Michelle Malkin shares incredible stories of American ingenuity

May 20, 2015

WRITER

Firebrand conservative and #1 New York Times bestselling author, Michelle Malkin tells the riveting stories of the relentless thinkers and inventors who made America what it is today in her new book, Who Built That. She joined Glenn on TV Tuesday night to share just a few stories of American ingenuity that should inspire anyone looking to blaze their own trail.

Glenn: I want you to go out and buy Michelle Malkin’s new book, Who Built That. It is cut from your cloth. If you’re a fan of this show, this is cut from the same cloth, really great stories that you didn’t know. I’m bummed that she beat me to the Nikola Tesla story. That’s one story I haven’t told, but now she’s told it in expert fashion. Would you please tell, because I love this, and most people don’t know what Tesla did when he went to Colorado Springs. It’s my understanding, Michelle, he freaked everybody out.

Michelle: He freaked everyone out, and he pretty much shorted the entire electrical generation system in Colorado Springs.

Glenn: For like a week.

Michelle: Yes, for the whole week. In fact, he was able to re-create lightning that was seen 30 miles outside of Colorado Springs, all the way up to Woodland Park. I mean, we’re talking up at 7,000, 8,000 feet altitude. So, I definitely felt like I had a hometown kinship with him as well because I’ve made Colorado Springs the home of our family for the last eight years now and actually went out to the little spot in Memorial Park where he had his little laboratory.

You know, it’s quite a shame, Glenn, that there is nothing more than a small historical marker. There’s no Tesla museum in the United States. There’s one in his hometown in Eastern Europe, but you know, among your audience and among many of my geeky scientific engineering type fans, he’s very well-known. You told his story in one of your books, and people know it that way, but the actual scientific breakthroughs and the incredible entrepreneurial partnership and friendship that he forged with George Westinghouse is almost entirely absent in the public schools today. It is a disgrace really, and that’s why I wrote the book, to fill in that vacuum.

Glenn: I will tell you this, I’m going to send your book to a professor who teaches history at Yale, because when I wrote my chapter on Tesla, he said it was the best chapter on Tesla that he had ever read and now makes it part of the course because no one has told the truth on him. So, I’m going to send your book so he also has that, because Tesla was—not only are we still present in his day, I think he saw this technology, you know, in some form or another that is now coming out, so we’re still present in his day, but also, the relationship that he had with Westinghouse that you highlight gave me hope because here’s a guy who was so far ahead. The government shuts them down because of collusion and corruption with Edison, and he loses everything. It’s a good guy, a good capitalist, one who believes in doing the right thing, that saves him.

Michelle: Yes, that’s right. I think restoring the reputation of ethical capitalism in this country is so important. It’s been so corrupted. You see so many of these big government cronies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce types who are so willing to jump into bed with the AFL-CIO and Barack Obama and the White House and all of these crony government contracts and venture socialism that’s overtaken Washington DC.

Well, there was a time, and of course, our kids don’t learn this nearly enough, when there were people of character, men of great character like George Westinghouse, who understood the value of protecting individual and intellectual property rights. That’s how that relationship was forged, because George Westinghouse knew that Nikola Tesla had something of value and that together they could team up and they were stronger as an entrepreneurial partnership.

That’s how the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls was built, and I talk about that story. There was a prototype that was done in Colorado, of all places, Telluride, Colorado, and believe it or not, Oberlin College, which is my alma mater and is known as one of the craziest places on earth, the berserk-ley of the Midwest, actually produced the entrepreneur Lucien Hall, who created the prototype of the hydroelectric plant that went on to become Niagara Falls—amazing confluence of all of these individuals. I think it’s these friendships and alliances that really were magical to me.

Glenn: I think they’re happening again. I have to tell you, Michelle, we are two of the biggest geeks. I don’t know if anybody in the audience is loving this as much as I am, but we are just geeking out on these guys. Let me see, show me the Maglite. I was going to say the bottle cap, but show me the Maglite because I don’t want to run out of time. This is important that you talk about this, but you talk about this story in the book, which is fantastic, but it’s important to put it into context that the future has been harmed again by the federal government. Explain.

Michelle: Yeah, so the first chapter is about Anthony Maglica, the 84-year-old, spry entrepreneur who came here from a tiny little island off of Croatia called Zlarin, came here with nothing during the Depression but the hunger to make something of himself. He drove across the country in his beat-up Studebaker. He pushed his car up the Rocky Mountains and out West, settled in Ontario, California, and came up with a design for this beautiful, just aesthetically streamlined Maglite flashlight which is an iconic symbol. He is the torchbearer of the American dream, and in fact, there was an Apple Computer official who once said that they strove to become the Maglite of computers.

Well, he hasn’t just come up with one patent, but 200 patents. He hasn’t taken a vacation in ten years. When I went to his headquarters, he showed me a lab where he was developing revolutionary incandescent light bulb technology. He had planned to hire hundreds of more workers to work on these innovations and bring them to market, but it was thanks to the federal lightbulb ban that he had to shut that completely down. It cost jobs. Who knows what else he could’ve come up with? And yet, he perseveres. He told me he will never give up, not until the day that he’s no longer on this earth, to try and improve his products and bring people things that they want and need.

That’s what the American dream is about. It’s not something that is decreed in Washington DC, and it’s these kind of people that make America a great place. He hasn’t given up hope, so neither will I.

Glenn: The amazing thing, Michelle, is most people don’t even know where food comes from anymore. They don’t even know how to grow food. We live in a society and say oh, it’s always been this way. It’s never been this way. In the history of man, it’s never been this way—the things that we have, the abilities that we have, the things that we can do. And what I love about your book is it goes to little things like toilet paper, which we talked about on the radio. You don’t think of toilet paper. To think that this is something that really came from here in America. Take America out of the world, we’re still wiping ourselves with wool or something else gross. But also, you go into bottle caps. Tell me about bottle caps and seals.

Michelle: So, the design of the bottle cap hasn’t changed since the turn of the century, and yet, the amount of intellectual capital that it took to come up with something so simple is absolutely amazing. William Painter was the creator of the modern-day bottle cap as well as many other pieces of technology that revolutionized the food and beverage packaging industry. His company is still in existence today, Crown Cork and Seal—there he is—a $9 billion business. I have included in the chapter on the bottle cap all of his patent drawings, his patent schematics, and the descriptions that it took. He never stopped perfecting this little piece of mundane technology that we absolutely take for granted.

Glenn: Think of this, $9 billion, $9 billion, in bottle caps. People just don’t have any clue. To me, this is the American dream, that you can have an idea. Before America, you had an idea, and the Lord of the Manor could take your idea and just make it. So, you could never get out of poverty. You were always a Serf. Now, because of the patent, again, an American idea, but even that is changing.

Michelle: It is, and it is just another extension of Obama’s radical transformation of America. You know, the idea of intellectual property rights was so revolutionary, and it’s something that’s embedded in our Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, but very few people in the mainstream American public outside of the sphere of law where they actually pay attention to these things realize that in 2011, Obama radically transformed and upended the idea that the inventor should be the one who’s rewarded, the one who was first to invent, rather than the one who’s first to file.

So, they passed something. Obama and the Congress rammed it through with very little debate in the mainstream public because it really is one of those kind of arcane things and globalized and harmonized American patent law with the rest of the world, in other words, abandoning those first constitutional principles that our Founding Fathers knew guaranteed success.

Glenn: Can I tell you something Michelle? And I hope I didn’t misstate what you believe in the last break when I said that you and I both, I mean, we’ll slug it out until the very end, but we both feel really impressed. There is something equally as important as uncovering the filth of restoring the truth and telling the stories of who we are and where we came from, because if we lose that, it doesn’t matter if we’ve uncovered the filth. If we don’t know who we are, we will chart a course that will take us back into slavery. Correct?

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. We definitely have an urgency and kinship there. The reason I wrote the book is not just to preach to the choir, but for children.

Glenn: Yes, so here’s the one thing, and I’ve only got a minute. There are a lot of libertarian kids who are saying we don’t need the patent. Everything should be free. That’s insane. That’s insane. Don’t you think?

Michelle: Yeah, I don’t agree with that, and I feel that conclusion comes from a lack of understanding of the need to have the fuel of interest for the fire of progress. Those were the words that Abraham Lincoln used, and it’s been a bedrock of American constitutional principles as well as entrepreneurialism that you should be able to profit from the fruits of your labor and the fruits of your mind.

Glenn: Michelle, if I called in sick, would you come in and host at least one show, maybe two, and just tell some of these stories and really take us through the book? Would you be willing to do that?

Michelle: I would love to. I’m there.

Glenn: Okay, I’m just a huge fan of Michelle Malkin. I know the audience is as well. Go out and buy this book today. You can find it now at GlennBeck.com/Malkin, or you can find it wherever books are sold, Who Built That by Michelle Malkin.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn's Show Prep

Michelle Malkin shares incredible stories of American ingenuity

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

The appeal of a broken dream

The bridge that never ends

What young America deserves

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

Conservatism as stewardship

Rebuilding what is broken

A creed for the rising generation

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Transcript

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

Ancient evil, new clothes

A time for choosing