Glenn’s interview with Wrath and Righteousness author Chris Stewart

Glenn welcomed author Chris Stewart on radio today to talk about his amazing series of books that Glenn says make reading feel like watching a high paced, high action season of ‘24’ on TV. What makes the series tick and why does Glenn feel like it could rapidly become a history book rather than a fiction book?

Transcript of interview below:

GLENN: With everything that is happening in the world, there's got to be a way to tell the story of what is really going on in a way that is entertaining, that will connect with new people, that can help get the message out and warn people about what we're facing.

PAT: I don't think that's possible.

GLENN: You don't think so?

PAT: I don't think it can be done.

GLENN: Our job has been for the last few years not only to figure out what has been going on but then to expose it. And I've gotten a lot of heat because, "Oh, he's a clown, he's this, he's that." Well, yeah, that's what I've always been my whole life, but I'm also a responsible adult and a dad that cares about my country, and we have been smeared and maligned, and you name it. And it doesn't matter. I mean, you've gone through the same thing. If you're in a Tea Party, I can guarantee you've had the same problem, different scale but, you know, just because I'm on a national scale and you might just have happened in your office where you have been maligned and called names in your own office or in your own family. Same thing. You know the game that's being played. But it doesn't stop you from telling the truth.

We've gotten to a point to where we can't ‑‑ we're not going to bring any new people in. You know, my name now is, has been forever smeared, and I'm either a crazy man, a lunatic, you know, somebody who just is doing it for the money, whatever it is, to a good number of people. Before I ‑‑ before Barack Obama got into office, I had one of the highest what's called Q scores of anybody in the media, where it meant people might not know me that much or they may not agree with me, but people generally liked me. I don't even know what my Q score is now. But it ain't, it ain't gonna ever go back up because this is what the political process does and this is what the enemies of the Constitution do: They've got to smear you and destroy you.

Okay. So now how do we continue to get this message out? How do we tell people what's going on and get this to spread even further? There was a book that I read and there was ‑‑ there's six of them that I read on vacation. Is there how many? Seven? How many of them now?

PAT: Seven originally, yeah.

GLENN: So there's seven of them, and I read them on vacation. I think I started the first or second. And the first one was good. The second one was really good. The first one I really liked because I could see where it was going. The second one was really pretty good. By the third, I read ‑‑ I think I took the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh on vacation and I read them in a week because they're absolutely unbelievable. And Pat and I, when I got back, I said, "Pat, you have to read this stack of books." And he's like, what? "Read this stack of books." And it was ‑‑ by the time you get to the third, you cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction. You can't. It is ‑‑ it's shocking.

Last night on television, I read a quote. Now, these were written, what, five years ago, seven years ago?

STEWART: Yeah, a little more than that. Almost ten years now.

GLENN: Ten years? In one of the parts that we showed last night, one paragraph is about how the Syrian government is slaughtering all of their citizens, like they're at war. They're just slaughtering them. And there's uprisings all across the Middle East and Egypt had been lost to Muslim extremists. I mean, and it was written ten years ago. We wanted to put this book series out. If you remember listening to us over, you know, the last year or so you remember a time that Pat and I were saying on the air quite a bit, "I can't tell if that was ‑‑ is that the book we're reading or is this what's really happening in the world?" And I've had this ‑‑ I went out and I called the author and we got the rights to this series and I wanted to put it out, but I'm ‑‑ I have to accomplish two things: One, have to reach a new audience and a younger audience; and B, I think we have to get it out because it is quickly becoming a history book. The author is Chris Stewart, a good friend of the program and a good friend of mine, a former Air Force guy, is just a straight‑up guy. And the research on this book is profound.

How long did it take you to write this?

STEWART: Well, in a way I guess it probably took me, you know, 14 to 15 years because a lot of it was based on my experience as a pilot in the Air Force. And, you know, that's just kind of background, but it's really, really important background because a lot of the book ‑‑ you know, it's a techno thriller at its heart. It's kind of an interesting combination between a spiritual element and this battle between good and evil but also at its core, it's a techno thriller. It's a ‑‑

GLENN: Tim LaHaye is going to be on the TV show on Friday. We're doing an hour on this. And Tim LaHaye is going to be on the TV show and I talked to him last night.

PAT: He wrote the Left Behind series.

GLENN: Yeah. Sold, what, 100 and some million copies?

PAT: 100‑plus million, I think.

GLENN: I mean, it's crazy. And when you think of a spiritual thriller, you pretty much go there to Tim LaHaye's book Left Behind. And he was kind enough to endorse this. He read it and said it was great and I mean, I talked to him last night and he was just like, right on. Biblically it's right on, I think it's right on, on where we're going. Which scares me.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: Because his book was a little frightening.

PAT: Yeah, you really don't want real life to go where this book goes.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: You really don't.

PAT: You really don't want that.

GLENN: And the thing about this book is it shows you not only in great detail and honestly, Chris and I first met because of this book. I read it, I didn't know him, and I called him on vacation because 3:00 in the morning, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning I sat up straight up in my bed and I had read some things and it was ‑‑ it was a warning to the people. Because you see, you know, you see the angels and you see Satan and his minions all throughout this book and it shows how they're working behind the scenes. And one of the angels said something, I don't remember, and was whispering it to one of the main characters. And I sat up in bed because it is exactly what I have heard in prayer.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: And I mean, word for word. I mean, I broke out in a cold sweat. I knew this was an inspired book when I read that. And it happened several times in this book. And the things that I have heard: Warn the people, warn the people. I don't know how to warn them about this stuff. Well, here it is. But the good thing is, is it's not just a warning. It also shows you how to prepare. It also shows you ‑‑ people ask me all the time, "What do I do, what do I do." This really does.

PAT: By the way, the name of the book is Wrath & Righteousness. And you can get the first episode, you just download it right now.

GLENN: Yeah. It's ‑‑ I think it's $2.

PAT: $3.99 ‑‑ $2.99, right, 3 bucks? $2.99.

GLENN: If you're a GBTV subscriber, it's absolutely free. Otherwise you can go to, where is it? Just Amazon or any place? Wherever books are sold.

STU: Just go to GlennBeck.com. It's the easiest thing.

PAT: Wherever e‑books are sold and just get it for $2.99. You are going to love it. It's absolutely riveting.

GLENN: The first ‑‑ what we've done is we have taken the series and we've compressed it and taken it and cut it into ten episodes over a year. Instead of coming out over six years, which most people would do, for some strange reason I've thought we should put this out in a twelve‑month period.

PAT: Hmmm.

GLENN: And so the first, the first episode there's a lot of setup but there's also a lot of spiritual setup.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: Would you agree?

STEWART: Yeah. And the first book kind of sets the tone, I think, for the series. Because as I said, it's more than just a techno thriller. You know, when we get into the series, you'll see a very real, a very just compelling threat against the United States, one that a lot of people aren't aware of. And I think the story is built around that or some element of that. But again, the first of the series shows this battle between good and evil. It shows that Lucifer, Satan and his angels, his dark angels, are seeking to destroy freedom, they're seeking to destroy individuals, they're seeking to take away people's happiness and to discourage them. It's not just Satan whispering to someone, you know, go do something bad, go kill this person or something absurd like that. It's the words of discouragement that we hear from these spirits. It's the words of fear. It's the lack of faith. And I think that that is set up in the first part of the book.

GLENN: When you ‑‑

STEWART: And that's an important part of the series.

GLENN: When you were writing, because there's some really amazing scenes with Satan and his minions and really dark. I mean, the hate yesterday ‑‑

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: ‑‑ is so visceral.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: And real. And you ‑‑ I mean, it's amazing because you see him as a real figure.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: It's not a pitchfork and horn kind of guy. You see him as a real figure. And did that bother you at all? How did you ‑‑

STEWART: You know, I've had people ask me that, you know, because after the series was released, I would talk to people and they would say, "Well, you really scared me." And the first time I heard that, I was really surprised by that. It never occurred to me that these were scary scenes, that they were, you know, like frightening, like a horror, horror book. Because that wasn't my intention at all.

GLENN: It is.

STEWART: And it's really not in that sense. It's not a book of horror. And, you know, I realize I wrote some of these things at 2:00 in the morning sitting in my basement office. Was I ever scared? And I really never was. And ‑‑

GLENN: Your wife told me she thought you were under spiritual attack.

STEWART: Yeah, she did. She said there was about a six‑month period there where we were‑‑ wrote the first part of the series that she says, "I didn't recognize you, you became a different person." And there were some things that happened to us that were really unusual and ‑‑

GLENN: And you got a blessing.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: And it broke it; is that right?

STEWART: Yeah, and it really made a difference for us. So I mean ‑‑

GLENN: And you didn't remember being that way?

STEWART: No, I didn't. But I see now when I look back, I can go back and read some of the things that I had written at the time and I realize that it was out of character for me. It was an unusual experience. So...

GLENN: It's an unusual book and I believe it was ‑‑ Chris will never say this. He's never said it to me. I've asked him several times. I believe it was divinely inspired. Do you believe that, Pat?

PAT: Oh, yeah. Yes.

GLENN: Yeah. Divinely inspired. I believe it is a message. I mean, I've never purchased somebody else's book. I've never ‑‑ I've never done this. This does not help me.

PAT: You mean you've never purchased or published?

GLENN: Yeah, to publish. I've never ‑‑ this was really hard to figure out a way to get it out because it wouldn't fit in the schedule. It was six years. Chris and I have gone over this now for a year and a half, how do we do it, how do we get it out, how do we get it out fast enough for it to help people. But if you really want to see what's in my head and what I have felt and what I have ‑‑ I'm just being straight up with you.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: What I have heard in promptings on what I need to warn you about, what I believe is a real possibility of happening, not going to necessarily happen this way or the players, but it is ‑‑ it involves Israel, it involves Iran, it involves good and evil. You want to see what the world can look like quickly? Read Wrath & Righteousness, Episode 1. It's free if you're a Glenn Beck subscriber. You can go to MercuryInk.com/Wrath or wherever e‑books are sold. When does it start to ‑‑ when does ‑‑ I'm not going to give anything away because they really talk about what happens in America pretty early, don't they?

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: Yeah. So America's hit by an EMP and then it is ‑‑ when you get to ‑‑ I won't reveal anything but when you get to the scenes like with the farm, I think it's in Oklahoma, you get there, you see real people.

STEWART: Yeah. I mean, imagine you're driving along one night as some of the characters were out on the freeway and it's evening and everything just goes dark around you. Your car stops, the freeway is ‑‑ you know, there's no vehicles, there's no light on the horizon because everything is ‑‑ has changed in that moment.

PAT: And that's not something that Americans have really contemplated.

STEWART: No.

PAT: Because we don't know that much ‑‑ most people don't know about an electromagnetic pulse ‑‑

GLENN: I have up on my ‑‑

PAT: ‑‑ and what it would do.

GLENN: I have up on my desk now a Senate hearing report ‑‑

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: ‑‑ on the likelihood of an EMP. I mean, it is something that the government is truly worried about.

STEWART: Yeah. And, you know, it's surprising to me that most Americans are unaware of it. But a couple of things about that very quickly. According to that Senate report in the first three months 100 million Americans starve to death. I mean, nearly a third of us in the first three months. It's something that technologically is very, very possible.

GLENN: Very possible.

PAT: Because our food supply.

STEWART: Yeah. And I mean, and that's ‑‑

PAT: It is, it's all ‑‑

GLENN: There's no way to get it ‑‑

PAT: Short‑term. It's short‑term because we ‑‑

GLENN: You can't plow ‑‑ who owns a horse and a plow anymore?

STEWART: Yeah. We're instantly transferred back to 1880 and ‑‑

PAT: And we're not set up for that.

STEWART: No, not at all. Heavens no. I mean ‑‑

GLENN: No, Jeremiah. Only ‑‑

PAT: That's a bad thing.

GLENN: Only the Amish are.

PAT: The Amish are set up for that.

STEWART: That's right.

PAT: The Amish survive.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: And that's what you find out at the end of the book and I hate to spoil it.

GLENN: We're all Amish?

PAT: But the Amish rule the world in the end of the book.

STEWART: Well ‑‑

GLENN: But nobody knows.

PAT: Nobody knows.

GLENN: Because there's no TVs or anything.

PAT: So it's fine.

STEWART: Well, they only survive until someone discovers they have food and then things are bad for them as well because, yeah, they turn ‑‑ the world turns into a very hostile place.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Really fast, if you want to know ‑‑ remember that feeling that we all had on 9/11 where we all were really petrified and we were like, oh, my gosh, we could lose this? Freedom is so fragile, we could lose this in the blink of an eye? This takes ‑‑ this series takes that the next step: Yes, and let me show you what it looks like after the blink of that eye.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: You know, people who are saying ‑‑ you know, the Occupy Wall Street people who were out saying, "We want to take down the government," well, let me show you what it looks like when there is no government. Let me show you how fast people turn.

STEWART: And, you know, it's important to note this, too: The bad guys know this. You know, there have been ‑‑ there's intelligence that very clearly show the Iranians practicing what is essentially an EMP attack.

GLENN: Yep.

STEWART: They launch their missiles in a trajectory which mimics the EMP profile. They have done it from frigates in the Caspian Sea which allow them to move the frigates off the east or West Coast and allow them to attack the United States from 60 miles off our coast. It's impossible to defend against. They understand that the worst thing they could do us is to launch this EMP attack. You launch a nuclear attack on Washington D.C. or New York, that's a bad deal, and lots of people are hurt or killed by that. But it's nothing like happens if you do an EMP attack where virtually everyone is immediately affected and you don't kill 100 million people with one attack in any other way other than through an EMP.

PAT: That's a first strike that effectively ends life as we know it in the United States of America. Immediately.

GLENN: It changes the rest of the world.

PAT: Really bad.

GLENN: I mean ‑‑

PAT: Really bad.

GLENN: I think in the third book ‑‑

PAT: It's chilling.

GLENN: ‑‑ a very likely scenario on how the world would deal with Israel.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: A very likely scenario on how to have the entire world turn against Israel and what is I think extraordinarily likely, this style of attack.

STEWART: Yeah.

GLENN: And this plan. And you see it. And they take Israel and then they take the United States of America and the West is over.

PAT: And when Glenn and I were obsessed with this book a year, year and a half ago, whenever it was and talked about it almost every day on the air, listeners wanted it so badly, they wanted to know where it was, how they could get it. Well, here's your chance now. And if you ‑‑

GLENN: We wanted ‑‑

PAT: ‑‑ are a subscriber to GBTV, you can get it for free. Otherwise it's just three bucks.

GLENN: And it is, you can ‑‑ it's a ten‑episode book. So you'll get all of the episodes over the next year, and I'm telling you, you've never read anything like it. I wanted to make this into a TV show but it would have been ‑‑ to do it right would have been way too expensive for me right now, but I needed you to have this information. And ‑‑

STEWART: Well, and I'm so glad we're doing it the way you wanted to, Glenn. I mean, when you first suggested that, I was a little bit reluctant because I didn't quite see the vision. But I think you were right. I think you were brilliant. I think it was the right thing to do to get this out so folks can have it all right now rather than over several years.

GLENN: You are ‑‑ you're far too humble to see your own work and what it is, and I'm telling you, Chris, it's divinely inspired. And it is a message that has to get out and has to get out now, and it's Wrath & Righteousness. Go to Mercuryink.com/wrath or wherever e‑books are sold and grab it. If ‑‑ go to Mercuryink.com/wrath if you're a GBTV subscriber and you'll just get it for free. But sign up now. The first book is a lot of setup, I warn you, a lot of setup, a lot of spiritual stuff but then it starts to kick up. The next episode and the third episode will boggle your mind. If this was a miniseries or a series, we would have done a two‑hour episode and given you so by the end.

STEWART: Yep.

GLENN: All right. Thanks a lot, Chris.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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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.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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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.

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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.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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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.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.