This is what it’s like when Glenn REALLY needs to vent about Baltimore

Let’s be honest - no one is perfect. As much as Glenn wants to be the one emulating Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. when the news gets dark, sometimes you really, really need to let off some steam. On Tuesday’s TV show, Glenn couldn’t hold back his frustration on what was happening in Baltimore. Here’s what he had to say to say about the protests and where the country is headed unless people wake up.

Shame on all of us today. Shame on Baltimore. Shame on America.

Today, they have heaped tragedy upon tragedy, and the facts are still not clear on why a 25-year-old man died while in police custody. Despite not knowing what happened, the city of Baltimore is crippled with riots. At least 144 cars have been burned. Stores have been looted, 15 buildings set on fire, hundreds of arrests. Once again, American streets resemble a battlefield. Cops in riot gear square off against the angry mob.

Unfortunately, I have warned about this for quite some time, and I was mocked. So were you if you told your friends. I hate to say this, but last night as I was writing before I went to bed, I wrote in my journal Martin Luther King is truly dead. If nothing changes, our country will suffer the same fate.

Amidst the bullets, the rocks, the shattered glass, the fire, remains a glaring vacuum of leadership. As Baltimore burns, where are the voices crying out for peace, for common sense? As angry protests ferment chaos, powerful voices remain painfully silent. Hillary Clinton’s chance to seize the moment was met with a clueless Tweet offering a chance to win a free Hillary bumper sticker. Nature abhors a vacuum, so who’s filling that leadership void?

Well, let me show you exactly who’s filling that leadership void. We have the Crips, the Bloods. I’m sorry, I’m not in the Crips. Is Crips with a “Y” or is Crips with an “I”? An “I,” okay. Then you have the Nation of Islam, and then you have SEIU. You’ve got to have a good labor union in there, don’t you? Gotta have a labor union. This is who’s leading.

The Crips and the Bloods, two of the most violent gangs in American history are standing side-by-side with the members of the Baltimore City Council, the ACLU, the Baltimore Block, SEIU, the Mayor Stephanie Rawlings. Who else? Oh, the Nation of Islam, the other really, really violent set of people. The mayor said she wanted to walk a fine line and, I’m quoting, give those who wish to destroy the city plenty of room to operate. Watch.

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Mayor Rawlings: It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well, and we worked very hard to keep that balance.

Can I ask you what space besides a jail cell is required to give to people that wish to destroy? Now, she was confronted by the press about this statement, and she denied it.

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Mayor Rawlings: I never said, nor would I ever say, that we are giving people space to destroy our city.

Pretty incredible. The mayor is apparently okay with the city being destroyed here and okay was standing alongside with groups like the Nation of Islam. Because she likes to say she didn’t say things, I’d like to show her singling them out among the faith communities that are helping.

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Mayor Rawlings: Many members of the faith community were out there trying to calm the crowds and discourage violence. I want to also thank the Nation of Islam, who have been very presence in our efforts to keep calm and peace.

Yeah, they’ve been very present. So, how does it feel, Baltimore? How does it feel to have these guys be your leadership? How does it feel, labor unions, to have these guys, stand with them? If you are a member of SEIU, how’s it feel to know that your hard-earned money has gone to them, and they are helping plan in Baltimore and they’re arm in arm with violent murderous gains?

They’re giving you a bad name. They’re giving Baltimore a bad name, and I think the majority of people in Baltimore are good. In fact, let me show you. Here’s a mom going after her son. She saw him on television throwing rocks at police. I love this. We can’t play much of it on the air because most of it is foul language, but she took him down. Amen.

Now, let me show you another guy. This is another man calling out a masked man who cut the fire department’s hose as they tried to put out the fire to the local CVS. Wake up, America. Why is that guy by himself? Wake up, labor unions of America. SEIU is playing an organizing role in these riots. The mayor herself is closely aligned with SEIU. Radical leftists who believe in bottom-up, top-down are now running the show.

We are seeing how the 1960s would have played out if Martin Luther King wasn’t there. If Martin Luther King wasn’t a God-fearing, intelligence, peaceful, and rational man, this is what the whole country would have looked like. Malcolm X is the one that wanted violent reactions. He was the guy who said grab your guns. That was his first reaction, and it was MLK that stopped him. When Malcolm X. saw the error of his ways and changed, the group that he was a leader in, the Nation of Islam, murdered him. And now we have the mayor of Baltimore thanking the Nation of Islam?

This is exactly what I warned about when we talked at FOX. I sat on the edge of my desk at FOX, and I told you the coming insurrection. This is it. When I told you about Frances Fox Piven, her wildest dream, an oppressed people rising up and forcing the top to come crashing down, the Watts riots were a defining moment for her. She sees riots as a good thing. She’s getting what she’s hoping for, and they will continue to grow. I will tell you this, I talked to my daughter on the way in. We were driving in today, my oldest daughter, Mary, and she told said to me, “Dad, explain how you see these riots spreading.”

Because there’s going to be a problem, one place after another, and officers will continue to kill, and they will continue to be killed. And there will be people who always want to break in. Do you realize that—what was the name of that movie, The Purge? Do you realize they are now mirroring the movie The Purge? They’re calling, in Baltimore, they’re calling tomorrow, I think it is, purge day, where they can go in and purge and not be held accountable for their actions.

If you saw that movie, you know exactly what that movie was. What happened in that movie? You could kill and not be held responsible. There was no accountability for one day. That’s what people actually think is happening because nobody is holding anybody accountable. The escalation will continue, and this is a sick as the Middle Eastern mothers who send their sons out to be martyrs. It is that sick.

The American left has become a death cult. That’s pretty profound to say that. I mean, that takes some balls to say that. You’re damn right. The abortion industry and forcing people to pay for abortions and to accept that it’s okay and the DNC not even willing to say you can’t kill a baby, what is that if that’s not a death cult? The end of life care where we are cheering for people who are taking their own life, the complete lives system where grandma, you got yours, time now to maybe think about checking out, and now the riots, it’s a death cult. They don’t care.

The protesters don’t even know what the hell they’re even protesting about. What are they doing? Really, honestly, what are they doing? They’re capitalizing on a tragedy so they can get free stuff. It makes absolutely no sense. Why would you trash your own city? Why would you do that? Because you don’t care. It’s fun. You can get free stuff.

How does giving this sort of depravity room to operate, in the mayor’s words, help anything? How is it she didn’t have the curfew last night? How does burning and trashing a CVS help? Do you realize your mom or your grandparents or your neighbor’s grandparents might have lifesaving medicine at that CVS that you can no longer get? How does burning a car get justice for Freddie Gray?

What would Frederick Douglass say if he were around to see this? Or Booker T. Washington? I’m telling you, he would disown his own race. It’s despicable. What would Martin Luther King say? I don’t know. I believe he would probably quote from the Bible, but that’s this close to being something that’s unacceptable to say. I believe he would denounce the men who claim to be of the cloth and stand arm in arm with criminals and the Nation of Islam.

We are demonstrating to the world, not just us, we’re demonstrating to the whole world America cannot govern itself anymore. Man’s experiment on being free does not work, and the top must come crashing down because we are no longer a moral enough people, people that are in self-control enough to be able to restrain themselves. Wouldn’t it be fun to go out on a purge night and just take stuff out of the store? Yeah, maybe. Do you do it? No. Why? Because you’re not an animal.

You know, the beginning of this country, and things were different, I know that, we didn’t even have a police force. It was citizens, citizens. Do you know that it was Jimmy Carter that was the one who told us that we should wait for the first responders? He talked a lot about first responders. To hell with Jimmy Carter. We are the first responders. We are the ones.

It used to be the neighbor lady that used to police our children. I used to get in trouble by Mrs. Olson, and Mrs. Olson would actually come out and take me by the ear and take me home to my mother or my father. You know what one of the most powerful deterrents was back when I was growing up? Shame, but there is no shame anymore. Shame is dead. It doesn’t matter. Shame? Why? It made me famous.

You know, the phrase that Lincoln said has been really coming to mind in the last couple of days. “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” How true that is, America. We’re destroying ourselves. I saw us fashion a noose and put a gun in our mouth last night in the streets in Baltimore. We will be destroyed from without? No, from within.

We have to choose to commit national suicide, and that’s exactly what we did last night—boom. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve swallowed a handful of sleeping pills long before Baltimore. We voted for corruption. We laughed at crime. We watch light snuff films from Hollywood for entertainment. We justify it and watch it with our kids because we say our kids know the difference between reality and make-believe. No, they don’t.

We don’t teach our kids anything other than do as I say, not as I do, and then when we say that to them, we hand them a phone number to an attorney should they ever be offended, God forbid, or not given a first-place trophy. Our marriage rates have plummeted, divorce rates skyrocket, children out of wedlock even higher, only to be outdone of the number of lives snuffed out by brutal abortion.

Baltimore is on fire, but the country is upside down. We arm the radical terrorists in the Middle East so they can fight their own wars and influence American interests. When it doesn’t work, we send our young men to fight, except not really fight. They have to be handcuffed by ridiculous rules of engagement that make them sitting ducks, and even when they do do the job and capture the enemy, politicians put them back on the battlefield.

The Muslim Brotherhood has access to the Oval Office. Do you? The Muslim Brotherhood has access to the State Department. Do you? Do you have access? Have you been into the antiterrorist command centers for the DHS? Because I haven’t been. I’d be stopped at the door. The Muslim Brotherhood is there.

We negotiate with countries while they are currently chanting “death to America,” and we treat them as a respected partner. The blood of innocent Christians cry out from the desert sands and falls on deaf ears of Americans. We ignore their call. We don’t just deny, we now openly mock God. In our arrogance, we just assume ultimate knowledge and wisdom belongs to us. Our pulpits stand by afraid to offend or heaven forbid lose the tax-exempt status, so they just keep it quiet.

You know what, in America, it’s just so much easier not to say the hard things. Isn’t it? It’s just so much easier. Why say them? Don’t. God forbid you say it from a pulpit. No, that’s not what you’re there for. You’re not there to actually set the world on fire from the pulpit, no. Have another hand of sleeping pills, everybody in the congregation. Don’t worry about that. That’s politics. This is religion.

Why say anything in Congress? You can be a billionaire if you just shut your mouth and play along. On TV, no, it’s too important to be famous. Everybody wants to be famous. You know, I’m on TV. Hello, Mr. DeMille. On social media, anything goes—well, almost anything. If you say what you believe is the truth, then the local news will come down and hunt you down, and you might lose your job. We’ve averted our eyes, and in doing so, we have become totally blind.

Oh, we’ll never lose freedom. That’s just fearmongering. That’s ridiculous. Yet, we say nothing when our kindergarten kids are charged with a class II look-alike firearm. What’s a class II look-alike firearm? This. Scary, isn’t it? They go to jail for this. We say nothing on this. We say nothing as our kids toil night after night fighting ridiculous Common Core math problems that don’t make any sense.

We say nothing to the dynasties who promote such nonsense just to merely enrich themselves and get thrust into the national spotlight by the entrenched political parties. We say nothing as our kids graduate from this corrupt system without the ability to think or reason for themselves, and at the end, the result, a hapless soul gets pushed into a harsh world completely unprepared. They can’t find a job. They can’t fend for themselves. They don’t how to think.

They’re strapped with outrageously bloated college loans, and then along comes the savior, a government promised to paying off all those loans—just serve me—promising a good paying job that will never materialize, promising free health care, free internet, free phones, free everything, and the cycle of slavery continues. And we’ve done it to ourselves.

I could go on and on and on diagnosing what the hell is going on, but unfortunately, most Americans have the attention span, and I’m not kidding, shorter than a goldfish. I believe 4-½ seconds is the new number of our attention span, 4-½, so why bother? This is a 20-minute monologue. How many people are watching? Four by the time I’m done.

Here it is in black and whites. It’s really easy. There’s no leadership, and when there is no leadership, there’s no vision. And when there is no vision, the people perish. The president finally worked in some time today after huddling in private to discuss what to say, and then he came out with all the enthusiasm and the passion of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Class? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

If you see people trashing a city, what possible private brainstorming do you have to do? You get up off your presidential ass, and you say knock it off. That’s what you do. This isn’t helping anyone. This is a disgrace to Martin Luther King’s legacy. Here, Mr. President, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you challenge them to take an oath of nonviolence? Is that so hard? Only if you’re actually against an oath of nonviolence you would have a hard time with that.

There are people losing their heads to swords of madmen. There’s a third world nation right now suffering from the punishing effects of a natural disaster. We as Americans should be pooling our vast resources trying to help the world. Instead, we’re tending to self-inflicted wounds. The sun set on America last night in a blaze of chaos. Now, the question is you were born at this time for a reason. Are you brave enough, are you smart enough, are you humble enough, are you committed enough to renew the American promise so not us, but the next generation, will be able to say it’s morning in America once again?

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

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

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

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

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

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

The quiet return of meaning

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

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

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

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

The real target

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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.