Shakespeare: Too White for Ivy League Students

The outspoken and fantastically fierce Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke filled in for Glenn on The Glenn Beck Program today, Tuesday, December 20.

Read below or listen to the full segment from Hour 3 for answers to these questions:

• Will consumers ditch Cheetos for healthy snacks?

• Would you eat a PepsiCo quinoa or spinach dip at a party?

• Was political correctness given its last rights on November 8th?

• Why does diversity exclude white people?

• Are black lesbian poets more diverse that white male playwrights?

• Can tweets cause seizures?

• Is assault via the internet a federal crime if it crosses state lines?

• Have people killed in the name of Black Lives Matter?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

DAVID: Thanks for staying with the Glenn Beck Program. You're going to think this story came out of the Onion, you know, that satirical newspaper. But actually, this comes out of the Wall Street Journal.

Did you know that the chief executive of Frito-Lay has vowed to turn the maker of Fritos, Cheetos, and potato chips, and Pepsi into a health juggernaut? I'm not kidding.

This story here says: But while consumers say they all want to eat healthy, often all they really want are potato chips.

It goes on to say: But buoyed by less-healthy snack brands such as Doritos chips and Cheetos Puffs, PepsiCo's sales and volumes are on the rise and its profit margins have expanded in 15 quarters straight. Selling junk food. Yeah, that's what people want from Frito-Lay. They don't want health food.

If I want eat healthy, I'm not going to -- if I want to eat healthy, I'm not going to buy Frito-Lay products. I know where the produce section is in the store.

So it goes on to say that these are hard chews for big food companies. Taste is the biggest factor in snack purchased.

No kidding. Salt. That's what they want to taste.

So it says here: When people get together, they have snacks like potato chips and pretzels. They don't all sit around and snack on granola bars.

It says: Norman Deschamps' head market researcher Packaged Facts.

It's a lot easier for a food behemoth like PepsiCo to generate revenue by tweaking just the Lay's brand of potato chips, the world's top selling food brand, than to start from scratch with quinoa or spinach.

It says: The world's biggest food companies have been trying to wrap up healthier offerings for years, but consumers haven't given up their love for all things sweet and salty.

Do you think you'd have to pay a researcher to tell you that? This is fascinating.

If I was a shareholder, Frito-Lay, I wouldn't be happy about this. I'd say, keep selling the junk food. You know, McDonald's tried this.

McDonald's, hamburgers and fries, that's what people want when they go to McDonald's. But we've turned into the nanny state. Where government -- the federal government and the state government -- remember New York with Mayor Bloomberg and his elimination of the Big Gulp sodas to try to get people to eat and drink in a more healthy fashion? The government -- the federal government steps in and puts all these requirements on the food makers. Now they have to list all of the ingredients and all of the caloric intake and how much sodium and fat and carbohydrates. I never look at the wrapper at that crap when I go to eat it. If I'm eating a Baby Ruth or a Butterfinger, I just rip the package open and start eating it. I don't care what the ingredients are. I know what it is. It's a candy bar. It's sugar covered with chocolate. It tastes good.

I know where to find cucumbers and carrots. So we -- you know, you look at the stuff here from McDonald's. You know, they try to get into the healthy food eating. Remember that? They had this healthy menu section in their restaurants. It bombed.

You know, there's some people that went in there and wanted a salad. I wouldn't go to McDonald's to order a salad. You know what people want when they go to McDonald's? Grease!

Because it tastes good. French fries, cooked in oil. Hamburgers, which are -- they're Quarter Pounders with cheese. Now it's a double Quarter Pounder with extra cheese. And now they put bacon on it. That's what people want from McDonald's.

So McDonald's abandoned that healthy menu. You know why? They were losing money off of it. They realized -- they came to the realization, which they didn't have to pay some marketing research guy or woman this. They could have just asked me. How do you think this is going to work? We're going to offer a healthy menu at McDonald's. I'd say, "Are you guys nuts? Do your stockholders know this?" Do you know what people want from you, McDonald's? Quarter Pounders with cheese, french fries, and shakes. That's what they want. They don't want wraps, salad wraps. You know, some people eat that. They don't go to -- if you're a healthy eater, do you go to McDonald's to get your health food? Don't you go to Whole Foods or one of these other places that, you know, has a little healthier menu? Who -- what person that wants to focus on healthy eating steps foot in a McDonald's? What, so they can order a shake and fries with their healthy wrap?

I mean, this stuff is insane. It really is.

And this goes kind of in line with this other thing I came across here from The Daily Signal. Ivy League students tear down Shakespeare portrait in the name of diversity. That's how crazy this world has become -- actually this country, with this political correctness, I hope on November 8th of this year was given its last rights. I really do. It's going to take some time.

It says here: Students at the University of Pennsylvania have removed a portrait of William Shakespeare and replaced it with a picture of a black lesbian poet for the sake of having greater diversity.

The large Shakespeare portrait had resided near a staircase in Fisher Bennett Hall for years until a gaggle of activist students removed it and placed it in the office of the English department head. In its place, they taped up a photograph of Audre Lorde. I guess she's the black lesbian poet. Never heard of her.

The portrait won't be moved back, according to a statement from the English department head because a white male Shakespeare didn't embody the value of diversity.

To which I would ask, why not? If you listened to the program yesterday, you heard me ask -- or say that, you know, a lot of these -- these liberal mainstream media that were picking on -- picking apart Donald Trump's cabinet nominees as being too white -- and I said, "Somebody needs to ask these people: What do you got against white people?" So the diversity has to be to the exclusion of whites. You can't have whites, blacks, Hispanics. It can only be blacks, Hispanics, lesbians, transgenders, Muslims, but it can't include whites?

So this -- this department head said: Students removed the Shakespeare portrait and delivered it to my office as a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department.

So that doesn't include Shakespeare? He can't be a part of the inclusiveness -- their inclusive mission? Shakespeare can't be a part of the diversity? It can only be a black lesbian poet?

This is part of that totalitarianism on college campuses. The left knows better than anybody else, control the language, you control the narrative.

It's Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. We have to take a break. This is the Glenn Beck Program.

[break]

DAVID: Welcome back to the program. Merry Christmas from your host today, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Here's another one that you think you would find in the Onion. This Newsweek writer claims assault by tweet from The Daily Caller.

Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald claimed Friday he was assaulted by a tweet that caused a seizure. Now, the seizure part isn't funny. But assaulted by a tweet. My God, would my Twitter handle be in trouble.

It all started with a tweet Thursday from Eichenwald's account that said @Jew_Goldstein to his wife: You caused a seizure -- I'm sorry -- this is his wife: You caused a seizure. I have your information. I've called the police to report the assault.

That's why I said you would think this was out of the Onion. This guy would call the police because someone sent him a tweet that he says caused his wife to have a seizure.

So it says the Twitter user Jew_Goldstein had sent a gif. G-I-F. An animated video of changing colors with text that said, "You deserve a seizure." The account has been suspended by Twitter.

Newsweek told The Daily Caller they could confirm that Eichenwald's wife, what she said was true. Oh, yeah, that means -- if Newsweek said it, then that's confirmation -- that's enough confirmation for them, I guess. It's not enough confirmation for me.

Eichenwald himself went back on Twitter Friday to say he's taking a hiatus from the social media site as he works with law enforcement to bring this guy to justice.

(chuckling)

You've got to be kidding me, that the police would even respond and spend time on -- I wonder what police agency this is. It doesn't say here.

The Newsweek writer also suggested that the FBI might get involved.

(laughter)

No, this is not from the Onion, folks. This is from TheDailyCaller.com.

So he wrote -- and this is this Eichenwald -- at this point, the police are attempting to determine if this is a federal crime because it appears to be crossing state lines.

(laughter)

The FBI did not respond to an inquiry about whether assault via internet gif is a federal crime.

Speaking to that, let's talk about fake news. Unbelievable.

And I want to talk about this Russian hacking -- all this uproar over Russian hacking and how the Russians were to blame for defeating Mrs. Bill Clinton and the Democrats. It was the Russians that led people in the swing states, including Wisconsin and now Michigan, that hadn't gone Republican for several decades -- and Pennsylvania, how it was the Russians -- I mean, I live in Wisconsin, right?

I voted for Donald Trump. Supported Donald Trump. What these stories suggest is that I was going to vote for somebody else. And I said, "Well, you know, since the Russians have hacked, I guess I'll go vote for somebody else. I guess I'll vote for Donald Trump." I mean, this is insane.

But this is what they've glommed on to. Remember, they started with the, it was James Comey's fault. That's why she lost. Then it was fake news. And now it's the Russian hacking.

And since not much is going on in the political world, most of the media is content to just report on this, this Russian hacking. And I'm not here to suggest. Because I don't know. I'm not hear to suggest that Russia doesn't try to hack into databases. They don't try to get an edge. The Americans do the same thing. But to say this caused Donald Trump to get elected is insane.

I mean, I'm looking at this piece here from Rasmussen. And it says: The New York Times story titled Russian Hackers acted to aid Trump in election, is based on entirely, what else? Unnamed sources, including political appointees of current President Barack Obama.

Play that first clip for us, please.

OBAMA: But the larger point I want to emphasize here is that there is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even -- you could even rig America's elections. In part, because they're so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved. There's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time.

And so I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes. And if you got the most votes, then it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to make sure that the American people benefit from an effective government.

DAVID: Now, that was before November 8th. That was President Obama. And that was when the Democrats were claiming at the time that Podesta's emails were hacked. They may have been. I don't know that the Russians did it. You heard the president.

He says it's impossible, with all the intricacies involved for them to -- not to get into these systems, but to swing an election. Then he accused Trump of whining. And he said -- this was before November 8th. If Trump gets more votes, Trump wins the election -- he apparently won the popular vote because of California. But if Trump wins the election, then she should graciously concede and let's move on. Well, that didn't happen.

So then we have all this stuff about the Russian hackers. There's no evidence at this point.

Now, post election, Obama has ordered an investigation into Russian hacking. Obama says, "We need to take action, and we will." Democrats are -- are saying that Americans believing fake news is sowing confusion.

This is incredible. The electoral college came back uneventful, no drama yesterday. I believe Trump ended up with 304, it might have been 305 electoral votes. Only two defectors in Texas, out of 36. And then he got one in Maine. I don't know if Maine doles theirs out proportionally or not. But one defector went for Trump -- I shouldn't say defector. He got one electoral vote in Maine. And Mrs. Bill Clinton got the other two. So he got 300 electoral votes. And the liberal mainstream media is saying, "Well, that's not a mandate. He better move cautiously."

I beg to differ. I like the fact that Paul Ryan, speaker of the house, has suggested that the Republicans need to go big on policy issues and policy recommendations. Don't squander this. You don't know how long it's going to last. They control the Senate, albeit, not necessarily filibuster proof. But they control the House of Representatives, and they control the White House.

I don't want to hear anymore complaining from the Republicans that they can't get anything done because they don't have any power. You strike while the iron is hot. You may not have the super majority for too long. The midterms are coming up in two short years. Often time, that favors the party out of power. So if we end up with a bifurcated Congress, where let's say the Dems win back the Senate -- I don't think they will, but who knows -- then we'll have gridlock. So they have to strike while the iron's hot. And they better.

We got to take a break. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program. Coming up in the show is David French. We're going to talk about Black Lives Matter.

[break]

DAVID: Welcome back. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. In for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Let's go in this direction: I have on the line David French. David French is a staff writer at National Review. He's an attorney. Concentrates his practice on constitutional law, the law of armed conflict. He's a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And he recently penned an article in National Review, and it had to do with Black Lives Matter and this love affair with the late Fidel Castro. And I want to talk to him about that.

David, thanks so much for joining me today.

FRENCH: Thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.

DAVID: Why don't you get right into it, this sickening essay from Black Lives Matter in terms of making Fidel Castro into some -- a guy that's to be admired?

FRENCH: Yeah, it's really amazing. Right after Fidel Castro died, Black Lives Matter published a piece, an essay -- I mean, you really have to read it to believe it. But it begins with: We're feeling many things as we awaken to a world without Fidel Castro. And it's a really remarkable essay that laments his death, talks about his revolutionary street cred, and then essentially -- and then thanks him for sheltering some of the most vicious cop killers in American history.

There were black revolutionaries who killed police officers, three of them, for example, hijacked a jet after they killed a police officer at knife point, sent the jet to Cuba, and Fidel Castro gave them sanctuary. And so what we're talking about here is a man who not only had a human rights effort, where over a million people left his own island to escape and where he ruthlessly suppressed dissent, he actually harbored in the United States -- I mean, harbored in Cuba cop killers, and Black Lives Matter was praising him for that.

DAVID: You know, one of those cop killers is Assata Shakur, who was -- Werner Foerster, I think was the New Jersey state trooper that she killed or she was involved in the killing. He had pulled over these individuals, this car for a traffic violation. And in part, she got out of the car. She was a passenger in the rear seat. And went over. Werner Foerster had been wounded. So he laid in the street. She ran over to him, grabbed his firearm, and shot him multiple times as he laid on the ground there. She was caught. She was convicted. She was sent to prison in the state of New Jersey. I think it was New Jersey, yeah.

And she escaped. There was an unbelievable escape. Some people came in. They took many of the prison guards hostage. They got her out. She fled to Cuba. She resides in Cuba to this day. And she's one of the ones that I have pleaded with -- with no success, to the Eric Trump-led attorney -- United States Department of Justice to get her back after President Obama normalized relations with Cuba. I said, "Okay. Something good can come of this normalization of relations with Cuba. Let's get those cop killers back here." And, of course, they're not interested in that.

But I have said -- and I have been very vocal about it, I have labeled Black Lives Matter as a hateful ideology. They foster division, as you write in your story here. They support an anti-cop rhetoric, cop hatred. And there are people who have killed law enforcement officers in the name -- name of -- of Black Lives Matter. Why do you think -- other than the obvious, you know, that they look at Cuba and they look atrophied he will Castro, that murderous dictator, and they idolize somebody like that.

FRENCH: Well, you know, they look at everything in the United States through one lens and one lens only, and that's race. And so Fidel Castro, as part of his anti-American campaign, decades-long anti-American campaign was constantly trying to create greater racial tension in the United States.

And one of the ways that he did that was by -- was by backing and explicitly supporting, both rhetorically and providing, you know, a home for people who are a part of organizations like the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army.

And so these guys -- these Black Lives Matter activists who are really the spiritual descendents, so to speak, of the Black Panthers, for example. They look at that history. And because they're only looking at it through the lens of race and race only, they don't realize -- or at least don't care, the extent to which Fidel Castro was cynically using American race tensions to advance its own agenda.

I mean, this is a guy who in Cuba discriminated against black Cubans in ways that were grotesque. And he was only exploiting racial divisions in the United States for his own communist means.

So he wasn't -- he wasn't some sort of social justice warrior. He was a communist dictator thug, but these people refused to see it.

DAVID: You know, part of the problem with this hateful ideology is these people who wrap their arms around it, people who have been invited to the White House, I should add, numerous times to hold counsel with the president of the United States, they don't know their history. They don't know the history here.

It's kind of like Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, you know, taking a knee. Sitting down initially and then taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. He's another one that showed up at a post-game conference. You know, you do the thing after the game. He shows up with a T-shirt with a picture of Fidel Castro on it. And I look -- first thing I think when I see this: These people don't know their history. They don't know what they're talking about.

But when I look at Black Lives Matter and I look at how this ugly chapter and what it's been and what it's meant for the American law enforcement officer -- and like I said, a couple minutes ago, you know, it's led to the death -- people have killed in the name of Black Lives Matter. But this has also caused police in ghetto communities throughout the United States to not be as assertive as they need to be, to not engage in the kind of discretionary policing, quality of life enforcement, some people call it, and it has led to an increase of crime.

You look at the city of Chicago -- and I talked about it on the program yesterday. They're up to like 753 murders in the city of Chicago in 2016 alone, compared to about 495 last year. And last year's total outpaced the year before that. And in the city of Chicago, you have over 3,000 people who have been hit by gunfire in non-fatal shootings.

So you look at that sting across America, and then these people have the nerve, the audacity, to run around saying black lives matter. But you look at stuff like that, where are they? They're nowhere to be found.

Black people -- good law-abiding black people in many cases, children, you have seniors living in fear in these ghetto communities. And where are they? You know, they're nowhere to be found. And that's the phoniness of, you know, their mantra, the phoniness of their claim, their slogan, if you will. Black Lives Matter. What are your thoughts on that?

FRENCH: Yeah, it's one of the most clever marketing campaigns in history, that's contradicted by then about everything that the group actually stands for.

For example, on its website, it says flatout that they want to destroy the nuclear -- the Western prescribed nuclear family. Well, the destruction of the family is one of the main drivers of social conflict, not just in black communities, but in American communities at large.

And when it comes to -- to -- to violence, what you are seeing about the change in policing tactics, which are changes in tactics that Black Lives Matter has been pushing for, there's mathematical -- there's strong mathematical correlation.

If you look in -- if you look in Chicago, there's been a decrease in the number of stops. There's been a decrease in the number of -- consequently, decrease in the number of drug confiscations -- I mean, gun confiscations. A decrease in the number of arrests. And a corresponding dramatic increase in the number of murders. I mean, all of this is -- is very well documented. And so, you know, if you're talking about what -- what is it that saves black lives? Well, one of the key things that helped end the murder crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, was very aggressive policing. And also with -- and this is something that a lot of people don't realize, with the active and enthusiastic participation of black communities in the US. Everything from pastors to politicians, the congressional black caucuses out front in the late '80s and early '90s in trying to have -- in moving towards tougher policing. There was -- there were African-American lawmakers in states around the country seeking relief from this crime epidemic. And so it was the black community that really rallied in the late '80s and early '90s. And now along comes Black Lives Matter. As you said, they don't know their history. And they're trying to undo a lot of the reforms that the black community had led America in advocating for generations -- a generation ago, that has since saved countless lives. So I'm not sure, you know, which community they purport to be speaking to.

I think they're speaking for a media community that loves them a great deal. And like I said, they have a very clever marketing slogan. I mean, of course, everyone believes that black lives matter. But what's behind that slogan is a very, very radical agenda that is actually costing lives.

DAVID: Right. And, really, in essence though, black lives do not matter, at least to these individuals. They matter to you. They matter to me. Matter to a lot of people, but not these individuals. They put out some manifesto not too long ago where some of the tenets were, you know, railing against Israel for the treatment of the Palestinians. Railing against -- or demanding more money for global warming studies.

And when I read this manifesto, I said: You know what, black people do not care about global warming. They do not care about what's going on in Israel. Not that we shouldn't care about what's going on in Israel. We do. But I said, here's what black people care about: They care about jobs. They care about better schools for their kids to be able to go to. And they care about safer communities.

David, I want to thank you for joining us. Keep up the good work and Merry Christmas.

FRENCH: Thanks so much for having me. And Merry Christmas to you too.

DAVID: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Radio Program, and we have to take a break.

[break]

DAVID: Welcome back to the program. Final segment. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program. This has been fun. Two straight days. This was new for me. I've done fill-in radio. I've told you that before. I've been a guest host nationally on some programs, as well as locally back home. But I've never done successive days.

I'll tell you, I got a new admiration, not that I didn't before, but for people who do this for a living, who are good at this, people like Glenn and others. He comes in -- he's got to do this five days and no weekends off, of doing other things. Putting these programs together takes a lot.

Again, I want to thank the people on the set here, the producers and everybody involved in the production of this program. You guys have been great. You really have provided -- you guys with the training wheels for the -- you know, in case the bicycle got a little wobbly, I'd have the training wheels to rely on. You guys are what makes the show go. I don't know if Glenn tells you that enough, but you do. He probably does. But thanks for everything that you've done. It's been great.

And, you know, it's kind of interesting -- I want to close with this. And, again, this is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving.

To rehabilitate the Democratic Party, Obama plans to coach young talent.

So Obama to the rescue again. He spent eight years destroying this republic, and now he wants to coach new talent.

He says here: What I'm interested in is just developing a whole new generation of talent, Obama told NPR's Steve Inskeep in an interview on Morning Edition.

There's such incredible young people, who not only worked on my campaign, but I've seen in advocacy groups.

You know, he's the community organizer.

I've -- I've seen passionate about issues like climate change or conservation or criminal justice reform, you know, campaigns too for a livable wage and health insurance, and make sure that whatever resources, credibility, and spotlight that I can bring to help raise them up, that's what I want to do. That's something I think I can do well.

Because, you know, he excels at everything. There's nothing that Barack Obama can't do. You know, there's no short suits in his talent box. At least that's what he thinks.

I hope that he's serious about this because what he'll end up doing is he will coach a generation of young starry-eyed liberals in the area of community organizing in this Democrat Party that is in free fall, will continue to flounder. So what I always tell people when they point out what's wrong with the Democrat Party -- I'm talking people on the right -- I say, "Be quiet. Leave them alone." I say, "They're doing fine. They will figure this out on their own." So we'll see what happens there.

Again, it's been a pleasure to be with you these last two days. I want everybody to have a very Merry Christmas, a blessed Christmas. A Happy New Year. And remember, Donald Trump is going need to all of us to provide that pushback against the people that want to see him fail. And he's going need to our energy as well in order to make America great again. Put the country first. Leave the other stuff out of it and everybody will be fine. This is the Glenn Beck Radio Program. David Clarke. Thank you very much.

Featured Image: The first four folios of William Shakespeare's work during an unveiling for auction at Christie's King Street on April 19, 2016 in London, England. The preview of the sale commemorates 400 years since the death of Shakespeare (1564-1616). The auction will be led by an unrecorded copy of the first folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, which contains 36 plays and is estimated at £800,000-£1.2 million.The folios will go on public display in London from 20 to 28 April and then later being put up in a four lot auction on 25 May 2016. The sale is expected to reach in excess of £1.3 million (Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.