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Bombshell Russian Email: It's ‘Worse Than I Thought’

July 11, 2017
Staff

WRITER

An alarming report in The New York Times Monday seems to have been proven true: Donald Trump, Jr. confirmed in email screenshots Tuesday that he met with a Russian attorney in 2016 to gain information that would assist the Trump presidential campaign.

Tuesday on radio, Glenn walked through the whirlwind timeline of the breaking story, analyzing the emails which were tweeted from Donald Trump, Jr.’s verified Twitter account.

“This is, I believe, worse than what I thought,” Glenn said.

In the email, publicist Rob Goldstone promised to connect the Trumps with a Russian attorney, specifically because the Russian government wanted to influence the 2016 election, saying, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Glenn expressed shock that concrete evidence seems to point to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Russian hackers infiltrated emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta in efforts to swing the election toward Trump.

“I think a lot of things about the Trumps --- no way were they involved in collusion,” Glenn said incredulously.

He pointed out that the timing was right for the meeting with Russia to take place in June 2016, just a few weeks before Wikileaks released leaked emails from the DNC servers and from Podesta’s email account.

“This is still three weeks before Wikileaks breaks, and Donald Trump acts surprised,” Glenn noted. “We all knew at the time: Wikileaks got their information from the Kremlin.”

Whether the president was aware of this meeting is unclear.

"Let's not implicate anybody else," Glenn said. "All we know is that Donald Trump Jr. knew that there was collusion. He was part of the collusion."

To see more from Glenn, visit his channel on TheBlaze and watch “The Glenn Beck Radio Program” live weekdays 9 a.m.–noon ET or anytime on-demand at TheBlaze TV.

GLENN: So let me go through this with you. This morning, two hours ago, we were talking about a hypothetical, something that the New York Times and CNN said that they had seen. And we added the caveat, if it says that, you know, they are -- they have information and he knows that it's from the Russian government, then there's a problem.

PAT: But we didn't trust the New York Times or CNN.

GLENN: We didn't trust them. This is, I believe, worse than what I thought.

Here is the first email from Rob Goldstone: Good morning, Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. Now, so you know, Emin is a very good friend of Donald Trump Sr. and is, you know, very, very close with -- with Vladimir Putin.

STU: Worked with him on the Miss Universe thing.

PAT: In Russia.

GLENN: Yes. Yes. He's a Russian citizen. An oligarch. A bad one. Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father, Aras, this morning.

And, actually, Aras is the oligarch. Emin is the son.

The crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father, Aras, this morning, and in their meeting, offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information, but it is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump. I never thought -- no way -- you -- you couldn't have --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: I think a lot of things about the Trumps. No way were they involved in collusion. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information. But this is part of Russia and its government support of Mr. Trump helped along by Aras and Emin. What do you think the best way to handle this information would be? Will you be able to speak to Emin about it directly? I also can send this information to your father via Rona. But it is ultra sensitive so I wanted to send it to you first.

Thanks, Rob. I appreciate it. I'm on the road for a moment. I could just speak to Emin first. Seems like we have some time. And if it's what you say, I love it, especially late in the summer.

Meaning, coordination.

Could we do a call first thing next week when I'm back?

Yes. Don, let me know when you're free to talk with Emin by phone about this Hillary information. You had mentioned earlier this week, so I tried to schedule time and best day to you and your family. Rob.

Holy cow. That is -- there's your smoking gun. It's not just -- isn't it?

STU: I mean, first of all, again, like the -- you have to say that the New York Times report was accurate. I mean, this is exactly what they said was in it.

GLENN: This was released by Donald Trump Jr.

STU: Yes. So we know 100 percent it comes from Trump. So we know that that's accurate. I mean, you know, look, I think you can still make the argument that, hey, he got the tip from some guy he knows. Didn't think about it from a foreign -- you know, it says right in there. Was excited to get information to beat up his opponent.

GLENN: No, no. But he was coordinating -- listen -- listen, there's no way -- I mean, Stu, help me. Please, convince me. Convince me.

STU: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

GLENN: Crown prosecutor of Russia. So that's not the girl he's going to meet with. He's saying the crown prosecutor of Russia.

STU: I thought that is the -- I thought that is who they're referring to when they say --

PAT: The female lawyer? I don't know. Because they refer to the lawyer as him in that email, right?

GLENN: Yes. Yeah. So I don't think it's the same.

PAT: So it can't be the same person. It's not the same person.

GLENN: What he's saying here is the crown prosecutor of Russia. So that's like the attorney general of Russia.

STU: Right, okay.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: The attorney general of Russia --

STU: Met with his father.

GLENN: Met with Emin's father, the good friend of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

STU: Right.

GLENN: They met this morning about whatever we don't know. And in the meeting, he offered to provide the Trump campaign -- so now, here is the attorney general going to an oligarch, saying, "Hey, you're friends with Donald Trump, right?"

Yeah.

"I want you to pass on to them that we have information at a very high level that we want to pass to them." We have official documents and information that will incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia. It will be very useful for them.

So then the father asks Emin to call Goldstone, who knows Donald Trump Jr., and say, "Hey, can we get this? By the way, Aras is going to fax this through Rhonda, just to get it to your dad. But it's very high level, and I wanted to talk to somebody and let them know that it was coming."

He then says: It's very high level. Sensitive information. But it is part -- it is part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump, helped along by Aras and Emin.

So, in other words, somebody -- I don't even want to jump there.

We know that a good friend, an oligarch of Donald Trump has been helping the government along to support Donald Trump.

I'll send this information to your father. I will send this information to your father via Rona.

PAT: I mean --

GLENN: I mean, this is --

PAT: It's going to be a nightmare.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: The Democrats are going to --

GLENN: It's over.

PAT: They're going --

GLENN: How do you not go with this?

STU: Well, look, I think you can make an argument that it's not as bad as it feels. However, I would say -- well, because, I mean, like, look, Donald Trump Jr., he's not even --

GLENN: I will send information to your father via Rona.

STU: But he didn't, right? As far as we know at least this point. (chuckling) It went to him instead. But, of course, he's going to tell his dad about it. Right? Although he said he didn't --

GLENN: Yeah.

PAT: No, no. He already said he didn't tell his dad. His dad didn't know. So don't even worry about that.

STU: I guess my point would be you -- you can argue that it wasn't -- it wasn't -- I don't know. Like, to me, I would never take a meeting with a government official, even if it was trying to sink an opponent. I -- so I can't -- I don't understand why you would do that.

But, you know what, look, remember, this is not only people who have dealt in these circles for a while and do anything to win, as they say, as they pointed out a million times. They were also, at the time, pretty desperate, if you remember right. So maybe did they bend this line and take this meeting? I think the answer to that is yes.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Yes, they did. Wait. Wait.

STU: However --

GLENN: Let's look at this. This is still three weeks before WikiLeaks breaks.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And Donald Trump acts surprised. We all knew at the time WikiLeaks got their information from the Kremlin.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: This is Russia feeding this and leaking this. So we know now that Russia was hacking in to the DNC servers. Was gathering sensitive information. And then -- this is treason. We've got a guy on the other side, in Russia, that released information, and we say it's treason. If he comes back, he'll be tried for treason. What's-his-face?

PAT: Yeah, Snowden.

GLENN: Snowden. That's treason when he's done that to us.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: So here's Russia doing to it (sic). Now, they can't be treasonous because they're not Americans. That -- they released -- they hacked, they got in, they stole the information, and then released it to the world. And Donald Trump was acting like it was a surprise and like, oh, please, Russia. Go ahead. Release the rest.

PAT: Glenn, when you put it like that, sure it sounds bad.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: I mean, do you have to put it like that? No, you don't. You could put it some other way.

STU: You could put it another way.

GLENN: I can guarantee you -- I can guarantee you everyone else will be -- no.

PAT: All the Democrats are going to put it a lot worse than that. A lot worse than that.

GLENN: Oh, yeah, no. But the Republicans are also going to -- we are witnessing, Pat, what you and I remember in the 1970s with our dads.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: I remember my dad defending Nixon --

PAT: Turning into a crook and how --

GLENN: Yeah. And it was only at the very end --

PAT: Yeah. Supported him nonstop until all the evidence came out.

GLENN: Supported him -- right. Until -- right.

PAT: And then they hated him.

JEFFY: Yep.

GLENN: Tell me how you get -- tell me how you have a family that doesn't tell the president that, "Yes, Dad, the Russians were colluding with us."

PAT: There's almost no way he doesn't know. There's almost no way.

GLENN: Right.

STU: And I think you could still make an argument, look, you're trying to find information against your -- you know, to help your dad. And you take a meeting that maybe you shouldn't have taken. And -- but, you know, nothing really came of it. So you kind of blew it off in your head. You can make that argument. It's a stretch at some level, I grant you. And I don't necessarily believe it. But I think you can make that case.

It's very difficult to understand how after you've won the presidency and you're in the middle of an investigation on this topic, how this could not have been disclosed until last week.

GLENN: Right. And beyond that, how this could be disclosed last -- in the last couple of weeks, that this even happened. And before that -- and even after that, your father, the president of the United States is saying, there was no collusion.

I mean, you know, honestly, let's say that Hillary Clinton really didn't know that her husband was fooling around. We all think that she did.

But once she found out, don't you say, you son of a bitch, you did this to me?

Let's just put yourself in this situation. You're the president of the United States. Your son is exchanging emails like this. And then he leaves with your son-in-law and your campaign manager, and they start to write speeches about this kind of information.

You start tweeting stuff. And you really don't know. And then you win. Okay.

Then it starts to be investigated and you have me go out in front of everybody going, there is no collusion. I'm telling you, there's no collusion. We never did that. We didn't talk to anybody from Russia. There was never any coordination of anything.

In fact, I believe them so much, I'm telling you, our CIA and our NSA is wrong. And they'll never find anything because there wasn't anything there. And they didn't not only collude with us, they're not even trying to hack into our systems and try to affect our elections. And that's why I'm suggesting we partner up with Russia and we share cyber security together.

Then you read today and you really are innocent, you had nothing to do with it -- you're president of the United States. Do you not go in and say, "Son, excuse me, but you son of a bitch. What the hell were you thinking? You let me spend the last nine months, eight months telling the American people -- I just met with Putin, and you knew that he was colluding with you. And I suggested cyber security partnership, when they were the ones that hacked into the DNC. And you knew it."

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: This -- this is very, very close to treason.

PAT: Well...

STU: You could look at it from the Trump perspective -- from the Donald Trump Sr. perspective, if you want to look at this as we know it right now, we don't have evidence that Donald even knew about this meeting, right? We know that Kushner -- but Kushner left two minutes into it, reportedly. And Manafort didn't say anything in the meeting.

GLENN: We do know -- we do know -- Rob Goldstone said, I can send this information to your father via Rona.

STU: We don't know that that happened. He just suggested it as a possibility.

GLENN: We don't know if that happened, but...

STU: But, again, like, for example, Kellyanne Conway was out on the air a few weeks ago or maybe a few months ago saying no meetings happened from anyone in the campaign with anyone from Russia. That is absolutely false. It never happened. You guys just keep saying fake news and saying it happened.

GLENN: When did she say this?

STU: It was on --

GLENN: Was this the weekend?

STU: So, no, they brought her back on this weekend and said, "Hey, wait a minute. Actually, there were meetings, weren't there?" And she said, "Well, it looks like those disclosure forms have been updated." So, yes --

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: But imagine taking -- sending your own people out, knowing that information.

GLENN: Yeah, no. Very bad.

STU: And telling them to deny it.

PAT: It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

GLENN: Donald Trump Jr., by himself -- let's not implicate anybody else. All we know is that Donald Trump Jr. knew that there was collusion. He was part of the collusion. Very bad. Very bad. And should go to jail.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

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.