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Glenn's Show Prep

Donald Trump Is Wild Mint

January 28, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

The Context

Something has Glenn really lathered up. It's a tiny bottle of hotel shampoo with a hint of wild mint and a touch of ginseng. Gee, that sounds swell, what's the problem? Doesn't he care about his total well-being?

Hotel, Motel, Fancy Soaps Are In

"You know when you stay at a hotel and they have the shampoos --- and they're getting fancier and fancier --- no matter what hotel you stay in, they're getting fancier and fancier," Glenn explained Thursday on The Glenn Beck Program. "Are they supposed to make you feel like, 'Oh, my gosh, this $200 that I spent for this hotel room is darn well worth it now. Seven hundred dollars for a bed to stay overnight, sure, that sounds outrageous, but my gosh, the shampoo was unbelievable.' Now, I don't know about you, but when I go to a hotel and I get into the shower, I'm looking for shampoo. Now, let me define that. I'm looking for something that will wash my hair. I like to call it soap. Or if I really want to get fancy, I'll call it shampoo. But what is shampoo? Soap! That's what I'm looking for."

Keeping Up With the Kardashians

This sense of entitlement and wanting the best of the best (whether it's real or not) is permeating every aspect of our lives: "This is in everything. This isn't just shampoo," Glenn said. "This is in our our television. This is in our schools. This is in the groceries we buy --- in all of the advertisement. This is in our politicians."

Back to Basics

What is it that we really need in Washington, D.C.? "Let's be frank. Let's just be real honest," Glenn said. "It ain't ginseng and wild mint, it's soap. It's shampoo. I don't want the essence of anything anymore. I want the real deal. I want soap."

Common Sense Bottom Line

Let's stick to the basics and stop buying the hype. Donald Trump equals wild mint. First Principles equal soap, and America needs a good scrubbing.

Listen to a segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

GLENN: I have in my hands a little bottle of shampoo from a hotel. This bottle of shampoo pisses me off. But this bottle of shampoo explains everything that is going on in our lives. Everything that is happening to America. Everything that is happening in Washington. And the decision that you have to make when you decide who's going to be the next president, all, right here. All, right here, on a little, teeny plastic bottle of shampoo that you get at, you know, any hotel. It pisses me off. It will you. And you'll understand why, right now.

(music)

GLENN: You know when you stay at a hotel and they have the shampoos. And they're getting fancier and fancier. No matter what hotel you stay in, they're getting fancier and fancier. And I don't know. Are they supposed to make you feel like, "Oh, my gosh, this $200 that I spent for this hotel room is darn well worth it now." $700 for a bed to stay overnight, sure, that sounds outrageous. But my gosh, the shampoo was unbelievable.

This is a little, teeny bottle of shampoo that most people won't pay attention to, and they'll use it and it will sit there on the little ledge at the hotel waiting to greet the next unsuspecting guest and help put them to sleep.

It says, "Simply be well. Herbal solutions for total well-being." Now, I don't know about you, but when I go to a hotel and I get into the shower, I'm looking for shampoo. Now, let me define that. I'm looking for something that will wash my hair. I like to call it soap. Or if I really want to get fancy, I'll call it shampoo. But what is shampoo? Soap! That's what I'm looking for.

I'm not getting into the shower and saying, "My gosh. I wish there was a product on this shelf that would give me total well-being."

Now, I read the ingredients on this, and I don't know exactly what is giving me and my hair total well-being, but it might have something to do with above the word shampoo, it says, "Ginseng and wild mint." Now, I don't even know the difference between mint and wild mint.

Do we have to have little street urchins some place around the world in some glorious little village up in the Alps, where it's not mint they're growing in some sort of, you know -- you know, glass greenhouse. No, no, this is wild mint, picked by little street urchins. This is growing in the forest some place under the trees, and they're like, "Oh, Father, over here. I've got some more wild mint."

"Oh, good. Son, we'll be able to eat again tonight because we can sell it to that glorious shampoo company that is making everyone's life complete, and everyone will have well-being because we found the wild mint."

But it also has ginseng. And when I think of washing my hair, I think, "Honey, can you just make a cup of tea for me and throw it in my hair because that would be perfect." If I could just get some ginseng tea with a little bit -- why don't I just wash my hair in a coffee cup? Ginseng, wild mint shampoo for total well-being.

This is everything in our life. This isn't just the little shampoo. This is down to the shampoo that is sitting on the shelf at a -- at a motel or hotel. It's down to that level. It's down to the regular people who are like, "I just want some soap." This is not just in the fancy hotels. This is everywhere now. Wow, I can live the life of the stars. I can go into the Holiday Inn and I can wash my hair like the stars do, with ginseng and wild mint. Oh. Suddenly I'm overcome with this sense of total well-being.

This is in everything. This isn't just shampoo. This is in our -- this is in our -- our television. This is in our schools. This is in the groceries we buy. In all of the advertisement -- this is in our politicians.

What do we need in Washington? Let's be frank. Let's just be real honest. Like when you go and you're standing there naked in all your loveliness in the bathroom and you're ready to crawl into the bathtub and pull something -- as the water is coming out on your head and it's usually cold and you're standing there in the shower and you just want to get clean, what are you looking for? It ain't ginseng and wild mint, it's soap. It's shampoo.

When you're going in and instead of the shower curtain, it's the election booth curtain and you pull that closed, what is it you're looking for?

Well, I'm looking for total well-being, really. What I'm looking for is a politician that has maybe just a touch of green tea and aloe.

No. You're looking for soap. You're looking for somebody who is going to clean this up. That's it.

Now, I don't even know how much green tea or ginseng or wild mint is actually in this, but I bet it's just the mere essence. The mere essence of wild mint. You don't need that much. I mean, sure, it's total well-being, but you don't want to put a lot in there. It's like nitroglycerin. My God, man! Not more than the essence of wild mint! That's all you need. Good Lord!

You look at the -- you look at you will at crap that is on the back of a shampoo bottle, it's got a bunch of -- in the ingredients, it has a bunch of crap you don't even know. What is it? Cleaning chemicals. That's all that is. Soap, that's all that is. The rest is just a perfume to stop the soap. Have you ever had soap that's made, you know, like real soap, like the way they used to make it? It stinks. It's nasty. It will get you clean. But it's nasty stuff. It doesn't smell good. That's what the politicians do.

They put just a hint of wild mint and ginseng on them so they don't stink so bad, when all I really want is soap. All I really want is something that is going to clean Washington up. And we all know what that is. What is it that's going to do that? What is it that's going to do that? What is the soap?

First principles. Period. That's it. I don't know why we're arguing about everything.

Hey, Hillary Clinton, did she send the emails? Did she not send the emails? What did she do? Should she go to jail?

Yeah, she should go to jail. She's admitted to sending emails. She has -- her own emails. When she says -- and this is very carefully worded, "I did not send or receive anything classified. I did not send or receive anything marked classified." You know why? We have it in her own emails from her saying, "Well, all you have to do is cut out -- cut off the top secret classification from the top and the bottom, and then just send me the body of the text and I'll say we didn't send or receive anything classified." That's in her own emails. She's saying how to get around it.

And, by the way, you were the Secretary of State for how many years? You never sent or received. You never had any classified -- you only had your server. That's how you got your emails. That's how you did business. You never sent or received anything? The hell were you doing? Were you in the hotels with the ginseng and wild tea, with the wild mint. Was that you just, "Oh, my gosh. I've just been lathering all day, I have such total well-being here." She should be getting dozens of classified briefings and emails every day. The hell we paying her for?

No, I didn't -- classified, what? I don't even know what you're talking about. So what's going to clean that up?

The soap of the Constitution. Period. We don't need any new laws. We don't need any fancy anything. Did she break the law? Yes or no. Yes or no question. But -- no. It's a yes or no question. Yes, she did -- no, no. You save all of your ginseng and all your wild mint for someone else.

Here's what I want: Soap.

Donald Trump is another great example. He's going to clean things up. Is he? Does he know the Constitution? Is there any soap involved in this guy? He may just be ginseng and wild mint, without any shampoo. He's just the essence that smells good.

Why would I say that? Because what is the soap that will clean up Washington? The soap that will clean up Washington is the rule of law and the Constitution. He doesn't talk about that. He still is talking more and more every day as he's becoming more and more confident about how he will cut deals. That's the problem.

And all of us are looking at him and saying, "Yeah, yeah, I know. But he's got maybe a little bit of aloe in him. I don't know. A green tea. So nice in him." And what is that green tea, what is that aloe? The aloe, the salve that he has an essence of is anger. You're angry, he's angry. That's a little salve, on your frizzy ends of your hair. But it's not really going to help. There's not enough aloe in the green tea and aloe shampoo to do a damn thing. It just makes you feel better. It just makes you stand out of the shower and go, "Oh, my gosh. I have total well-being." And yet, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed.

As you're looking at the candidates that you need to vote for, which one of them is soap? And which one of them is providing you with a total well-being? Which one of you is like the stupid, little container of shampoo that pisses me off, that is trying to be something it will never be and can never be? Shampoo is not made to provide anyone at any time, no matter how expensive or how good it is, it will never provide total well-being. Period.

Are we that shallow? Are we this stupid? I don't want the essence of anything anymore. I want the real deal. I want soap.

Featured Image: Photo Credit: MSPhotographic

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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.

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.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.