My view of the election is that Trump and Harris were locked in a spiritual battle. Many, including myself, felt that the sparing of Trump’s life in the first assassination attempt was an act of clear divine Providence. For him to turn his head at that precise moment to avoid the assassin’s bullet, suffering only a grazed ear — it defies belief. I don’t believe in coincidences like that. Trump himself leaned into the religious overtones, understanding that many Christian supporters had come to see him as a messianic figure. Personally, I do believe — and there are many examples of this in the Bible — that God selects certain individuals to carry out His plans on Earth, and there is no doubt in my mind that Trump is one of those individuals. Isaiah 6:8 says: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”

Trump’s travails have been almost Job-like. Stripped of virtually everything, impeached, battered, humiliated, almost killed, slandered, deplatformed, sued, and on the verge of being thrown in prison for the rest of his life, Trump found the strength to mount a remarkable campaign and win. It is the greatest political comeback in American history. Many see his resilience as superhuman and divinely inspired.

Wokeism is in some ways similar to those other two secular cults in that it has rituals, priests, and the elements of original sin — whiteness, privilege, etc. Wokeism even has a millenarian bent in that it presumes that the world is fundamentally unjust and subject to vast, oppressive conspiracies.

Now, on the other side, we have another religion — one I consider idolatrous, but a religion nonetheless. See, when you strip God from life, you don’t leave people intact, but rather, you leave them with a God-shaped hole. Today’s left has eliminated (or corrupted) the church, and in its place, leftists have adopted secular religions (some call this Gnosticism). Harris and her progressive supporters subscribe to three of these cults: climate doomerism, wokeism, and, to a lesser extent, AI safety. Broadly, these all fall under the umbrella of decel-ism.

Apocalypse forever

It’s worth unpacking these slightly. Climate and AI doomers are contemporary millenarian cults; that is, they are concerned with the apocalypse. Adherents to such cults believe that a reckoning is coming that will transform the Earth, punish the sinful, save the worthy, or just wipe us out entirely. On climate, the idea is that we committed a grave original sin by debauching nature and emitting CO2; Gaia is punishing us by unleashing her wrath in the form of ever-intensifying storms (never mind that the cost to humans from climate-related disasters has been falling); and if we don’t sufficiently change our ways, we will be extinguished in a final day of reckoning (think “The Day After Tomorrow”). AI safety is a newer cult, but very similar: We summoned a demon of sorts by creating AI, and we risk destroying humanity if we delve any deeper into machine intelligence. There is a trippier variant of the AI doomer cult in which we achieve a rapture and merge with the machine god in some kind of singularity. Both cults stress the sin of industrial pursuit, and in both cases, the solutions are the same: Slow down or even reverse progress.

Compare Trump and Harris on AI and climate. Trump wants to re-energize America’s heartland, unleash our abundant energy resources for Bitcoin mining, AI, chip manufacturing, and so on. Trump recognizes that we cannot hamstring ourselves with a Merkel-style Energiewende. It’s suicide to sacrifice ourselves to the angry climate god via Thunberg-esque atonement while China prints coal and nuclear plants. Meanwhile, Harris stands for an insipid green transition that simply hasn’t paid off anywhere it has been tried. The left’s infatuation with green transitions should be understood as superstition, not policy. If progressives really believed in the existential risk from climate, they would be all in on nuclear, or even global cooling with aerosolized sulfates. They aren’t. On AI, Harris stands for AI safety, the self-aggrandizing Silicon Valley cult that both worships and fears the machine god. On the other hand,Trump sees AI as a vital strategic resource to be unleashed, making no underlying metaphysical claims whatsoever.

Leaving aside the decel cults, the most important spiritual lens through which Harris should be understood is wokeism. Wokeism is in some ways similar to those other two secular cults in that it has rituals, priests, and the elements of original sin — whiteness, privilege, etc. Wokeism even has a millenarian bent in that it presumes that the world is fundamentally unjust and subject to vast, oppressive conspiracies (although it doesn’t clearly specify what the day of reckoning might look like). However, the inherent flaw of wokeism and the reason it doesn’t universalize well is that it offers no absolution. There’s no way for a straight white man (or anyone else near the top of the privilege hierarchy) to atone for his original sin. Compare with Christianity, which stresses (depending on the denomination) that all you have to do to be absolved of your sins is accept Jesus Christ into your heart. So wokeism can’t really sustain itself, because it’s dependent on a spiritual underclass of “oppressors” who are willing to continually submit to and elevate the least privileged (the trans disabled POC, etc). But who would sign up for a religion that offers no atonement? Even the most ardent white wokes must feel a twinge of doubt at their membership in the cult, realizing that they are permanent Dalits in the woke caste system.

A spiritual war for the soul of a nation

So I see the Trump-Harris conflict through the lens of a spiritual war. Of course, the battle between right and left already has a spiritual component since it’s not just two sets of rival policy positions but in fact a much more deep-seated set of mutually conflicting worldviews: individual versus system-level thinking; merit versus racial score-settling; small government versus collectivism; the nuclear family versus the state as your family; and so on. In the case of Trump and Harris, it was even more direct. Trump plays the role of an unintentional messiah, almost accidentally thrust into this savior role. Though Trump’s faith may not be particularly sincere, his fans’ belief that he is a tortured savior chosen by God is. Meanwhile, Harris is the purest representative we’ve seen of the progressive religion to date, being selected for the role not due to her track record in government but because of her anointed status within the woke cult. She is perfect: black, Indian, a woman, and so on. She merely lacked charisma, meaningful policy views, a distinct message of change, and a platform. There can be no real dispute that she was more of an empty vessel for woke payloads than a genuine candidate. Her campaign was mainly focused on marshaling the high-propensity female vote on abortion, shaming minorities into falling in line, scolding men into voting “for their wives and daughters,” and so on. She flatly refused to specify meaningful policy positions, keeping them deliberately vague, running instead on pure identitarianism.

The Democrats should engage in soul-searching and realize that by embracing cults like wokeism and GDP-destroying fantasies like climate doomerism and AI doomerism, they are swimming against the current.

To the right, her great sacrilege was her primary campaign issue — the murder of unborn children. Other issues she stands for — the coercive chemical castration of children, for instance — are considered not only simply poor policy by the right but downright satanic. It’s unsurprising that Trump’s strongest campaign message was “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.” For Trump’s Christian supporters, the distinction could not have been starker. Many felt that this was the last election if she won. The left misunderstood this when folks like Elon Musk said it. The idea wasn’t that there would never be an election ever again but rather that the left would vastly accelerate import of the third world and spontaneously grant these newcomers citizenship. This isn’t far-fetched. Leftists were quite explicit about their desire to do this, and they partially executed it under Biden. Some on the left, too, felt that if Trump regained power, he would fashion the government into a fascist authoritarian regime and permanently leave democracy behind. So this election had a decidedly existential bent to it. Many on both sides felt that this would be the last freely contested vote.

As a Christian and a conservative, I am encouraged that America resoundingly rejected these woke cults and their emissary in Harris. This was a realigning election that cannot be written off as a fluke like 2016 was. Hispanics shifted abruptly right, undermining the left’s core coalition. Harris actually underperformed Biden with black voters, showing the weakness of her identitarian campaign. Black men in particular defected from the left quite markedly. Trump gained with young voters, a generally secular group that is still infatuated with wokeism. By contrast, Trump did astoundingly well with Catholics, winning them by 18 points, the largest gap in decades. Trump also gained with Protestants relative to 2020. Eighty percent of evangelicals broke for Trump, again a better margin than 2020. Harris’ campaign built around Roe simply wasn’t compelling enough. And some of her high-propensity supporters, like suburban white moms, were turned off by the left’s ritual sacrifice of girls at the altar of wokeism (by allowing males in women’s sports, for instance). Voters were more concerned with immigration and the economy.

The Democrats should engage in soul-searching and realize that by embracing cults like wokeism and GDP-destroying fantasies like climate doomerism and AI doomerism, they are swimming against the current. Their Obama coalition has been shattered in the biggest realigning election since Reagan. Having lost the working class and the Hispanic vote, and unable to import new voters as they had planned, if they continue down the path of racial shame and elevating DEI candidates, they will lose over and over. As for those on the right, they have resurrected their messiah. Expectations couldn’t be higher. But one thing is clear: Religion, real religion, is still a force to be reckoned with in American politics. The left has lost the Mandate of Heaven. It belongs to Trump now.

This article originally appeared on X.

​Tech, Trump harris spiritual battle, Spiritualism, Ai, Artificial iontellegince, Intelligence, Intelligence community 

Donald Trump has made it official: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to run a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (or DOGE), tasked with slashing the federal bureaucracy and spending.

“Their duty will be over by July 4, 2026, which is the 250th anniversary of America. So we’ve got a lot of work to do until then,” Glenn Beck of “The Glenn Beck Program” comments, thrilled with the news.

The point of the Department of Government Efficiency is cutting waste in the government — though that might include mass firings of government employees.

“Ramaswamy has come up with this great idea of how to fire people. OK, we know the problem is that you just can’t fire people because they’re just going to take you to court,” Glenn says. “If you’re running a company, and you need to reduce the size of the company, you will have companies that will just cut whole divisions because they don’t want any of the lawsuits.”

“It has to be everybody, right? So what Ramaswamy has come up with, and he says this is only a thought exercise, but I think it’s brilliant. What he’s come up with is ‘We’re going to reduce the government by half, and here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to say everyone who has an odd number at the end of their social security number, you’re fired,’” Glenn explains.

However, if an employee is elected to the office they hold, they can’t be fired this way.

“If you’re elected into that office, you’re not fired. But everybody else, because we’re reducing the size of the government by half,” Glenn says.

While Stu Burguiere loves the idea of reducing the government by half, he’s skeptical of the method potentially being employed.

“Merit has nothing to do with random groups of firing, you want to fire the employees that suck,” Stu says.

“To be able to get to the place where you have merit, you have to reduce the size of the government first. You have blood letting that have to happen,” Glenn responds.

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​Video phone, Free, Video, Sharing, Camera phone, Upload, Youtube.com, The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Stu burguiere, Stu does america, Donald trump, Doge, Department of government efficiency, Elon musk, Vivek ramaswamy, Election 2024 

Liberals online began wailing and gnashing their teeth almost immediately after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a seat in his Cabinet on Thursday.

As had long been rumored, Trump tapped RFK Jr. to be health and human services secretary. During his independent run for president, RFK Jr. made health a major focus of his campaign.

‘Putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health is like putting the Unabomber in charge of the mail.’

After Kennedy dropped out in August and formally endorsed Trump, social media became ablaze with the slogan “Make America Healthy Again,” a phrase that Trump often uttered in the close of his rally speeches.

“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote in a statement posted to X late Thursday afternoon.

In his statement, Trump also called public health and safety an administration’s “most important role” but said that lately, Americans have endured an “overwhelming Health Crisis” on account of “harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives.”

Under Kennedy’s leadership, health agencies will fight back against the chronic disease “epidemic,” return to the “Gold Standard” of scientific research, and become “beacons of Transparency,” Trump continued.

— (@)

CNN reported that Kennedy accepted the nomination sometime on Thursday.

In its article about the RFK nomination, the liberal outfit also described Kennedy as “one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists” and accused him of spreading “false conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.” However, the outlet did not provide any examples of such alleged conspiracy theories.

The New York Times also claimed in its headline about the nomination that Kennedy “spread false information about vaccines.”

Liberals online melted down over the news of Kennedy’s nomination as well.

“Putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of public health is like putting the Unabomber in charge of the mail,” tweeted the left-wing influencer known as Jo.

“It’s difficult to describe how utterly wretched RFK Jr. is. Not that I necessarily expect them to, but the Republican Senate *has* to put their foot down here. He’s one of the most deranged sociopaths in public life, and his war on childhood vaccination is unconscionable,” wrote a user with 19K followers.

“RFK Jr. ran a spoiler campaign to help elect Donald Trump. Now, he’s reaping the benefits with a position that will jeopardize the health of millions of Americans,” said a group of Democratic activists called End Citizens United.

However, not all Democrats assailed the pick. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado in fact cheered it, claiming that RFK Jr. would help take “on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly.”

“He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again and I hope that we can finally make progress on these important issues,” Polis added.

One industry likely to be upset by the pick is Big Pharma. Shortly after Trump announced the nomination, the stocks of many pharmaceutical companies reportedly tanked.

Kennedy did not make a statement about the Cabinet position but did retweet Trump’s statement. Soon after Trump’s landslide election victory, Kennedy hinted that he likely would be heavily involved in public health agencies during Trump’s second term.

“President Trump has given me three instructions,” Kennedy said, according to CNN. “He wants the corruption and the conflicts out of the regulatory agencies. He wants to return the agencies to the gold standard, empirically-based, evidence-based, science and medicine that they were once famous for. And he wants to end the chronic disease epidemic with measurable impacts on a diminishment of chronic disease within two years.”

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​Rfk jr, Kennedy, Trump, Health and human services, Cabinet, Jared polis, Health, Politics 

At UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi, Khamzat Chimaev, a beast from Chechnya, showed the world why he’s becoming one of the most feared men in mixed martial arts.

Known for his brutal, relentless style and the nickname “Borz” (“wolf” in Chechen), Chimaev didn’t just beat former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker — he tore through him with a ruthless efficiency that left fans stunned. Within minutes, Whittaker — a fighter known for his strength and skill — was battered, his jaw tested by vicious strikes.

From a young age, boys learn to endure cold, navigate difficult terrain, and face challenges head-on. They don’t just hear stories of heroes; they are expected to become them.

Whittaker wasn’t just outclassed. He was embarrassed, thrown around like a cheap rag doll.

But to truly grasp the depth of Chimaev’s dominance, one has to understand where he comes from and what fuels him.

Where champions are made

The North Caucasus is a place synonymous with survival. These rugged mountains, shadowed by centuries of struggle, breed people with an iron sense of identity. No trans madness here. No teaching children that there are 700 different genders.

In places like Dagestan and Chechnya, where empires and Soviet boots once pressed down, boys aren’t just taught to fight; they’re taught to endure, to dominate, to win at all costs.

Fighting here isn’t recreation; it’s in the blood. It is, for many, a ticket to a better life.

While kids in the U.S. are glued to screens, boys here are rolling on mats, learning skills that build character and raw strength. Sure, they shed a tear — they are children, after all — but quickly wipe them away and resume training.

In America and other affluent Western nations, parents often cushion their children against the hard knocks of reality. Playgrounds are rubber-padded, and competitive games come with participation trophies. Schools emphasize positive reinforcement and conflict resolution through dialogue. Safety and self-expression are the goals.

But only a fool would deny that this soft approach has eroded the concept of toughness. Children in the U.S. and beyond, especially boys, are becoming weaker, both mentally and physically.

Contrast this with the North Caucasus, where raising boys is less about emotional insulation and more about preparing them for an unforgiving world. Here, childhood is not an insulated period of delicate growth; it’s an initiation into manhood.

From a young age, boys learn to endure cold, navigate difficult terrain, and face challenges head-on. They don’t just hear stories of heroes; they are expected to become them. The bar for what constitutes “soft” or “hard” is drawn starkly differently than in America.

In the North Caucasus region, by the age of 10 a boy has already practiced wrestling in the dirt and spent cold nights learning survival skills outdoors. Here, every boy is like a mini Joe Rogan, minus the tattoos and impressive bank balance. Failure is seen as part of learning, not something to be avoided. The experience is grueling but purposeful — the expectation is to grow tough enough to shoulder family and community responsibilities.

This isn’t cruelty; it’s preparation. Preparation for greatness.

Epitome of greatness

One cannot speak about greatness without discussing Khabib Nurmagomedov. To the people of Dagestan, he’s more than a champion. He’s a legend, revered with the same awe reserved for greats like Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan. Khabib is arguably the greatest UFC fighter of all time, a man who dominated with a ferocity that broke opponents. In the Octagon, he didn’t just win titles — he took souls.

Stephen McCarthy

If in doubt, let me point you in the direction of Conor McGregor. Before stepping into the ring with Khabib, he was the brightest star in the UFC, a fighter believed to be unbeatable. A sporting icon who had elevated himself to near-mythic status, McGregor was systematically dismantled by a monster from the mountains.

The buildup to their fight was nasty, with McGregor hurling cheap shots at Khabib’s now-deceased father. However, the Irishman, then the undisputed king of trash talk, would soon find himself getting a taste of his own medicine.

The moment the bell rang, McGregor, full of his usual swagger, quickly realized he was facing a fighter intent on destruction — specifically, the destruction of him and his legacy.

Clash of civilizations

The audience, the vast majority of whom expected yet another McGregor victory, also understood they were not just watching a contest; they were witnessing a reckoning.

With each takedown, Khabib sent a message to the world. He was there to make history. His ground-and-pound wasn’t flashy, but it was brutal, precise, and mercilessly effective.

McGregor’s legendary counter-punches, the lethal strikes that had taken down countless opponents, proved useless against the relentless force of the Dagestani. Every attempt to escape failed.

Khabib was relentless, a human Terminator, there to take McGregor apart piece by piece. The Dubliner spent most of the fight flopping around like a trout on a fisherman’s deck, desperately gasping for air.

In truth, October 6, 2018, was the day the Conor McGregor we knew and loved died. He never recovered. How could he? The Grim Reaper had just visited and violated him.

While McGregor was busy nursing his bruised body and his battered ego, Khabib returned to his homeland a hero. To the young boys of Dagestan, he was — and remains — a symbol of what’s possible.

Meanwhile, in the West, many boys and girls worship fleeting idols — TikTok influencers and pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter — whose fame is built on hollow trends and fake personas. They are all style and zero substance.

We often speak of being “advanced,” but take a hard look at our children and ask yourself: Are we truly moving forward, or are we losing the core values that build resilience, character, and true strength? Khabib’s triumph was more than a victory — it was a reminder of what real heroes look like.

​Ufc, John mac ghlionn, Khamzat chimaev, Ufc 308, Conor mcgregor 

As the results of the 2024 election are scrutinized, the left and its media allies are shocked by the number of urban voters who had been loyal Democrats but suddenly shifted to Donald Trump. This shift helped propel Trump to victory in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and significantly reduced the Democrats’ margin even in blue states they won.

These “Trump Democrats” are also frontline victims of the ills that elected Democrats have caused in recent years.

The old libertarian, anti-government Republican clichés won’t solve the crime and dysfunction besetting our cities.

For better or worse, Republicans have largely abandoned the cities, leaving them to deal with the consequences of their own votes. This approach is understandable. But if the widespread defection of black and Jewish voters to Trump is seen as a cry for help, perhaps now is the time for conservatives to offer a better alternative: “municipal conservatism.”

A few days after the election, liberal journalist Josh Barro published an insightful essay in the Atlantic that gained wide circulation, even in conservative circles. Barro boldly criticized Democrats’ poor governance, which drove many traditional Democratic voters to Trump. Declaring that “Democrats deserved to lose,” Barro highlighted issues like the breakdown of order in public transit, lack of policing, open shoplifting, merchandise locked in cases, expensive but failing schools, hotels filled with migrants, released criminals, and defunding of police.

Despite his excellent analysis, Barro missed the mark by clinging to the outdated 20th-century assumption that Democrats aim to provide government services to improve their constituents’ lives. “The gap between Democrats’ promise of better living through better government and their failure to actually deliver better government has been a national political problem,” he wrote.

“Better living through better government,” or simply “good government,” may have been the guiding philosophy during the days of Richard Daley in Chicago and Ed Koch in New York City — mayors who genuinely sought prosperity and order for their cities. Today, however, even the pretense of good government is gone. Many cities are now run by self-proclaimed revolutionaries who identify as Democrats but aim to dismantle the old order.

These “Pol Pot mayors” speak of a new utopian vision, but in reality, they are destroying their cities, much as Pol Pot did when he depopulated Phnom Penh in his quest to reorganize Cambodian society. Crime, civil disorder, and anarcho-tyranny are not viewed as problems in these struggling blue cities. They are tools.

These cities urgently need municipal conservatives in the mold of Rudy Giuliani — strong leaders who will restore order, even if they are not small-government purists aligned with Edmund Burke and Ludwig von Mises. Giuliani’s work cleaning up New York was remarkable, yet many conservatives initially dismissed him as too liberal because he didn’t focus on lowering taxes and limiting government. But New Yorkers weren’t looking for that. They wanted effective governance and a return to civil order. Rudy delivered.

This isn’t to suggest that 20th-century Democratic urban governance is an ideal to emulate or repeat. I’m pointing out that Democrats have abandoned any commitment to safe, orderly cities, creating an opportunity for Republicans to offer viable solutions.

There was nothing conservative about Democrat-run cities in the 20th century, with their focus on patronage, jobs programs, and generous pay and benefits for municipal employees. But with civil order and reliable policing, citizens tolerated the taxes and corruption and continued voting for Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans talked about privatizing city services and cutting city payrolls — and consistently lost at the polls.

Many of us conservatives who left blue cities mock city-dwellers for not voting Republican, but perhaps they haven’t heard the right message about making cities livable again. Or maybe now is finally the time they’ll listen to that message.

The old libertarian, anti-government Republican clichés won’t solve the crime and dysfunction besetting our cities. In fact, the left’s demand to abolish the police could itself be seen as a libertarian, anti-government stance.

Republicans need to offer our struggling cities an agenda focused on delivering excellent city services, including effective policing, cleanliness, anti-vagrancy measures, public safety, reliable utilities, and family-friendly parks. This agenda should promote a political climate that supports small businesses, primary education, churches, families, and patriotism. Democrat-run cities have grown hostile to these foundational elements of urban civilization, creating an enormous opportunity for Republicans.

Donald Trump has shown that even the most loyal Democratic constituencies are willing to vote Republican if it promises relief from the problems created by Democratic policies. A municipal conservatism that can restore civil order in our cities is exactly what voters need right now. Now, Republicans need to recruit modern-day Giulianis to make that pitch.

​Crime, Municipal conservatism, Law and order, Cities, Democrats, Republicans, Opinion & analysis 

Donald Trump dealt an earth-shattering blow to the American left. The reality television star not only secured a convincing win in the Electoral College but also captured the popular vote and carried down-ballot Republicans to victory, with the GOP taking control of the Senate and likely retaining the House. Typically, such a decisive mandate for the opposition would lead a political party to reflect on the policies or rhetoric that contributed to such a defeat. But Democrats are having none of that.

Instead of examining their platform, tone toward the American people, or use of power, liberal pundits and politicians have reached a different conclusion. From MSNBC to CNN and HBO, they have conducted election postmortems, blaming their loss on one main problem: that the American people have too much free speech.

Democrats had constructed a reality in which their ideology was unquestionable and their victory inevitable.

A few thoughtful voices on the left have suggested that policies like opening the border, demonizing men, ignoring the economic struggles of middle Americans, and promoting radical gender politics to children may have hurt the Democrats’ chances. Yet these moderating voices have been quickly labeled as racist and sexist, silenced by progressives deeply invested in their own radical ideology. Instead, the left has chosen to lay the blame for its loss on alternative media.

The left has sounded the alarm about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation for years. Progressives once held a near-total monopoly over the elite institutions that shape ideological consensus in America. In a world where individuals are often isolated from real interactions or events, the dominant narrative provided by news and entertainment had the power to define reality. That is how a nation can be convinced to treat a severe flu like the Black Death. Democrats have lived inside this self-constructed reality for so long that they have forgotten its artificial nature — like a fish that doesn’t know it’s wet.

Progressives genuinely believe Americans are inherently racist, sexist, and homophobic, and they worry that without a controlled flow of carefully curated information, people will revert to their “brutal” nature and start throwing Nazi salutes in honor of the eternal Trumpenreich. Leftist operatives don’t view themselves as propagandists because they rely on narratives shaped by a network of credentialed institutions.

When progressives talk about “our democracy,” they really mean the consensus upheld by “experts” who show loyalty to their ideology. Any information that contradicts this narrative becomes “misinformation” — not because it’s factually incorrect but because it challenges their carefully curated information ecosystem.

In this moment of utter defeat, Democrats have pointed fingers at podcasters like Joe Rogan and Theo Von, frustrated by their influence on young men. Some leftist pundits even suggest the need to create a “progressive Joe Rogan” or build their own network of influencers.

But this approach is delusional on multiple levels. The left already has a massive influence network that spans mainstream media, Hollywood, corporate America, academia, and the unelected federal bureaucracy. Progressives don’t view this as an “influence network,” however. They see it as basic institutional reality. They have convinced themselves that the shadows they cast on the wall are reality, and anything outside them is nefarious and artificial.

Progressives have plenty of young male influencers, like David Pakman and Hasan Piker. These voices enjoy major funding and the advantage of speaking with little to no fear of censorship from big tech. But it is exactly this obvious alliance with the status quo that dooms their efforts. Liberal commentators aren’t rebels speaking truth to power; they’re pushing on an open door. Their apparent lack of authenticity is palpable, and audiences sense it. This disconnect is so pronounced that Pakman recently made a video addressing the fact that his own audience is leaving in droves.

The left’s challenge isn’t a lack of media reach. Despite emerging cracks in their foundation, progressives still hold significant influence over legacy media, education, and government bureaucracies that shape public opinion in the United States. The real problem is that each of these institutions has sacrificed its credibility in pursuit of ideological control. Soft power is delicate. It requires disciplined actors who can leverage institutional control without overtly advancing their own interests. Progressives have lost all such discipline and burned the precious currency of institutional legitimacy for short-term gain. Now they will reap the whirlwind.

The left still has extensive media representation, but it no longer holds a media monopoly. Despite a substantial advantage in funding, prestige, and infrastructure, audiences are abandoning traditional media because of their consistent misinformation. They lied about the border, misled on the pandemic, skewed coverage of Trump, manipulated poll results, and even deluded themselves into thinking Kamala Harris could win a presidential election. Even in defeat, progressive commentators remain oblivious to the reality they’ve so fervently insulated themselves from.

Leftists now watch the success of podcasters like Rogan and platforms like X, marveling at their influence. On HBO panels and in New York Times columns, they exclaim, “Media can shape reality! I’ve got to get me some of that!” The lack of self-awareness is remarkable. Yet Democrats cannot produce a candidate capable of appearing on Rogan’s show, let alone replicate his authentic style. Rogan may not be conservative, but he doesn’t dismiss Americans or their concerns, offering an everyman quality that is hard to fabricate.

The Democratic Party’s problem isn’t a lack of media reach; it’s a toxic message and an unwillingness to engage with middle America. The party demonizes young white men and labels middle Americans as “trash,” alienating these demographics. The problem isn’t that comedians have podcasts that diverge from the Democratic Party line; it’s the Democrats’ toxic disregard for average Americans’ concerns.

Democrats had constructed a reality in which their ideology was unquestionable and their victory inevitable. Only “outdated” institutions like the Electoral College and voter ID stood between progressives and the “end of history.” Now, a resounding defeat in the popular vote has left them bewildered, searching for someone to blame. There will be no introspection or lessons learned. Instead, leftists have doubled down on radical policies and contempt for Americans. It’s a powerful reminder that decadence breeds weakness and insularity fosters delusion.

​2024 presidential election, Media bias, Democratic party, Joe rogan, Theo von, Donald trump, David pakman, Hasan piker, Echo chamber, Men, Opinion & analysis 

Editor’s note: This article appeared originally on September 19, 2023, under the headline “Enough with the Justice Department ‘independence’ myth.” We’re republishing it today because President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general, and the Democrats — and more than a few Republicans — lost their minds. Gaetz, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”

But Gaetz’s critics don’t see it that way. They say Gaetz would politicize the Justice Department and threaten its “independence” — an independence that Deion Kathawa carefully explains does not exist, either in the Constitution or the law.

***

A powerful and entrenched myth plagues American politics — namely, that the Department of Justice is, to some degree, “independent” of the president. The idea is plainly unconstitutional, actively harmful to the intended operation of our system of government, and a major contributor to the derangement of our common life. A critical step toward restoring sanity in our politics requires its eradication from our day-to-day practices and the people’s collective consciousness.

If the president is truly in charge of the entire executive branch, then he must have control over all of his officers and employees.

The myth originates from the Watergate scandal 50 years ago. For those unfamiliar with the history, a brief summary is in order.

The series of events that most contributed to the birth of the myth of the Justice Department’s “independence” began on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973 — the “Saturday Night Massacre.” President Richard M. Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, who in 1973 had been appointed as the special prosecutor to oversee the federal criminal investigation into the Watergate burglary and related crimes. Richardson refused to fire Cox and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus likewise refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered the next most senior department official, Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, to fire Cox. Bork carried out Nixon’s order.

Nixon’s actions that night set off a firestorm, culminating in his resignation from the presidency in the face of the House of Representatives’ threat of impeachment and the Senate’s near-certain conviction, as well as the eventual passage of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

A section of the EGA that authorized independent counsel investigations came before the Supreme Court in 1988. In Morrison v. Olson, a 7-1 majority (Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recused himself) held that the independent counsel provisions of the law “do not violate the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, or the limitations of Article III, nor do they impermissibly interfere with the President’s authority under Article II in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers.”

Justice Antonin Scalia, the decision’s lone dissenter, penned what is widely considered his best opinion. He famously observed the case was about:

the allocation of power among Congress, the President, and the courts in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium the Constitution sought to establish — so that “a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department,” Federalist No. 51, p. 321 (J. Madison), can effectively be resisted. Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.

Scalia’s basic point was that the independent counsel provisions of the EGA were void because prosecutorial power is quintessentially executive power and that because Article II of the Constitution provides that “the executive Power” — all of it — “shall be vested in a President of the United States,” any diminishment of the president’s authority is ipso facto unconstitutional.

Scalia noted that although the majority agreed with him that “the conduct of a criminal prosecution (and of an investigation to decide whether to prosecute)” is “the exercise of purely executive power” and that independent counsel provisions “deprive the President of the United States of exclusive control over the exercise of that power,” it nonetheless upheld those provisions because they did not completely eliminate the president’s control over the independent counsel — the counsel could still be fired for “good cause.”

Ultimately, Congress did not renew the independent counsel statute, which, as the Washington Post reported in June 1999, “gave rise to Kenneth W. Starr, the impeachment of President Clinton, and 20 other investigations of high-level federal officials over the past two decades.”

On both constitutional and pragmatic grounds, this was the right outcome. Scalia’s Morrison dissent was prophetic.

If the president is truly in charge of the entire executive branch (the academic literature refers to this as the “unitary executive theory”), then he must have control over all of his officers and employees. As a practical matter, of course, the president cannot personally “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” as Article II, Section 3 commands, but if he cannot, when necessary, direct the actions of his subordinates — and remove them if they do not comply — then he is not really in charge.

After all, if the buck does not stop with the president, what on earth is the point of all the billions of dollars’ worth of drama we go through as a country every four years to elect one?

​Justice department, Matt gaetz, Attorney general, Donald trump, Article ii, Constitution, 2024 presidential election, Independence, Antonin scalia, Supreme court, Opinion & analysis 

Last night, pro-life warrior Allie Beth Stuckey faced off with actress Sophia Bush on Instagram over the subject of abortion.

Bush pushed the typical leftist talking point that abortion bans in certain states prevent women from getting life-saving care when they’re experiencing a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy.

Like so many pro-choice women, what Bush gets wrong is the difference between how insurance companies code procedures (often the word abortion is used) and what is actually illegal.

“A D&C IS AN ABORTION. It is THE SAME PROCEDURE,” Bush wrote on Instagram.

“Despite what the pro-forced birth folks want to tell you, these laws prevent doctors from giving care,” she ranted in a reel, before accusing Allie and other pro-lifers of having “blood on [their] hands.”

Of course, that’s far from correct.

“An abortion is the purposeful termination of the life of an unborn child, and that is exactly how it is defined in every pro-life law that has been passed since Dobbs, which means that there is no law in any state that is restricting or prohibiting miscarriage care or the removal of an ectopic pregnancy,” Allie explained in the following Instagram reel.

Bush referenced Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica, two Texas women whose stories have become leftist propaganda, as they both died because doctors claim they were fearful of prosecution due to the Heartbeat Law.

Once again, this is false information. Allie explains that in both of these cases, neither woman sought an abortion and actually died due to medical negligence.

“They take these stories, they stoke fear, and they tell women that if you are pro-life, then you are for killing women,” Allie told Live Action founder and president Lila Rose on a recent episode of “Relatable.”

“There’s not a single pro-life law in the country that prohibits emergency medical care to a mother that might involve an early delivery if it’s an emergency or that prohibits miscarriage care or that prohibits care for an ectopic pregnancy,” Rose reiterated.

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

– YouTube

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​Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Blazetv, Sophia bush, Instagram, Pro-life, Abortion, Reproductive rights, Lila rose