Imagine standing in a war-torn city overseas, as I have on numerous deployments, walking through communities shattered not just by bombs and sectarian conflict, but by the follow-on failure of basic systems — water, power, food, even the educational system.

It’s a stark reminder that resilience isn’t abstract; it’s the difference between chaos and recovery. Back home, over 20 million Americans reported in 2023 that they could last at home for a month or more without publicly provided water, power, or transportation, a rate more than double that reported in 2017.

This trend is not occurring because of government guidance, but rather because of a perceived fear of government failure. Across the world, civil defense and national preparedness are surging in discussions, extending beyond disasters or war to encompass health, economics, energy, and the social, spiritual, and built environments of our communities.

Civilians have an active role to play and should not passively wait for government salvation.

The core question remains: Are we truly resilient?

Identifying gaps

In 2019, Quinton Lucie, a former attorney for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, wrote a blistering academic piece in Homeland Security Affairs. He argued that America no longer has the institutional experience or framework required for civil defense, a large pillar in overall national resiliency. In his words, the U.S. “lacks a comprehensive strategy and supporting programs to support and defend the population of the United States during times of war.” Retired Air Force General Glen D. VanHerck, the former commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, recently commented that America needs to be able to “take a punch in the nose … and get back up and come out swinging” regardless of whether the attack came in the cyber realm or something conventional.

An all-inclusive plan is not optional. Presidential Executive Order 12656 mandates whole-of-government responsibilities for various national security emergencies. Article Three of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, which created NATO, stipulates resilience, focusing on continuity of government, essential services for citizens, and military support. Implicitly, it calls on individuals to step up too — not just for war, but for natural disasters, economic slumps, or grid failures.

While non-binding, the 2020 NATO NSHQ Comprehensive Defence Handbook states that “resilience is the foundation atop the whole-of-society bedrock” and “is built through civil preparedness and is achieved by continually preparing for, mitigating, and adapting to potential risks well before a crisis.” The challenge is that civil preparedness requires this whole-of-society approach, not just a whole-of-government one. That is, we can’t have a strong nation without strong individuals and communities.

Facing perils head-on

What other perils might we confront? Food security is a prime example. During the U.S. government shutdown, food banks near bases experienced a 30%-75% surge from military families. This comes at a time when 42 million Americans are on food stamps and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. push for a healthier fighting force and populace. Globally, a February 2025 report by the U.K.’s National Preparedness Commission indicated that civil food resilience is highly vulnerable to myriad shocks to the status quo and that the populace was underprepared.

RELATED: Minneapolis ICE protesters are BEGGING for civil war — and we need to take them seriously

Photo by DAVID PASHAEE/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Utilities failures like water and electricity are another concern. In October 2025, the former top general of the National Security Agency warned of China’s aggressive targeting of U.S. critical infrastructure. This aligns with China’s “Three Warfares” strategy, which seeks to manipulate or weaken adversaries via public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare. China’s gray-zone activities against the U.S. also include synthetic narcotics like fentanyl and online actions to deepen political fissures.

Leaders are not sitting still. President Trump supports reshoring manufacturing capacity in the U.S. Onshoring and friend-shoring are hot topics among various industries, given rare-earth metal availability, tariffs, and general uncertainty. The U.S. Army is bolstering energy resilience, planning nuclear small modular reactors on nine bases by late 2028 and reclaiming a “right to repair” in contracts.

Big business is also in on the action. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase recently announced a $1.5 trillion plan for a more resilient domestic economy, seeing it as an issue of national security. With two Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2025 potentially fueling inflation, hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio advises 15% portfolio allocation to gold. Even Jan Sramek of California Forever is investing hundreds of millions to build a resilient city near San Francisco. Resilience, clearly, permeates every facet of life.

Resilience is global

This is not unique to the English-speaking world. Latvia, a small Baltic state bordering Russia and Russia’s ally Belarus, exemplifies a whole-of-society approach. The nation’s 2020 State Defense Concept — currently in execution — is comprehensive in its approach, both to potential perils and responsibilities. Accidents, pandemics, war, severe weather, and cyberthreats all require a citizenry-to-parliament strategy. The church plays a major role, as does physical fitness, patriotism, and education, which is why state defense is now compulsory in Latvian schools.

Germany is getting back into the bunker business and has earmarked €10 billion through 2029 for civil protection. Many Polish citizens do not see their governments doing enough and are taking matters into their own hands by building bunkers and attempting — unfortunately without much success — to establish neighborhood civil defense groups.

What resilient citizens can do

What should we take from this? First, preparedness is neither fringe nor irrational. It is a global movement involving politicians, billionaires, and everyday people. Second, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Resilience spans the full human spectrum: social, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual components, as I outline in my book “Resilient Citizens” through frameworks like the five archetypes (from Homesteaders to the Faithful) that show diverse, adaptable paths. Third, civilians have an active role to play and should not passively wait for government salvation. Tiered responsibility requires each echelon — from state to citizen — to play their parts, own up to their agency and responsibility, and act. Will you?

​Tech, Culture 

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have launched one of the largest Medicaid fraud crackdowns in American history. Raids. Indictments. Billions of dollars. A system designed to help the poor became a loot bag for criminals and grifters.

California saw those headlines and said, “They should have consulted us!”

Taxpayers don’t care whether fraud happens the Minnesota way — through day-care centers and nonprofits — or the California way — through health care accounting games.

Sacramento’s progressive class has spent years perfecting a cleaner version of the same scam — one that stays inside the lines, collects federal dollars on paper, and sends the bill to taxpayers everywhere else. Call it “legal.” Call it “approved.” Call it “routine.” None of those words makes it legitimate.

In 2004, the Government Accountability Office warned Congress that states were gaming Medicaid through intergovernmental transfers. States would shuffle public money through a circular process to make spending look real, inflate federal matching payments, then cycle the funds back to themselves. The GAO described “round-trip” arrangements that generated federal dollars without exposing states to true financial risk and that undermined the balance Congress intended.

Washington shrugged. Some states backed off. Others refined the trick.

California scaled it.

Medi-Cal, the state’s massive Medicaid program, now serves as the vehicle for this legal laundering operation. State officials insist that the system complies with federal rules. Fine. A loophole still remains a loophole, and taxpayers still pay the tab.

Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health policy organization, has laid out the mechanism clearly. Counties and public hospital systems transfer funds to the state through IGTs. The state counts that money as the “non-federal share” of Medicaid spending, then claims a larger federal match. Sacramento sends the combined state and federal funds back to government-owned providers through supplemental payments and formula-driven reimbursements.

The math almost always works in the contributors’ favor. The entities that send money in get reimbursed in full — and often receive more than they put up.

RELATED: $300M frozen: California allegedly forced Americans to fund illegal alien Medicaid — so Dr. Oz drops the hammer

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

California’s ambulance program shows how ugly this gets. Under the state’s Ground Emergency Medical Transport program, California bars payments from the state’s general fund. Public ambulance agencies instead receive “supplemental payments” that California largely restricts to public providers, limiting private companies’ access.

The result: California pays public ambulance providers about $1,065 per transport, while it offers private ambulance companies roughly $339 for the same job.

Then the federal government matches the inflated payments.

This isn’t just favoritism. It warps the market. It pushes private providers out and leaves patients with fewer options.

California has also expanded Medi-Cal eligibility regardless of immigration status. The state claims it funds routine coverage for “undocumented” adults with state dollars, but emergency Medicaid remains federally reimbursable. Sacramento still taps federal funds through the back door, even as it sells the program as a self-funded moral gesture.

This system stinks — even when regulators bless it.

And the political contrast tells you everything. Minnesota’s fraud scandal has created enough public anger to drive its Democrat governor out of the next election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), whose administration runs a program built on the same kind of federal exploitation — just with better paperwork — remains a top Democrat presidential prospect in 2028.

The federal government could stop this tomorrow. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could clamp down on the abuse of IGTs and demand a genuine state contribution, not an accounting illusion. Instead, under the Biden administration, CMS approved major expansions and encouraged the same incentives that fuel the problem.

Audits don’t fix it, either. Regulators review what states claim on paper, not what taxpayers actually fund. If a state can justify the scheme in bureaucratic language, CMS signs off. Fraud analysis often misses the point for the same reason. A state can structure IGTs so the “state share” exists largely as a bookkeeping device. Federal taxpayers remain the only party exposed to real financial loss.

Congress never designed Medicaid to serve as a revenue stream for local governments. It created Medicaid to help the poor. California’s 12-to-1 payment disparities punish the poor by reducing competition, shrinking access, and driving private providers out of business.

RELATED: The insane little story that failed to warn America about the depth of Somali fraud

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Congress already has the solution. The GAO outlined it two decades ago, and the George W. Bush administration backed the basic idea: Close the loophole by prohibiting Medicaid payments that exceed actual costs for government-owned facilities.

In plain English: Stop rewarding government-owned providers with inflated reimbursements that private providers can’t touch. Set equal rules. Require real state contributions. Cut the circular funding schemes that turn Medicaid into a federal ATM.

Taxpayers don’t care whether fraud happens the Minnesota way — through day cares and nonprofits — or the California way — through health care accounting games. We care that Washington keeps subsidizing systems designed to break the rules everyone else has to follow.

California built this machine. Congress can shut it down.

​California, Fraud, Medicare, Minnesota, Somali fraud, Medi-cal, Gavin newsom, Opinion & analysis 

The intentional implosion of the United States via mass immigration — often called the “Great Replacement” theory — has been “debunked” as a baseless, racist conspiracy theory by left-wing organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But what Glenn Beck just heard from bestselling author Peter Schweizer is proof that it’s not theory. It’s happening right now — and in places we wouldn’t expect.

Schweizer’s new book, “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon,” is a deep dive into the weaponization of mass migration as a political tool to influence U.S. elections, undermine national security, and reshape demographics and power structures.

While the book presents documented evidence exposing multiple foreign adversaries, including China, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Muslim Brotherhood, for weaponizing immigration for political gain, its revelations about Mexico are among the most disturbing.

“I always thought of Mexico in the context of, OK, you’ve got kind of this hapless government, and it’s corrupt, and they’re kind of glad for mass migration because now they don’t have to feed their own people,” Schweizer says.

But he’s been giving Mexico too much credit.

“The reality is — in their own words — they view immigration very differently,” he tells Glenn.

According to a December 2024 report written by one of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s top aides, Mexico sees mass migration to the U.S. as a means of reconquest.

“We already know that the Mexican population in the United States reaches 39.9 million. We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory,” Schweizer reads directly from the report.

On top of that, another “powerful senator” in Sheinbaum’s progressive, populist Morena Party, who “sits on the National Defense Committee,” is on record saying: “We Mexicans are in our territory — California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming. We’re going to take back the territory that was stolen from us.”

“You hear these quotes, and you think, ‘OK, well maybe this is just bravado,’” Schweizer says. But when you see the “network and infrastructure inside the United States” Mexico has built, it’s clear that it’s far more than bombast.

“This infrastructure — this includes Mexican government officials inside the United States who are organizing violent protests, like those that hit Los Angeles, those that are in Minneapolis, and they are actively participating in our politics,” he explains.

“They are working to elect Democrats … who are sympathetic to them on immigration and working to defeat President Trump through Mexican consulates that are across the United States.”

Glenn is shocked by these revelations and wonders why we’re just now hearing about Mexico’s reconquest plans, especially given the pile of evidence that’s out there.

Schweizer says that Mexico has “masked what they’re doing quite effectively.”

He reads a 2023 quote from the “head of the Mexican News Agency” that captures the intentional covertness of Mexico’s immigration agenda: “We are quietly carrying out the reconquest of our territories in the U.S. taken from us in 1848. The reconquest of the Aztec territory is silent, and the day that the gringos realize this, their diabolical fundamentalism will become macabre.”

“In other words, we need to keep this quiet … because when the ‘gringos,’ as he says, find out, they’re gonna be really, really angry about it,” Schweizer says.

These quotes from powerful Mexican officials, he says, are just a sprinkling of what’s out there. “The Invisible Coup” lays out a wealth of evidence on Mexico’s “Reconquista” and pulls no punches in naming key figures.

To hear more about it, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Blazetv, Blaze media, Beck, Mexico, Peter schweizer, Great replacement theory, Immigration 

A homeless Florida man allegedly attacking a teenager was beaten in the face with a toolbox by a Good Samaritan before police arrived and took him into custody.

Christopher Steven Schwable, 36, of Pierson was restrained by bystanders when he choked and beat a 13-year-old at a school bus stop in DeLand on Tuesday morning.

The man had been in jail for just over three weeks on charges of indecent exposure and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Police said they responded to a call about a possible stabbing at the intersection of Clear Lake Dr. and North Spring Garden Ave. when they saw Schwable being held down by another man.

The man said that he hit Schwable with his toolbox after driving by the bus stop and seeing him attacking the child. He said that the man threatened him with a knife, so he hit him twice.

Schwable had a head injury and was bleeding.

Police bodycam footage showed their interaction with the boy, who said that Schwable had pulled out a knife, grabbed him, and hit him. Two witnesses corroborated the boy’s account, according to police.

In addition to the witnesses’ corroboration, police said they found a green-and-black folding knife in the man’s pocket and confiscated it as evidence.

WOFL-TV reported that Schwable had been released from jail on Jan. 13, just a week before the alleged attack on the teenager. The man had been in jail for just over three weeks on charges of indecent exposure and possession of drug paraphernalia. WOFL said that those charges were dropped by prosecutors, according to court documents.

Police said those charges were not related to the bus stop incident.

Schwable’s booking photo appeared to show a large wound on the right side of his face.

RELATED: Security video captures homeless man with young woman he allegedly tried to rape before assaulting a second woman in Los Angeles

Schwable was charged with aggravated child abuse and aggravated assault.

A spokesperson with Volusia County schools confirmed that the boy was a seventh-grade student at Southwestern Middle School.

Officials also confirmed that Schwable was currently homeless.

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​Homeless crime, Man assaults 13-year-old, Good samaritan toolbox beatdown, Christopher steven schwable, Crime 

Conservatives want to be left alone. They have families, jobs, churches, hobbies. They love their country, but they stay busy and comfortable. Politics feels like something for other people — activists, ideologues, the perpetually aggrieved. The left may dream of tearing the system down in a fiery Marxist revolution, but one solid vote every couple of years or so should keep the crazies in check. Then it’s back to work, back to Little League, back to the barbecue.

That belief sustained many on the right for decades. It has become a liability.

A vote followed by retreat no longer suffices. Saving the country requires engagement, sacrifice, and the willingness to place political reality over personal comfort.

The sunshine conservative lives under the assumption that the American system more or less runs itself, that excesses can be corrected with minimal effort, and that power remains constrained by shared norms. Those assumptions no longer hold. The times that try men’s souls have returned, and the sunshine conservative is about to discover that comfort carries a cost.

For years, a bipartisan consensus reshaped the country through mass immigration. Call it conspiracy if you like, but incentives explain it better.

Democrats saw a reliable path to permanent power. Immigrants arrive without wealth, social capital, or political leverage. They gravitate toward the party that promises redistribution and protection. Every program — health care, housing, loans, benefits — tilts toward newcomers. Open borders grow government, entrench dependency, and expand the progressive patronage machine.

Republican incentives looked different but proved just as corrosive. Conservative voters opposed mass immigration, legal and illegal alike, but party leadership feared one thing above all else: being called racist.

Progressive programming successfully framed the idea of America as a homeland — run for the benefit of its people — as morally suspect. Any attempt to articulate national interest became “nativism.” Chamber of Commerce Republicans exploited that fear, importing millions of workers willing to accept suppressed wages while silencing critics through ritual denunciation.

While the country changed, conservatives largely stood aside. The transformation unsettled them, but lawn care got cheaper and food delivery faster. The sunshine conservative preferred comfort to confrontation. Political activism felt vulgar. Winners, after all, make money and buy boats.

Now the bill has come due.

Human trafficking. Drug flows. Violent crime. Overcrowded hospitals. Stagnant wages. Exploding housing costs. The social fabric frays under the weight of policies designed to benefit elites while disciplining everyone else.

RELATED: Aristotle’s ancient guide to tyranny reads like a modern manual

Blaze Media Illustration

The Trump administration’s effort to remove the worst offenders collides with a system addicted to inflow. Obvious solutions exist — employer enforcement, E-Verify, ending the H-1B visa scam, taxing remittances heavily — but those measures threaten donor interests. Instead, enforcement proceeds piecemeal, state by state, criminal by criminal.

Each attempt to exercise authority triggers panic among mainstream conservatives. They fret about optics. They warn about norms. They clutch abstractions while the left shoots at or runs over federal agents, storms churches, and treats public order as optional. Establishment voices agonize over power even as their opponents wield it without hesitation.

A friend of mine returned from the Global War on Terror with what doctors labeled post-traumatic stress disorder. The diagnosis missed the point. His trauma didn’t come from violence alone. It came from clarity. He had lived in a world where stakes mattered, where power operated openly, where failure carried consequences. Returning to a culture submerged in therapeutic language, pronouns, and safe spaces proved disorienting. Everyone else lived inside a fantasy and demanded that he play along.

Eventually, he learned to stay quiet. He still regards much of what surrounds him as childish and unmoored from reality.

That reaction mirrors what many feel toward sunshine conservatives. They cling to a story about politics that bears no resemblance to how power functions. When confronted with evidence, they demand that reality conform to their narrative. It never does. That narrative existed to pacify them, to make them manageable. They defend it with the same fervor with which the left defends its own delusions.

Each crisis cracks the façade. An assassination. A church invasion. A city surrendered to disorder. Every time, a few more conservatives wake up — only to be swarmed by those demanding a return to small talk about tax rates and process. The problem never lay with those who saw the danger. It lay with those insisting everyone else look away.

RELATED: The left’s ‘fascism’ routine is a permission slip for violence

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The question no longer concerns policy tweaks. It concerns survival. One side believes the country deserves preservation and repair. The other treats it as illegitimate and disposable. That divide cannot be bridged by nostalgia or proceduralism.

The sunshine conservative era has ended. Saving the country requires engagement, sacrifice, and the willingness to place political reality over personal comfort. It requires choosing the future of one’s children over quarterly returns. It requires the disciplined use of power to defend the nation’s institutions, borders, and communities — even when that makes polite society uncomfortable.

A vote followed by retreat no longer suffices. The fantasy that it does belongs with other comforting lies. The right can either shed it or be ruled by those who never believed it in the first place.

​Opinion & analysis, Tyranny, Marxism, Illegal immigration, Conservatives, War, America, Elections, Sunshine conservatism, Conspiracy, Open borders, Mass deportations, Incentives, Political activism, H-1b visas, Corruption, Politics, First amendment, Political violence