"Time is of the essence": Why it is critical you understand the threat posed by ISIS before it is too late

There is a growing evil in the Middle East, as ISIS continues to expand their campaign of terror in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. People are dying and the threat to America is very real, and yet the larger population is just now starting to wake up to the possibility of a jihadist caliphate. Jay Sekulow joined Glenn to discuss the history of ISIS that no one knows, and the scary tactics they are using to spread their radical ideology across the region.

GLENN:  One of the bravest guys out there, and I think a guy who has done more good for this nation and for our values and really kind of an unsung hero to most Americans is Jay Sekulow, an ACLJ attorney, has a new e-book out called Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore, that really explains who those guys are and where they came from. Jay is on the phone with us now. How are you?

JAY: Thanks for having me.

GLENN: The president referred to those guys as a JV team, but they aren't a JV team and the president should have known they weren't a JV team a long time ago.

JAY: Right, because ISIS, did not come out of no wrote. They were part of -- they were AQI, al-Qaeda in Iraq. We have been tracking them for about two years through our office in Jerusalem. What happened was, Osama bin Laden and his lietuenats were so repulsed, if you can believe that, by the tactics of ISIS that they threw them out, and then eventually what happened was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the Caliph, set up the caliphate, and now goes by Caliph Ibrahim. Although, the President says this is not a war with Islam, tell that to Caliph Ibrahim and 40,000 of his soldiers.

The thing that's so significant here, what's so brazen about the president saying that this was the JV team, in actually, it is the exact opposite. This is now and has been for at least over a year and half, a standing army. They are not hiding in caves. They are not in the shadows. They are a standing, moving army that is bent on control of the what they call the Levant, the greater Middle East, which includes Israel, by the way, and they also have expectations, much broader than that, including here. So this idea this was the JV team was absurd in the beginning. We wrote Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore when I was at Oxford this summer, teaching on this topic, and I'll tell you what happened there.

One of the guys, professors, very leftist center, believes everybody can work it out, when it came to ISIS, though, [he] said this. This is a guy that said crush them. That was in July. It took the president until now to -- I call him the reluctant commander in chief, but this is a group that lethality is much more significant than al-Qaeda's ever was.

GLENN: So here's a thing. A lot of people -- the word Nazi is thrown around for a lot of things, and usually, it's just the seeds, usually it's like this is where -- this is how the Nazis began. This is the tactics the Nazis used at the very beginning. But these guys are actually very Nazi-like already, and unlike the Nazis that used to hide it, these guys aren't hiding it at all. They are way out in the open.

JAY: That's correct. Like I had 2o0 of my family members -- my grandparents' generation, my great aunts and uncles in Germany and Poland, wiped out in the Holocaust, so I am reluctant to use this analogy. I use it for three reasons. Number one, you just said it. The tactics are more brazen and open, not as lethality is not there yet, but potential lethality much greater. That's number one.

GLENN: Wait. Why do you say that?

JAY: Because they have something that the Nazis didn't have, because technology wasn't there. They have uranium. Uranium, a radioactive material, can create a dirty bomb or worse. So you could have this increased lethality. They don't have the mechanics of the Nazis yet, but look at their goals.

They are marking Christians in Iraq with a Nazarene, an N, which is the Arabic N, for Nazarene. Why are they doing that? It's the same tactic. Identify the people you want to destroy. Exactly what the Nazis did. Number three, they have clearly stated their position. They are not trying to create the superior race as the Nazis did. It is the superior religion, or in the name of religion. The same techniques same tactics, lethality is not as mechanical yet, but potentiality greater.

Like you said, they are open and brazen on this. We point it out in the book, you can't look at, Glenn, ISIS in just a vacuum. If you look at a map, you have ISIS coming from the east going west towards Israel. Then you have Hamas coming from the west towards Israel.

This is the great conflict here. So Hamas, ISIS, same groups, different leadership, same techniques, ISIS, bigger. But if you put the number of standing troops with ISIS together with the standing troops of Hamas, you are approaching 60,000 troops. I'm calling them troops because they are an army. That is bigger than a lot of armies in the greater Middle East right now. This is unbelievable what could happen here.

GLENN: Here's where I'm really concerned, Jay, is they are very, very smart. They are going after openly, the west. They are using Sykes–Picot -- I mean, these really not dummies. They know their history, they know the history of the Middle East, far better than anybody else, and they are using the same kind of things. They are using Sykes–Picot, which goes back to Word War I. That's exactly what the Nazis did, using all the stuff that we in the League of Nations did after World War I and they had this grievance that they said and this is why we have to go get them. This is why we have all these problems, and these guys will actually be able to unite much of the Middle East for a long time, and unlike the Nazis, who had to hide what they were doing to the Jews and what they were doing to the Christians and the homosexuals, they had to hide those things to stop the shock and horror of their own population. These guys, it will actually work to their advantage to do it out in the open.

JAY: That's because it's their recruiting tool. When we see the things in the West, these beheadings, we are horrified, but what we need to understand and we point this out in the book, we are horrified, but that's their recruiting tool. That is what attracting U.S. citizens to join ISIS. The British have more jihadist Muslims that are now part -- Muslims of a -- English citizens, U.K., that are fighting for ISIS and fight for Her Majesty's Army. This is the Royal Army. So what's happened --

GLENN: Say that again. Say that stat again.

JAY: There are more Muslims fighting for ISIS from the U.K. than are fighting for Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

PAT: How many is that? Over 1,000 now?

JAY: Well, first report was over 500. I'm sure it's over 1,000 now. Let -- Turkey is the entry point for these soldiers. NATO ally. Our NATO ally is letting them through and arming them. The Turks do not want a strong Kurdistan. They don't want stong Kurds because it creates a problem for them on their border. So Glenn, you remember mentioning the Sykes–Picot. This is their retribution for Sykes–Picot and their retribution for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. This is their reestablishment of the caliphate, which is reestablishing the jihadist empire. this is the mode and method in which they are doing it. The fact of the matter is -- then you have the president funding the moderate rebels. Who they are, I don't know yet. I would like them to come forward, but the concern is, the potential damage to the United States is great. We wrote this book while I was at Oxford. It is out now on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel and Apple iBooks, but it comes out in paperback in a couple weeks.

You have been sounding the alarm on this. The problem is, we've got to get the country understanding who the enemy is, because this is different than al Qaeda.

GLENN: What's amazing, the president won't do it. I did a special -- we are doing "For the Record" on ISIS, as you know, thank you for your help -- a special this week. Last week I did a special on Sykes–Picot and once you understand Sykes–Picot, ISIS just made a video, the end of Sykes–Picot. So it's clear. All you have to do is listen to these guys.

Let me go here. You remember when I first started talking about the reestablishment of the caliphate, and you know -- you

watched it, how many people -- everybody said I was insane, to the point that I thought, maybe I am. This can't be. This can't be, because nobody will talk about this. Why was I so alone on that, Jay? Why were the people, like you, who knew what was happening, where we were headed, why were we so alone?

JAY: Well, because people thought you, me, other -- the few of us that were talking about this, we were the extremists. We over-analyzed the data. I remember somebody said about what you were doing, what I was doing, that we were making assumptions that are not in reality. You had the head of the NSA saying that terrorism is a state of mind. So this whole world view -- this passes in my view, it passes Republican, Democrat. This is a world view, well, they can't be that evil. They really can't be that bad. They can't be that jihadist, but they are.

And the problem is, if you look at where they start and where they have gone, in this two and a half years or so they have been active, it's pretty amazing. They are out in the open, not hiding what they are doing. Bragging about it.

GLENN: We are talking to Jay Sekulow. He is putting out an e-book now, because time is of the essence. It is coming out as paperback in a couple weeks, but time is of the essence. You need to know who we are facing. I believe they are here already, but Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore.

You talk about everybody wanted to believe that these guys weren't as bad, et cetera, but the president now comes out and says 'okay, I know I called them a JV team, I know I said nothing to worry about, they are not worse than al-Qaeda', but the same advisors that allowed him to say those things, they are the ones advising us now, they are the ones still in the State Department, still the ones in the Pentagon, the NSA and CIA. He hasn't changed anybody. If I'm the President of the United States and I have gotten it this wrong, I fire those people and say no hard feelings, guys. It was great. We had a great run, but I've got to start talking to the people who saw this one coming over the horizon. Is there anything that gives you any confidence that we are at all meaning what we say, that we have a clue at all anywhere, at any level?

JAY: No, because we pick the wrong side on every issue in the Middle East since the president's been in office. And you said -- what you just said is profound. That is the president had a narrative for the Middle East. It started with that speech in Cairo, where he says we are not a Jewish nation, we are a nation of principles. Whatever -- nation of citizens, whatever that means. The Nazis were a nation of citizens, so that's a ridiculous analogy, but he made this ridiculous analogy. None of it came out like he thought. Instead of changing your approach, this president basically doubles down on it. I'm listening to Samantha Powers and Susan Rice and these people at the NSA, and you are saying 'how come we know more than they do!'

GLENN: Can I ask you a question. Feel free not to answer this. Because this is me thinking out loud. Whenever I think

out loud, I get in trouble and everybody else around me --

PAT: We recommend that you don't --

GLENN: Just this think out. The president said two weeks ago that he wanted to organize the Middle East. That was his plan, to organize the Middle East. You know Sykes–Picot, I know Sykes–Picot, the Middle East knows Sykes–Picot. The Middle East believes this was the great -- the real tragedy, and quite honestly, the west behaved like barbarians. We lied. So we were wrong. Now that being said, he wants to right the wrongs of the past. What does -- what is ISIL and everybody else want to do? They've got to reorganize the Middle East. You have to get rid of all these dictators. So once you do that, then the whole meaning behind Sykes–Picot falls apart and you can't control that section of the world at all.

JAY: That's why they initially changed their name from ISIS -- to ISIL, which was the Levant, the greater Middle East. I don't think that's far-fetched -

GLENN: I'm not there yet. Hang on. So here's the president. He comes out. He's been for all those things that have destabilized the Middle East. Give George Bush a piece of this, too, but destabilize the Middle East. Then he goes in to Libya. Then he says he wants Assad. Assad is really the last real big pin to fall before you bet to people like Jordan. So we are arming these people, who are not going to fight ISIS. They are going to fight Assad. Are we got just helping them, by running arms to these rebels?

JAY: Glenn, I'm not only going to not distance myself from your comment, I think you're dead on. I have said this, I think Assad is a bad guy. He is bad. Does anybody believe that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his war name, nom de guerre, does anyone believe the Caliph Ibrahim is better than Assad? I doubt it. No one does. If we were going to -- I'm not saying to do this, but you'd be better off funding Assad's army to take these guys out than you would be -- because listen, they are not throwing up Sykes–Picot just to make a historical point. They believe they were wrong, severely wrong. They were double handed, and they are trying to correct it. They blame us, so that puts the United States squarely in our -- in their sights.

GLENN: You are fantastic. We'll take to you again, have you on the show and Wednesday, 'For the Record', we have more details on the rise of ISIS and ISIL, at 8:00, Blaze TV. The new book, it is out as an ebook for urgent purposes. Please read this: Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore, by Jay Sekulow. Keep it up. Thank you so much.

JAY: Thanks.

EXPOSED: Why Eisenhower warned us about endless wars

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Narrative engineering from the top

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

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

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

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

Institutional and media coordination

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

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

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

Surveillance and suppression

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

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

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

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace requires concessions

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

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

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

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

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

Peace or bloodshed?

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

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

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

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

Outsourcing presence

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

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

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

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

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

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

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

Reclaiming our humanity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.