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‘We Live in Two Americas’ – but the Dividing Line Isn’t What You’re Thinking

February 26, 2018
Staff

WRITER

How did we get here? Why do so many people just not care about the facts anymore?

On today’s show, Glenn talked about why the gun debate and so many other issues show that our country is divided into those who are willing to listen to logic and reason and those who are not.

“This is the problem,” Glenn said. “There are two Americas, and it is not left and right. It is those who are willing to engage in logical conversation and actual thinking and those who want to do Common Core, ‘2 plus 2 equals 5 if you can show me how you got there.’”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: I've been reading a lot of history. I've been reading a lot of philosophy. I've been reading a lot of Jesus. I've been reading a lot. Trying to figure out, how the hell did we get here?

Now, I -- I know the Progressive Era. I know the movement of post modernism.

I know history. So I know where we're headed. But what happened? How is it so many people just don't care about facts anymore? What is that?

I believe we have come to the end of the enlightenment. The enlightenment was a period of the 1700s that was the -- the death of religion and the death of the king.

It was the death of people ruling over other people. Because people had an opportunity to read, to think, to pray, to read their Bible. To listen to science.

And so they said, no more nonsense, no more nonsense, no more -- no more people telling me, I am your king. Because God told me I was your king.

Well, I can't sense that. I can't feel that. I can't taste that. I can't see it, hear it, smell it. I'm not going to buy into that. Because it's nonsense.

And so we put an end to nonsense, and we came to common sense. There is something in all of us called common sense.

And we're going to base our lives on common sense and the search for truth. Being right isn't the important thing. The actual search for truth is the important thing.

And we're not going to take the truth, hand it down to us, from some king, from some priest. We're going to find it ourself.

That was the enlightenment. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and question with boldness even the he very existence of God. For if there be a God, he must surely honest questions over blindfolded fear.

Tell me the last time you saw an honest question come out of somebody on TV. Tell me the last time you saw an honest question being uttered by a politician.

I mean, when I say honest question, I mean one where the person is actually seeking the truth and it could change their mind. They're willing to ask a question, where if the person on the other side has a really great answer, they might say, huh. I don't know. I -- I don't know. I've never thought of it that way. I can't respond to that right now. I might have to get back to you.

When was the last time you saw that? That's the spirit of the enlightenment. That is what set America apart.

But we have replaced our churches with our parties, with our ideological dogma. We have replaced our church and our God with the planet and global warming. Fix reason firmly in her seat.

Is global warming happening? Well, it was for a while because I can read a thermometer. .7 degrees in the last 100 years. So is global warming happening? Well, it was.

Yes. Now, no. Will it start again? Maybe.

Do I believe in global warming? Let me check the thermometers. It's pretty easy. Do I believe that it's man made?

Hmm. I don't know. I -- my reason tells me that you can't just trash the sky and the water and the -- and the forests and the land and everything. Just trash it and everything is going to be great.

So, yeah, I think man does affect the planet. Does he affect it enough with -- with CO2, something that trees breathe, something that plants breathe? I don't know. Maybe. I don't think so.

I've seen the science. You can make a case. You can make a stronger case the other way. $14 trillion to fight it. Does any of it work? No.

If you believe in CO2, well, then, common sense would say that you need to stop eating all animals. Stop eating farm animals.

If you stop eating beef, you will do more to help, quote, the planet, than getting rid of all of the cars and everything else combined. It is the biggest factor.

So if you fix reason firmly in her seat, I'll have a conversation with somebody that believes in global warming. I'm going to have a hard time if it's your religion. But if you're opened to a rational conversation and you're a vegetarian, a vegan, I'm cool. Okay. At least you're consistent.

Now, let's have a discussion. But I will not listen to somebody who has burger breath and telling me that we are -- we are five years away from not being able to turn things around. You should be going after the meat industry, not the car industry, if that's what you believe.

Let's try this one: If you believe that we have to stop children from picking up sticks and pretending that it's a gun, that we must stop -- in fact, you've gone so far to classify finger guns, which all kids have played with forever.

That we have to fix our society because we are teaching our kids to be violent, with the class two lookalike firearm. That is now in the code book, as a finger gun. You know, like you used to as a kid. That's a class two lookalike finger gun. Okay. All right.

You believe that that is so dangerous, that our kids are pointing their fingers at one another, that that teaches them to be violent. Well, I'm -- I don't believe that, but I am with you, if -- if you are leading the way in Hollywood to stop all violence in movies. Because certainly, if a kid points his finger with a finger gun, that's training him, certainly watching all that violence with big, impressive stars, has got to be doing something. And God forbid, Hollywood, let's talk about games, where we can -- gaming our kids can be in virtual reality, with a machine gun. They can be a sniper and shooting people in the head.

And you don't want to have a conversation about that at all. Oh, you just -- what, are you some Neanderthal. Oh, yeah, like the games are making it -- wait. The class two lookalike finger gun. That does, but games don't?

I can't have a conversation with you. I cannot have a conversation with you. This is the problem. There are two Americas. And it is not left and right. It is those who are willing to engage in logical conversation and actual thinking. And those who want to do Common Core. Two plus two equals five, if you can show me how you got there.

You want to ban all guns. Let's think this through. We're the only country on earth that has the right to bear arms in the Constitution. So to get all guns taken away, to get ARs -- ARs have been around since Vietnam. Why is it that all of a sudden, we're having shooting with AR? Why are ARs a problem now? They weren't a problem in the '70s, but they are suddenly now.

If you fix reason firmly in her seat, that will tell you something has changed within us. Not the gun. However, you want to take away all guns. That will take you possibly a Civil War. But it will take you years to get that done. But you want to make sure that we never have this problem in school again.

Okay. Well, then we probably shouldn't start with the guns. We can talk about that, as long as we fix reason firmly in her seat, but are you aware that out of all of the mass shootings since 1950, all of them, only two have happened in the place where people can carry guns.

98.9 percent of all mass shootings in America have happened in a gun-free zone. That should tell you something.

How about this one? I don't want my kids living in a prison. Well, I don't want my kids living in a prison either.

Well, that's what it will be if you have armed guards around our schools. A prison?

I don't know. I've gone to a football game recently. They practically gave me an anal cavity search. It's a football game.

I didn't feel like I was living in a prison. I go travel at the airport. That's pretty intense. I don't feel like the airport is a prison. I feel it's nonsense, but I don't feel like it's a prison.

I go to megachurches. Megachurches have security everywhere. Armed personnel. I don't feel like that's a prison. I go to a concert, they check my wife's bag. I walk through a metal detector. I'm wanded. I don't feel like the concert is a prison.

I go to a bank. There's armed guards there, cameras everywhere, alarm systems. I don't feel like I'm in a prison. I feel like I'm in a bank. Why is it we protect everything?

We make sure you're wanded for everything. But God forbid we do that to protect our children. Is the stuff in your bank worth more than your child? Is a concert a higher priority to protect than our children in schools, everywhere, across the country?

I'm just trying to -- just trying to figure out what we're actually trying to accomplish here. Because I don't think -- I don't think we're actually trying to accomplish anything, except win.

That's it. We're not actually trying to solve a problem. Both sides just want to be right. That's it.

They just want to make sure that we get guns off the street, because they're right. No.

No, I don't think that's been decided, except for you in your mass. In your -- in your church service, wherever you hold that strange, I hate the Second Amendment church service. Wherever you hold that ceremony, that's what you've decided.

Now, I don't know if we can pull you out of your church long enough to fix reason firmly in her seat. But the problem with our country is that we have a officially -- officially unpegged ourself from the -- from the first principle of making this system, this grand American experiment, that man can rule himself. We have unpegged -- we have drawn up the anchor. And we have pulled out of the port of reason.

It is the enlightenment that gave this experience -- this experiment breath. It gave it life. Man cannot -- cannot rule himself without reason.

We're better than this. We know these things to be self-evident. We have just put on jerseys.

I will tell you what I've told the NRA since the day I joined them. I don't join clubs. I don't join groups. The only two groups that I think I belong to, my church, and I question all the time. I'm in trouble all the time because I question all the time. Good.

Same with the NRA. The minute they would violate and start to become a political source that was betraying the Second Amendment in any way. I'm done with it. That's the only reason.

I don't join for the discounts. I join the NRA because they stand to protect the Second Amendment.

And they do it with reason. The problem is, our society has unbegged from reason. I urge you today, fix reason firmly in her seat, and question with boldness. Question to the point to where you're open to changing your mind. Ask honest questions. Because that's the only way we're going to save our children.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parallel societies do not end well

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

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

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

A crisis of confidence

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

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

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

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.