‘Before You Wake’: Erick Erickson Shares the Story Behind His New Book

October 11, 2017

WRITER

What is it like to fear that you and your spouse will both die and leave your kids?

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson and his wife recently faced devastating health crises at the same time, something Erickson has written about on The Resurgent.

“I have to tell you that American politics really does not matter when you have kids and are dying,” Erickson wrote earlier this month. “You begin to seriously ask yourself what you want your kids to know if you’re gone. My kids, were they to learn about me from Google, would really only know what people who hate me think about me.”

Late last year, Erickson wrote a piece styled as a letter to his young children titled “If I Should Die Before You Wake,” calling them to a life of purpose and joy. He has since expanded the project into 10 letters that became a book. “Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children” was released earlier this month.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: In the midst of twin medical crisis, the 2016 presidential campaign was in full swing. And I was a conservative who didn't support Donald Trump.

Protesters showed up at our home. People sent us hate mail. They called my office daily demanding that I would be fired. Everybody was convinced that I had destroyed my career. Our house had to be protected by guards. My two children were yelled at in the store by an angry man, who was angry at me for not supporting Donald Trump. At school, other kids made sure that they knew that their dad was not liked in their household.

Some of them wondered aloud if something bad was going to happen to us.

These are the words of Erick Erickson.

STU: Erick is, of course, radio host and commentator. And the book is called Before You Wake. And he joins us now.

GLENN: Erick, you're one of my heroes, brother. How are you?

ERICK: I'm well. Thanks for having me. Appreciate that.

GLENN: So, Erick, tell me -- first of all, for anyone else doesn't know, tell us about the twin health care crisis you were facing.

ERICK: Oh. So I just assumed it was the stress of last year, back in April, having protesters at the house and my kids yelled at, at the grocery store. And I was having a harder and harder time breathing. My chest was tight. Went into the hospital. And got wheeled into an ICU unit, not expected to make the night. My lungs had filled up with blood clots. Blood oxygen less than 90 percent dying. And, literally, as they're pushing me into a CT scan to scan my lungs, the doctors from the Mayo Clinic called my wife and told her, they think she might have a rare form of cancer. She needed to come out with a lung biopsy. And sure enough, she has a rare, incurable genetic form of lung cancer. And so we're going through all of that, as we're having protesters at our house. Armed guards protecting us. My kids coming home from school, crying with other kids, saying I'm going to get shot for not supporting the president. Their parents hating me. It was a -- 2016 was a rather miserable year in the Erickson household.

GLENN: So you started to write this book because you didn't die. And you wanted your kids to know the truth about you.

ERICK: Yeah, I did. And I really did think for a while, what happens -- if Christie and I, if something happens to us. I remember walking into the bedroom one night and told Christie, I just did not know that I would survive the week. And she just burst out crying that she had made a deal with God, one of us had to survive for the kids.

And I thought I need to actually sit down and write to my kids. What do I want you to know about your family, about God, about faith, and what are your favorite recipes, in case something happened to your parents? How would you make the cinnamon rolls I make for you? And it all wound up being a book that's prat book and part life lessons and part biography.

You know, I'm mindful, if my kids were to Google me tomorrow -- there's a joke in our kid's school, that I'm the one parent they're not allowed to use as an example for Google. Because God knows what they'll find on me. I want my kids to know the true things, the bad things I've done, the good things I've done, and why I want them to believe in God, so on the other side of eternity, we'll see each other again.

STU: Erick, what did going through all this teach you about prioritization?

ERICK: Oh, you know, my life involves politics, on radio, on the Resurgent. On TV. And I want my kids to understand that I think it is far more important for them to have a relationship with their next-door neighbor. Whether they agree politically or not, than to be online yelling people about the politics of the day. There's so much more to like than politics.

GLENN: You -- you actually -- you actually wrote something. I'm trying to find it here. I read it this morning again, about how you just -- the social media thing is just -- you feel is a real problem.

ERICK: Yeah. You know, I think Twitter, in particular, brings the worst out in all of us. Myself included.

You know, there's that scene in the Bible where Jesus -- I'm actually in seminary right now. We studied this two weeks ago, where the possessed man comes to Jesus. And he says to the demon possessing, what is your name? And the demon says, Legion.

And Christ throws the Legion into the swarm of pigs, which runs down the bank and drowns in the lake. And I think what the Bible leaves off after that, is that after the pigs have drowned and the demons get out of the bigs, they all got Twitter accounts. And you see that so much online. I mean, it brings out the worst in all of us. And I swear hell's army is on Twitter.

And I want my kids to get their sense of self-worth by being ethical people created in the image of God, not because they got a bunch of retweets or likes on Instagram or Facebook.

GLENN: I want to quote a couple of things. I always try to forgive. As I've gotten older and dumber, I've come to realize how much more I need forgiveness and how often people refuse to forgive.

First of all, give me that.

ERICK: Well, you know, there's a lot less grease in the world today. And I've done dumb things in my life. Things I regret. And I find ten years later, people still want to throw them in my face of, you're no moral authority on this because look at what you did ten years ago.

And I -- I can't tell someone to get over that, but I can get over it myself with other people. I can show forgiveness to other people who have done good and not still define them by the bad things they've done.

I think more and more in this world, people want to define you by the worst thing you did, no matter how long ago it is. And if we do that to each other, we have no incentive to improve as people, because we'll always be defined by that.

GLENN: So, Erick, I was up in Nantucket, in a conference, at a summit. And I was --

STU: Popular? Is that the word you were looking for?

GLENN: I was pretty popular up there.

ERICK: That's one for Nantucket.

GLENN: Yeah. And so I was up there for three days. And it had been a horrible, horrible experience. And there were other things that happened in my life at the time that just -- I mean, it broke me. It broke me in half. That weekend was just a really hard weekend for me.

And I had to speak on Sunday. A second time to this crowd.

And I've never -- I got up in the morning, and I was -- it was -- I was in the bathroom. In front of the mirror. And I was on my knees, when my wife came in.

And she said, honey, what's wrong?

And I said, mercy. I don't believe there's mercy anymore. And I've never understood the plea for mercy more than I do right now.

It's -- it's a remarkable gift that I think Facebook and Twitter -- you're exactly right, will never allow you to move forward.

ERICK: Yeah. I think that's true. And I think that's why we have an obligation to do it. And, you know, I -- I decided a couple years ago. I kept getting asked to give Sunday sermons in small churches around Georgia. I talk about culture and faith on my radio show. And decided I probably ought to go to seminary, which was the greatest thing I did. Although, the moment I went, I stopped getting the invitations to preach, when I found out where I was going, to seminary. But I love it.

And we spend a lot of time on this topic. And one of the things that's made me appreciate it is that, our ways aren't their ways. And we need to be a light in the world. And whether you're a person of faith or a conservative, however you view yourself, you need to be a light in the world. And you start by showing grace and extending mercy to people who don't do it to you. And show that your way actually is a way forward. And I -- I don't know that there's enough of that. And I fear that as conservatives who look more and more towards political solutions to spiritual problems, that they're going to be to become more tribal as well and not show grace and mercy the other way. And those of us who do, I think, stand out more and more. And that's not a prideful thing. It's a humble thing, knowing that you've got to be willing to extend the hand to people who don't want to extend the hand to you. But you still got to make yourself do it.

GLENN: It's amazing. It's almost -- if I ask a crowd of Christians how many believe in the gospel of Christ. They'll all raise their hand.

ERICK: Uh-huh.

GLENN: If I say, will you really follow it, they'll all raise their hand. But even Peter denied Jesus three times. Even Peter.

Worse. You know, Judas sold him out.

ERICK: Right.

GLENN: I'm not sure how many of us are even at Peter's level because it's not that hard to offer mercy and forgiveness to people who are saying and doing horrible things to you or to your country or whatever. And trying to have compassion and forgiveness -- and empathy for them.

And yet so many Christians see that as a sign of weakness.

ERICK: Well, you know, one of the things I wrote in the book for my kids. And I hope one day they will read this. Is that my wife has a very hard time with grudges. And she will admit it. And I have told her, as I wrote in the book, that if you can't forgive someone, you are saying that your conscience was pricked more than Jesus', who having been beaten, tortured, bloodied, and nailed to a cross, on a cross, before he died, said, "Forgive them." If you can't forgive someone for slighting you after what they did to him and he said forgive them, you're saying you were -- you were abused more than he was on the cross.

GLENN: She must love that when you say that to her.

ERICK: Oh, yeah. Well, let me tell you, it puts me in the doghouse. But sometimes you got to make your wife feel guilty. Because she's making me feel guilty every day. I mean, she guilted me into buying her a Harley. She said, I've got cancer. You have to buy me a motorcycle. So I had to.

STU: Erick, God forbid something does happen to you. You know your kids will obviously read this book. But if everything goes okay, at what point do you become angry at them for not reading it while you're alive? What is the age?

ERICK: Maybe when they're in their 20s. My 12-year-old has tried twice. And she can't get past the introduction.

STU: Okay. That's a good line. At least they know where their line is to be a good kid.

GLENN: So, Erick, I've been concentrating lately on what matters most in my own life. And I think we can all get to this point to where you say, this is garbage. I mean, what I'm doing maybe is garbage. What I'm thinking is garbage. What I'm pursuing is garbage. Whatever. And you start to look and say, "What matters most?"

ERICK: Yes.

GLENN: You're in a political position. What matters most?

ERICK: I always fall back on the first question in the shared catacysm of the Catholic and Protestant. What's the chief end of man? To glorify God or enjoy him forever? And it doesn't matter what I do in life. As long as I think I'm glorifying God, then it's okay. And I'm in politics. And I spend a lot of time trying now to write about conforming my politics to my faith instead of my faith to my politics. And it's made it much more difficult in life to have that realization, I have to do that. But I think as long as I'm doing that, I'm okay. And people might hate me. They may stop listening to me or stop reading me. But I think I'm in the right place.

GLENN: How has that manifested itself with you?

ERICK: It makes me much more difficult for me to find the easy solution. Whether it's on immigration or crime or anything else. There's lots of easy solutions when you abandon your faith. And when you have your faith, there's a more difficult balancing act. But I'm also challenged by that. And I like that challenge of doing it every day. And honestly, I sleep well at night. And there is an art to sleeping well at night. And part of it is understanding there are real priorities, and policies isn't one of them.

GLENN: Erick Erickson, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

ERICK: Thank you.

(music)

STU: Erick Erickson. Of course, he started the Resurgent, the website. You definitely should be reading, as well as Before You Wake: Life Lessons From a Father to His Children is the new book. We'll tweet that out, @worldofStu. And @GlennBeck.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

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

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global reality.

And moral reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our faith is almost gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why can't we open the government?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in nostalgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A conservative in 2025, '26.

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

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

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

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

And one can't be stronger than the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

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

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

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

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

Evil 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

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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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