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Glenn's Show Prep

The story behind Obama’s doc “The Road We’ve Traveled”

March 16, 2012
Wilson

Writer

The Obama campaign has enlisted the help of Hollywood to make a mini-documentary on how awesome Barack Obama’s Presidency has been. Of course, he’s been so horrific a president it makes sense he’d need to recruit people who make stuff up for a living to promote himself. Why’d they select that name? Glenn covered the story on radio this morning!

Read the transcript of the discussion below:

GLENN: Well, hello, America. Welcome to the program. There is a lot to discuss. There is some amazing, some amazing things that nobody could find, you know, that was a problem for the president in the new Tom Hanks documentary which I think is ‑‑ Tom, you must be so proud. You must be so proud. You're so neutral in this, you're making a campaign film, it really is a propaganda film for Barack Obama. The problem with it is the filmmaker said, you know, the only thing that we could really find bad about Barack Obama is that it was just so good. I've never ‑‑ huh.

PAT: Yeah, here's what he said with Piers Morgan the other night.

MORGAN: These documentary makers, you know, balance these movies with the negative as well as the positive. What are the negatives in your movie about Barack Obama?

VOICE: Well, I mean, the negative for me was there were too many accomplishments. I had, you know, 17 minutes to put them all in there but I think ‑‑

MORGAN: Oh, come off it. Come ‑‑ you can't say that with a straight face. Come on.

VOICE: I'm looking at you right now with a straight face. I mean, look, I mean ‑‑

MORGAN: The only negative about Barack Obama is there are too many positives is this

VOICE: That was a negative ‑‑ excuse me, a negative for me.

MORGAN: Oh.

VOICE: Which is, you know, I ‑‑ the challenge for me was I wanted to put more in there, I really did.

MORGAN: Are there any negatives in there?

VOICE: I think they're negatives in the sense that the challenges when you're trying to pass healthcare in a really toxic environment, they're negatives in terms of the opposition he's had.

PAT: That is Debbie Wasserman Schultz‑worthy right there.

STU: It is, that's almost Debbie Wasserman Schultz syndrome right there.

GLENN: After four years the only bad thing they found about their time in office was... it was just too good.

STU: I'm glad, too, they got the guy, Tom Hanks, who also brought us the documentary about how we were all just racists in World War II 6789 wasn't that the same?

GLENN: Yeah, it is.

STU: That's right.

GLENN: It is.

STU: All it was was about our Japanese racism.

GLENN: Yeah, mmm‑hmmm.

STU: Certainly nothing to do with, I don't know, Nazis and stuff.

PAT: And being attacked.

GLENN: Or being attacked.

STU: And being attacked.

GLENN: By the empire of Japan.

STU: It certainly had nothing to do with that.

GLENN: It had nothing to do with that.

STU: It was our racism.

GLENN: It was our racism.

STU: Uh‑huh.

GLENN: You know what? Tom Hanks, how do these guys dupe us? And, you know, I apologize to the family members, unless they're all communists, too, of Jimmy, Jimmy Stewart. Because I've always thought that Tom Hanks was our Jimmy Stewart. He couldn't be further from Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart and Hank Fonda, they were all decent Americans. They loved the country. They were decent, good Americans.

STU: I don't know that ‑‑ yeah, I mean, that last ‑‑ this thing, I mean, he's just a crazy Hollywood liberal which you'd sort of expect, though I feel like for a long time he wasn't out there making a big deal out of that.

GLENN: Oh, no. I mean, of course no.

STU: I don't know why it's changed.

GLENN: They all hide. I mean, look at Barack Obama. By the way, the name of this, the name of this documentary is The Road We've Traveled, right?

STU: Mmm‑hmmm.

GLENN: Could you do me a favor? Could you look up Stuart Chase? I believe Stuart Chase is the guy who coined the term The New Deal. I'm pretty sure. There's this book from the 1930s that was written by Stuart Chase and I thought of it this morning as we were thinking about the movie The Road We've Traveled, Stuart Chase, have you seen?

STU: It has been suggested he was the originator of the expression A New Deal.

GLENN: Okay. Progressive?

STU: I mean, I'm just reading a sentence here.

GLENN: I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. I think this guy was a big FDR guy. And he wrote this book called The Road We are Traveling and it was written in 1942 and he said we're on this road and after the war is finished ‑‑ he wrote this book in 1942. After the war is finished, we're going to have to clear up this mystery. But what we are now is no longer, it's not socialism, it's not capitalism. He just called it in his book X. And he said, we'll have to define it later, but it's X. We don't know what to call it yet.

But there's some major characteristics, and it's replaced our system of free enterprise and it will all over the world. He said we could call it communism, we could call it fascism, we could call it state capitalism. We just don't know what it is.

Now, he said ‑‑ try this on for size. This is what it is. This is how you would describe it: A strong centralized government.

Would you say we have that?

STU: Check.

GLENN: An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms.

STU: Yes.

GLENN: Got that? The control of banking, credit, and security exchanges by the government.

STU: Yeah. Jeez.

GLENN: The underwriting of employment through armaments or public works.

STU: Yeah, absolutely. Stimulus package and so much more.

GLENN: The underwriting of Social Security by the government.

STU: Mmm‑hmmm.

GLENN: The underwriting of food, housing, and medical care by the government. The use of deficit spending to than the these underwritings.

STU: We're 100% so far.

GLENN: The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.

STU: Obviously.

PAT: Been there.

GLENN: The control of foreign trade by the government. The control of natural resources. The control of energy sources.

STU: Yep.

GLENN: The control of transportation. The control of agricultural production. The control of organized labor unions. The enlistment of young men and young women in youth corps devoted to health, discipline, community service, and ideologies consistent with those of the government authorities.

PAT: They're kind of working on that right now.

GLENN: Heavy taxation with special emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.

STU: (Laughing.) Is this ‑‑

GLENN: State control of communications and propaganda.

STU: This is like a mission statement for the Obama administration.

GLENN: May I? This book was not an indictment of it.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: It was saying "This is great." Remember this is the guy who coined the term The New Deal. This is the road we're traveling. Now, is it a coincidence? I'm sure it is. Is it a coincidence that anybody who has studied progressivism ‑‑ I mean, when I heard the name of this, this documentary, I mean, you were with me, Pat.

PAT: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: Immediately.

STU: Perked up right away.

GLENN: Wait a minute. I have that book. I had it wrong. I thought it was the Road We Traveled. The name of the book is The Road We're Traveling.

PAT: That makes so much sense because we were traveling that road then. Now we've traveled it.

GLENN: We've traveled it.

PAT: And now it's past tense. We're there. It's great.

GLENN: This is yet another ‑‑

PAT: It's amazing.

GLENN: Another knife in the back to anybody who doesn't know and a wink to anybody who does know the history. Everybody who ‑‑ anybody who is a Cass Sunstein, I mean, Cass Sunstein wanted this job because he's a fan of Edward Bernays. He knows. He salivated over this job. He couldn't wait. Those guys would absolutely know. I mean, remember when they were talking to us about Father Coughlin and they're calling me Father Coughlin and we're like, who the hell is Father Coughlin? They knew. They know these players. They know who Stuart Chase is. I really believe that whoever did this, they know exactly what they've done. They've said, "Yeah, yeah, it was X." They couldn't identify what it was. It's state capitalism.

See, we were trying to do all these things in 1942 and Stuart Chase says, "If we do it right... this is 1942: "If we do it right, if you get it right, you will not be able to turn this ship off of that course." Now the name of this movie is The Road We Traveled?

STU: Well, certainly by the standard they set up, they're definitely guilty. If you remember back in 2010, we did that rally, you know, Restoring Honor in Washington and they immediately accused us of stealing the speech date of Martin Luther King as if we had any idea.

GLENN: Exactly right.

STU: They immediately accused us of that. So by their standard clearly this has to be intentional.

GLENN: So who is Stuart Chase? Who's the guy who said he was going to change the free market enterprise, that this is state capitalism? Who was he? He was a Fabian Socialist, a member of the Fabian Society at Harvard, a friend of Walter Lippmann. Water Lippmann is the guy who every journalist in America has studied and hails as a hero. He was a eugenicist, a eugenics guy, he was a progressive, he was a member of the Woodrow Wilson administration.

STU: (Laughing.) Sometimes I feel like they do this stuff just to give you monologues.

GLENN: I mean, I ‑‑ I can't believe it.

PAT: That's amazing.

GLENN: That's amazing.

PAT: That's amazing. I mean, but that's what they do.

STU: So they were traveling it in 1942, this road, and now ‑‑

PAT: We've traveled it.

STU: ‑‑ we've finally traveled it.

PAT: Yeah, we've arrived.

GLENN: And he said the war is going to give us a chance to actually finish this and you won't be able to turn it off the course, you won't be able to turn it around. They did turn it around some ‑‑ somewhat. But now the question is can we turn it around now. The Road We've Traveled. The name of the book from 1942 is The Road We're Traveling. You decide. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, I'm sure it is.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.