Benjamin Watson Tackles the Racial Divide With Real Conversations

February 14, 2017

WRITER

Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson joined The Glenn Beck Program on Tuesday to talk about his ongoing efforts to heal racial divides and bring people together. In addition to his book Under Our Skin, Watson will be a featured speaker at Under Our Skin: A Forum on Race and Faith, taking place this weekend in Tampa.

"What we're hoping to foster is an honest conversation. We've had conversations before, but we want this one to be one where people can come in, truth can be proclaimed. People can let their guards down. Nobody is going to get offended by honest questions. But also, we want people to leave with tangible tools in their tool belt of ways that they can, in their own spheres of influence, attack this racial problem and also see where they stand," Watson said.

Learn more about the forum at underourskinforum.org, which also features esteemed broadcaster James Brown, Hall of Fame football coach Tony Dungy and former NFL Walter Payton Man-of-the-Year award winner Warren Dunn, among others.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: This weekend in Tampa Bay, there is something really cool happening. Tony Dungy is going to be there. Warrick Dunn, who I think was with the Bucks when we lived in Tampa. Tony was there.

STU: Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.

GLENN: And also Benjamin Watson is going to be there in a forum, getting real about race and getting free from the fears and frustrations that divide us.

Benjamin Watson is with us right now. Hey, Ben, how are you?

BENJAMIN: I'm doing well. How are you guys doing?

GLENN: Very good. Very good.

First of all, any thoughts on the Super Bowl?

BENJAMIN: Well, I tell you what, having played in New England for 6 years, it did not surprise me. I have a lot of Atlanta friends, including my in-laws who were crushed. I have never seen a comeback like that before. Especially didn't expect it in the Super Bowl. But, honestly, as I talked to the guys after the game, I was like, you know, if any team was going to come back, it would be New England. It was surprising.

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Yeah. So, Ben, you've been on with us before. And you have one of the sane voices in America that is trying to bring people together and say, look, yeah, we have things that divide us, but let's have this conversation.

So tell me what you're trying to accomplish this weekend and what you think is going to happen.

BENJAMIN: Yes. Well, one of the things we talked about last time I was with you, was -- it was when my book Under Our Skin came out and just this whole issue that we have with race in America, ethnicity in America, that has been a part of our thread for a very, very long time, since the inception of our country. And it keeps on coming back in different ways, and each generation has to deal with it in their own way.

And so this weekend in Tampa, Florida, what we're hoping to foster is an honest conversation. We've had conversations before. But we want this one to be one where people can come in. Truth can be proclaimed. People can let their guards down. Nobody is going to get offended by honest questions. But also, we want people to lead with tangible tools in their tool belt of ways that they, can, in their own spheres of influence, attack this racial problem and also see where they stand.

And, you know, maybe people may come, and they may feel like, you know what, I have no racist bones in my body. I have no prejudice in my body. I'm forgiven. I'm protected. And all those things. And then they come and hear things. And they say, you know what, this is something that keeps rising up in me, and I need to deal with it first in myself. And then, how do I affect the people around me positively when these sorts of things happen on a television set or we encounter certain instances of racism in our community.

GLENN: I will tell you that Pat and I were on a plane once with Hutch, who was a Cowboys player.

BENJAMIN: Yeah.

GLENN: You know him.

BENJAMIN: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And we were on a plane coming home from Washington, DC, one time. And both Pat and I were from the Pacific northwest. We grew up. Became aware in the early '70s. And didn't feel like we had any problems, you know, with race relations or anything.

We got off that plane with him after he explained the things that he went through in life. And both of us realized, there is so much work to be done in America, that we just don't even know. But it's -- we're stopped sometimes because we don't want to open that up because, A, okay. So you're going to excuse me of being a racist.

BENJAMIN: Yeah.

GLENN: Are you going to say, oh, I have to pay extra money or I have to -- you know what I mean?

So nobody talks about it because it opens up a can of worms, where extremists can play.

BENJAMIN: I agree. I agree. And it's easy to point our finger at white supremacy or at, you know, maybe the black power movement or whatever it may be and say that those are the epitomes of racism and prejudice. But really, it's those of us that are in the middle -- like I said before, some of us that don't really realize -- some of us that don't -- because of our situation, don't have to engage and have to learn about someone else's experience.

A lot of what we don't see -- you know, experiencing somebody else's life. For the white guy who is a coworker in wherever, in West Virginia, who has lost his job and he thinks that, you know what, it's not fair that his perception is that black people get X, Y, and Z. And to the black teenager or the black young man who sees his employment drop and sees the educational opportunities he has, and he thinks he's the only one who is experiencing some of those things. And for those types of people that say, you know what, I may not have your experience. But let me listen to yours, and let me validate what you feel. And let me not disregard what you feel.

And then for you -- you know, for some people who are born in the Northwest or maybe the West and they have a different view of it, to hear some of these stories that are very, very real. That's how we show how we care about each other.

What we do have now is a lot of people being scared to even mention or broach the topic because they're going to be labeled a bigot or a racist. And that's a very real fear that I acknowledge as well.

GLENN: So, Ben, help me out on -- we're talking to Ben Watson, author of Under My Skin. Or Under Our Skin. He has UnderOurSkinForum.com. That's where you can go find out all the information of what's happening. Really important this weekend in Tampa Bay. UnderOurSkinForum.com.

Here's -- here's where I think people live. I came out against Black Lives Matter years ago, when it first started because I read their -- I read their manifesto.

BENJAMIN: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And it is -- it's crazy. Have you read it?

BENJAMIN: Yeah. I've gone to their website. And I can say that probably 75 percent or maybe 65 percent of the things that they stand for, I don't agree with. But then there are some things that I do.

GLENN: Correct. Right. Right. But there's a lot of stuff on there that is just anti-capitalism and has nothing to do with race.

BENJAMIN: Exactly.

GLENN: And so that's what I first saw. Then I met some people who were not part of the founding members. Didn't know about the charter or anything else. But were involved in the Black Lives Matter march here that ended tragically with the shooting of cops here in Dallas.

BENJAMIN: Yeah.

GLENN: And they were good, decent people and I listened to them.

So I wrote a deal about Black Lives Matter for the New York Times, and I said, "Hey, we have to listen to each other."

Immediately, everything in my world flipped. And now people were against me on the other side.

And what happens is -- for instance, up in Toronto -- I don't know if you saw this, the cofounder of the Black Lives Matter Toronto said white people have recessive genetic defects that need to be wiped out.

Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist terrorist. That we need to rise up and fight back. Quote, please, Allah give me strength not to cuss and kill these white folks out here today.

BENJAMIN: Uh-huh.

GLENN: How do we get -- how can we get to a place where we can have a real conversation when there are voices on one side that are absolutely racist, voices on the other side absolutely racist, and our politicians are using those people to stir -- to stir us up?

BENJAMIN: Well, one of the things you do is ask why and what and where. And so I think that's what you did. I remember reading your article. And I remember seeing the backlash that you received. But what you did was you went and you did some research. So you said, "You know what, these people -- for example, the gentleman in Toronto, he's obviously angry. Why do you think he feels this way?" And then you went on. And you looked at the charter. You learned about him. For him, learning about the history of blacks in this country. Blacks on this continent. Maybe some of the things that might have happened in his family. Whatever -- there's a reason why. Now, the way he's lashing out is not an appropriate one. But when we first see why people act the way they act, then we can address them from a human standpoint and we can see why there's upset. And maybe there's some valid reasons why they are. But what we don't have now is, you know, we see the headline, and immediately, like you said, you shut off and you label someone. And maybe they deserve to be labeled. But no one is willing to kind of be in the middle.

So the way -- people ask me all the time, what do I do, Benjamin? How do I change this thing?

And I say, "The first thing you do is you start in your living room. You start in your dining room with your family."

How do you talk about people that aren't like you in your living room at bedtime, when you're praying at night with your kids? What are you teaching them? Are you teaching them that they are no better than anyone else because of their color, or because of their economics, or because of their education, or because of their athletic ability, whatever it may be? Are you teaching them that they need the same forgiveness by the same guys -- the person across the railroad tracks need? Are you giving them a proper sense of self in the home?

Because that's where this all starts, in the home. Whether you're on the white supremacist side, whether you're like the guy in Toronto, wherever it may be. That stuff starts in the home.

And so we as parents have a responsibility to figure it out for ourselves, but also to teach our children. And then from there, you had children who are going to be change agents.

You know, when we look back over the course of our history in this country, and you look at civil rights. And you look at Jim Crow. And you look at neo-slavery, after slavery was abolished. And you look all the way up to the '70s and everything, there were people of all shades of brown, all shades of melanin count, that were -- who stood for justice.

And some of them were maligned, like you were, when you stepped out and you said, "You know, I see some of the reasons why they say what they say."

And sometimes it's going to take you getting out of your groupthink, whatever that groupthink is, black or white or in between, and be willing to stand for what's right.

GLENN: Ben, can I ask you a real honest question that I'm sure you've reflected on: You don't need this. You know, there's nothing to gain here, to, you know, sell a book. You could sell a book a million different ways. And that's already in the past.

Now, you're going to do these forums. You're going to get backlash from both sides. Why? Why are you doing this?

BENJAMIN: Well, honestly, a part of it is a groupthink. A positive groupthink. And it's the number of people who I consider to be friends, Tony Dungy, you mentioned one of them. We have pastors there. We'll have authors there. We'll have my publishing group, which Tyndale Publishers, is a big part of this, that care about this issue.

And alone, honestly, sometimes I want to throw my hands up and say, "You know what, we're just never going to like each other on a large-scale. It is what it is."

I get frustrated just like everybody else. I get backlash when I say certain things from the black community. I get backlash from the white community. You know, from non-Christians. From Christians.

GLENN: I know.

BENJAMIN: You know, it's frustrating. But when you have a group of people who say, "You know what, we're committed to this. And my job is to stand for kindness. For love and kindness. For justice. For truth. For righteousness."

Those are things that I committed my life to. And so whatever realm I can influence someone, even if it's one or two people, I'm committed to take that chance. And this is just one example. And we hope that people will join and then come to livestream.com. Obviously, if they're not in Tampa, they can tune in on livestream.com.

And we've got some good feedback. Hopefully, this thing goes well, and some people's hearts are changed. Their minds are changed. They're encouraged when it comes to this topic. And we go and do it somewhere else. Or maybe we don't. Maybe someone else does it.

GLENN: Speak specifically to someone who you want to come. Who are they? And why should they come Saturday?

BENJAMIN: Well, I want everyone to join in. People who hate blacks of everything they've done to black people in this country and their parents. People who hate blacks because they feel like, you know, they whine and complain and they're lazy. Those things they say about us. I want people to join in. I want the person that you're sitting there and you think that there's really not an issue of race, at least in your neighborhood, and everybody gets along. At our church we all hang out each other. I can't imagine anybody having problems. I want you to join too. I want the people to join that sit there and say, "I've been working over and over and over, and I've never seen any fruit from my labor when it comes to this topic. It seems like I'm getting nowhere, like I'm in quicksand." I want you to come and be encouraged.

And so it's for everyone. No matter if you're not black, if you're not white. If you're just curious. Whether you're a believer or not -- it's being held in a church. But you know what, we believe that our faith is a huge proponent and the reason why we do what we do. But we also understand that you know -- whether you're a person of faith or not, this topic is important because we all have to deal with it at some point.

GLENN: It is always good to talk to you. And I hope we get a chance to work together on something, Ben. Because I think you're an amazing man. Benjamin Watson.

BENJAMIN: I appreciate you having me.

GLENN: You bet. And go to UnderOurSkinForum.com, if you're anywhere in the Tampa Bay area. It's happening, I guess, not this weekend. It's happening on Thursday.

Tony Dungy is going to be there. Warrick Dunn will be there. Other celebrities. It will be Thursday at the Crossing Church, which is a great, great church in Tampa.

STU: He downplays how brave that is to do. I mean, to take stances that are, you know -- that disagree with kind of the way things go in the media and certainly in athletics. It's not easy to do. He's really strong-willed to do that. And he's an impressive guy.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

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

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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?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

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.

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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 wins when good people mirror its rage.

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A time for choosing

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

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

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

The new currency of power

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

The forgotten way

The only way