Brad Thor Announces Candidacy for President as Third Party Option

June 23, 2016

Editor

New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor dropped a major bomb-shell on Glenn's radio program Thursday, saying he's committed to running for president of the United States.

Glenn introduced his friend by reminding listeners about the author's courage in the face of controversy.

"I believe Brad is one of the most courageous people out there. Because --- he is in business. You're selling a book. And what you said --- I shouldn't say what you said --- because what you said was not controversial," Glenn said.

Some may recall the flak Glenn received following Thor's fiery remarks about Donald Trump in his previous interview on The Glenn Beck Program.

This time, Thor took his challenge to the next level.

"I announced to Reince Priebus on Twitter, I said, 'If it takes announcing my candidacy to get onto the stage to debate Donald Trump, I said I would do it.' So I announced," Thor said.

Here's the Tweet:

If it takes formally declaring my candidacy to get on stage to shred Trump, consider this my declaration. #Thor2016
— Brad Thor (@BradThor) August 28, 2015

Co-host Stu Burguiere pointed out Thor might just get the debate he asked for.

"You've got Trump and Clinton against Brad Thor," Stu said. "Imagine Brad Thor going up against Trump and Clinton on the same stage."

#Thor2016

Listen to Thor's full interview with Glenn or read the transcript below.

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

GLENN: Do you think the government gets to a point where they do try to take our guns or start to limit people's rights by saying, "Okay. All these people are on the No Fly List. All these people now, including soldiers are on the mentally disabled list?"

BRAD: PTSD. They want to take guns away from Marines. That's insane. I think they continue to nudge. I don't know that they make a huge step over the line. I really don't think -- they tried with Sandy Hook. You know, this is why it's so important that even if you are not a Trump supporter, don't -- don't vote for Trump. If you hate Hillary and you hate Trump, you still need to get out and vote down the ticket. Because the Republicans right now are holding the line for the most part against Democrats trying to institute more gun control.

STU: Yeah. I will say there's a million problems -- yeah. There's a million problems that we can point out here, of course. However, they did -- they have held the line generally speaking on the gun issue.

GLENN: Yes.

PAT: They have.

STU: But they did also propose two gun control amendments that Democrats voted against out of that four. But, still, generally speaking, they have done a pretty good job on this issue. It's just, you know, you never know when they're going to fold. But, I mean, when you have Sandy Hook and you have Orlando and you have some of these tragedies, the emotion of the moment pushes most of these guys over the --

BRAD: And that's the -- that's the problem with the left. Their answer is: We have to do something.

GLENN: Japanese internment camps. Japanese internment camps. They wanted the -- the government tried to do it the year before. They tried to put the internment camps in the year before. Nobody wanted to hear it. Pearl Harbor happens. Done.

STU: Well, that's getting into the war too, right?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

STU: People didn't want to get into the war.

BRAD: Let's be clear, Americans have to stand up. They can't expect their leaders to read their minds. You need to be vocal because they will roll over. I mean, I was reading something this morning about Hillary's emails and how they had to deactivate at the State Department, a bunch of protections against phishing scams so she could use the private server. Nobody at the State Department stood up to her and said, "Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton, you cannot use a private server."

They rolled over. This is my consistent fear with DC, that here's Hillary Clinton, a powerful woman. They exposed the State Department to all sorts of stuff because it was Hillary Clinton. Nobody will take a principled stand in Washington. Very few people will. So if we won't as citizens -- these people work for us. We are stewards of this republic. We must hand a freer, more successful, more prosperous, safer nation to the next generation. That is our number one duty as Americans. We need to stand up.

STU: Hmm. That was an impressive little -- I wouldn't call it a speech. I guess I would call it a --

GLENN: It could be a speech. It could always be a campaign speech.

STU: Because I know --

GLENN: Like a stump speech.

STU: Yes, yes. I know there's been people who are talking about a viable third party candidate who maybe knows a lot about the issues --

GLENN: But, Stu, you need somebody who is articulate. You need somebody who has television and radio experience.

PAT: But you also need somebody who is known.

STU: Yeah, who has notoriety already.

GLENN: Who is really intelligent. You'd need him to be able to appeal to a lot of people.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: You know, have a big fan base.

PAT: Hardly anybody like that.

JEFFY: Comfortable with --

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. What about Brad Thor?

STU: What?

PAT: What?

GLENN: What about Brad Thor?

STU: Not to mention, President Thor. We are the biggest badasses ever.

GLENN: I'm in love with it.

BRAD: I can hear my wife hitting the radio with a hammer in Nashville right now. Bringing a sledgehammer --

GLENN: You live in Nashville?

BRAD: Thor's hammer. Wow, I walked right into that one.

GLENN: Yeah, my gosh.

BRAD: I walked right into that one.

GLENN: Yeah, she's trying to, but she can't pick it up.

BRAD: And instead of the olive branch, the eagle could hold a hammer in one hand -- in one claw and the arrow is in the other.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think?

STU: What do you think? We are David Frenching it.

BRAD: You are David Frenching it.

JEFFY: You're the man of the house, Brad.

BRAD: Well, I'll tell you, I'm just sitting back with a bag of popcorn, watching it burn. I'm looking forward to Kanye 2020. You know, and the Democrat primary with George Clooney going against Kanye West. I think that's going to be an exciting, exciting thing.

STU: I don't even want to ask who the Republican is there.

JEFFY: Yeah, no kidding.

STU: Because at that point, that might be the most conservative we have, is George Clooney.

BRAD: It could be the way we're going.

STU: You already challenged Donald Trump to a debate.

BRAD: I did actually months ago in the primary process. And I was originally --

GLENN: No, I don't care about any of this. That's the past. 2020. Or even 2016.

PAT: 2016.

STU: Because this is how you get the debate you've asked for. All you have to do is get to 15 percent in the polls, and then --

JEFFY: We can do that.

BRAD: With the radio show, you can get me to 15 percent? If you can get me to 15 percent, I'll run.

STU: We got Cruz to like 20 percent.

JEFFY: Wait.

GLENN: Right. You could get to 15 percent easy. You could.

BRAD: Just to get on the debate stage.

STU: Because then you've got Trump and Clinton against Brad Thor. Imagine Brad Thor going up against Trump and Clinton on the same stage.

GLENN: What do you think? What do you think? I'm being serious. I'm being serious.

STU: I'm being serious. There has to be somebody that does this. And why not you? Why not you?

BRAD: Why not me?

GLENN: If not you, then who?

PAT: If not now, when?

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

JEFFY: That can be your slogan.

BRAD: You need a really catchy slogan. You know, Thor, something. Who would my running mate be?

GLENN: Thor will bring the hammer down. Right?

STU: You need somebody with a last name "Hammer" is what we need. Thor/Hammer 2016.

BRAD: M.K. Hammer. Mary Katharine. Mary Katharine Ham.

STU: Yes, bring her in.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm serious. What about you doing this?

BRAD: I'm somebody who believes you actually should have some experience to run for this --

GLENN: Oh. Oh.

JEFFY: Oh.

GLENN: Well, we're not. So what about you?

(laughter)

BRAD: I announced to Reince Priebus on Twitter, I said, "If it takes announcing my candidacy to get onto the stage to debate Donald Trump, I said I would do it." So I announced.

STU: Look, Trump didn't think -- he wasn't getting in this to win. You can start it with that. And then when you get to 20, 30 percent and dominate them in the debates, then you can be like, "Wait a minute. I could really be president." And then you roll with it.

BRAD: And then I roll with it. Then I roll with it. Well, I definitely -- can I take the weekend to think about it?

GLENN: No. How about you, right now.

BRAD: Jeez.

GLENN: Okay. So let me tell you this -- let me ask you this.

BRAD: Yes.

GLENN: What happens at the Republican convention?

BRAD: That's the big question right now. We actually have extremely concerned Republican delegates that don't want Donald Trump, that see this guy as the -- what is it? The cyanide capsule that spies used to carry behind a tooth. And that we're going to pop that, and that's going to be the end of the Republican Party.

GLENN: Which I would celebrate, by the way.

BRAD: So would I.

GLENN: Not the death of the conservative movement.

BRAD: No, we definitely need a new party. And I think the Republicans are going to go the way of the Whigs.

GLENN: I do too.

BRAD: People say, this never happened before. Well, look at Zachary Taylor. I mean, this was a guy that hadn't voted in four years. Politico did a great article on it. Look it up. About that election with Zachary Taylor. But I really hope something is done. Donald Trump will not be a good leader. He lacks the temperament. He lacks the skills for the most important --

PAT: He lacks the knowledge --

GLENN: Got it. Got it. Got it. What I'm asking you is, what is going to happen at the convention just before you announce? What is going to happen at the convention?

BRAD: Well, I think I'm going to huddle with delegates.

GLENN: Do you think they're going to -- are they going to walk out, or are they going to give him the 1237?

BRAD: Boy, that's -- I actually think you're going to see some sort of a protest. I think you will see people walk out. I do think you'll see that. I think there are men and women with principles who are delegates. The party matters to them. The country matters to them. This is not going to be everybody folds for Donald Trump. I think we're sick of this being a reality show. There are actually serious, intelligent, well informed delegates that don't want Trump. And I agree with them. I don't want Trump. I don't want Hillary. And that's this country's last hope.

PAT: He still gets there, though, right? In the end --

GLENN: In the end, he's the nominee.

PAT: It's still Trump.

STU: I think he is.

GLENN: I think he is too. You don't think so, Brad?

BRAD: I don't know. What I think and what I want to have happen.

GLENN: If not him, then whom do they pick?

BRAD: Well, you've got to pick somebody. Anything can happen. I mean, this has happened in contested conventions before, but he's walking in with the 1237. But if they get enough people to change the Rules Committee -- get enough members of the Rules Committee that they can change things if they go with the -- I don't know. It's just -- and they are talking themselves into the fact that it's going to freak out the entire party. It's not going to. Trump has a plurality. He does not even have close to a majority of the Republican Party. This is not the will of the people. Sixty percent of the Republican primary voters voted for somebody other than Trump.

JEFFY: He's got the microphone though.

BRAD: Yeah, he's got a big mouth. He's got a lot of money. What has he done for America and liberty up to this point? There's a guy that could have been a huge force for liberty, and I don't think he has been. This is a guy who is a lifelong progressive, whose answer to every single problem has always been more government. This is not the kind of guy we need in the Oval Office.

GLENN: Hang on. Hang on.

JEFFY: That's the kind of talk that's going to get you elected.

BRAD: It's that kind of talk?

GLENN: Hang on. Hang on. I want Pat to go the audio vault. I'm going to do a quick commercial. We're going to come back. And I'm going to play the person that is running against him, and have you heard her lately? Did you hear her speech yesterday? Oh, my gosh. It isn't America that she's even discussing. We'll go to that here in just a second.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

GLENN: This is big. He has just committed he's in.

BRAD: Absolutely.

GLENN: He wanted to know -- we came up with a slogan. Drop the hammer of Thor.

PAT: Of Thor.

GLENN: Drop the hammer of Thor.

BRAD: Hashtag.

STU: I will also point out, Brad, as you're doing this other job that you do, Dreams From My Father came out in the mid-'90s and sold no copies. All of a sudden, Barack Obama starts running for president, making big presidential speeches, millions and millions sold. Foreign Agent will be one of the biggest books of all time.

GLENN: Foreign Agent will be huge.

STU: You're already starting at the top of the New York Times, by the way.

GLENN: Hey, hey, Dreams of My Father: Foreign Agent. All right?

STU: Now we can really --

GLENN: By the way, #Thor2016. #Thor2016.

STU: We're accepting Thor 2016 campaign art @worldofStu on Twitter.

GLENN: Right. Yes.

BRAD: @worldofStu. Now, what you're suggesting, and this is interesting because I do not think it's been done in American political history, is that I embark on this as a way to improve my brand. As a way to kind of make it more valuable.

GLENN: That's never been done before. That's crazy.

BRAD: So crazy, it just might work.

GLENN: It just might work. It just might work. You go in and you just say crazy things.

BRAD: Wow. This is an idea factory, this race.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

#Thor2016.

Okay. Play a little bit of what Hillary said yesterday.

BRAD: I'm going to be up against her, so I want to hear it.

GLENN: Yeah. This is remarkable.

HILLARY: I believe the federal government should adopt five ambitious goals.

PAT: Okay.

HILLARY: First, let's break through the dysfunction in Washington.

GLENN: Yeah. With a hammer. With Thor's hammer.

HILLARY: To make the biggest investment in new good-paying jobs since World War II.

GLENN: We already did that. Yes.

HILLARY: Second, let's make college debt free for all.

PAT: Free for everybody. Yay!

GLENN: Yay! Dropping the hammer. Dropping that Thor hammer.

PAT: Yay!

(applauding)

HILLARY: And transform the way we prepare Americans for the jobs of the future.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: That's right.

HILLARY: Third, let's rewrite the rules so more companies share profits with their employees and fewer ship profits and jobs overseas.

GLENN: Okay. Stop. I don't have time -- I've only got about five seconds. But if that isn't Marxism, I don't know what is.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: And what does this call for? Thor's hammer.

BRAD: Thor's hammer. Let's hit it with a hammer.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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.

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

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.

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.

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