How does Google work? Glenn invited two top executives to talk about how one of the biggest companies of the 21st century stays innovative

Glenn has a love/hate relationship with technology. He loves the vision of the future and the freedom it gives people. However, the exponential growth of technology also creates the opportunity for giant companies to get so giant that they can crush the life out of you. Glenn isn't sure where he stands on some of these big technology companies. Google, being number one in that category because they do some pretty scary things, but they also do some amazing things. He invited two key Googlers, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and advisor and former SVP Jonathan Rosenberg, onto the show to discuss the Google culture and their new book How Google Works.

GLENN: Hi, guys. How are you?

SPEAKER: Hi, Glenn. How are you? It's Eric.

GLENN: Very good.

ROSENBERG: It's Jonathan. Great to be here.

GLENN: Thanks for being here. I want to start with: Really good book. But I want to get into a couple of things and dive right in to Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is not a guy that liked you or Google at all. And yet, you say some really good things about him in this book. You want to take me through what the philosophy is? I mean, was it not a two-way street with you guys?

ERIC: Well, this is Eric. If you think about the Steve, Steve was perhaps the greatest inventor of my generation. He took a company that he founded that was a near-death situation and invented pretty much the way people use computers today through their phones. So although he was certainly difficult at times, his brilliance meant that many, many smart people flocked with him. In our industry -- and we talk about this in the book -- people help each other out. And so I would help Steve out. He would help me out. And, in fact, I was on the Apple board for three and a half years.

ROSENBERG: Glenn, we also point out in the book that there's a new archetype, a new character that we're defining, that's sort of the hero of our book, which is the smart-creative. And the characteristics of those people are that they combine technical ability, they're business savvy, they're extremely curious and passionate. And we really felt that Steve was a great example of that persona.

GLENN: Well, you say here, the culture stems from the founders, best reflected in the trusted team. You say: You have to ask the team -- and I think this is really, really good. You ask the team several questions.

What do we care about? What do we believe? Who do we want to be? How do we want our company to act and make decisions?

Can you tell me about that list, and what you're driving at here?

ROSENBERG: Sure. This is Jonathan. I think one of the things that we've seen, particularly in the Valley, is that there's a very strong selection bias when you define your culture early. So one of the things that you find is that many founders get that right initially, others kind of just focus on the business and then delegate those values to an HR organization or PR people later in the process.

What we found is that you want to define the culture in the beginning, create a selection bias, so the kind of people that you're looking for and believe your culture come to the company and then you want to allow them to answer the questions in more detail so that that first group of employees define the culture for you.

GLENN: So define the Google culture.

ERIC: Well, it's certainly smart and quick, and it's very reliant on the people that we're describing as smart-creatives, people who sort of have a vision. And we tolerate them. We sort of say: Have a good time. Come up with your ideas. We'll see how far you get.

One of the characteristics of that is, that model is scalable. You can end up with 100 of them and then 1,000 of them. And I've become convinced that these people are the future of America because these are the future inventors. These are the future people who will create jobs and new companies, and they'll spin out of Google to do a startup and so forth.

GLENN: Are we all kind of inventors now? I mean, don't we have the ability to do things that we've never been able to do before?

ERIC: The barrier of entry to start a startup is the lowest it's been.

Let me say, Glenn, that you did this. You set out a strong culture. You set out a five-year plan. And off you went, and look at the success you've achieved. So it works. Right? It takes guts, and it's typically done by young people in small teams that work very, very hard. Very specific type.

GLENN: This is something that I've been wrestling with. I don't trust -- I don't trust a company over 100 people because I just don't think -- there's too many people you have to answer to.

ERIC: This is like, don't trust anybody over 30. You already have more than 100 people.

GLENN: I know. I've got a company of 310 people, and I just -- we can't ever get anything done.

STU: I don't think that's accurate.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second.

Do you guys ever feel that way that you get to a point -- I mean, you talk about the two-pizza theory, which I think is absolutely rock solid, and it's kind of where I'm at where, just break everything up into teams because one person cannot handle such a bureaucracy, and the bigger it gets, the more people that have sign off on crap and you never get anything done. You spend all your time in meetings.

So explain the two-pizza theory. And then, how do you build off of that?

ROSENBERG: Sure, Glenn. This is Jonathan. The two-pizza theory we actually got from Jeff Bezos, which says that you don't want to allow any teams to grow beyond the point where you can't feed them with two pizzas. And there's always been, in sort of the history of software, this notion of the mythical man month, which basically says, as you start adding people to a programming project, it becomes much, much less efficient.

So our focus has always been to keep people in very small teams, keep those teams in small groups working together, and then as we scale, we're constantly trying to break the projects down into smaller teams. The other things that we're seeing is, it's getting much easier to standardize products so that one product can build on another, and that allows us to keep teams much smaller.

GLENN: Explain the -- because you guys are -- you're into everything. Absolutely everything. Oh, yes. You're controlling my thermostat. You're driving cars now on the highway. I mean, you're into absolutely everything. How do you keep the teams working in the same general direction? How does that work?

And beyond that, explain the diagram. You have a Venn diagram, and you say how you -- you know, how you choose ideas. Big ideas. So explain, A, how do you keep the teams all generally going in the same direction? How do you know what's a Google thing and what's not? How do you do that?

ERIC: We make a list, and then we sort of go through it. We used to have a list called the Top 100, which had 300 things on it. We could never get it down to 100. And we would sit there and say, well, which of these are more important. And through that process of discussion, we would end up prioritizing.

And the key thing about the management meetings is they can't be consensus. They have to be looking for the best idea. And they're different. In a consensus, everybody kind of fights to the median.

Whereas, in our case, we say, what's the better idea? Does anybody have a better idea than what we're currently doing? Then we have this big argument internally. Eventually someone says, well, why don't we try this? And the job of the leader, in this case you, is to say, okay, let's go after that. And come back in a day and tell me what to do.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Glenn. You asked about the Venn diagram, and that really relates to starting from the premise of how large is the opportunity. Many companies kind of focus on what they see as greenfield markets, which are usually green for a reason. There's not a great opportunity there.

So, for us, the number one thing is: What is the scope and opportunity of this market?

And the next thing that we then look at is: Can we use technology in some unique way to fundamentally improve the products in that space?

And where those two things match, we then conclude that there's a big opportunity.

GLENN: So do you guys start with, I want to change the world, or do you start with, we need to make money?

ERIC: Well, a little bit of both. One of the secrets of Google is that the search business has been highly profitable in the sense of the ads work really, really well. And that money gives us, if you will, the rope to try things. Maybe other companies that don't have such high gross margins are unable to or they can't get the financing.

But the core principle is actually not about money at all. It's about users. And one of the sort of key slogans of the company is: Put the user first.

So if the nest thermostat makes the user happier, which indeed it does, that's an improvement. If the car, the self-driving improves people's lives and, in particular, allows them to stay alive, that's much better. We don't worry about what the prices of these things are. We'll figure that out later.

GLENN: I think there's -- and I could be wrong. I think there's a change in Silicon Valley. I think there are a lot of people in Silicon Valley that maybe thought that they were wildly liberal and had found themselves to be more Libertarian because a lot of these guys are, you know, 25 years old, and they started something in their basement. And now they're like, holy cow, look at what I'm building. And they know they don't need the government, and now the government is starting to knock on their door and say, hey, hey, you can't do that.

And I think people that are 20-something years old are not used to somebody coming in and saying, you can't do that. And now they're finding themselves saying, you know, government is a necessary evil, but we don't need to have all of this government. You guys, on the other hand, are deeply in bed with the government. You got what is it, 25 -- the self-driving cars. There were 29 permits issued for the state of California; 25 of them went to you guys.

ERIC: We're not in bed with them. We're regulated by them.

What you're saying is something that's been true for many, many decades. Right? The tech industry is famously liberal on social issues and famously conservative on financial issues. The saying of the industry is: Government out of the boardroom, government out of the bedroom.

And I think that's roughly what you're feeling. This libertarian streak has been there for a very long time, for the reasons that you say. Exactly right.

And the problem, of course, is that we're inventing things that really do affect traditional agreements with governments. So Google is in the information business. Well, there's nothing more important than information. So if you're a political leader or a government or especially a restrictive government, a dictatorship, you want to control information. You don't want freedom of expression for your citizens.

GLENN: How do you guys view the world -- with the world changing as much as it is and driving cars, how long before the driving car is -- we're all being driven to work?

ERIC: It's completely dependent upon the regulatory process. The technology works. It was invented literally in 2004 and 2005. And the reason this is serious is there are roughly 31,000 people who die on American highways every year. So those are your family. Those are your friends. Those are our citizens. So the quicker we can move this stuff out, the better. We don't know how long it's going to take, but we're sure it will happen over a long enough period of time. It's valuable.

GLENN: See, isn't that an amazing thing? That talks about the problem I think with -- with the way our system is. Our government is not run with a two-pizza rule. And that's kind of the problem.

You're saying the system works. It can all go in. But the regulatory process -- and you know that's going to be a bloodbath of just payoffs and all kinds of problems -- isn't that -- I mean, wouldn't we be much better off to be able to, now that we have the technology to do some of these things -- we're not living in the 1950s anymore. The entire world has changed. How do we break down these walls to start moving a little faster without government interference?

ERIC: A lot of the cases, the regulations have been written by existing incumbents or the industry. And the best kind of regulation says, what we want to do is we want to get more people to their destinations safer, faster, and in a more comfortable way. If the law just said that, then it would be a lot easier. But it ends up being very complicated. And Google has literally thousands of people worldwide who works on these sorts of issues. And I think this is normal for American corporations. I don't Google is unusual.

GLENN: Explain the 70/20/10 approach that's in the book.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Glenn, this is Jonathan. So 70/20/10 was basically an algorithm that Sergey Brin derived, and it stemmed from looking at the set of the companies top 100 priorities when we were much smaller, and Sergey Brin basically observed that the company felt about right at that scale, and 70 percent of the resources were going into the core efforts, 20 percent into emerging, and then 10 percent into kind of the wacky crazy ideas.

So we decided we would institutionalize that and try to keep that framework as sort of the broad -- as we grew over time. One of the nice things about 10 percent is that it's enough that you can actually kick things off and get them started, but it's not so much resource devoted around one thing that the company gets so invested in it that we can't kill it if it's failing.

STU: We're actually doing a version of that, but it's 1/5/94 is our current...

GLENN: I've been trying to talk to some of the guys in my own company and said, I really like your -- what is it -- your 70/30, work for the company 70 percent of your time -- or is it 80/20. Where that extra 20 or 30 percent of your week is kind of on the things you want to pursue. Can you explain that? Are you still doing that in the first place? Do you know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER: Yes. We've always in the company a rule that employees could spend 20 percent of their time on whatever they wanted to do rather than what their manager wanted to do. So -- is our 20 percent project. We have other duties as well. And it exists because it's a way of being creative without putting too much at risk. Because if you just have one person spending one-fifth of their time and wasting their time, you don't have a huge risk, and you might have some great idea. And so what happens is, many of the great ideas that we hear started off at 20 percent times.

GLENN: I think what you guys are creating is the future, and I hope that as -- Eric, as I've said to you before, I hope the don't be evil, actually remains in place. Because of the amazing power of Google. But I really appreciate it. The name of the book is How Google Works. Hope to have you guys on again. Thank you so much.

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

Tasos Katopodis / Stringer | Getty Images

The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.