How did we end up with modern leftism and all its ills?

For Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, the answer depended on how deep you were willing to dig. For the average person, the problem seems to have started with World War II; the “more informed” soon realize that World War I is when things went wrong.

This battle will not be won on social media, through new platforms, or by means of yet another ideology.

But the “genuine historian,” writes von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in “Leftism Revisted,” goes further back in history still, all the way to the “mother of most of the ideological evils besetting not only Western civilization but also the rest of the world”: the French Revolution.

Paul Kingsnorth’s compelling diagnosis of what ails modern man in “Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity” places him somewhere in von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s third category

The Machine

It’s not that this English writer — a recent convert to the Orthodox Church — dismisses the damage wrought by the 20th century, which shattered the West’s confidence in its animating principles and, in time, killed Christendom — setting in motion a broader campaign of deracination, disorientation, and disenchantment, advanced from both sides of the liberal political binary.

Like von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Kingsnorth understands that these terrible events are the expression of a sickness that took hold centuries ago, at the storming of the Bastille — an event that ushered in the birth of ideology, the razing of ancient hierarchies, the sacrifice of multitudes in the name of “Reason,” and the initiation of the continental variety of the liberal experiment.

Kingsnorth, however, goes a step farther. He does not merely trace the origins of the crisis — he names the thing that now drives it.

That which has demolished “borders and boundaries, traditions and cultures, languages and ways of seeing” is, according to Kingsnorth, a centuries-old “monster that grows in deserts,” coming of age in the spiritual wastelands created by the French and Industrial Revolutions.

This insatiable force — what Kingsnorth calls the “Machine,” but also “Progress” — has swallowed the world and, in doing so, made it increasingly difficult for those within it to perceive reality except through its own corrupting lens.

What cannot be quantified or digitized — “that irrational, illogical world of beauty, wild nature, and spiritual truth” — is not merely ignored but actively obscured.

Science, self, sex, screen

The Machine’s values — progress, openness, the rejection of limits and borders, therapeutic individualism, universalism, materialism, scientism, and the primacy of market logic — have become so ubiquitous, writes Kingsnorth, that we now treat them “as if they were natural as rain or wind.”

These values can be distilled into what he calls the “Four S’s”:

science, which offers a purely material account of origins;the self, which defines identity and purpose;sex, which anchors meaning in desire; andthe screen, “our main source of distraction from reality and the interface by which we are directed into the coming post-human reality of the Machine.”

They stand in direct opposition to the older order, grounded in the “Four P’s”: past, place, people, and prayer.

Where the Four S’s dissolve inheritance, the Four P’s depend on it.

Care for and attention to the Four P’s threaten the Machine’s liberal anti-culture and are therefore treated with suspicion or contempt — dismissed as naive at best and at worst as reactionary, bigoted, or “deplorable.”

Recall former President Barack Obama’s remarks about working-class Pennsylvanians who failed to embrace the promises of progress: “It’s not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion …”

Like its supporters, the Machine’s critics are legion. Yet their opposition is often absorbed.

Breaking the framework

Kingsnorth acknowledges that conservatism, at least in theory, comes closest to offering an anti-Machine politics rooted in human reality. It values tradition, centers home and family, affirms religious faith, and resists both centralized power and abstract utopianism.

But the problem, says Kingsnorth — drawing on Roger Scruton and G.K. Chesterton — is that mainstream conservatism operates largely within the same liberal framework it claims to resist.

As Chesterton observed in 1924, “Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition.”

The result is a politics that conserves the aftermath of revolution rather than the inheritance it displaced.

The goalposts, in other words, were moved long ago — inside the belly of the beast.

Reactionary radicalism

After searching for a label for those who would genuinely resist the Machine — those seeking, as Rod Dreher has put it, to build “networks of resistance” — Kingsnorth arrives at a term deliberately resistant to left-right categorization: reactionary radicalism.

Reactionary radicalism, says Kingsnorth:

aims to defend or build a moral economy at the human scale, which rejects the atomized individualism of the liberal era and understands that materialism as a world view. A politics which embraces family and home and place, loving the particular without excluding the outsider, and which looks on all great agglomerations of power with suspicion. … A politics which aims to limit rather than multiply our needs, which strategically opposes any technology which threatens the moral economy and which, finally, seeks a moral order to society which is based on love of neighbor rather than competition with everyone.

But how, exactly, can this be put into practice?

This battle will not be won on social media, through new platforms, or by means of yet another ideology. These are the Machine’s native terrain — its shock absorbers.

Raw and the cooked

One increasingly widespread act of resistance Kingsnorth highlights is homeschooling, which he calls “the most important thing any parent can do to resist Machine culture.”

More broadly, he urges a turn away from the purely rational toward the reasonable; the building of parallel systems resilient enough to resist assimilation; the rejection of technologies that promise freedom while delivering dependence; and a renewed pursuit of transcendence.

In short: a recovery of the Four P’s.

To those still enthralled by the Machine, such people will appear as barbarians — unrefined, unassimilable, and threatening.

The question, Kingsnorth suggests, is what kind of barbarian one will become.

The “raw” barbarian has fled the Machine’s reach. The “cooked” barbarian remains within its walls but practices quiet, persistent dissent.

Either way, he has made himself inedible. Enough indigestible barbarians, and the all-devouring Machine may choke to death.

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As UFOs, aliens, and disclosure become increasingly popular topics of discussion, a theory is gaining traction among certain Christian circles: that aliens do not exist, and any contact with one is actually an encounter with a demon masquerading as an extraterrestrial.

Glenn Beck has mixed feelings about this theory. While he rejects the notion that any being that comes from another planet is not part of God’s design and is evil, he also believes that many alien and UFO encounters have demonic explanations.

To dive into this subject, Glenn invites Faithwire journalist and supernatural podcast host Billy Hallowell to “The Glenn Beck Program” for a fascinating conversation about several possible explanations.

Hallowell explains that the general consensus, “even among a lot of scientists,” is that “people are seeing something” that is very real. The crux of the alien debate today lies more in what people are seeing: beings from outer space or beings from a spiritual dimension.

The theory that they’re all spiritual beings isn’t without merit, he explains. The Bible “doesn’t just say there’s Satan and demons. It talks about principalities and powers, and there’s some mystery here in what is going on,” he tells Glenn.

Further, it’s plausible to believe that demons can take an alien form when you consider that throughout Scripture, angels “show up in different forms.”

However, the debate gets even more complicated in that not everybody agrees on what demons are.

“Now, the common belief is that demons are fallen angels. … The other theory is that demons are actually the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim,” Hallowell says.

The latter theory, he explains, draws from both Scripture and the book of Enoch and posits that the Nephilim (the giant offspring of human women and fallen angels) whose physical bodies were wiped in the flood went “looking for bodies, and that’s what demons are.”

Glenn is fascinated by this idea. “You’re saying that they didn’t go away, that this might be the explanation for what we’re seeing?” he asks.

Hallowell notes that according to the theories discussed, these entities — whether fallen angels or disembodied Nephilim spirits — can physically manifest, and some believe this explains why people report encountering beings that look like aliens.

This idea, he says, then leads to another question: “Why would they do that? Is there a deception here?”

Glenn isn’t sure what to believe about aliens, but he is certain that where demons are at work, deception is sure to be at play.

“The whole point of the dark side is deception,” he says.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a former Alabama high school girls’ basketball coach who’s facing 32 sex crime charges in connection with accusations that she sexually abused a student, according to multiple reports.

Paige Adams — former girls’ basketball coach at Cold Springs High School — was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Cullman County Jail, according to jail records.

Before the accusations surfaced, Adams was described as ‘a great role model for the young people of Cullman County.’

The 35-year-old was charged with two felony crimes: school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student and school employee having sexual contact with a student under the age of 19, AL.com reported.

Adams also faces 30 misdemeanor counts of a school employee distributing obscene material to a student.

Adams was released from jail after posting a $225,000 bond but is required to wear an electronic monitor.

“This 32-count grand jury indictment speaks for itself,” Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker told WIAT-TV Tuesday.

RELATED: Teacher of the year finalist who kept contacting boy she sexually abused even after arrest learns fate: ‘Pretty stupid’

WIAT obtained court records Wednesday stating that Adams asked the student to send her obscene material depicting sexual activity on at least two occasions, only days before she resigned March 25.

The outlet added that Adams sent obscene material to the student at least 28 times between Feb. 13 and March 9.

Adams — who was in her first year as the varsity girls’ basketball coach at Cold Springs High School after being hired in March 2025 — resigned last month, and she was “escorted from school property,” according to AL.com.

Cullman County Schools Superintendent Shane Barnette stated last month, “Our sole focus is protecting the students of Cullman County Schools. We are going to do what is always right, as we always have.”

1819 News reported that Barnette said of Adams, “This is the first formal complaint I have received regarding this employee. As soon as the concern was raised, an investigation was initiated. The employee chose to resign at that time.”

Before the accusations surfaced, Barnette called Adams “a great role model for the young people of Cullman County,” according to 1819 News.

WIAT reported that Adams’ husband filed for divorce April 6 — just two weeks before she was arrested.

Adams’ husband — the boys’ basketball coach at Cold Springs High School — requested sole custody of their child, according to WIAT.

According to court documents, Adams and her husband had been married since 2015, but they separated in March when she resigned.

In April 2025, Adams’ husband said he was excited that she was hired as the girls’ basketball coach at the same school as him.

Adams’ husband previously told the Cullman Tribune, “Now we can be at the same place on a nightly basis. Secondly, being a head coach can be difficult at times. Us being at the same place and being able to support each other through the ups and downs was important to us.”

“And lastly, getting to have a front-row seat to watch Paige starting her journey as the head girls’ coach at Cold Springs is special to me,” the husband said.

Authorities did not disclose the age of the alleged victim or if the teen was a student at Cold Springs High School.

Adams’ arraignment hearing is scheduled for May 22.

The Cullman County Sheriff’s Office and the Cullman County Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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The man arrested for allegedly spraying Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) with apple cider vinegar has reached a plea deal after spending months in jail, according to court documents.

Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, pleaded not guilty in March despite being captured on video attacking Omar during a Jan. 27 town hall event and getting tackled to the ground.

The complaint claimed that Kazmierczak previously said that someone should kill Omar in comments years before the incident.

Prosecutors said Kazmierczak yelled that Omar was “splitting Minnesotans apart” before approaching her and spraying liquid onto her from a syringe.

Investigators later said the liquid was apple cider vinegar.

Omar defiantly continued her speech after the man was subdued.

“We will continue. These f**king a**holes are not going to get away with it!” she said to the crowd.

“I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work,” she wrote on social media after the incident. “I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.”

The complaint claimed that Kazmierczak previously said that someone should kill Omar in comments years before the incident.

The Hill reported that the details of the plea deal were unavailable.

RELATED: VIDEO: Ilhan Omar lashes out at reporter over bizarre wealth discrepancy: ‘I don’t want to tell you jack s**t!’

While President Donald Trump suggested that the entire episode was staged by Omar to garner sympathy for her, House Speaker Mike Johnson denied the possibility in comments to reporters.

“I don’t have any evidence to believe that’s true,” Johnson said in January. “Look, we deal with member security issues as they arise. I called her as I do any member who has a situation like that, and I talked to her briefly.”

When pressed on the president’s claims, he added, “I haven’t seen any evidence to that.”

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