Senator Marco Rubio joins Glenn to discuss 2016 presidential race

Glenn introduced Senator Marco Rubio on radio this morning to discuss several key issues concerning his presidential race. While making it clear he has some real disagreements with Rubio, he told his listeners Rubio is "somebody that you should seriously consider and seriously look at."

With the next GOP debate slated to focus on the economy, much of their conversation revolved around economic subjects, such as free enterprise, tax reform and the "sharing economy." Other topics included gun control, abortion, fellow candidates and Rubio's prediction about Russia's involvement in the Middle East.

Listen to the dialogue below.

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

GLENN: I want to introduce you to somebody I think you should get to know. And that is Senator Marco Rubio. He is a guy who I actually have real disagreements on a couple of things. And we'll get into that maybe a little bit here today. But I'd like to sit down with him and have a real conversation. Marco and I met, I don't even remember where it was or where it was. Sometime in the summer. Someplace. Marco, do you remember where that was?

MARCO: Las Vegas, I think.

GLENN: And so we met --

MARCO: Yep. Freedom Fest.

GLENN: Yeah, Freedom Fest, that's right. We spent about an hour together. And I didn't know what to think of Marco Rubio when I walked in. I really liked him and respected him and respected his intellect and his honesty when I left. And he's somebody that you should seriously consider and seriously look at. You may end up disagreeing. But he's somebody that you should take a serious look at.

Marco, welcome to the program. How are you, senator?

MARCO: Thanks for having me on.

GLENN: You bet. So you were talking about the sharing economy, which I think some people, especially, you know, as you get a little older, sharing -- communist! The sharing economy is something that is actually real and is the difference between my age and the millennials. You want to explain this a bit?

MARCO: Yeah, so I'll give you a perfect example, right? There's a new system out there, a company called Handy. And what Handy does is, let's say that your air conditioning unit breaks down at 11 o'clock at night and you need somebody to come in and fix it because it's just too hot. Handy has somewhere halfway across town there's an air-conditioning repair person who is available to work at 11 o'clock at night. It is an app that you go on your phone and connects you to a needy customer, somebody who needs help. It connects you with a person who is ready to do that service for you. So it's basically a platform where you're sharing, you know, a handyman, or in this case, an air-conditioning repairman to come work for you. You pay them on the app, so it's cashless. And then you rate their work so that future customers can look at it and see who is good and who is not. It's basically free enterprise --

GLENN: Extreme.

MARCO: -- broadened in the 20th century. And why it really works is now suddenly, as an air-conditioning repair person, you can go into business for yourself. You don't need to do advertising. You don't need to have a huge physical plant. You can be in business for yourself because this connects you to customers at a very low cost.

GLENN: And nobody is taking a cut of that. This is the thing that I don't think people understand. I just gave a speech here in Dallas with Allen West. And the question came up from the audience about the economy. And I said, "Most people don't understand. We're on the verge of not the Industrial Revolution, but the Renaissance." People are going to be freed up to do things and to be their own person in ways I don't think the average person can really understand. Is this where you get your hope for the economy and us not being swept away in the dustbin of history?

MARCO: I do. And what gives me concern is that, you know, outdated leaders and particularly believers of big government are the ones that will stand in the way of it. Because their argument is going to be, "Well, that air-conditioning repairman has to be treated as an employee of the company that connected you guys." That means you have to offer them benefits, and you have to pay them a certain wage. And you have to do this, that, or the other. And the thing that really happens, actually, is an established industry. Some big company that does air-conditioning repair. This is a bad example, but I'm just using it. It exists in other realms.

An established industry will hire a bunch of lobbyists to go to City Hall, the State Capitol, or Washington and say, "We need to pass a law to keep people from providing competition to us."

GLENN: Yes.

MARCO: And they'll have politicians that go along with them because they hired the right lobbyists and they raised a lot of money.

GLENN: When you and I were in Vegas, that weekend or whenever that was, I remember walking down the street with my wife, and they were -- they were reaching across her to hand me hooker cards where I could call for a hooker in case, you know, I got tired of my wife. And my wife just snapped. And she's like, "We're getting off this strip. Just, stop it. I can't take this anymore." And I said, "Hang on. I got to call for Uber." And somebody said to me, next to me, "You can't get Uber here." Las Vegas is not cool with Uber, but they are cool with hookers.

MARCO: Yeah. And, again, that's because the established taxicab industry has gone to the commission or the local government and said, "Don't allow these people to operate here." And that happens in industry after industry. It's why -- people don't understand. To be for free enterprise does not mean to be for big business. Big business and established industries are actually often an impediment to free enterprise because they want to keep their hold and they don't want to allow any competitor to enter the space.

GLENN: So you are the -- the next debate is really about the economy. What is your focus on the economy? What sets you apart?

MARCO: Well, again, I think most of us are talking about some of the same issues. I think the argument that I've used that others haven't is, there's no reason why America can't be better in the 21st century economically than it was in the 20th. We should be leading in all these things. But we have to be competitive in order to make that happen. That's why we need tax reform. That's why we need regulatory reform. That's why we need to balance our budget. And repeal and replace Obamacare and fully utilize our energy resources. If we can do those things, the private sector, the American innovator, the small business person out there starting their business, they'll take care of the rest. They'll create the great companies, the great ideas, and the great-paying jobs. We just need a government that gives them a chance to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy.

GLENN: So you're a Catholic. The pope was just in the country. Do you think he missed the opportunity to shut down Planned Parenthood when he spoke in front of Congress by really not standing on that issue?

MARCO: Look, obviously if I had written the speech, it would have focused more on protecting life and a little bit less on some of the other issues. But, ultimately, he did mention the value of life at every stage, and I thought that was important. Maybe he chose not to get involved into our internal political debates in this country. And in fairness, he didn't do that the other way either. He talked about, you know, supporting and protecting the environment. He didn't say, "And, therefore, pass Cap and Trade." Or "Thank you, President Obama, for signing all these executive orders on coal and so forth." So I understand. He's a spiritual leader. He didn't want to get into the details of a political debate. But he did mention life.

But, yes, I mean, that's got to be -- for me, the issue of life is not a political issue. It is a human rights issue, and it's one that I think deserves the priority.

GLENN: So Hillary Clinton said just the other day, "How many more innocent -- how many more of our innocent children have to be slaughtered before we say enough is enough?" And she was talking, of course, about the slaughter of the children in Oregon, not in Planned Parenthood.

MARCO: Yeah. And, again, terrible tragedy of what happened in Oregon. But you're right. Every single year, unborn children in this country are killed legally through laws that allow that to happen. And, look, I recognize this is a tough issue. And I actually do believe that a woman has a right to choose with her body. The problem is that when there's a pregnancy, there's another life involved, and that life has a right to live. And so as policymakers, we have to choose between two competing rights. And I've chosen, as a matter of principle, to err and to choose the side of life in that debate. And she, on the other hand, she supports abortion on demand at any stage. For example, she voted against the ban on partial birth abortion, a particularly gruesome way of aborting a child. She voted against the ban. One of the few people did and actually justified it. Said it was a fundamental right. She has extreme positions on the issue of life. And I hope we'll have an opportunity to talk about those in this campaign.

GLENN: Let me talk about Oregon a bit because they are, again, doing everything they can to -- the president at least is getting close to being honest. He said last week that it's time to look at countries that have done something like Australia and England. And what Australia and England did was confiscation of all guns.

How do we stop this insanity? We're headed for a really bad place if this is really what the left is pushing for.

MARCO: Yeah. By pointing out that the things they're advocating would have done nothing to prevent these things. For example, they advocate for an assault weapons ban. Well, the last two instances that have been high-profile didn't use assault weapons. They talk about background checks. The last two instances we saw are people that would have passed background checks or did pass background checks. So the point -- the problem with gun laws is they're not very effective. Because criminals are the ones that commit crimes with guns. And criminals don't care what the law is. They don't follow the law because they are criminals. By definition, they ignore the law. So if you pass strict gun laws, law-abiding people adheres to those laws. And then they will be unable to protect their families.

GLENN: The father of the killer said, "Well, how could he have -- how could he have had these guns, you know, if they just weren't on the streets, if those guns were just not available, my son wouldn't have killed all those people."

MARCO: Yeah, look, again, I know the arguments that people are making. And the bottom line is, if someone intends to acquire a weapon, they're going to acquire a weapon. Whether it's legally or illegally, they're going to do it. And the only people that will be impacted by these gun laws are people that follow the law. And so what you'll have is a country where law-abiding people are unprotected, are unable to protect themselves, the property of their family. And people who are intent on committing a criminal act, accessing explosives, a gun, or whatever else they want to use to kill people.

GLENN: Marco, I want to ask you, I saw a clip at the Value Voters Summit of Donald Trump where he called you a clown. And he was -- he was booed for that. What do you think -- what do you think it says about America that we're -- that we're embracing this kind of nonsense?

MARCO: You know, I think there's a tremendous amount of frustration, rightfully so with the political class. It's a disconnect between Washington and the struggles of daily life that people are facing. And I think he's hit upon that to some extent. And we can't ignore it.

But, ultimately, this campaign has to be about the big issues confronting our country. Look, we're now at a point where we are either -- over the next four years, we'll have to decide, we're either going to leave our children as the most prosperous and freest Americans ever, or we'll be the first generation of Americans that leave our children worse off than ourselves. That's the only two ways forward. And if we don't make the right choice in this election, if we have another four years like the last eight, we are going to be the first Americans in our history to leave our children worse off than ourselves. This has to be a serious election about serious issues and real solutions. And I think increasingly, the campaign is becoming about that. I really do. And I'm glad that it is. Because our nation and our people deserve that. At least from my campaign's perspective, that's what we'll be about.

GLENN: We'd like to sit down with you and talk about some things we disagree with, the immigration and also disagree with the NSA. And you and I both had I think a very logical and heartfelt talk about those issues privately. And I'd like to have those publicly at some point down the road.

MARCO: Sure. Absolutely.

GLENN: But I would -- I guess I would just end with this.

You brought up -- you know, you're talking about Donald Trump. You said, "You know, people are very frustrated." And they are.

MARCO: They are.

GLENN: They're attracted to Donald Trump and they're attracted to Ben Carson because they're completely out of the system. And I say this, you know, with -- you know, I support Rand Paul, I support you, I support Ted Cruz. But you guys are all in the system. And I think that's playing against you. Why should anyone trust any of you guys who are already in the system?

MARCO: Well, first of all, the names you've just mentioned, we've been there about four years. In the case of Ted, a couple years less than that.

I ran for office against incredible odds five years ago against the sitting governor of Florida with the entire political establishment supporting him. And the reason why I ran is to change this stuff. And I realized -- one of my great frustrations about the US Senate is the lack of urgency about any of these issues. No one talks about the debt anymore, for example.

We still have a debt that's almost $19 trillion. And no one -- this wasn't even a topic at the three-hour CNN debate. And there's no sense of urgency about these things. And I just concluded -- you know, we really want to change the direction of the country, we don't just need a House and Senate, we need a president, and that's why I chose to run for president.

So the truth is that one of the reasons I'm running is because I share that frustration. It's the reason why I ran for the Senate four and a half years ago. And I've had a front row seat unfortunately to see some of this lack of action on some of these issues. And it's that frustration that leads me to seek the highest office in the land now because I know it's going to take a president to undo the damage done by this president.

GLENN: I will say, you should just take a quick victory lap here before I let you know on the prediction you made on the last debate where you said exactly what Putin would do. This president and our State Department has no idea what they're dealing with. And you called it. And it was an astounding prediction.

MARCO: And I think you'll continue to see more of those things. You know, his goal is to continue to drive us out of the Middle East and reposition himself as a geopolitical force, on par with the United States. And so you're already seeing more and more of that. And I think unfortunately we were right about that. And we'll be right about it in the future. Because this president is weak and he's seen that way by our adversaries.

GLENN: Yeah. Marco Rubio. MarcoRubio.com, if you want to support. MarcoRubio.com. Marco, we'll see you again. And thank you so much for being on the program.

MARCO: Yes. Thanks, Glenn. Thanks.

GLENN: Running for president, Senator Marco Rubio. MarcoRubio.com.

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.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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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

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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.

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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.