Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn Reacts to Statement by U2's Bono: He's Amazing, One of the Bravest

May 25, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Editor's note: This article has been updated. An earlier version seemed to indicate Glenn's admiration for Bono was a recent development when in reality, Glenn has been a fan of U2's lead vocalist for quite some time.

Contrasting responses to the Manchester terrorist attack made by U2's Bono and Queen's Brian May, Glenn shared his reaction on radio Thursday.

"I think Bono is an amazing guy, truly an amazing guy," he said.

One thing's for sure, Bono is incredibly brave for his comments on Manchester:

They hate music. They hate women. They even hate little girls. They hate everything that we love. And, you know, the worst of humanity was on view in Manchester last night. So was the best. As people took perfect strangers into their hands, and cued up blood banks. Manchester has an undefeatable spirit, I can assure you.

In other interviews, Bono has boldly discussed his belief in God:

My mother died at my --- her own father's grave site, as he was being lowered into the ground --- I was 14. She left me, but she left me an artist. I began the journey, trying to fill the hole in my heart with music, with my mates, my band mates.

Finally, the only thing that could fill it is God's love. And it's a big hole. But luckily, it's a big love. I went finally to Jerusalem on a family pilgrimage and I went to Golgotha. And I went to the site where -- and I had some time on my own -- where death died. And I was like, wow, there it is. That's where death died.

"That's unbelievable. I've never heard it described as where death died. That is fantastic," Glenn said.

Religious themes have also made their way into U2's music.

"U2's 1983 album War has a song called 40," Co-host Stu Burguiere said.

Bono's bandmate The Edge had this to say about the song:

So we had this slightly unusual piece the music, and We said, okay. What are we going to do with it? Bono said, let's do a psalm. Opened up the Bible, and found Psalm 40. "This is it. Let's do it." The song title is 40. Within 40 minutes, we had worked out the last few elements from the tune. Bono had sung it. We had mixed it. And literally, after finishing the mix, we walked out the door, and the next band walked in.

"I mean, they did a song that was based on Psalm 40," Stu said.

"If they're playing anywhere when I get back from vacation, if they're anywhere close, let's all go as a show," Glenn said.

Listen to this segment beginning at the 18:18 mark from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Welcome to the program.

Okay. So we heard from Brian May. Now let's hear what Bono said about the Manchester bombing.

JIMMY: As you know, there was another senseless terrorist attack in Manchester yesterday.

PAT: Obviously on Jimmy Kimmel.

JIMMY: And that's something you guys have been thinking about, certainly.

BONO: They -- they hate music. They hate women. They even hate little girls. They hate everything that we love.

And, you know, the worst of humanity was on view in Manchester last night. So was the best. As people took perfect strangers into their hands, and cued up blood banks. Manchester has an undefeatable spirit, I can assure you.

GLENN: Now, listen to the difference.

PAT: Listen to the difference between him and Brian May.

GLENN: Listen to the difference.

PAT: That almost sounds like what George Bush used to say all the time.

GLENN: No, but that's true.

PAT: They hate our music. They don't like Ariana Grande.

(laughter)

PAT: They don't like our -- tunes.

(chuckling)

PAT: They hate freedom.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: They don't like bowling. They don't like professional bowlers. They don't like the bowling shoes. They think they're ugly.

(chuckling)

Even the size 12, they didn't like them at all. In fact, size 12 bowling shoes set them off more than anything else.

(laughter)

STU: That's great.

GLENN: There's more to Bono that you absolutely have to hear. One of the -- one of the bravest --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: One of the bravest -- he's kind of the Jon Voight though of music. Jon Voight is like, I got my Oscars. They don't know what to do with me now anyway. I'm still going to act in all their movies because they love me.

That's who he is. Bono is Jon Voight of music.

(OUT AT 10:30AM)

GLENN: All right. So let's play the Manchester from Jimmy Kimmel and Bono. I think Bono is -- is an amazing guy. Truly an amazing guy.

And I don't know if he is -- if he's changed, if he was as lefty as we thought. Or if he was just so popular, the left just brought him in and said, "Oh, Bono, you're on great. And you agree with us on everything." And he got credit and blame for things that he really didn't believe. I don't know.

PAT: Possibly. Because I remember disliking him a lot, thinking he was a wacko progressive.

GLENN: Well, you were a big U2 fan.

STU: I'm still a big U2 fan. Actually seeing them on Friday in Dallas.

JEFFY: Heck yeah.

GLENN: Are you really? I've never seen them.

STU: Oh, they're fantastic. This one is the Joshua Tree Tour. So they're going back -- I guess it's the 30-year anniversary of the Joshua Tree. So they're doing the whole album. And I think just that.

PAT: What?

GLENN: If they're playing anywhere, when I get back from vacation, if they're anywhere close, let's all go as a show. I've never seen them. I hear they're great.

STU: They are. I've been a big fan for a really long time. But I've always felt like the right gave him an unfair shake when it comes to who he is. Because he's seen as sort of this crazy liberal activist. And he was big on supporting AIDS charities and debt relief and sort the these global causes that you'd associate with every left-wing annoying celebrity --

PAT: AIDS for Africa.

GLENN: And there's nothing -- there's nothing wrong with any of that.

STU: Of course not.

GLENN: I always just assumed that he was with the United Nations. And I think he was.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And then it didn't work.

STU: You know, I think -- he's no hard-core conservative by any means.

GLENN: No, no.

STU: But he's always been a big capitalist. And I think he's always -- he's always been religious and had a really impassioned --

PAT: And he's not afraid to talk about it.

GLENN: He was always religious?

STU: Yeah, going back to the beginning of the band.

JEFFY: Pretty much.

STU: I think he's had times where he's had his ups and life. I mean, he's lived a life. He's lived a rock star life too.

GLENN: I mean, I've heard him mention Jesus a lot lately.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, it must be one of his up periods because nobody talks -- nobody uses the J word.

STU: He's been more outspoken, I think, recently.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But he's always had that influence. And, like, one of the things he got beat on was this RED project he did. Now, the RED project was -- you might remember it. It had like -- it was all shirts. And a lot the people, and celebrities were wearing them for a while. It said like, "Inspired." And RED was in parentheses. And it raised money for global charities, and it was a big deal.

And, you know, the media and also a lot on the right, kind of jumped on him. Was like, well, here you go. I think they raised $100 million or something. And they -- but, you know, like, I can't remember exactly what it was. It was something like at the end of -- at one period, they had only sent something like $20 million to -- to these charities. And it's like, well, think about what he did there, from a conservative perspective from a moment.

He worked with dozens of actual stores. He didn't just ask for free money. He worked with actual capitalist institutions, designed clothing that people wanted to wear, and then took a chunk of that money and gave it to charity.

GLENN: 20 percent.

STU: It was something like 20 percent that he gave to charity. Now, he didn't give every dime of it to charity. You know, there were licensing fees that they paid. He got criticism for that. And the fact that they were working for these big companies that only want profit and get people in the stores, and they buy other things.

GLENN: You had to have license, or people would rip it off. And then you would have nothing.

STU: Exactly. And here's a guy who actually worked through capitalism, to improve the world.

GLENN: That's why.

JEFFY: Yeah.

STU: And isn't that -- that's why he got beat up by places like the New York Times. But the right jumped on it because, oh, it's a celebrity.

GLENN: It's so weird that you say that. Because I almost said, when he started his RED campaign, I almost said -- that's when I started to like him. Then I thought -- maybe it wasn't. I don't know when -- but it was around that period that I started to think, "I think this guy gets it."

STU: Yeah. And you would talk to I'm sure Bono about a million topics. And you would disagree with him on half of them probably. He's no Libertarian.

GLENN: Sure. But you're a huge fan of his.

STU: I'm a huge fan.

GLENN: Right. You remember the time when I met him and spent like a half hour with him, we just chatted?

PAT: In New York, when he was doing the --

STU: I do remember that.

GLENN: Yeah. You weren't there. But I just chatted with him. We're buds.

PAT: It seems like you didn't even know who he was at that time.

GLENN: I mean, I knew he was part of U2. But I had never seen any of his contests or anything like that, but you --

JEFFY: He was asking you advice.

GLENN: Yeah, he was. He was asking me advice.

STU: Curing deadly diseases, and this is what you're going to focus on.

GLENN: Only because it drives you out of your mind.

STU: It does. It does.

GLENN: Okay. So listen to this from Bono. This came out earlier this week.

BONO: My mother died at my -- her own father's grave site, as he was being lowered into the ground -- I was fourteen.

She left me. But she left me an artist. I began the journey, trying to fill the hole in my heart with music, with my mates, my band mates. Finally, the only thing that could fill it is God's love. And it's a big hole. But luckily, it's a big love. I went finally to Jerusalem on a family pilgrimage.

PAT: Wow. Wow.

BONO: And I went to Golgotha. And I went to the site where -- and I had some time on my own -- where death died.

GLENN: Hmm.

BONO: And I was like, wow, there it is. That's where death died.

And so --

STU: Wow.

BONO: -- I don't really believe in it.

PAT: Wow. From a rock star.

GLENN: That's unbelievable. I've never heard it described as where death died. That is fantastic.

JEFFY: Me either.

STU: He speaks in lyrics in normal conversation.

GLENN: Yeah, I noticed that when I was -- oh, you weren't there.

STU: No. I wasn't.

JEFFY: Oh, man.

PAT: Really, he's almost poetic.

JEFFY: Yeah.

PAT: A lot like Donald Trump, who is also so eloquent, that sometimes it just shoots right over your head.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: If I may quote what's her name, the country artist -- the girl -- the young girl remember I saw the 100 most important people in the world or influential people in the world thing. She got up in front of Elton John and said, "I have this theory that songs -- love songs are just poetry set to music."

PAT: That was so profound. Wasn't it?

GLENN: So profound. Who was it? I actually like her. She's the big country artist that really respect her for, you know, the way she treats her fans and everything. What's her name?

STU: Taylor Swift.

GLENN: Yeah. Elton John was sitting right in front of her, and he had never heard that before.

JEFFY: He probably never heard that before.

GLENN: I think he put his head in his hands at that point. He's like, oh, dear God.

(laughter)

She didn't say it to a crowd of influential or important people at all.

STU: That's good. U2's 1983 album War has a song called 40. Here's the quote. This is by the Edge, not Bono. The other guy in the band -- one of the other guys in the band, talking about what it came from.

So we had this slightly unusual piece the music, and We said, okay. What are we going to do with it? Bono said, let's do a psalm.

Opened up the Bible, and found Psalm 40. "This is it. Let's do it."

The song title is 40. Within 40 minutes, we had worked out the last few elements from the tune. Bono had sung it. We had mixed it. And literally, after finishing the mix, we walked out the door, and the next band walked in.

But, I mean, they did a song that was based on Psalm 40.

PAT: Wow.

STU: One of their CDs. And this is 1983. This is not a new thing obviously.

GLENN: Is he Catholic?

STU: I think he is, yeah.

JEFFY: Yeah.

GLENN: Is it Scotland that is -- one of the -- is it -- is it -- is the struggle only in Ireland, between the Catholics and the Protestants?

PAT: Yeah, I don't think it's in Scotland.

GLENN: Why not? Aren't they right next door to each other? Aren't they a stone's throw away? Once you throw a mazel tov cocktail from Ireland to Scotland.

PAT: I don't think they do copycat protests. No, I don't think so.

GLENN: You don't think so?

Huh. Because I think they're basically the same country.

STU: Let's leave it to the expert on this debate. Jeffy, how would you describe that?

JEFFY: Describe what?

STU: Yeah. Okay. That's my new thing. Whenever there's a complicated topic, I just throw it to Jeffy as the expert because then he looks dumb instead of me.

GLENN: Right. Okay.

PAT: And then you get something really deep like, ugh.

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?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

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.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.