Review: 'Wish' is the latest failure from no-luck Disney

December 11, 2023

AaronP/Bauer-Griffin / Contributor | Getty Images

Kevin is an award-winning writer who focuses on long-form literary nonfiction and investigative reporting.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Disney has had a terrible birthday. To celebrate the mega-corporation's 100-year anniversary, you can buy special-edition beanies and commemorative dollhouses and tiny Disney-character statues at McDonald's. But the fairy tale of Disney is nearing its end. Because Disney is on a hell of a losing streak. By nearly every metric, the company is failing. It’s like watching a gifted athlete pull his hamstring and, when he tries to keep running, you hope he survives the death-rush.

Disney is on a hell of a losing streak.

On a recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted, “Quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality, and I think that's exactly what happened: We lost some focus.”

He has admitted that Disney’s films have become too obsessed with social causes. As he told Aaron Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit:

Creators lost sight of what their No. 1 objective needed to be. We have to entertain first. It's not about messages.

The latest example is “Wish,” a movie that was supposed to serve homage to 100 years of Disney magic but that instead reveals the spectacle of activism: a hacky, uninspiring work of political snobbery too neutered to offer us nobodies anything more than a nodding-off or a swipe of the remote.

The failure of “Wish” is emblematic of the ongoing decline of Disney as a monopolistic empire of creativity.

It’s a movie for activists, by activists; for childless Millennials, by childless Millennials. And, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being a childless Millennial. But it’s probably not a great idea for Disney, which has succeeded as a result of young families, to pack its staff with people who don’t participate in, or who even oppose, the institution of family.

It’s a movie for activists, by activists; for childless Millennials, by childless Millennials.

Well, no-luck Disney bet on the wrong side, because the childless Millennial demographic isn’t big on spending, or at least not as much as family audiences are. And another question the Activist Class cannot answer: What long-term political benefits are to be had from an entire generation of childless voters?

Culturally, Disney is homeless, rejected by conservatives and ignored by a growing number of liberals (who also don’t buy Bud Light).

So the predictable take here would be for me to call Disney woke and celebrate its collapse, which is an entirely justified stance. My angle, however, is more about hope — my hope that Disney survives its own prolonged tragedy, that it pulls itself together or, at the very least, that there are a few more lovely moments before it croaks.

For me, this is personal: My house is full of Disney princesses.

In fact, one of my toddler’s favorite phrases is “I love all of the princesses!” We have no doubt seen all of the Disney movies — with the exception of “Strange World,” with its awful reputation, and "Bambi 2," because I’m not falling for that again.

My wife and I know literally every word of "Frozen." Few movies are as personal as it has been — my toddler owns an Elsa version of any imaginable household item, and some of our most beautiful moments involve her dancing in sunlight to “Let It Go.”

Our band-aids are Disney, so when one of us is hurt, we say, “Get me a princess!” As I write, at a desk covered with Disney princess stickers, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is playing behind me.

Culturally, Disney is homeless.

And this has been a fairly normal American -- even global -- relationship to Disney. Acceptance of every kind. The Forrest Gump of brands, unstoppable in its cultural power.

Disney’s mistake, it turns out, was a series of decisions that gutted it of its political neutrality.

Even my toddlers grew bored with "Wish" after two minutes.

“Wish” hasn't landed well with critics or, more importantly, with audiences, for good reason. It’s a truly bad movie. Hokey. Cheesy. Boring. Part of this is the result of what Bloomberg described as Iger’s “princess problem.”

It goes down as one of the worst Disney animated feature debuts. The “Trolls” movie, which is stronger and more musically adventurous, scored about the same numbers despite having been released one week earlier.

It’s a truly bad movie. Hokey. Cheesy. Boring.

My toddlers, who will stop for nothing but Disney, grew bored with the movie after two minutes. This is unprecedented. Only a week earlier, we attended the latest “Paw Patrol” movie — a much greater movie, from Nickelodeon (Paramount) — and they lasted about 45 minutes before reaching the same level of restiveness.

Anecdotal example, yes, but I can’t think of a clearer metaphor to describe the misguidedness of the activist mindset ruining Disney. A fantastic review of "Wish" by Alan Ng for Film Threat led me to the reality that Disney's dysfunction is deep-seated and activist-driven.

A common activist blunder: Place activism so far ahead of anything else that the supposed medium gets completely neglected.

"Wish" suffers from muddy plotlines and fear of committing any offense.

“Wish” was co-written by Jennifer Lee, the first female chief creative officer of Walt Disney Company, executive producer of “Raya and the Last Dragon,” as well as head of creative leadership for most of the Disney animated feature hits since 2012. She has shaped the latest generation of Disney.

Disney's dysfunction is deep-seated and activist-driven.

Despite the well-deserved acclaim for her part as director and writer of the "Frozen" films, Lee’s legacy could become linked to the growing trend of her work: muddy plotlines — full of dazzle — that spend so much time on quirks that the story gets rushed.

The film centers on Asha, played by Ariana DeBose, a decorated actress, a breathtaking singer, and a rabid activist whose foundation Unruly Hearts Initiative boasts connections to the Trevor Project, Point Foundation, and Covenant House, where DeBose holds a spot on the board. Which — who cares, but also, if the charities were conservative, Hollywood wouldn’t find DeBose’s efforts so laudatory.

The film was designed to drop Easter eggs like rainfall, but the references were mostly distractions. Asha’s seven sidekicks are a throwback to the dwarfs from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Disney’s first animated film. (A much better example of meta-Disney is the middle section of "Ralph Breaks the Internet," which has its own shortcomings, but at least they’re hidden beneath outstanding animation, reliable comedy, and decent storylines.)

The central crisis of the film is the duality of power. On Rosas, the Mediterranean island where Asha lives, each person is allowed to materialize one wish, on his 18th birthday. It’s not clear why the people are only allowed to have one wish, and as other critics have observed, many of these wishes are more “goals,” which any person could accomplish.

Nevertheless, the powerful King Magnifico has total control of the blue orbs that contain the wishes. King Magnifico uses a state of exception (“Is it tyranny if it’s for your safety?”) to convince his citizens that he’s a wise, good-hearted, impeccably handsome ruler.

The central crisis of the film is the duality of power.

It’s not clear what Magnifico is protecting citizens of Rosas from. Why is he so stingy with his wish-granting? He certainly does become frightening. “Wacky” is probably a better word. He builds his power by crushing the wishes of his citizens — each time, it kills a part of them, robs them of their essence, and transforms them into a sad, bare life of the evil sovereign.

(For many reasons, the power-obsessed authoritarian king is actually an apt metaphor for Disney as an artistic institution.)

Who’s the real villain, though? If it’s fear that motivates him, fear that his people will suffer from not having their wishes granted, then we have the kind of padded version of evil mocked in an episode of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” where the only safe villain is a weather disruption, like climate change.

The power-obsessed authoritarian king is actually an apt metaphor for Disney as an artistic institution.

In other words, the worst-case outcome of Magnifico’s terror is that people feel a tad more bummed out than usual, which has become a reality of modern life.

What is a 17-year-old peasant like Asha to do? Beg for help from the sky. Just like that, a beautiful goofball of a star named Star torpedoes down and starts granting wishes and giving animals the ability to speak. (Symbolically, the star represents the magic of Disney, which has given voice to the voiceless, like animals.)

But “Wish” is terrified of committing an offense. There’s no room for irreverence — and life without irreverence always leads to a weird new kind of profanity. In a neutered world, there’s no room for creation. No room for invention.

"Wish" created a meaningless villain.

Disney can be harsh with its villains, gutting them into nothingness (Gaston, Ursula, Cruella de Vil). But it can also treat them with tremendous compassion — as with Te Kā, the lava monster in “Moana.” “Wish” is so conflicted in its meaningless normative absolutism that it accomplishes neither.

In a song with a beat and hook possibly ripped from the Knife’s brilliant “One Hit,” “Knowing What I Know Now” spells out what exactly makes Magnifico so villainous.

In this truly catchy song, Asha sings that Magnifico is:

More vicious than I could have ever comprehended / When I made a wish and Star came down / This is not what I expected or intended / But now that it's happened I don't regret it / 'Cause now I've seen / Him show his true colors in shades of green / Saying that your wishes aren't safe because of me and / That's a lie, lie, lie, lie.

Beyond the somewhat cringe-inducing lyrics, this song implies that Jiminy Cricket’s entire mission, his wish upon the star, is one of activism.

So why is Magnifico “more vicious than [Asha] could have ever comprehended?” Well, for one, he doesn’t grant every single wish, and that’s just not fair. Also, his tone. Very harsh. He’s also quite mansplainey.

Triumphantly, the peasants stomp, chanting: “I don't think he's prepared for what's coming / A revolution hit the ground runnin’.” This “revolution” winds up being the political equivalent of a child shouting “go away, you silly ghost” as a tornado guts a town. Basically: “We have to steal the king’s power. He doesn’t deserve it. So we have to overthrow him.” On a deeper level, what these privileged writers are likely actually saying is, “I want you to believe that capitalism makes me sad!”

One obvious assumption is that every peasant’s wish is kind-hearted. This is a mistake that Karl Marx made about the proletariat. He assumed all the bourgeois were evil and all the peasant class were inherently good. By rebelling against the king — together — the peasants can overthrow him. Because that’s how oppression works in the wishful mind of a professional activist.

One obvious assumption is that every peasant’s wish is kind-hearted. This is a mistake that Karl Marx made about the proletariat.

So King Magnifico is shrunken into a mirror, then thrown into a dungeon — to be fair, this is the exact fate of Bowser in the (far superior) "Super Mario Bros. Movie." But here it just feels so social-justicey, so hypothetical, too ready to fire into a shower curtain after a glass of wine: The peasants incarcerated the man! (Head explodes, launching neon-dyed hair like shrapnel.)

If activism will save Disney, it's activism against its current activist mania.

The problem with this sort of absolutism is that it can easily be flipped against itself. “Zootopia,” for instance, tells the story of a society secretly controlled by sheep, an attack on predators in the name of safety. This (literal) conspiracy is universal enough to affirm the exact racist or misogynistic or anti-Semitic movements the film’s message assumes to confront.

The same goes for “Wish.” Is it really a figuration of egalitarianism, or is it rather a promotion of a kind of freedom that only capitalism can offer?'

The problem with this sort of absolutism is that it can easily be flipped against itself.

“You’re only allowed to have one wish, and it probably won’t come true” doesn’t exactly sound like Adam Smith. It does, however, evoke imagery of a dying Soviet Union where life itself became a whittled-down promise, a call to be sacrificed that people can’t decline.

The film’s attitude clearly sides with the more collectivist ideology, which flexes the undifferentiation of socialist societies, the inevitable decline into sameness. There is, however, a sense of personal responsibility: “Make your own wishes happen; don’t let a king decide.” Which is a fairly conservative stance.

The film’s attitude clearly sides with the more collectivist ideology.

And oddly enough, activism might very well be the force that saves Disney — but an activism against its current activist mania. “Activist investor” Nelson Peltz wants to pull the company back toward the center.

But for now, Cinderella's castle keeps rotting. “Wish” isn’t going to sell T-shirts or Halloween costumes, let alone branded toothbrushes and fruit snacks. So to whoever will follow in Disney’s Goofy-sized footsteps: Keep hacking at that ugly marble.

***

Thank you for reading. Feel free to send corrections, rants, notes, and outpourings to kryan@mercurystudios.com and follow on X

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.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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.

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.

Glenn's Show Prep

Review: 'Wish' is the latest failure from no-luck Disney

Disney is on a hell of a losing streak.

It’s a movie for activists, by activists; for childless Millennials, by childless Millennials.

For me, this is personal: My house is full of Disney princesses.

Culturally, Disney is homeless.

Even my toddlers grew bored with "Wish" after two minutes.

It’s a truly bad movie. Hokey. Cheesy. Boring.

"Wish" suffers from muddy plotlines and fear of committing any offense.

Disney's dysfunction is deep-seated and activist-driven.

The central crisis of the film is the duality of power.

The power-obsessed authoritarian king is actually an apt metaphor for Disney as an artistic institution.

"Wish" created a meaningless villain.

One obvious assumption is that every peasant’s wish is kind-hearted. This is a mistake that Karl Marx made about the proletariat.

If activism will save Disney, it's activism against its current activist mania.

The problem with this sort of absolutism is that it can easily be flipped against itself.

The film’s attitude clearly sides with the more collectivist ideology.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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

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

The crisis beneath the headlines

The quiet return of meaning

Where renewal begins

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

What triggers the Bubba effect

A country cracking from the inside

The dangers of a faithless system

The responsibility now belongs to us

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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.

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

Truth-seeking is real work

Bad-faith questions

The real target

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

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.

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

Parallel societies do not end well

A crisis of confidence

Stand up and tell the truth