. And, you know, we had to go -- we needed 20 percent more calories for our brains. And, you know, they were bigger, stronger, but we were smarter. So we kind of wiped them out. So that true, or is that speculation?

RIDDLE: Well, it's still a matter of debate. What we do know for a fact is that when our species moved into an area, we see the archeological record of other species stopped. And so the big debate is, was that some sort of interbreeding with our species, or was it competition? You know, Neanderthals had existed in Europe for half a million years. They had seen a lot of climate change.

So a lot of anthropologists say, hey, look, you know, we think -- obviously the world was getting warmer at that point. And we think that created this ecological disaster that wiped out the Neanderthals.

But to me, that doesn't hold a lot of water. Because you got a species that's very long-lived. We show up on the scene. You know, the cognitive revolution happens at the same time, and these guys disappear.

GLENN: Okay. So the reason I bring this up, and it may be where you're going, take us to the next great leap.

RIDDLE: Well, I think, you know, we're -- to me, it's sort of a ripple on the horizon. And, you know, in the late '90s, people said, oh, the internet is going to transform everything. The retailers are going to go bust. And then it largely didn't materialize. Things went on the way they had for a long time. But now we're seeing this transformation of empty malls.

You walk into a restaurant, and now there's a touch screen to take your order, instead of a person. The people are still there. Assembly lines need less people.

So we're seeing, you know, this -- call it a technological revolution of robotics and artificial intelligence. You know, robotics are doing a lot of the manual labor that we've traditionally done for -- you know, since history began. And artificial intelligence threatens to frankly do a lot of our thinking for us.

So, you know, part of the thing that I explore in my books is, what becomes of the human race? What does the future look like?

That's something I worry about.

GLENN: Okay. So let me ask you this: As I have read yours, I'm also reading -- you know, I read a lot of Ray Kurzweil. And I'm reading Brett King. His book called Augmented, which is all about, you know, what do we need to teach our children? What is on the horizon? And what do we teach our children? And one of the things he talks about is that we have to be open-minded. We have to learn how to work with robotics and AI. And we have to really be open to accepting the changes that will be coming to even our own bodies and with nanotechnology, et cetera, et cetera. So as I'm putting these all together, and then I read your great leap, I think to myself, okay. So what I believe Stephen Hawking is talking about. And Ray Kurzweil, is the transhumanism. It's the singularity of bringing man and machine and making them one.

If you do this and you have quantum computing and AI, a -- an upgraded human is going to talk to a non-upgraded human. And it will be like talking to a dog. The information and the -- the modeling that the individual could do, who is upgraded, that would be completely lost on a non-upgraded homo sapien, puts us in a different category. And so that was my first thought, was, okay. This is going to put us in a different category. You're not going to be able to relate. And then I started thinking, well, we're already starting to talk about cars. Once automated cars are really everywhere, it's only a matter of time before we don't let humans drive anymore, because they're going to screw it all up. Well, if you have a non-upgraded human and everybody else is upgraded, I'm not going to let the human really touch anything because it's like have your dog drive a bus. You don't do that. You can't do it.

Then I read your book and I think of The Great Leap. Is it possible that we -- that the upgraded humans actually do wipe out the homo sapien because we're dangerous to them?

RIDDLE: Well, certainly.

I mean, I think the long arc of human history has been to a certain extent replacement and sort of one dominant species.

I mean, one of the thing that fascinates me is the fact that there are no Neanderthals, but there are plenty of chimps and gorillas and bonobos, and these are obviously, whether you believe in evolution or not, you have to agree genetically a chimpanzee is 99.8 percent the same genome as our species of human. And so it's like, why did they survive and Neanderthals didn't? And I think it's very clear that chimpanzees were not a competitor for food to us. And to some extent, they weren't a threat. And so the question for me becomes, all right. If we know the future is about a certain amount of merging human with technology. You look on the street today, and everyone walking around is staring at their cell phone. Half the people driving is staring at their cell phone. So whether it's been implanted or not, there is this sort of merging with technology that we know is somewhat inevitable. What does become the role for humans? And I do think there will be this -- probably a minority of people that say, you know, I like life the way it is. And I'm not -- I'm not going to join this sort of future that humanity at large has envisioned.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

RIDDLE: And I'd like to think that there will be coexistence and peace. But, you know, the long arc of history hasn't really borne that out. We may be entering this new era.

GLENN: Yeah. A.G. Riddle, author of Genome. Also, that's a part of the Pandemic series, The Atlantis Plague, and Departure. You can start really anywhere and pick them up and enjoy them. Great storytelling. Really, really great storytelling. I really enjoyed it. A.G., I'd love to talk to you again sometime. Thank you so much for all of your hard work.

RIDDLE: Oh, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

GLENN: You bet.

Buh-bye. Name of the book, again, is genome. It's part of the Pandemic series. I started with Pandemic, then went to Genome. Just went to Departure, which was an earlier book, which I thought was really, really good. But doesn't have some of the kind of deeper stuff in it about The Great Leap. I mean, if you're -- if you're at all curious about what the future holds and where do we come from and what is -- what is -- what's the next turn? He gives you some food for thought. It's all sci-fi obviously. But it's quite good. A.G. Riddle is his name.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.