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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn interviews Surging Santorum Glenn interviews Surging Santorum

February 09, 2012
Wilson

Writer

GLENN: Rick Santorum in the hot seat. Why were they putting their hands all over you yesterday? Rick Santorum, a bunch of pastors, what is up with that?

SANTORUM: You know, it's ‑‑ I know this sounds very foreign to some people but it's called prayer.

PAT: Oh, wow. What about the separation of church and state? Wow.

GLENN: So Rick Santorum, you're admitting that you're in some sort of prayer cult.

SANTORUM: Yeah, believe it or not, I do, in fact, pray and I actually, you know, asked people to pray for me.

PAT: So how about ‑‑ I mean, obviously we've been praying for you and I've been rooting for you the whole time and something good happened the other day. Uh, you just came out of the blue and wrecked the field.

GLENN: How do you explain that? Explain yourself, Rick Santorum.

PAT: Back on the hot seat now.

SANTORUM: Well, you know, the message began ‑‑ was resonating. I mean, we went out to try to, not to spend the money at the time in the states where the campaigns have been, you know, really locked down for a long time in Nevada and Florida and we went out to the place where, you know, you didn't have these millions of dollars being spent tearing candidates apart and we went to the folks in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado and delivered a message and the response was just awesome. You know, people realize that we need a candidate that's going to make Barack Obama the issue in this campaign, and Gingrich and Romney tearing each other are apart, not talking about the issues. And the reason they don't talk about the issues, people began to figure it out, is because on the big issues of the day, they don't actually disagree with each other or Obama. And that's the problem.

GLENN: So Rick, where do you ‑‑ where are you going from here? What ‑‑ what do the polls look like for, is Super Tuesday is the next event, isn't it?

SANTORUM: Well, no. There's Michigan and Arizona coming up at the end of the month and then the following week there is Super Tuesday. I went to Texas yesterday and had a great day there. Big rally, you know, thousands of people. I just came, just walked out of a rally in Oklahoma City here. I don't know how many thousand people were there but it was ‑‑ it was a great venue. We feel very, very good. We're on our way to Tulsa. And Oklahoma is a Super Tuesday state and we believe that this will be a state we will do very, very well in and, in fact, I believe this is a state we can win and we're going to put a lot of effort here.

GLENN: Give me the ‑‑ your take. I don't think we've talked to you since the Catholic church has come under attack and you're the biggest Papist we know. I mean, this is not an attack on life.

SANTORUM: No.

GLENN: This is not an attack on the Catholic church. What is this an attack on?

SANTORUM: This is an attack on the First Amendment, this is an attack on religious liberty, this is an attack on freedom of speech. I was just out with the military, he said the U.S. Army made them stop them from talking to their chaplains talking to their people in the pews and made them ‑‑ ended a message that they called seditious from the Catholic church. I mean, this is ‑‑ what I've been saying and you've been saying, Glenn, for a long time. This is not just about our economic freedom, and ObamaCare and Dodd/Frank and all those government takeovers from the different sectors of our economy. When government says that they can create a right from you, for you, then the government can tell you how to exercise that right and if you don't do it, they'll punish you. Catholic charities, I was told if they don't do and provide that service for the ‑‑ for their people which is specifically against the teachings of the church, they will be fined $150 million. That's $150 million from people who would otherwise be given care by Catholic charities and in their mission work who are getting, now are going to pay tribute to Barack Obama. You say this all the time and you are so right. The real intolerance, the real intolerance in America are those on the left, those who say that you will do what you are told to do, there is no freedom. Look, the First Amendment came about because we are a Judeo‑Christian country and we believe the dignity of every person and that person has the right to have free exercise of basic God‑given rights. The left doesn't believe in God‑given rights. They believe in their right to tell you what to do.

GLENN: This to me is the Niemöller moment. This is the moment where first they came for whomever and I didn't say anything.

SANTORUM: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: Do you believe that? Because that's quite a charge to make.

SANTORUM: No, it is, it is ‑‑ I mean, I wish you'd have heard my speech here in Oklahoma City. That's exactly what I said, that this is not a Catholic issue. This is not a religious issue. This is not a faith issue. This is an issue of the role and the power of government over the people to command them to think the way the government tells you to think and to be what the government tells you to do, which is against your conscience, which is against your right of speech. This is not just about economic freedom anymore. This is about government and its power and control over its people.

GLENN: The federal government is now saying that if you are ‑‑ if you are involved in ministry at all, if you went to school and you're a priest or a pastor or anything and you have federal loans and you are in ministry at all, you don't get the federal pass that they're offering to everybody else. Why do you suppose they're doing that, Rick?

SANTORUM: Well, probably the same reason they tried to eliminate the deductions for charitable organizations. You know, this is an attack, Glenn, and I know you talk about this. In my book it takes a family, I talk a lot about something called mediating institutions in our society. I talk about the importance of having these civic and community and faith organizations, the family itself. As organizations that are in and around the individual, that help the individual buffer from the effect of government and help the individual to be able to live and solve and work and solve the problems at a level that is closest to the individual and so it creates this opportunity to build a great society from the bottom up because you have all of these little, you know, little mediating groups that help you to be able to be free and to pursue your dreams and provide for yourself and your family. The government sees these as problems in our society because they have values that don't comport with the government's values and so they systematically try to eliminate them. And that's faith and family and civic organizations. This is ‑‑ these are the problems in society, from the standpoint of the left. And what you see is it's nothing more than an attempt to hollow out the public square, hollow out the entities between the all‑powerful state and the individual. And the more direct reliance upon the state that the individual has, of course, the more power the state has.

GLENN: Rick, I ‑‑ we were just talking about this the other day and I said, I'm not sure if I've had an in‑depth conversation with you on, you know, the Tides Foundation and, you know, the role that George Soros is playing and I have had one with Romney and he just doesn't go there. And he's like, I don't know. He doesn't necessarily, at least it is my feeling that he doesn't believe that the, you know, these radicals in our universities and around the White House, that they're actually communist revolutionaries that do want to destroy America. He pretty much dismisses them. Where do you stand on that?

SANTORUM: Well, look. I mean, I'm going to try to be as neutral on this as possible. They want to change America. They want to change America from its founding principles. They want to change America to a statist model. They believe that Europe has it right, that as you heard Justice Ginsburg the other day speak and talk about how no country that's establishing a constitution right now should have the ‑‑ should model themselves after the American Constitution, it's an antiquated document. You know, go to the South African Constitution. That's how the left looks at it, that the United States is sort of a, you know, it's ‑‑

GLENN: So you're ‑‑ I don't mean to interrupt you. So you're ‑‑ what you're saying is that you don't believe that these are dangerous revolutionaries; they are people that we disagree with ‑‑

STU: Yeah, and you're not talking about Barack Obama. You're not ‑‑

GLENN: Yeah, I'm talking about the Bill Ayers of the people.

SANTORUM: Oh, no. If you're talking about Bill Ayers and George Soros, they're radicals. These are folks who fundamentally want to ‑‑ want to change America to a country that is ‑‑ that is nothing like what America was built upon because they think it's foundationally flawed and they want to destroy the very premise of this country.

GLENN: And Barack Obama is different how?

SANTORUM: Barack Obama is different in my opinion in approach and degree.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Mmm‑hmmm.

GLENN: All right. Rick, the best of luck to you and I think you're doing a ‑‑ I mean, that was a ‑‑ I think that was a miracle. I mean, you know, what was it? Four months ago you had 1% approval rating.

SANTORUM: Yeah.

GLENN: And now you're doing this. I think it's ‑‑ I think it speaks highly of the message and also the American people that they are saying, you know what? I think I want somebody who is plain spoken and will just tell me the truth and tell me how he feels and ‑‑

STU: How do you see this internally, Rick? Is it something where you see for a long time there's been this debate about electability or some political calculation with everyone's vote. Are you seeing now that you think that maybe messages is trumping that, or are they just seeing you now all of a sudden as someone who can actually beat Barack Obama?

SANTORUM: I think it's a combination of both because the message is what's going to beat Barack Obama.

PAT: Yeah.

SANTORUM: You know, Mitt Romney's whole claim to fame was I've got the most money and therefore I'm going to win and so you should be for me. And, of course, you're not going to have the most money against Barack Obama. He's not going to be able to outspend his opponent five to one and beat their brains in and, you know, the questions I gave to reporters in the last 24 hours, Glenn, you know what they are? You know, are you ready for the attack dogs? It's not on policy. It's like, you know, Romney's going to destroy you. Wow. I mean, that's the best that Mitt Romney has. I'm going to go out and tear you apart. And, you know, whoever's in my way. Well, guess what. When it comes to Barack Obama, he's not going to have the resources to tear Barack Obama apart. Obama's going to have more resources than he is, and they're going to have the ‑‑ they're going to have the national media on their side and we'd better have the issues on our side. We'd better have a vision for this country that motivates the Republican base and gets the independents to believe that there's a better future than Barack Obama. We don't need a technocrat manager. We need someone with a vision and that's not Romney.

GLENN: Let me ‑‑ I'm going to give you a second to say your website because you always do anyway. So I'm going to invite you to say it here in a second.

SANTORUM: RickSantorum.com.

GLENN: Let me just ask you this because I know you won't answer it the other way. So let me rephrase it this way. Would you ‑‑ in the end if it was politically the best thing to do, would you accept Mitt Romney as your vice presidential candidate?

SANTORUM: Uh, what I'm going to do with my vice presidential candidate, because I'm not going to count on any names, I'm going to put the person in there who I believe so ‑‑

GLENN: Yeah, I know you will. Yeah, I know you will, yeah, blah, blah‑blah. But what I'm asking you ‑‑

SANTORUM: Blah, blah, blah, wait a minute.

GLENN: I'm asking you, is there so much bad blood between you, is there bad blood between you?

SANTORUM: I'm not going to talk about names. I'm going to talk about who, the person who would do what I ‑‑ who would follow through with what I believe, what I told the American public I would do. That's what ‑‑

GLENN: So you're saying Mitt Romney won't do that?

STU: (Laughing.)

GLENN: When did you stop beating your wife?

SANTORUM: I love you, Glenn. I love you, Glenn.

GLENN: All right. Go ahead. Say your website.

SANTORUM: All right. RickSantorum.com. Thank you. And by the way, one of the reasons we've done so well is because we've had folks like you out here on the radio, you know, preparing the battlefield for us. And I really mean that.

GLENN: Well ‑‑

SANTORUM: I just, I thank you so much for being out there and ‑‑

GLENN: We just ‑‑

SANTORUM: You know, letting ‑‑ planting the seeds out there. We're trying to germinate them.

GLENN: If you become president, all we need is, you know, special, you know, healthcare exceptions and things like that. That's all we ‑‑

STU: I would really like to be ambassador to Bermuda.

SANTORUM: You'll be one of the elites that I take care of.

GLENN: Oh, good. I just want to be a czar of some sort.

SANTORUM: Whatever you call it, whatever you want.

GLENN: Rick, appreciate it. Thanks so much. RickSantorum.com.

Unveiling the Deep State: From surveillance to censorship

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.

Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.

They were wrong.

The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.

Willful blindness

On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.

Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”

And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.

Monthly attacks

Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.

In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.

That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”

On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.

Democrats are radicalizing

This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”

Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.

A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.

The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.

Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.