Chances are that you’ve disagreed at least once with a family member, friend, or co-worker about what counts as “true” or “real” art.

This usually plays out as a right vs. left divide. People on the right are often suspicious of art that pushes too far beyond familiar social boundaries. The left, on the other hand, embraces innovation and art that breaks with what’s traditionally accepted. In reality, these attitudes share the same nontraditional view of art. The tension has been unfolding for the last 500 years. It’s the story of modern art, born from a fundamentally disordered relationship to art itself.

A modern art museum looks less like a celebration of art and more like a graveyard.

Imagine you and a friend are on a trip, and you decide to visit the Guggenheim art museum. There, you both see “Comedian,” a piece by artist Maurizio Cattelan that sold for $6 million at auction. Before you is a banana duct-taped to a wall — that’s it.

Unable to suspend disbelief, you say, “How is that art?”

Your friend replies, “Art is subjective. Who are you to say this isn’t art?”

Simply all you can say is, “I cannot see beauty or skill in this.”

So your friend rejoins you in a vacuous, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But you wouldn’t understand. Anyway, this is a commentary. It’s about the concept of the artwork.”

Critics beat the “Comedian” to death not because of its unique absurdity but because of its recency. The Dadaist art movement has pulled stunts like this one for more than 100 years. It reminds me of the infamous “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp: a urinal with a signature. It was exhibited 108 years ago.

But how did we get here?

To understand how we arrived at this predicament in Western art, we must examine our relationship to it, how we receive art, how we engage with it, and its history.

A new understanding

The modern period marks a departure from the pre-modern world (i.e., year 1500 A.D.). It’s a turning point in history unlike any before. Everything changed, including the ways in which people perceive reality. Gone are the days of enchantment. Now we have rationality. A Faustian bargain was made.

“What is art?”

When someone asks that question, what immediately comes to mind? Most people think of painting, drawing, sculptures — things that belong in a museum. But this modern way of thinking about art is novel, foreign to people in the pre-modern world. Calling that era “pre-modern” is misleading because it makes up the vast majority of human history. The real anomaly is the modern period.

Seen from this perspective, a modern art museum looks less like a celebration of art and more like a graveyard.

For the ancient and medieval person, art was integrated into life itself — not separated from it. Art was less a noun than a verb, something one did. People didn’t create art; they “art-ed” or were “art-ing.” Art was a process of participation. Put simply: There was no distinction between “art” and “craft” as we think of it today.

Modern people haven’t abandoned this concept entirely, but it no longer sits at the forefront of how we think about art. It survives in words like “artisan,” referring to bakers, tailors, and other craftsmen. It lingers in expressions like “the art of watchmaking” or “the art of conversation.” Even commercial marketing borrows it. Products marketed as “artisan” purport to distinguish craftsmanship from mass-produced commodities.

In the pre-modern world, everyday life was shaped by art. Daily clothes, a dining room table, the family home, the local church — from the lowliest object to the most sacred — all were made with care and beauty. On one level, this is easy to explain: Everything was handmade, and because possessions were less numerous, people valued and cared for them, passing them down through generations.

RELATED: How modern art became a freak show — and why only God can fix it

skynesher/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Naturally, if you own something that long, you want it to be beautiful.

But more fundamentally, all of these objects fit into the same pattern that we call “art”: the gathering and ordering of particular items in a way that speaks to human perception. A finely crafted dining table binds a family together more than a folding card table ever could. The liturgical cup used for the Eucharist is fashioned from precious metals and decorated with deliberate symbols, while the wine glasses at the family table, though well made, are more austere.

Each object bears an artfulness appropriate to its purpose, something obvious to the pre-modern mind.

This older way of living with art is not completely lost on us today. It still exists, though less prominently and increasingly in decline. Yet one demotion of art is almost extinct in the modern world, surviving only in tight-knit communities, ethnic traditions, and older generations. It may not immediately register as “art” at first glance, but folk dances, dinner parties, storytelling, and other forms of social ritual are actually higher forms of art than material objects. They are art as shared life.

Material art matters, too, but it mainly points us toward the deeper loss.

A transformative transition

One simple historical fact makes the difference clear: Pre-modern artists didn’t sign their work.

The transition to modernity was, as in so many areas of life, a pact with the devil. Technical mastery was gained, but the spiritual core was left void. The Enlightenment promised reason, science, and progress, so it seemed that humanity could finally cast off the shadow of the past and secure its future. But the human condition didn’t change.

What convenience gave with one hand, it robbed from the soul with the other.

Industrialization, mass production, plastics, and now the digital age each dealt successive blows to our once-integrated relationship with art. In the pre-modern world, art was an integrated part of life. Modernity replaced this with self-consciousness. Art became not a relationship but a category. Crafts were dissected under the microscope of science, refined to new levels of technical brilliance. The results were often dazzling: new techniques, perspectives, and ways of depicting the world.

But the cost was steep.

As long as people exist, art will exist. But the toothpaste is out of the tube. There is no going back.

This story unfolds in art history. By the late medieval era, traditional iconography, steeped in centuries of sacred meaning, was being reshaped by artists like Duccio and Giotto. The Renaissance largely abandoned these forms, with titans like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci leading the way. By the 1570s, El Greco was embedding sexually transgressive and even blasphemous subtleties into his work.

This trajectory continued, sometimes slowly and other times all at once. But the pattern was clear: identity fragmented, transcendence severed, innovation pursued for its own sake. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the seeds had fully flowered. Soviet brutalism imposed tyranny through pattern and abstraction, while Dadaism dissolved meaning altogether until art and non-art were indistinguishable.

The result? Today, we argue with friends about whether a banana duct-taped to a wall is “art.” Art has become commentary on commentary, detached from human experience, and reduced to little more than propaganda.

Today, modern art is defined by its fixation on individual idiosyncrasies. At its extreme, it becomes nothing more than the subjective whims of the isolated self disconnected from reality.

What can be done?

Does this mean that culture and beauty itself have reached their end? Thankfully not.

As long as people exist, art will exist. But the toothpaste is out of the tube. There is no going back. We cannot rewind the clock to some imagined golden age. That sentiment is not only impractical, but it’s impossible.

We are where we find ourselves today because of the past, so such a return would lead us back to today. The path forward, then, must connect the present to the past, the new and the old, weaving together the modern and the pre-modern.

The case of Tarkovsky

One bridge across the divide is found in the work of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors and screenwriters of all time.

Unbeknownst to him, his life was a crossroads: Raised in the Soviet Union under militant atheism and the revolutionary spirit of modernism, yet he was an Orthodox Christian, steeped in the traditions of the pre-modern world. His father was a poet, and his mother was a lover of literature. Tarkovsky was perfectly positioned to bring the old and new into dialogue.

His art is a call to repentance, an offering and pleasing aroma to the Lord.

Tarkovsky saw modernity clearly: “Man has, since the Enlightenment, dealt with things he should have ignored.”

The heart of Tarkovsky’s vision was simple: art as prayer. He admitted that Dostoevsky — another Russian and Orthodox Christian who wrestled with the sacred and the existential — was the greatest artist. Tarkovsky wore this influence on his sleeve. His films probe life, death, suffering, and the search for the miraculous and meaning. He once wrote, “The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”

In his films, Tarkovsky magnifies the specific experiences of the individual, yet he always frames them in transcendence. He gathers the unique and lifts it upward. But he does not erase human subjectivity. Rather, he redeems it.

As he put it:

When I speak of the aspiration towards the beautiful, of the ideal as the ultimate aim of art, which grows from a yearning for that ideal, I am not for a moment suggesting that art should shun the “dirt” of the world. On the contrary! The artistic image is always a metonym, where one thing is substituted for another, the smaller for the greater. To tell of what is living, the artist uses something dead; to speak of the infinite, he shows the finite. Substitution … the infinite cannot be made into matter, but it is possible to create an illusion of the infinite: the image.

In this way, Tarkovsky reverses modernity’s desecrations and successfully connects the modern and pre-modern. He uses the individual to orient us toward God, a spiritual transcendence of sorts. Where the modern world has made the holy profane, Tarkovsky, in a Christ-like reversal, makes the profane holy.

His art is a call to repentance, an offering and pleasing aroma to the Lord.

“The artist is always a servant and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of self can only be expressed in sacrifice,” he once said.

The way ahead

What does this mean for us? It means embodying art in our daily lives.

You don’t need to be a professional artist. Do things deliberately and with care. A mother preparing a meal gathers the fruit of local soil into the higher good of uniting her family. A father telling a bedtime story practices one of the most ancient and enduring arts.

But the key is purpose. When art is done for its own sake — or worse, for the sake of self — it collapses and is degraded. A meal made not to bind the family but only to satisfy hunger soon degenerates into the TV dinner. A story rushed through without care decays into mass-produced entertainment stripped of substance.

If this is true of everyday arts, how much more of the fine arts? A painter who works only from private interiority — detached from a holy purpose — quickly drifts into solipsism, creating images disconnected from reality. An iconographer, by contrast, paints for veneration, anchoring a community’s worship in something beyond themselves. One isolates; the other binds together. One closes in on the self; the other points beyond it.

Art created for no other purpose than for the self is disconnected from all and devoid of any real power or meaning.

There are signs of hope. Traditional religious communities, specifically liturgical Christian traditions (like the Orthodox Church), maintain and produce work of depth and beauty: the ritualistic, iconography, music, homiletics, and so on — all built around a sincere Christian framework. The Orthodox Arts Journal showcases this revival. And in addition to liturgical arts, it has begun integrating beauty into popular art forms like graphic novels, fairy tales, literature, and clothing.

Revival, however, can’t remain institutional. The hard work of beauty must be done in your own home and life.

Modern technology allows anyone to become an artist in any field. But the burden of self-awareness requires you to carve out time and put in real effort. And it’s not enough to create beauty yourself. You must also reject the cheap slop offered to you and choose real craftsmanship.

The road is narrow and hard. But if you want to be delivered from the hell of modern art, go make a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord.

​Andrei tarkovsky, Art, Beauty, Comedian, Duct-taped banana, God, Christianity, Christian, Prayer, Worship, Faith 

On January 28, 2017, in the immediate aftermath of President Trump’s first travel ban, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent out a tweet that would reverberate far beyond social media:

To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada.”

Migrants and asylum-seekers in the United States took Trudeau at his word, and within weeks, illegal crossings over the Quebec-New York border surged, centered on a rural stretch known as Roxham Road.

The majority of the border-crossers are from Haiti; any of them could well have come from Springfield, Ohio, where the Biden administration dumped thousands of Haitian ‘refugees.’

The surge was driven by a quirk in the Safe Third Country Agreement, a treaty between Canada and the U.S. dating back to 2004. Under the deal, asylum-seekers are supposed to file their claims in the first safe country they arrive in.

But the STCA applied only at official checkpoints. Those who walked across back roads like Roxham were exempt — and once on Canadian soil, they were entitled to have their cases heard. This loophole transformed Roxham into the busiest irregular crossing in the country.

Invite revoked

What began as symbolic anti-Trump signaling had become a full-blown crisis by the time Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Quebec’s shelters and reception centers filled beyond capacity, municipalities complained of mounting costs, and national polls showed Canadians increasingly skeptical of how the border was being managed.

The issue also spilled across the border. Even as Biden faced criticism for presiding over border chaos in Texas and Arizona, his administration quietly pressed Ottawa to rein in irregular migration to the north. In March 2023, Trudeau and Biden announced an expanded Safe Third Country Agreement that closed the Roxham Road loophole, giving Canadian officials authority to turn back asylum-seekers anywhere along the border if caught within 14 days of entry.

Smuggle session

The irony was hard to miss: Washington was leaning on Canada to tighten a rural crossing in Quebec at the very moment its own southern border remained mired in crisis. Trudeau’s lofty promise of welcome had ended, six years later, in a deal to keep more people out.

But Roxham Road is very much open today — thanks to organized crime groups making a tidy profit from smuggling people across the border.

A recent investigation by Rebel News confirmed reports of rampant human trafficking after Churubusco, New York, resident Jerry Miller contacted the conservative news outlet about an escalation in activity at the border.

According to Miller, the vast majority of those being surreptitiously moved across the border are from Haiti; any of them could well have come from Springfield, Ohio, where the Biden administration dumped thousands of Haitian “refugees.”

Haitians head north

Why are they heading north?

Their motivation to come to Canada could certainly be linked to Trump’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 500,000 Haitians living in the U.S. A Rebel News reporter found Haitian ID cards at the scene, along with discarded backpacks, clothes, and food.

In one night, a Rebel News reporter using an infrared camera caught 23 people crossing.

Hunter Robare, who lives on the same street as Miller, described the situation. “It’s every day.”

“It can be pretty nerve-racking,” Robare added. “Just being at home and you have a group of people walking down the road; you don’t know their intentions.”

RELATED: Blaze News investigates: Springfield sees lives saved, Haitian exodus thanks to Trump’s deportation threats

Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Legal increase

Of course, this is just illegal immigration. Under Trudeau and continuing under Prime Minister Mark Carney, legal immigration increased at rates not seen in over a century.

The combination of chronic illegal immigration and lax legal immigration is producing a potential economic catastrophe for Canada, prompting Alberta Immigration Minister Joseph Schow to demand that the federal government accurately assess the illegal immigrant population.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it: We believe there’s 500,000 illegal immigrants currently spread across Canada, and these individuals are benefiting from taxpayer-funded services,” said Schow.

Meanwhile, more than eight years after Trudeau’s fateful invitation, the human traffickers at Roxham Road continue to thrive.

​Justin trudeau, Mark carney, Donald trump, Illegal immigration, Legal immigration, Roxham road, Quebec, Border, Joe biden, Culture, Canada, Letter from canada 

For some, politics is about power. For others, it’s about service. But for President Donald Trump, recent words and actions suggest it is about something more — a higher calling.

In a recent interview, Vice President JD Vance lightheartedly said the priest who baptized him said he might “put in a word with the big guy” if President Donald Trump could broker peace in Ukraine. President Trump, speaking on Fox News, expressed his own aspirations, saying he “wants to try to get to heaven.”

President Trump is advancing what many see as God’s work: fostering global peace, domestic security, and economic opportunity.

As a Christian, I know that faith in Jesus Christ as Lord is what ultimately secures our eternity, not earthly deeds. Yet, as an American, I’m grateful for leaders like President Trump, whose actions reflect a commitment to grace, truth, and courage — values that align with what I believe God calls us to embody in public service.

President Trump’s pursuit of peace exemplifies this grace in action.

His round-the-clock efforts to end the bloodshed in Ukraine have brought key players to the table, including meetings with Presidents Zelenskyy and Putin, paving the way for security guarantees without deploying U.S. troops. He has backed plans for lasting resolutions, emphasizing European involvement to ease the burden on American taxpayers. He has also secured peace frameworks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many more.

Many of the nations with which President Trump has worked have in fact nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is well deserved. Between his two terms, Trump stands as the only 21st-century president to secure multiple peace deals while avoiding any new wars.

This America First foreign policy echoes the gracious resolve of Ronald Reagan, prioritizing diplomacy over endless conflict and protecting our troops.

Restoring truth to our institutions has been another hallmark of the president’s leadership. By dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates in federal agencies and protecting religious and economic freedoms, he has countered the leftist corporate bullies and ideologues who once wielded power to silence dissent.

No longer can saying the “wrong” thing — whether rooted in politics or faith — cost Americans their livelihoods through de-banking or cancellation.

America thrives on equality of opportunity, not forced equity; on economic freedom, not government overreach. President Trump understands that dwelling on past scars divides us, while celebrating our shared values unites the nation. Our schools, culture, and even our museums should reflect this forward-looking spirit.

RELATED: The DC nobody talks about — and Trump finally did

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Organizations like the State Financial Officers Foundation, of which I am honored to lead, have been instrumental allies. Comprised of free market-supporting state treasurers, auditors, and comptrollers from across the United States, SFOF fights against environmental, social, and governance criteria, DEI policies, and discriminatory de-banking that stifle innovation and fairness. These state financial officers have helped shape and advance policies that support the president’s agenda, promoting economic freedom and fiscal responsibility to improve lives for all Americans.

In short, we stand with the president because his vision fosters prosperity and American exceptionalism.

President Trump’s courage shines brightest in his dedication to American safety and workers. By taking decisive action in Washington, D.C. — a majority-black city plagued by crime — he has overseen a significant drop in violent incidents, with rates falling by about 35% since his administration’s interventions.

His crackdown on illegal immigration has slashed border crossings by over 90%, reaching historic lows not seen in decades. Deportations have surged past 300,000, prioritizing public safety and rule of law.

Economically, Trump’s policies have attracted trillions in pledged investments from foreign allies, while tariffs have generated over $100 billion in revenue since April alone. These efforts have created hundreds of thousands of jobs, from manufacturing to construction, putting American workers first in a way no president in my lifetime ever had.

President Trump is advancing what many see as God’s work: fostering global peace, domestic security, and economic opportunity. Yet, his critics persist in opposition that often seems politically shortsighted and morally misguided.

I urge them: Do not let disdain for the man overshadow the good for our people. This moment calls for unity, not division.

I believe divine intervention spared Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer, seemingly deepening his faith and resolve. America and the world are stronger for it.

To Donald Trump, I say: Keep leading, Mr. President. Your nation supports you, and history is on your side.

​Donald trump, Heaven, Christian, Jd vance, Faith, Dc crime, Ecnonomy, Immigration, Opinion & analysis 

Extraordinarily effective Hamas propaganda has delegitimized Israel’s right of self-defense by confirming for a world that scorns Israel that its demon is engaged in genocide. It is not, but the same cannot be said of Hamas — the aggressor that has largely avoided that opprobrium.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 5.5 million Palestinians live in the Palestinian territories, principally the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The bureau estimates that in the last 12 months, Gaza’s population declined by 15,423 to 2,114,201. Meanwhile, “Palestine’s” total population grew by 1.17% in 2024 and is projected to grow by another 1.75% in 2025. According to the bureau, the principal factors in Gaza’s population decline were emigration, war casualties, and a declining birth rate.

If leftists prevent Israel from fighting an aggressor who has pledged to destroy it, targets civilians, and takes and murders hostages, who is complicit in genocide?

Though the Gaza Ministry of Health’s war casualty reports are statistically implausible and quietly rejected by the United Nations, the world’s media uncritically repeat the lies. Most recently, the media disseminated the ministry’s claim that war deaths exceed 60,000, reducing Gaza’s population by 10%. The actual comparison was to “projected growth”; 60,000 represents a 2.6% decline.

Peddling lies

Many outlets presented the ministry’s disinformation and malinformation as their objective reporting. For example, PBS explained:

The ministry is staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. … Israel’s offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, displaced around 90% of the population and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with experts warning of famine.

The report added:

Israel’s offensive and its blockade have also gutted Gaza’s health system, with several hospitals having shut down and others only partially functioning as they receive waves of war-wounded.

Jaundiced by radical ideologies and anti-Semitism, and empowered by Hamas’ misdirection, at least 38 countries, the European Union’s second-ranking official, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, 14 members of Congress, and many others accuse Israel of genocide.

If Goebbels had Hamas propagandists on his side, we might all be shouting “Heil Hitler!”

In November, a U.N. special committee found Israel’s operations in Gaza “consistent” with genocide, including its alleged use of “starvation as weapon of war.” In July, the U.N. dishonestly announced that Gaza met two of the three criteria for famine. To reach that conclusion, the U.N., which has battered Israel for years, rigged the numbers.

On July 27, the World Health Organization warned that “malnutrition is on a dangerous trajectory in the Gaza Strip,” with 74 malnutrition-related deaths so far in 2025, most occurring in July. According to the WHO, “The crisis remains entirely preventable. Deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.”

But just one week later, a U.N. agency reported that Palestinian mobs and terrorists are stealing 89% of aid shipments. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee added that “Hamas made half a billion dollars last year stealing food [and] selling it on the black market in order to finance their activities.”

Rigging stats

On August 22, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a partnership of 25 organizations including U.N. agencies, announced that “reasonable evidence” exists of famine in Gaza since August 15. An Israeli response observed that “the declaration was issued not only without evidence that would justify it under the IPC’s own criteria, but also in contradiction to more recent data that was publicly available.” Although the IPC report cited the interception of aid, it justified that as the “desperation” of residents.

Other studies (including the U.N.’s) have not found widespread famine, a deliberate starvation strategy, or systematic attacks by Israel on civilians. Severe pre-existing medical conditions cause most deaths attributed to malnutrition.

RELATED: Why does the mainstream media keep blaming Israel for Gaza’s humanitarian crisis?

Photo by Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images

Hamas propaganda deceives with pictures that are staged, taken in other countries, taken years ago, or taken of children with genetic defects. It also promotes fabricated claims of Israeli attacks on Gazans seeking aid, including the untrue tale of a Gazan boy allegedly killed by the IDF at an aid distribution site.

Except for an approximately three-month blockade, Israel has facilitated aid. It warns civilians of pending attacks, set up hundreds of food distribution centers and aid packages, and supports airdrops of up to 130 tons of food per day. Last month, Israel announced additional actions, including lengthy combat pauses to coordinate aid delivery with the U.N. and other organizations.

The U.N. charter guarantees the “inherent” right of defense. The U.N. Genocide Convention defines “genocide” as killing “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” If Israel wanted to destroy the Palestinian people, it would have done so.

Instead, the claimed dead, including Hamas’ human shields and those executed by Hamas, total under 1.1% of Gaza’s population, which continues to grow. According to West Point’s John Spencer, the leading expert on urban warfare, no military has ever done more than Israel to avoid civilian casualties. Israel’s increasingly precise targeting of combatants has achieved a lower civilian death rate than most wars over the last 100 years.

Double standards for Hamas

The Hamas charter states that Israel must be “obliterated” and that “Moslems must fight Jews and kill them.” Hamas targeted civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and has launched thousands of rocket attacks since then.

If leftists and anti-Semites prevent Israel and Jews from fighting an aggressor who has pledged to destroy them, targets civilians, and takes and murders hostages, precisely who is complicit in genocide?

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Gaza, Gaza invasion, Gaza attacks, Gaza strip, Gaza genocide, Israel, Israel gaza, Israel palestine conflict, Israel hamas war, Israel invades gaza, October 7, October 7 terror attack, Oct 7 terror attack, Oct 7, Hamas, Hamas attack, Un, Lies 

In 2021, Deborah Conrad, a physician assistant from Rochester, New York, was fired from her role at Rochester Regional Health’s United Memorial Medical Center.

Deborah’s crime?

Doing her job.

When she noticed adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination in her patients, she reported it to VAERS — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Federal regulations, including Emergency Use Authorization requirements for COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, mandate that health care providers report specific adverse events to VAERS.

But when Deborah fulfilled her lawful duty, she was terminated.

Today, she is neck-deep in a landmark False Claims Act lawsuit against her former employer, challenging institutional suppression of reporting. Her case has thankfully reached the discovery phase, where evidence will be gathered to expose potential violations and seek justice for her retaliatory dismissal.

On a recent episode of “Back to the People,” Nicole Shanahan sat down with Deborah to hear a story that demands national attention.

In December 2020, the first COVID-19 vaccines hit the market, but they were initially reserved for high-risk individuals, especially the elderly, as that was considered the most vulnerable group.

Deborah immediately began noticing that several of her geriatric patients experienced deadly falls shortly after receiving the vaccine. “They would pass out and fall, hit their head, develop brain bleeds, strokes, acute mental status changes, heart attacks, sudden heart failure. I mean, the list just goes on and on, and the proximity to which they received the vaccine and then the onset of these symptoms often was within sometimes minutes to overnight,” she tells Nicole.

She explains that she and the staff at United Memorial Medical Center “did not receive any education about any possible side effects or what to do if [they] saw them happening,” nor were they trained to use the VAERS system, despite it being a legal requirement. Even their formal training ignored vaccine side effects.

“We are basically told they are safe and effective and to memorize the childhood vaccine schedule and that’s it. And so it’s ingrained in us from our training to never look at vaccines in any negative light,” she says.

Not knowing what to do about the obvious issues she was seeing in her patients, Deborah set out to find answers. “I went online and found the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and read all about it and taught myself how to file reports. … I then went and volunteered to be the reporting liaison and the educator for our system,” she says.

Initially, Deborah was rewarded for her above-and-beyond efforts. She was even “nominated by the New York State Society of Physician Assistance to sit on the board for professional misconduct for the state.”

But then things took a sharp turn.

Even though it required hours of her time to dig into medical records, take calls back from the CDC, and fill out pages of information for each case, Deborah continued to faithfully file VAERS reports for the sake of her patients and the millions of people across the country taking the vaccine.

“I’ve probably filed … close to 300 reports. I certainly think I am the person in the country that has filed the most VAERS reports at this point — really,” she says.

Sadly, none of Deborah’s reports have resulted in her patients receiving compensation — even the most well-documented and clear-cut cases.

Over time, Deborah started getting pushback from superiors who accused her of being anti-vaccine. They pelted her with questions, like “How do you know this is due to the COVID vaccine?” even though VAERS requires medical providers to report serious side effects that accompany vaccine administration, even if they think the events are unrelated.

“We’re just mandatory reporters, as we are in child abuse situations, right? We’re not there to judge who’s abusing the child or determine that. That’s not our job,” says Deborah.

But even though she explained the legal requirements and stressed the pre-eminence of patient safety to her supervisors, “the gaslighting just kept continuing.” They repeatedly labeled her “an anti-vaxxer” and told her to “toe the company line.”

But Deborah didn’t ease up. Having no support in the hospital, she began filing reports on her days off for both her own patients and the patients of other staff members, all while continuing to pressure supervisors to put a system in place.

One of her supervisors eventually elevated her concerns to higher-ups at Rochester Regional Health. “That’s when the suppression really started,” says Deborah. Her VAERS reports were silently audited, and she was reprimanded for “over-reporting,” even though every report she filed matched “the exact criteria on VAERS.”

As a punishment, her supervisors limited the number of reports Deborah could file to just her own patients. When she demanded confirmation that other staff members were filing VAERs reports for their own patients, reminding her supervisors that failing to do so was “committing fraud,” she was met with resistance.

“They basically said, ‘It’s not your business,”’ she recounts.

“And I said, ‘No, it is my business. … This is a criminal problem here — like you are billing for these vaccines, you are saying you are completing VAERS reports and you’re not, and if I know about it and I do nothing about it, then I’m just as guilty.”’

When it was clear that she would get no support from her supervisors, Deborah contacted the CDC, the FDA, the New York State Department of Health, and the New York State accrediting body and was finally able to get some legal help. She even went public with her concerns.

If anything, this only expedited her termination. After months of being called an anti-vaxxer, accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, and receiving threats to file a petition for her license removal, Deborah was surrounded by HR reps from Rochester Regional Health during the middle of her shift on October 6, 2021, and fired.

“I wasn’t allowed to get my things,” she says.

“My health insurance was canceled. I couldn’t apply for unemployment. They even fought me in being able to get my benefit time off that they owed me.”

Today, Rochester Regional Health is claiming the corporation fired Deborah for refusing to get the vaccine, which was required for medical staff, but its case is shaky, as she was in the process of obtaining “a valid and approved religious exemption” when she was fired.

Thankfully, with her case now in the discovery phase and strong evidence of institutional suppression, Deborah has a promising chance of proving that her termination was retaliatory for her whistleblowing efforts to uphold patient safety.

To hear the most shocking details and stories from inside Deborah’s hospital, watch the full interview above.

Want more from Nicole Shanahan?

To enjoy more of Nicole’s compelling blend of empathy, curiosity, and enlightenment, 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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With the 2026 primaries fast approaching, there are three U.S. Senate seats onlookers should keep an eye on.

Republicans are currently enjoying a supermajority after sweeping the 2024 elections, controlling the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point.

After November, Republicans flipped four seats: Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Montana. These victories flipped the Senate and put Republicans in a comfortable 53-seat majority while Democrats fell back to just 47 seats.

Although the GOP has a healthy majority, there are some more potential pick-up opportunities — and losses — for Republicans going into next year’s primaries.

RELATED: Exclusive: GOP lawmaker introduces bill barring illegal aliens from ‘sabotaged’ census

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One of the most contentious Senate races will be for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat in Georgia. Several prominent challengers have emerged in recent months, most notably with Republican Rep. Mike Collins throwing his hat in the race back in July. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has also been floated as a potential candidate, but she has not formally moved to run for the seat.

The freshman senator narrowly won his seat in 2020 by just one point against Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue. Given this razor-thin margin, Republicans have set their sights on taking back Ossoff’s seat, and early polling suggests it’s within reach.

The Cook Political Report currently rates Ossoff’s seat as a toss-up, and some polls mirror this rating. In a hypothetical race between Ossoff and Collins, the Democratic incumbent has polled with an average three-point advantage, according to RealClearPolitics. Another recent poll shows Collins trailing Ossoff by just one point, according to findings from TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics.

RELATED: Republican senator relishes ‘cray-cray’ Mamdani’s success: ‘We’ve gotten lucky’

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Another pick-up opportunity for Republicans emerged in Michigan after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced his retirement in January. Several Democratic candidates, like Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, have since launched their own campaign bids, but the future nominee will inevitably have to put up a fight against Republican challengers.

Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers is considered the frontrunner among the GOP candidates in the Michigan Senate race. Rogers previously ran and narrowly lost against Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024, but he has since relaunched his Senate campaign with the hopes of flipping the swing-state seat.

Slotkin managed to defeat Rogers by just 0.3% in November, signaling the support behind the Republican challenger. Earlier in the year, Rogers was polling several points ahead of his Democratic counterparts, and Cook Political Report has rated the Senate seat a toss-up.

RELATED: Ex-Clinton adviser warns Democrats of dire midterm season: ‘Elections have consequences’

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Although Republicans are poised to potentially flip some seats, there may be some warning signs in the Midwest.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) reportedly will not seek re-election in 2026, leaving a vacancy in the deep-red state. The Cook Political Report has rated the seat as leaning Republican, and the GOP has maintained a prominent presence in Iowa at both the local and national level.

Despite the success Republicans have enjoyed in the Hawkeye State, Democrats have begun to secure their own electoral victories. Most recently, Democrat Catelin Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch for an open state Senate seat, flipping the GOP’s supermajority for the first time in three years.

Steve Deace, a native Iowan and host of “The Steve Deace Show” on BlazeTV, told Blaze News that this swing in favor of Democrats is taking place because Iowans are not energized by any Republican candidates they have to choose from.

“There are danger signs, because if it can happen in Woodbury County, Iowa, this can happen anywhere in America,” Deace said.

“Our people are just not motivated, by and large, to vote for the Republican Party brand as a brand anymore. So you’ve got to prove to them you’re worth their time and effort for them to show up, and I think that this is a wake-up call for the next midterm.”

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested MS-13 associate Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Monday and set the stage for his deportation to Uganda.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Blaze News, “President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator, to terrorize American citizens any longer.”

‘The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal alien has completely fallen apart.’

But Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland — a judge former President Barack Obama nominated — swiftly intervened to prevent the removal of the Salvadoran national. Xinis told the Trump administration it was “absolutely forbidden” from deporting Garcia, then issued a temporary restraining order to this effect.

On Thursday, the MS-13 associate asked a different Obama judge to prevent Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and all of the officials in their respective agencies from discussing his sordid history.

“Since Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was released from pretrial custody last Friday, officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security — and even the White House — have attacked Mr. Abrego in the media in numerous highly prejudicial, inflammatory, and false statements,” Garcia’s attorneys noted in the request to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an Obama-nominated judge who sought Abrego’s release in July.

Garcia and his legal team were especially prickled by the suggestion that he is “a known MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, wife beater, and child predator.”

While Garcia’s attorneys complained that such claims were “baseless,” it’s clear the Trump administration did not create the allegations out of whole cloth.

RELATED: Exclusive: ICE targets illegal alien who allegedly assaulted a pregnant woman

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Justice Department attorneys indicated earlier this year that in March 2019, Garcia was summoned to appear in removal proceedings. During a bond hearing, ICE stated that a confidential informant flagged Garcia as an active member of MS-13. The illegal alien’s bond was denied with the court reportedly finding “that Abrego Garcia was a danger to the community.”

When Garcia appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, an immigration judge determined in April 2019 that “the determination that the Respondent is a gang member appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record.”

As with Garcia’s MS-13 link, the domestic abuser claim also did not appear out of thin air.

Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, sought domestic violence protective orders against him in 2020 and 2021. Vasquez alleged in her 2021 protective order petition that Garcia punched her, ripped off her shirt, and both scratched and bruised her.

— (@)

The human trafficking allegation that Garcia wants DHS and DOJ officials to refrain from publicly mentioning is fleshed out in his federal grand jury indictment which accuses him of conspiracy to transport aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens.

The indictment alleges that Garcia conspired to bring illegal aliens — adults and children alike — into the U.S. from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere from 2016 until this year. He allegedly made over 100 trips over the course of this alleged human smuggling campaign.

“Over the course of the conspiracy, the co-conspirators knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no known authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 member and associates,” said the indictment.

RELATED: Homeland Security plays games while deportations fall flat

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As for the “child predator” allegation, Bondi told reporters in June that one of Garcia’s alleged co-conspirators claimed that he not only “abused undocumented alien females” who were “under his control while transporting them throughout our country” but allegedly “solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor.”

Bondi, Noem, and the White House’s repeated references to these and other skeletons in Garcia’s closet evidently infuriated him, but Garcia’s attorneys said in their Thursday request that the “pièce de resistance” was the DHS’ repost of this White House meme:

— (@)

Garcia’s attorneys claimed in the request that “if the government is allowed to continue in this way, it will taint any conceivable jury pool by exposing the entire country to irrelevant, prejudicial, and false claims about Mr. Abrego.”

His attorneys asked for a gag order prohibiting all DHS and DOJ officials involved in Garcia’s case — and all officials in their supervisory chain — “from making extrajudicial comments that pose a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing this proceeding.”

A DHS official told the Hill, “If Kilmar Abrego Garcia did not want to be mentioned by the Secretary of Homeland Security, then he should have not entered our country illegally and committed heinous crimes.”

The DHS official continued, “Once again, the media is falling all over themselves to defend this criminal illegal MS-13 gang member who is an alleged human trafficker, domestic abuser, and child predator. The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal alien has completely fallen apart, yet they continue to peddle his sob story.”

The Hill indicated that the DOJ declined to comment.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted in August 2024 that a major factor behind his decision to endorse President Donald Trump was the opportunity to help “Make America Healthy Again” in a future Trump administration.

“Don’t you want healthy children?” Kennedy said in a speech. “And don’t you want the chemicals out of our food? And don’t you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that’s what President Trump told me that he wanted.”

Since his hotly contested confirmation as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary in February, Kennedy has worked ardently to deliver on the promise of MAHA.

Already, HHS under his tutelage has secured numerous victories on the health front, including the:

cancellation of mRNA vaccine development contracts; elimination of the Biden-era vaccine-reporting requirement and corresponding incentive system for hospitals; termination of thousands of bureaucrats along with senior establishmentarians such as Christine Grady, the wife of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci;removal of retarding fluoride drug products for children from the market;requirement that Pfizer and Moderna add new safety warnings to their COVID-19 vaccines; andremoval of the COVID vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended vaccine schedule for healthy pregnant women and children.

Although the Trump administration has delivered many MAHA wins, three in particular stand out as particularly consequential.

Fresh start at the ACIP

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency’s director — a position which, at the time of writing, was vacant thanks to Susan Monarez’s firing on Wednesday.

RELATED: Big shake-up at CDC: Director gets the boot; gay vax chief resigns, attacks RFK Jr. on way out

Photographer: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP in June.

While every member of the ACIP was a Biden administration appointee, the health secretary’s principle concern was not the panelists’ politics but rather their cozy relationships with some of the organizations they were tasked with scrutinizing.

For instance, data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov, a site managed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, indicated that Edwin Jose Asturias, one of the ACIP members whom Kennedy fired, collected around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees.

Blaze News previously reported that among the companies that paid Asturias what appear to have been consulting fees were Pfizer and Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC, a bio-pharmaceutical subsidiary of the company whose pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive the committee voted to recommend in October. Asturias also apparently netted millions in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC.

Like Asturias, Kennedy noted “most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines.”

Kennedy indicated that the individuals he appointed to the newly cleared panel were “highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense” and had “each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.”

Nuking gender ideology

Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168, the HHS has taken a wrecking ball to gender ideology.

For starters, the department released guidance to the U.S. government, to the public, and to external partners that sex is an immutable biological classification and that there are only two sexes, male and female.

The department has applied this standard to civil rights enforcement, health care policy, and sports eligibility; launched federal civil rights investigations into whether various states violated Title IX by allowing men in women’s sports; canceled funding for related programs and activities; and scrubbed its websites of messaging, guidance, and language that advanced gender ideology.

The HHS has also conditioned federal funding for states’ Personal Responsibility Education Program grants on the removal of all references to gender ideology.

California learned the hard way and had its PREP grant terminated on Aug. 21. The HHS’ Administration for Children and Families noted in a release that the agency would not tolerate funding “curricula that could encourage kids to contemplate mutilating their genitals, ‘altering their body … through hormone therapy,’ ‘adding or removing breast tissue,’ and ‘changing their name.'”

Axing artificial food coloring

The HHS outlined a plan in April to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America’s food supply.

Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, told Blaze News in November that the brighter artificial colors, which are helpful with sales and attractive to children, are harmful to their health.

“The science shows that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children, can disrupt the immune system, and are contaminated with carcinogens,” said Hari.

Red dye 40, for instance, has been linked in some studies to hyperactivity disorders in children, and, according to the Cleveland Clinic, has various potential side effects, including depression, irritability, and migraines.

A 2021 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Nutrition noted that blue dye 1 has been found to cause chromosomal aberrations and “was found to inhibit neurite growth and act synergistically with L-glutamic acid in vitro, suggesting the potential for neurotoxicity.”

In short order, the U.S Food and Drug Administration kicked off the process of revoking authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B in the short term and to eliminate another six synthetic dyes — FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2 — by the end of next year.

RELATED: RFK Jr. torches vaccine panel to make consequences count again

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The FDA also requested that companies move up their timelines for the removal of FD&C Red No. 3.

“These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development,” Kennedy said in a statement. “That era is coming to an end. We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust.”

Numerous food manufacturers and fast-food chains have fallen in line or taken big steps in the right direction, including General Mills; Kraft Heinz; Starbucks; PepsiCo; Danone North America; TreeHouse Foods; Tyson Foods; and In-N-Out Burger.

In addition to tackling synthetic dyes, the HHS has paved the way for the use of food coloring from natural sources. In May, the FDA granted new color additive petitions for galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract, and calcium phosphate.

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In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

RELATED: The deep state is no longer deniable — thanks to Tulsi Gabbard

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The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network’s architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

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Language, religion, and culture can be barriers that prevent people from different backgrounds from understanding one another. But time — the ongoing flow of moments from the past, through the present, and into the future — is something that unites us in its universality, right?

Not necessarily.

It turns out that time is also subject to interpretation.

“What if I told you that for many African societies, the concept of the future doesn’t exist and that instead of time moving forwards, time actually moves backwards,” said Instagram user @mumbipoetry in a viral August 18 post.

Quoting Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti, she says, “time is a two-dimensional phenomenon with a long past, vibrant present, and virtually no future,” where the present encompasses “the now, the recent past, and the immediate future,” while “the vast endless past [is] where all events eventually go on to live forever.” But because “time is made up of events” and must be “experienced in order to be real,” the future “cannot constitute part of time” because it has neither events nor experience to legitimize it.

A year isn’t measured by Earth’s rotations around the sun; it’s measured by events. “A year is only over when those four seasons have taken place, so a year could take 365 days, 390 days — it doesn’t matter,” she explained, contrasting it with the Western world’s concept of time, where it’s treated as a “commodity” that can be “spent, saved, wasted, or lost.”

This two-dimensional understanding of time is why many African languages “don’t have a word to describe the distant future,” she explains.

The African notion of time is a real head-scratcher for Westerners, who are constantly preoccupied with thoughts of the future.

This difference, says BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre, is “so radical it makes cooperation basically impossible.”

Could this dismissal of the future be one of the reasons why much of Africa continues to face significant economic and social challenges? Could it be evidence that our two worldviews are incompatible?

“If you do not have a future, how do you understand planning for something? How do you understand a lower time preference that would allow you to build civilization? How do you understand denying yourself today so that you can thrive tomorrow?” Auron asks.

Having no concept or language for the future has sprawling implications that impact the individual person and the entire civilization, he explains. From contracts that establish future obligations to time zones, delivery schedules, and business deals, how does anyone thrive if their notion of time is that it only exists once an event takes place?

“People who do not have a word to describe this phenomenon [of the future] are going to have a very, very hard time working inside our system, adopting our customs, and they’re going to lose out in the larger global economic picture — the geopolitical picture,” says Auron, pointing out that liberals often whine that this view is “imperialistic.”

“Yes, it is Western-centric. It is ‘racist’ to the extent that it favors people of European descent who understand the world in this way,” he adds. “But that’s also why it works.”

“Maybe it’s the way [Africans] want to live, but it will fall behind people who have a different conception of reality, a different understanding of time. Again, you don’t have to hate people or make fun of people … because they have this different understanding, but you definitely need to factor that in when you’re deciding who should be in your country and whether or not your system can be applied to other people.”

To hear more of Auron’s analysis, watch the episode above.

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