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'How the Right Lost Its Mind': Charlie Sykes Asks Conservatives What They Truly Care About

October 30, 2017
Staff

WRITER

What happened to the conservative movement?

That’s the question asked in Charlie Sykes’ new book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” an exploration of the conservative movement’s descent into alt-right insanity and Trumpian demagoguery. On today’s show, he and Glenn talked about the real values that conservatives should return to and the questions we should be asking.

“What is it that we care about?” Sykes asked rhetorically. “It’s freedom, limited government, constitutionalism, personal responsibility, respect for the truth. … Rather than be locked into some sort of a zombie-like dogma, you know, ask, ‘What kind of a society do we want to be?’”

Listen to the full segment (above) to hear Sykes explain why we need to break out of our “tribes” to reconnect as people.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: There's a lot going on in the news today. Robert Mueller has issued an indictment. It's not a surprise at all. It is for Paul Manafort and his -- and his business partner. Bad guy.

We've told you that for a long time. This is putting Donald Trump in a very bad position, and we'll get more on that, coming up.

We also have Charlie Sykes. Charles Sykes is the author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind. Up until a few years ago, he was the most powerful talk show host in Wisconsin. And he just had to walk away from it because he didn't understand the conservatives anymore.

I think now, wrongfully, he is being labeled as, you know, somebody who has just run over to the left because he's seen on NBC and he's read in the New York Times and everything else.

But that's not who he is. At least that's not who I think he is. And we welcome him now, Charlie Sykes.

Hi, Charlie, how are you?

CHARLIE: Good morning. Thank you for that, by the way, Glenn. I appreciate that.

GLENN: You're welcome.

So are we some of those right who have lost their minds?

CHARLIE: You mean you and me?

GLENN: Yeah.

CHARLIE: Well, I don't know. I think there are some -- some oasis of sanity. But I think we all need to look in the mirror and go, okay. Did we contribute to this? Did we help create this monster? And I know that you go to this introspection.

And part of what I did after I left my radio show was to sit back and just sort of sit for a little while, and go, how did that happen? What did we miss?

Were there things that were stewing out there that we didn't understand? Were our allies not exactly who they were?

You mentioned the people saying, well, you obviously have defending -- no. I'm actually saying exactly the same things I have been saying for a very, very long time.

GLENN: Yeah.

CHARLIE: And I'm watching a lot of people that I I thought I understood -- do 180 flips. And you really have to watch, what's going on sneer.

GLENN: So, Charlie, it's really difficult. Because we feel the same way, that there's a lot of people who say, we've defected. Blah, blah, blah. No, we've stood in place. We're not going over the cliff with the rest of the party and the rest of humanity.

And I'm more concerned -- Jimmy Kimmel said this weekend, which I was glad to hear him say -- I don't know if he's tying it to the right alone, but I said, under Barack Obama, you can't let this kind of stuff fester, because who is going to come into office next time? And we have an answer to that.

Now, who follows Donald Trump? Now is the time to get a hold of ourselves and our principles. Or we're in real trouble. From both sides.

CHARLIE: Oh, I completely agree. And, you know, Donald Trump -- please, don't misunderstand me when I say this, that Donald Trump doesn't shock me or bother me. Because he is what he is. You know, he's always been the same thing. He's not going to change. What's really bothering me is what's happening to the rest of us. The damage to the culture. I think that his legacy won't be measured simply in policy decisions, you know, including some that I would agree with.

It's going to be measured in the coarsening of our culture, in what we Americans have decided that we are willing to accept, look the other way.

I was actually on a show yesterday morning with somebody that I had deeply admired for more than a decade. And he was suggesting that, you know, once we get tax reform through, we will no longer have to worry about the character of the president.

And I will tell you, Glenn, I was actually shocked. Because I said, you know, I'm old enough to remember when conservatives actually thought things like character and truth and decency, honestly, all of those things actually did fundamentally matter. And maybe were even more important than politics.

GLENN: Policies. Yeah. It was. To me, it still is. Character -- if you don't have character, you don't have anything. You don't have a chance at survival without character.

So, Charlie, how do you -- how do you repair this?

CHARLIE: I don't honestly know. That's a really, really good question. I think it is going back to these first principles. And, you know, the -- there was a time where you realized, okay. We're going to be in the wilderness for a while.

It turns out, that the wilderness is a little bit -- there are fewer of us in the wilderness than I was perhaps expecting, but the wilderness is a good place to begin rethinking these things. What is really important? What is really valuable?

I've lived a life, like a lot of conservative talk show hosts, where you go from one election to another. And every single election is the apocalypse. Every single election, everything is at stake. And maybe you need to step back and you realize, okay. Elections are important. There's no question about that.

But there are some things that are more important. So let's go back. What is it that we -- that we care about? Is it -- it's freedom. Limited government. Constitutionalism. Personal responsibility.

Respect for the truth. All of those things. And also, understand that maybe we ought to look around to our fellow Americans. And rather than be locked into some sort of zombie-like dogma. You know, ask, what kind of a society do we want to be? What makes for the good life? Are we actually treating one another the way that we ought to be treating one another?

Now, in order to get back to it, I think we kind of have to break out of the chrysalis of our tribe, which may be mixing the metaphor. And maybe if you look around and go, "Okay. We've been engaging in these tribal politics. But look at where it led us. Look at what it's done to us. And is this really who we want to be?

GLENN: So, Charlie, you are somebody who -- I mean, I have been out to Silicon Valley and Hollywood. I have not gone to Washington and New York.

And I find at the upper echelon of both of those, I find people who are Democrats and who are now saying, I'm just afraid of my side as your side. There's something bad happening. And we have to solve this. And they fight -- I think like all people do, they fight against this feeling of ugh, you know, the other side is getting away with X, Y, and Z. But they have realized, this is what has caused the problem, is just looking at the -- at the splinter in someone else's eye. They've missed the beam in their own side. However, when I do talk to people in the media -- and you're probably closer to people in the media than I am, I don't see that from them. I don't -- I don't see a willingness to look at the -- the beam in their own eye.

Do you?

CHARLIE: No. But let me -- let me get to a point that you made before. You know, one of the great shocks for me, has been this -- this adoption of -- this moral relativism, across -- across the lines of American politics. That winning is so important, that, you know, if they did it, we can do it as well.

And to see conservatives adopt that, that sort of relativistic approach has been really appalling. But your point on the media is right on. One of the things that have happened -- and I talk about it in my book. Is, I've been a long-time media critic, talking about the bias, the double standards. I think at some point, we have perhaps succeeded at delegitimizing the media in the eyes of a lot of folks, which broke down our immunity to fake information and propaganda. But having said that, I do think that everybody in American politics and the media does need to step back and have this moment of introspection. You know, the -- I do have a lot of context in the media. And I don't sense that kind of introspection, that I think is necessary. Do you understand why so many people believe that you are biased, that you do have the double standards?

Do you understand how you manage to blow all of that credibility? You created the space for, you know, the demagogues. You know, the folks like Breitbart. And Infowars. And all of those folks.

But I don't sense that there is that sort of looking in the mirror and going on.

GLENN: Do you have time to stay with us for a little longer?

CHARLIE: Sure. Absolutely.

GLENN: Okay. Charlie Sykes. The author of How the Right Lost Its Mind. And I think -- I can count them -- I can count them on three fingers, I think. I think I can count them on three fingers, the people who actually stood. And Charlie was one of them. In fact, Charlie -- Charlie kind of just disappeared for a while and said, "I can't do this anymore."

And I have profound respect for him. And I have -- I have not read the book cover to cover, but I have read enough of the book to tell you that he's right about how we -- how we went awry and how we each of us have to look, on both sides of the aisle, at our own role and say, "What did I propagate?" But also, what did I accept in my own life?

And we'll continue our conversation. And talk a little bit about Mueller and what's going to happen next, with Charlie Sykes.

GLENN: At that point in time get Paul Manafort for here with Charlie Sykes in just a second.

STU: Charlie, Glenn and I have been talking about this for a while. And I'm sure you've been doing a lot of thinking of this, writing the book. I think a lot of the people in the talk radio audience want that perfect world, they want a world where there is about principles, they want a world where this is about real foundations.

But they see, with the media landscape, that if they don't push back against every single thing and fight super hard, nobody is going to do it for them. And they're just going to get rolled over. Do you think that's where the audience is, and why sometimes they might embrace some of the way the media is run now?

CHARLIE: Oh, yes, I do. In fact, that was me. I felt, okay. I'm on the rampart. And my job is to push back on this. If I don't push back on this, who will? And I do think that that contributed to it. And I think over the years, it ramped up. It ramped up in intensity, to the point where you look around you, like, okay. How did I get here? How did I come all the way this far?

GLENN: So, Charlie, I've never shared this on the air, but you would have the brain that could get your arms around this one, to see if you think this is valid. I think what Rush Limbaugh did was absolutely valid and accurate for 1990. What he did was say a point of view that nobody heard. And nobody had articulated. And he taught us how to articulate an argument. But then a couple of things happened.

Our friends stopped listening, as soon as they said, where did you get that? Rush Limbaugh? Well, yeah. So they stopped listening. But Rush kept giving us the argument for our friends. The friends over time disappeared. And then people like us populated radio. And we did the Rush Limbaugh model. And we weren't saying how to talk to your friends. We were saying, this is what is right. This is where you go. And we just grew further and further apart, into our own echo chambers. And we didn't listen to one another. We were no longer trying to make the argument to our friends, who we thought were rational, because we were really being told that our friends aren't rational. And they became irrational, as we became irrational.

CHARLIE: I certainly was think that you followed that trajectory. And then I started in the early 1990s on radio as well. When -- you know, there was a time when actually we had to formulate these arguments. When, in fact, our job was to persuade.

But I think you're absolutely right, that as time went on. We really did separate ourselves into what I began calling the alternative reality silos, where, you know, really, we didn't wall ourselves off.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait. I don't think we did. I mean, I think in some ways we did because we didn't recognize it.

CHARLIE: Right.

GLENN: But we were walled off. The left did its number on us to wall us off. Yeah.

CHARLIE: They stopped. Oh, no, no. This goes both ways. There's no question about it. Somebody has got to write multiple volumes of how the left lost its mind. By the way, your story about the George Washington plaque would be chapter one on that. That's somebody else's --

GLENN: Yeah.

CHARLIE: But we were walled off. And part of the problem that I think folks in the left and the media ought to recognize is to realize they have no idea what conservatives were thinking for many, many years. They simply -- they didn't read conservative books. They didn't listen to conservative talk radio. They had a caricature out there. And as a result, they did not understand how they looked and how they sounded to conservatives. And they certainly do not understand what happened over the last several years.

GLENN: So let me go to Paul Manafort. What is this going to do?

CHARLIE: Well, it's going to put a heck of a lot of pressure on the White House. I see already that there are some people trying to spin this as, this is a nothing burger because it does not relate directly to the Trump campaign and collusion.

GLENN: This is huge.

CHARLIE: But, look, let's just take a step back here. This investigation is very much the real deal. This is just the beginning. It's a rolling investigation. And I think the Paul Manafort -- the whole Paul Manafort story for me sort of represents the worst people in the world phenomenon, which is that whatever Donald Trump's personal flaws are, he also at various points in his campaign and administration empowered, the people have called, the worst people in the world. Drowned himself with some really skeezy folks, whether it's Roger Stone or Paul Manafort.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

CHARLIE: Here's my other point for conservatives: Look, it is one thing to agree with the administration, support them on issues where you share their values. The right to life. Conservative judges. Small government. Regulatory reform.

But that doesn't mean that you need to defend every single aspect, including if, in fact, the Russians did interfere in our elections, tried to hack our democracy. This is not something that we should rationalize or look the other way.

GLENN: Charlie, thank you very much. Author of the book: How the Right Lost Its Mind. Worth a read.

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.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

The real target

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.