Props to Chuck Todd for Exposing Chuck Schumer's Agonizing, Hypocritical Game

April 03, 2017

WRITER

Could there be a glimmer of hope in the mainstream media? Sunday on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd interviewed Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and did something we rarely see. He actually held the senator's feet to the fire, pointing out the hypocrisy on the Gorsuch vote.

"It's ridiculous what they're doing to the Supreme Court nominee. But I also want you to hear Chuck Todd actually punching the clock and showing the rest of journalists what it's like to be a journalist," Glenn said Monday on radio.

Todd grilled Schumer on the rules change Democrats made in 2013 to confirm judges --- and the senator's displeasure with it now.

Let's give credit where credit's due. Chuck Todd actually behaved like an unbiased reporter searching for the truth.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Yesterday -- last night, I tweeted this out because I think it's important audio for you to hear with Chuck Todd and Chuck Schumer, to show you how unhinged the Democrats are. It's just -- it's ridiculous what they're doing to the Supreme Court nominee. But I also want you to hear Chuck Todd actually punching the clock and showing the rest of journalists what it's like to be a journalist.

CHUCK: You expressed regret earlier this year for the rules change that was made on judges in 2013. Why did you go along with it if you regret doing it?

SCHUMER: Well, let's look at the history. Our Republican colleagues had been holding back on just about all of so many lower court judges, including very important DC circuit. I went to Lamar Alexander, one of my dear friends in the Senate, and I said, "Look, if you keep holding back on scores and scores of judges, my side is going to want to change the rules. Go to Mitch and tell him. At least let us have some votes on a few of these, many of whom had gotten bipartisan support."

The answer was no. And we changed the rules. But the one thing that stands out here, Chuck, is we did not change it for Supreme Court for one very important reason: And that is, on -- on the most important of decisions, 60 votes is called for. That's why you go to mainstream, that's how you get a mainstream justice.

PAT: Can you believe the hair he's splitting here? That they changed the rules. Sure, but we didn't do it on the Supreme Court. That's just because there was no Supreme Court justice coming up for a vote at that time.

STU: That they needed the help for --

PAT: Right. Right.

STU: They didn't need it.

PAT: They didn't need to do that.

STU: You know why? Because Republicans, too many of them, by the way, did not oppose, Kagan or Sotomayor.

PAT: Yes. They just caved.

Sotomayor is not mainstream. Kagan was not mainstream. But he wants a mainstream justice.

SCHUMER: Just about every -- Mitch calls it a filibuster. We call it the 60-vote standard. Most Americans believe in the 60-vote standard.

CHUCK: But, Senator -- that's fine. But there is no rule that says that it has to be 60 votes. There's no part of advice and consensus that says it has to be 60 votes. And, in fact, there's currently two members of the Supreme Court right now that did not get 60 votes: Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas.

SCHUMER: Well, actually Clarence Thomas is the only one. Because when the filibuster came up with Alito, there were 72 votes to go forward. So there was just one. Just about every nominee gets 60 votes because in the past, presidents actually consulted the other side before picking someone.

PAT: What a bald-faced lie. That is such garbage. Like Barack Obama went to conservatives and said, "Hey, who would you like me to appoint?"

GLENN: Sotomayor.

PAT: Sonia Sotomayor. You like her? Yeah, me too. So -- come on.

STU: By the way, according to the New York Times, Sotomayor is to the left of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

PAT: Right. She's not --

STU: She's mainstream. She is the most --

PAT: So bad.

STU: He actually has the balls in this clip to actually cite the exact thing I'm talking about. Because he says, well, the New York Times said he would be the second most conservative justice, Justice Clarence Thomas. He actually says that in the story. That same article says the most liberal justice on the Supreme Court is Sonia Sotomayor to the left of Ginsburg.

PAT: Jeez, man. And that's hard to believe. It's hard to believe anybody could be that -- what is -- the only thing left of Sotomayor is Joe Stalin. And he's gone. He's gone.

GLENN: We lost him.

VOICE: In this case, Donald Trump consulted the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist society, hard right groups with extreme special interest-oriented views. And it didn't leave much chance for compromise.

PAT: My gosh.

VOICE: You know, Heidi Heitkamp, one of the Democratic senators in your conference, she came out in favor of Neil Gorsuch and in favor of cloture. She said she's not happy about it. She didn't like the way Merrick Garland was treated. But she ended her statement by essentially saying, two wrongs don't make a right. Why not give Neil Gorsuch an up or down vote, Senator Schumer?

VOICE: Let me make a proposal to maybe break the problem that we have.

PAT: I'm sure this will be reasonable.

GLENN: Okay.

VOICE: It looks like Gorsuch will not reach the 60-vote margin. So instead of changing the rules, which is up to Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority, why doesn't President Trump, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, sit down and try to come up with a mainstream nominee?

PAT: And finally come up with a nominee that I like? Why don't they do that? How about I just tell Trump who to nominate?

GLENN: Yeah, we did this with Sotomayor.

PAT: Sotomayor. Yeah, oh, they did that.

GLENN: They did.

VOICE: Look, when a nominee doesn't get 60 votes, you shouldn't change the rules. You should change the nominee, and let's just take one minute here --

PAT: The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

VOICE: -- because this is important. Let's just look at the history. Okay?

PAT: Okay.

VOICE: Our nominee was Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell broke 230 years of precedent and didn't call him up for a vote. It wasn't in the middle of an election campaign. It was March.

PAT: Which is the middle of the election.

VOICE: Second, now it looks like we have the votes to prevent Gorsuch from getting on.

Now, that -- that doesn't mean you have to change the rules.

PAT: Yeah, it does.

VOICE: Each side didn't get their nominee. Let's sit down and come together.

GLENN: You got your nominee.

VOICE: Our Republican friends are acting like, you know, they're a cat on the top of a tree.

PAT: They expected -- what they're saying about the Merrick Garland thing is that they expected a hard-core conservative to be replaced with a liberal. And, of course, the Republicans weren't going to bring that up for a vote. Of course not. Come on.

GLENN: And it was in the middle of an election.

PAT: Yes, it was.

GLENN: I remember tweeting, this may change the course of the election.

PAT: You can't allow that to swing the entire court in the direction of the left-wing.

GLENN: No.

PAT: I mean, that would be -- that would have been a horrible, horrible move.

STU: And this is -- you want to talk about a good argument for Gorsuch, what you're seeing here from Chuck Schumer is, he knows he's not getting a liberal. What he wants is someone he thinks he can win later. The Kennedys of the world. I always think of Briar, but the other guy that was in New Hampshire.

PAT: Souter.

STU: He wants a Souter, right? He's hoping he can get someone who looks kind of conservative at the beginning, but you're not really sure. Then you can win him over on big things. Roberts, you can win him over on certain issues. And he doesn't think he has that in Gorsuch, which is a positive, by the way.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: A very big positive.

PAT: This is why Gorsuch should be hammered through no matter what. Change the rule and just get it done.

JEFFY: Yes.

PAT: Get, what? Fifty-four votes now. And that's -- so, what? It's not 60. Like Chuck Todd said, no rule says you have to have 60. There's no law.

STU: And we all know this standard is going away. Because if it doesn't go away here, if they don't do it with Gorsuch, the next person who comes up is going to do it. Whether it's Democratic or a Republican president, the next justice that comes up is going to slam these guys through with 50 votes no matter what.

GLENN: Boy, I hope they do. I hope they do.

STU: Because this standard is dead. It's dead. So I think, so far, the initial idea with Democrats was, let's not do it to Gorsuch when they have an obviously good nominee. Let's wait for the next one. We can really vilify them. Because that's going to be the balance of the court. We can vilify them. Really go after it. And we'll have credibility, because we let Gorsuch go through. Now, I think with the health care failure, they're feeling a little momentum. They're thinking they might as well just go for this now.

GLENN: Wrong move -- wrong move strategically, I think. Wrong move strategically.

PAT: And he keeps saying that Gorsuch is not mainstream. Nobody could have been more reasonable --

STU: Yeah.

PAT: During a hearing, than Neil Gorsuch was. He was absolutely mainstream. He sounded completely unbiased on many issues. He actually said Roe v. Wade was settled law, along with the gay marriage thing. I mean, almost everything the Democrats would want, he said, yeah, it's settled.

STU: He said if Trump asked him how he would rule on Roe vs. Wade during the interview, he would have walked out of the room. Now, of course, Trump promised that he would ask his nominees that questions. So apparently he didn't do that.

PAT: He should. The Democrats certainly do.

STU: Yeah, I honestly have no problem -- everyone makes that out to be, oh, how dare you. Well, isn't that, I don't know, a fundamental question you should know about your justice?

PAT: Yes, yes.

STU: We're like -- we're supposed to play this weird telepathic game with these guys.

GLENN: What they're saying is trying to appeal to, you know, their sense of reason and independent-minded action for the specific case. But I can't think of the case where it overturns Roe vs. Wade that doesn't involve the choice, is this a blob of tissue, or is it a child?

STU: Well, privacy. I mean, they try to find indicators, right? Gorsuch has never had a ruling on abortion. He has had -- he did write a book about euthanasia. He is shown to be very favorable towards issues that would indicate --

PAT: Does he not like senior citizens in Asia, what's the deal?

STU: Yeah, no, it's true. It's a different thing. But, yes, he does not like citizens? Citizens in Asia. That's just separate.

PAT: That's weird.

STU: But every indication is that he will be very good on this issue.

PAT: Yeah, but you don't know for sure. And you would ask. Because certainly Barack Obama asked Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan if they were in favor of abortion or not. You know that happened.

STU: I mean, maybe it was so obvious, he didn't to have ask.

JEFFY: Didn't have to.

STU: Not much of a debate on that one.

PAT: Never would a Democrat nominate a Supreme Court justice who wasn't pro-choice.

GLENN: Never.

PAT: You know that wouldn't happen. Would not happen.

So this little game Schumer is trying to play is asinine.

GLENN: Is there anymore left?

PAT: Yeah, there's some more.

VOICE: And they have to jump off with all the damage that entails. Come back off the tree, sit down, and work with us, and we will produce a mainstream nominee. It will be -- one more point. One more point.

VOICE: Hang on here.

VOICE: It will be a Republican nominee. But, remember, Democrats voted for Roberts and Alito. And both of them got the 60 votes.

VOICE: All right. But there are already two Democrats for Neil Gorsuch. So there already is a bipartisan majority -- and, look, two is two. It's more than zero, for what it's worth.

But why should senator McConnell work with you guys on this when you changed the rules first, when you decided to do this?

And, again, a change that you yourself said this week and two months ago that you regret and it was a mistake.

VOICE: We never -- but I don't regret not changing it for the Supreme Court.

Let me read you a quote of Mr. McConnell. You like to put up quotes. He said, I think we can stipulate -- and my good friends on the other side of the aisle stipulated from time to time over the years, when they were in the minority, that in the Senate, it takes 60 votes on controversial matters. That has been the tradition of the Senate for a long time. This is nothing new.

PAT: Tough.

VOICE: Then why did you change the rules in the first place? I go back to this because now we're going down this slippery slope.

PAT: Good.

VOICE: And everybody has hypocrisy on their side to point the finger.

VOICE: Yes. Yes.

VOICE: But you guys are hand in hand sliding down the slope. Tell me this, in ten years, do you think the filibuster will still be alive for anything?

VOICE: Yeah. That's one of the few things that my dear friend Mitch said on the show that I agree with.

PAT: So disingenuous. Your dear friend Mitch. Okay.

VOICE: I don't think there's any thirst to change the legislative rules. Sixty votes for that.

PAT: Such a lie.

VOICE: Most Democrats and most Republicans have served in both the minority and majority and know what it means. But why not -- you know, you can do a lot of finger pointing. Each side has some right here. Let's stop this now. And the way to stop it is the way I mentioned. You know, other --

PAT: And the way to stop it is to do exactly what he wants and nominate somebody he's fine with --

GLENN: My way. As long as we do it my way, we're fine. Give me a justice that we want and we'll be fine.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Forget about you.

PAT: Exactly.

GLENN: I mean, they didn't care a lick about what the Republican said.

PAT: Not at all.

STU: Of course not. And, you know what, honestly, they shouldn't. You know, they shouldn't.

If you have control of all three branches -- or, not all three branches, but all three -- you know, you're going through House, Senate, presidency, you have all three of those, you shouldn't be consulting with the other side. You should go pick somebody you think is good for your side, just like they got --

PAT: And that's the situation Republicans are in right now.

STU: Yeah, and it was just like the one the Democrats were in last time. Not the whole time.

PAT: Make it happen.

STU: Not the whole time.

GLENN: Well, I believe that's where we first heard elections have consequences.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: Yes.

STU: And what they do, you should be able to push through your own Supreme Court justice if you're the president of the United States and you have control of the House and the Senate. Yes, you should be able to do that.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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