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.

RELATED: Blue cities reject law, reject order — and reject America

Photo by Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto via 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.

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According to feminist doctrine, women are the victims of patriarchal discrimination in the workforce. This applies even to billionaire global icons like Taylor Swift, who aired her grievances in a 2019 song (or melodized tantrum) titled “The Man,” in which she insists she’d have reached the top faster, faced far less skepticism, and been universally hailed as a “genius” or “fearless leader” if only she had been born a man.

“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man,” the chorus reads.

While Swift’s hypocrisy is nauseating to say the least, the truth is many everyday people still believe that sexism is rampant in the workplace.

But do their claims hold up to raw data?

On this episode of “Stu Does America,” Stu Burguiere dives into a recent study that unveiled what the data really tells us about sexism in America’s workforce.

“Honestly, sexism is a real thing. It’s been a real thing — certainly throughout our history at times in certain areas,” he acknowledges. “You wonder though: Have we made any progress in this?”

Media, academia, Hollywood, and any institution captured by progressive dogma will undoubtedly say, “Absolutely not,” and maybe even argue that we’ve regressed.

But a 2023 landmark study from the Association for Psychological Science mostly debunked these pervasive myths about gender discrimination in academic science — a field that has been used as the textbook example of entrenched patriarchal sexism. The research team reviewed hundreds of existing studies and large datasets that tested claims of anti-women bias in academic science and came away with six key findings:

1. Women with equal credentials are now hired at higher rates than men.

2. Women win grants at rates equal to men.

3. Women’s journalistic manuscripts are accepted at the same rates as men’s.

4. Recommendation letters for women are equally strong as men’s and have no negative effect on hiring or promotion.

5. Women receive systematically lower teaching evaluations than equally effective men.

6. Women earn slightly lower salaries than equally qualified men.

“The fact is that we have an entire society built on this idea, this assumption, that women go into these fields … and women are being cracked down upon,” says Stu.

“And the truth is the opposite.”

In an ideal world, he says, “People are considered equally for jobs based on their merit as individuals.”

To hear more findings from the APS study, watch the episode above.

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Many pro-abortion activists brazenly say that abortion is health care. Anti-abortion Christians must respond to such falsehoods by rejecting the premise, instead affirming that abortion is murder — the unjustified taking of a human life made in the image of God.

But here is a widespread problem in the pro-life movement: While pro-life groups broadly reject the claim that abortion is health care, they undermine their own position when they support laws to regulate abortion as health care rather than criminalize abortion as murder.

They should instead agree with the truth of God concerning abortion and work toward criminalizing abortion as murder.

The most recent examples of this sorrowful trend are Ohio Right to Life and the Center for Christian Virtue, two of the leading pro-life groups in the state of Ohio, and their support for House Bill 324, known as the “Patient Protection Act.”

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This legislation, according to a press release from the Center for Christian Virtue, would require “in-person exams, clear disclosure of risks, and follow-up care for drugs that cause serious adverse effects” in more than 5% of patients. Ohio Right to Life similarly said that any woman who wants to murder her pre-born baby would first be “required to make an in-person visit to her doctor and be informed of the dangerous side effects before taking the abortion pill.”

House Bill 324 would indeed create an indirect way to target mifepristone — one of the two major substances used in the typical abortion pill regimen. Because a recent study from the Ethics and Public Policy Center asserts that 11% of women who take abortion pills experience “serious adverse events,” the legislation purports to restrict abortion pills because of dangers to women who want to murder their own babies.

There are some unfortunate methodological questions about the study, which likely overstates the extent to which abortion pills actually harm women, a reality that will jeopardize House Bill 324 if eventually passed into law. But in any case, the actual text of House Bill 324 does not even directly mention abortion.

The legislation would require that any “dangerous drug” that causes “one or more serious adverse effects” in more than 5% of “patients” mandate an “in-person examination” and scheduling for a “follow-up appointment.”

RELATED: Why defunding Planned Parenthood is a distraction from the real fight

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House Bill 324 does not prescribe any criminal penalties for distributing or taking abortion pills, but instead asks the “director of health” and the “state board of pharmacy and state medical board” to maintain a list of dangerous drugs meeting the requirements of the legislation.

Beyond the flawed legal case for House Bill 324, the entire project surrenders all anti-abortion moral high ground to the pro-abortion side.

When anti-abortion groups say that abortion is murder, then functionally treat abortion as less than murder in the laws they support, those groups erode their own moral witness to the culture and the elected officials of their states.

The very decision of choosing the “Patient Protection Act” as the name of the legislation asserts that women who murder their own babies with abortion pills are patients to be protected instead of perpetrators to be penalized.

House Bill 324 explicitly treats abortion as health care — and by regulating the practice of murdering a pre-born baby with abortion pills, the effort merely legitimizes abortion in state law.

If this legislation passes, then using abortion pills in Ohio would be treated in the law much like removing an appendix or a wisdom tooth rather than murdering a pre-born baby.

Ohio Right to Life and the Center for Christian Virtue claim to reject the premise that abortion is health care. But actions speak louder than words — and that includes their refusal to support legislation in their state that actually treats abortion as murder.

RELATED: Stevie Nicks just said the quiet part out loud about abortion — and it’s horrifying

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Another piece of anti-abortion legislation called House Bill 370, known as the “Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” would affirm that “the sanctity of innocent human life” created in the image of God must be “equally protected from the beginning of biological development.”

The legislation would protect pre-born babies starting at “the moment of fertilization” simply by extending Ohio state laws against murder and assault that already protect born people.

House Bill 370 is also the only legislation that meaningfully challenges the abortion amendment in the Ohio Constitution by invoking the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because the highest law of our land requires states to establish equal protection of the laws for all persons, the abortion amendment in Ohio should be treated as null and void.

Rather than supporting House Bill 370, the leadership of Ohio Right to Life explicitly opposes the effort — even calling the legislation “out of bounds” and “inappropriate” — and the Center for Christian Virtue has publicly declined to offer its support.

In other words, two of the leading pro-life groups in Ohio have chosen to reject the “Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” which is the only legislation in the state that would treat abortion as murder. Instead, they have functionally conceded the malicious pro-abortion falsehood that abortion is health care.

There are thousands of pre-born babies murdered every single year in Ohio. While the abortion amendment in the Ohio Constitution is an unfortunate obstacle, pro-life groups will certainly not advance their cause with morally and legally confused legislation.

They should instead agree with the truth of God concerning abortion and work toward criminalizing abortion as murder — fighting to establish equal protection of the laws for all pre-born babies and thereby laboring to abolish abortion once and for all.

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A convicted sex offender college professor whose criminal past made him “ineligible for legal status in the United States” has been arrested by ICE, according to a DHS press release published earlier this week.

On November 12, ICE officers arrested Sumith Gunasekera of Sri Lanka in Detroit. According to the press release, he told officers that he was employed as an associate professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, about 200 miles northwest of Detroit.

He was arrested for invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference. He told officers at the time that the … incident involved a minor, DHS reported.

Gunasekera first came to the U.S. in February 1998, spent some time in Canada, and then returned to the U.S. later that year on a student visa, the press release said.

During his stint in Canada, he was arrested in Brampton, Ontario, on two separate occasions just three days apart. In the first instance, he was arrested for uttering death threats. In the second, he was arrested for invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference. He told officers at the time that the second incident involved a minor, DHS reported.

In November 1998, a Canadian criminal court convicted him of utter threat to cause death or bodily harm and sexual interference and sentenced him to one month of incarceration and one year of probation, DHS said.

Gunasekera — who earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Nevada, according to the Ferris State website — also ran afoul of the law in Las Vegas a few years after his trouble in Canada, the press release said. Cops arrested him for open and gross lewdness in September 2003, and just four months later, he was convicted of disorderly conduct and sentenced to fines.

In 2012, Gunasekera filed for a change in immigration status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, at which point his Canadian convictions came to light. Those convictions rendered him “ineligible for legal status in the United States,” the press release said. Despite his ineligibility, Gunasekera “repeatedly attempted to manipulate our immigration system between applications, denials, and appeals,” it added.

“It’s sickening that a sex offender was working as a professor on an American college campus and was given access to vulnerable students to potentially victimize them,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Thanks to the brave ICE law enforcement officers, this sicko is behind bars and no longer able to prey on Americans. His days of exploiting the immigration system are OVER. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, criminals are not welcome in the U.S.”

RELATED: Trump to ‘permanently pause’ migration from third-world backwaters in wake of National Guard member’s grisly murder

Bill Oxford/Getty Images

As of Sunday evening, Gunasekera remains listed on the Ferris State website as an assistant professor of marketing. According to a statement from Dave Murray, Ferris State associate vice president for marketing and communications, he has since been placed on administrative leave.

“Ferris State University leaders on Tuesday became aware of accusations regarding professor Sumith Gunasekera. He has been placed on administrative leave while the university gathers more information. This is a personnel issue and it would be inappropriate for the university to further discuss the matter,” Murray told the Detroit News.

A federal immigration database states that Gunasekera remains in ICE custody at a federal facility in Baldwin, Michigan, about a half-hour from Ferris State. Further immigration proceedings are pending, DHS said.

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Most people are concerned about what others think, which is why most people don’t stand up for what they truly believe in — and BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is not one of them.

“If I wanted to be popular, I would not be a reformed Christian. I would not be anti-IVF and pro-death penalty. I just wouldn’t. Like, I have very narrow beliefs, and I am an anchor on the right, getting more and more people to come to what I believe is a biblical position on politics and culture,” she says on “Relatable.”

“I don’t do that because it’s popular. I believe these things. I say these things because I believe that they are right. And I’m doing my very best as a fallible person to follow the word of God. And women, that’s what you are called to do,” she continues.

However, feminism is accepted by most people — and thus, many women will fall into its trap unless they know to avoid it.

“Do not run into the arms of a feminist. I’ve seen this happen so much with people who are deconstructing. Someone hurt them in the church. Maybe a group of people hurt them. Maybe people in their theological camp hurt them. They didn’t like what was going on in their local church,” Stuckey explains.

“Don’t run into the arms of people who are flattering you and who are telling you nice things and who are saying, ‘Oh, maybe progressivism’s right. Maybe the church isn’t right.’ Oh, Satan loves that so much. Goes all the way back to the garden,” she continues.

“When Satan puts that wedge between Eve and God by saying, ‘But you know, she saw that the fruit looked good.’ She was hungry. Satan exploited that and used that,” she adds.

This is why it’s so important that if doubt springs into your mind, that you don’t feed it.

“You want to starve your doubts with faith and knowledge from the word of God,” she says, adding, “If you live by the crowd, you will die by the crowd.”

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