Glenn's Chief Researcher Shares Firsthand Stories From Harvey Devastation

August 30, 2017

WRITER

Tropical Storm Harvey peaked as a Category 4 hurricane and was the biggest hurricane to hit Texas in half a century. Days after the hurricane hit Houston, flood waters are still rising thanks to record rain that has flooded neighborhoods and pushed tens of thousands of people out of their homes. According to state officials, nearly 49,000 homes have been damaged by the flood, CNBC reported.

TheBlaze researcher Jason Buttrill returned Wednesday to talk about his experience volunteering in Houston on radio.

Teams of volunteers were organized into boat crews complete with gear for search-and-rescue operations. Jason’s group was working in Katy, Texas, one of the hardest hit areas. He talked about the tense environment and what it was like to be surrounded by emergency responders.

“What kept going through my head was like watching Independence Day or you know, an alien invasion movie because there were tons of people coming out, there [were] only rescue vehicles and like police and stuff like that going in,” he said of the surreal experience.

Glenn theorized that officials’ disagreement over an evacuation plan worked out for the best since people driving out of the area likely would have been stranded if they’d tried to evacuate.

“That may have turned out to be a great blessing because you would have had probably a million people trapped in their cars on these highways and nowhere to go,” he said.

GLENN: We just had some really critical information that we should pass on to you.

STU: We hate to disappoint the audience, but sometimes people are disappointed. This one comes in from Twitter @worldofStu.

I was disappointed Jeffy didn't go cover the storm. He went blow away in high winds, and he's very buoyant in case of flooding.

I could have used him. Where were you at, man? Come on.

PAT: Isn't that good? That's good.

GLENN: Jason went out, who is a head writer or researcher for the Glenn Beck Program. And we're glad to have you back safe and sound. You and Sean went out yesterday.

You -- you couldn't actually get close to anything because you were dumb enough to drive a car -- who even has a car in Texas that is headed towards Houston?

JASON: Yeah. So we rented a very high-mobility Hyundai that --

GLENN: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

JASON: So we didn't expect to actually have to actually maneuver when we got down there in this Hyundai. We were going to jump into the vehicles with the rescue group that we were with.

GLENN: Yes.

JASON: But they had full-on boat crews. They had tons of gear. All this stuff. So like at the last minute, they were like, "Guys, follow this convoy down to the actual boat put-in area, and you can just follow us down there." So were like, okay. You know, we'll try. We got -- so we started going down towards Katy, Texas, which was the hardest hit area at that time yesterday.

PAT: Wait. Katy was the hardest hit area?

GLENN: Yeah. You didn't hear this?

JASON: At that point, yeah. So they pulled up a map that morning. And they were like, these are all the areas. Some program they were using of all the people throwing --

PAT: Wow. That's where I lived.

JASON: Was it really? Oh, my gosh.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: It's a huge suburb -- it is the main suburb -- if you work in Houston, it's the main suburb. And it's fairly -- it's not like hoity-toity. But it's affluent.

PAT: Parts of it are very nice.

GLENN: Yeah, parts of it are very nice.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JASON: The feeling driving down there was kind of hard to describe. What kept going through my head was watching Independence Day or, you know, like an alien invasion movie.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

JASON: Because there were tons of people coming pout. There were only rescue vehicles and like police and stuff like that going in. All the radio stations, most of the radio stations were tuned to the emergency broadcast thing.

GLENN: System, yeah.

JASON: So you're seeing that.

PAT: Wow.

JASON: So as you're driving down, you can actually see -- we would get to a certain area, after we broke apart from the main group. And we were trying to work our way through the back roads. We would get to a certain area. And then all of a sudden, you would see, you know, all the way up to the houses, all the way to the front doors, you know, the water's creeping in. The waters were sweeping over it -- like, you could just see the tops of trucks that had just gotten stranded in some of these intersections. You could not move.

GLENN: So, Jason, as you were going down there, you know, the big controversy over the weekend was, the city and the state had an argument, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.

The argument from the city was not, no, we shouldn't evacuate because it might cause more problems. It was, no, I don't know if we need to do it yet, if I'm not mistaken. Kind of the same thing that happened in New Orleans.

However, that may have turned out to be a great blessing. Because you would have had probably a million people trapped in their cars on these highways. And -- and nowhere to go. That's what happened, you know, in -- in all evacuations. And the last time it happened in Houston, people were stuck in traffic. They ran out of gas. And families were trapped in their cars.

Now, imagine, five, six, seven, eight, some places, 12 feet of water. Would that have been much worse, do you think?

JASON: Oh, my gosh, yes. I think -- to go off that point, I think they were doing it right. It seemed like it was efficient the way they were doing it. They had two stages, as we were listening to the emergency broadcast.

There was the -- there was the suggested evacuation, saying that, okay. In these areas, water level is rising. We suggest you evacuate. But it wasn't mandatory.

The places that were dire, those were under mandatory evacuation. So it was going in like stages. So you could -- there were certain areas that you had to get out in mandatory evacuation. They would leave. So those were the people we were seeing cruising down the freeway or getting out of there.

But it was managed. The other places that we suggest you evacuate, that was actually kind of surreal. And you can see how people actually -- you wonder -- you know, when you see these news broadcasts, how these people -- why did they stay in their homes? Like, how did it get to this point?

I could actually get that now. Because you go into some of these villages on the outskirts of Katy. And you've seen these neighborhoods, Pat. They're just like our neighborhoods, like the neighborhood I live in. There are people that are walking their dogs down the sidewalk. They're looking at the waters rise. You know, and there's kids, you know, building little toys and that's going into it. They didn't feel threatened at the time, while water is gradually, gradually rising.

But I can sympathize with them. Because I'm like, well, if it's not really -- if it's not coming up to my door, I'm probably not leaving either. Because I have all my stuff in here.

PAT: We went through many storms and several hurricanes and never flooded in Katy. So especially Katy residents would probably be like, well, that's not going to happen here.

GLENN: So I was just talking to a guy about -- because I can't take the tornadoes here anymore. I just can't. It freaks my children out. And so I want to build a storm shelter. And I want to build a storm shelter also for the library that I have. I don't want it sucked up into the sky.

And so I'm talking to this guy. And he said, "You know, don't build the -- where do you want to build it?" I said, "I don't know where we could go." And he said, "Well, I suggest you build it in your garage." And I said, "Well, wait. Why?"

And he said, "Because if you build it where you have to go outside -- think of this, usually it will be in the middle of the night. And you'll have to get everybody up. And you'll have to go outside, get dressed. It will be raining. Blah, blah, blah. And then nothing will happen, and then you'll get wet coming back in, and then you'll all go to bed. And what will happen, one or two storms down the road, you'll say to the kids, "You know what, let's just stay here in bed. And we'll all go if it gets bad." And then you're sucked up into the sky.

And the same thing happens here with these hurricanes is you've gone through them over and over again. Nothing happens. And you're not seeing -- it doesn't connect with you that that's going to happen to you or your neighborhood.

And then all of a sudden -- you were driving yesterday, and you would drive down the streets. And you were trying to get places. And by the time you went, "Okay. Well, that's blocked," you'd turn around, and you would realize, "I'm trapped. I can't get out now."

JASON: That was the most claustrophobic feeling, and that's what the rescuers are having to put up with this too. I had never heard of this, in some of these situations.

Because usually it's like, after the fact, the waters had risen. They pretty much leveled off, and then rescue workers go in. It's still rising, even up to this day. So as we were getting to certain points, water was rising behind us. So we were like, well, how the heck do we get out of here. At one point, we just stopped beside the road and scratched our heads and said, "We might be stuck out here for a night."

Like, this car is getting swept away. You know, one of the coolest on that -- that little conundrum of trying to get out, I saw one of the coolest things I saw out there.

So we got to a certain point, just before we had to evacuate and get out of there, to where we got to a point to where we were going to try to turn around. The water level was rising about halfway up under one of the homes.

And you saw a long line of cars. People were just pulling up into people driveways. It's like, why are all these cars pulled into people's driveways and yards?

Well, what it was, was that was kind of like the point of no return. All the neighborhood -- the people and the residents of these homes, they were driving up, basically metaphorically to the fire. Whatever they had, they had blow-up boats, they had floaties, they had canoes. And they were like, this way.

And they were going right up there, and they were throwing in their own, and they were going to help out their neighbors. I got chills seeing that. I wanted to stay there and watch. But, again, we would have gotten swept up with it too. But that's what they were willing to do for their neighbors. It was amazing.

GLENN: Right. And they were driving their car. And everybody was walking away, going, my car is lost. It's just like -- that's not going to -- I'm never going to see that again.

JASON: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: It's really remarkable. Jason, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

JEFFY: I mean, the company that rented Jason's car, he didn't care.

(laughter)

STU: That's a fair point.

JEFFY: Thanks, Glenn.

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

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

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

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

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

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global reality.

And moral reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our faith is almost gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why can't we open the government?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in nostalgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A conservative in 2025, '26.

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

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

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

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

And one can't be stronger than the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

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

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

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

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Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

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The forgotten way

The only way