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Glenn's Show Prep

Why mainstream churches are shrinking

December 19, 2014
Wilson

Writer

Glenn had a wide ranging conversation with Rabbi Lapin on radio today, covering everything from praying in the name of Jesus to why mainstream churches are shrinking and more. Lapin also recounts one of the more interesting interactions he had with atheist Penn Jillette.

GLENN: He's Orthodox Jew, and I'm telling you, he lives it. He's great. He just moved to New York City, which if we have time, I have to figure out how that is working out for you. An orthodox Jewish person --

RABBI: In New York City, the most recent study and survey showed something that most Jews in the country found profoundly disturbing. The majority of Jews in New York City at the moment are in fact orthodox. Never happened before in the history of America. That is really extraordinary. Our side is winning, as it is elsewhere as well. The seriously committed evangelical community is growing by leaps and bounds. The old mainstream denominations that lean left are shrinking. Their churches are empty.

GLENN: Because they don't stand for anything.

RABBI: Precisely.

GLENN: For instance, I have no problem -- someone says Happy Hanukkah to me, thank you. That's great.

RABBI: I think of Hanukkah as the let's use more fossil fuels holiday. Yes.

GLENN: That's what makes you more popular in New York.

RABBI: There you go.

But let's talk about the praying in the name of Jesus for a moment. You have a large proportion of American Jews -- a majority of American Jews that have -- that have -- I mean, let's be frank, have forsaken and abandoned the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they've adopted something else. I call it the sacred sacrament of secular fundamentalism. It's a religion. And I can explain why.

But for the moment, the point is that, it's just fascinating, but I often pose this question to nonobservant Jews who are very remote from their faith. If an invisible private detective followed you around 24/7, how long would it take him to discover that you are Jewish as opposed to a loyal member of the Democrat party. It's a tough question to answer. Because if you don't live or do Jewish, then what is it exactly? And almost every Jew will tell you, I'm proud to be Jewish. Well, about what? Like you're proud of a racial accident? A genetic accident? What does that mean? What they'll usually answer, well, I am Jewish. I don't believe in Jesus. That's become the moral slogan.

STU: Penn Jillette doesn't believe in Jesus --

GLENN: The Dalai Lama doesn't believe in Jesus.

RABBI: He should be Jewish.

STU: I'll let him when he's around next time.

RABBI: By the way, you'll remember what a stunning display of intellectual integrity Penn Jillette did when we were together on the show. It was extraordinary.

GLENN: Yeah, Penn Jillette was on, along with Rabbi Lapin. And it was an experiment. I said to the rabbi and I said to Penn, let's get on. I'm Christian, he's a Jewish, you're an atheist. Let's model for the American people the three people who have wildly different points of view on theology, that they can actually have a conversation. And at one point, the rabbi said --

RABBI: I said if a billion -- what was happening, Penn was saying there's no difference between faiths. They're all the same. Suggesting they're all equally bad. I said if a billion Muslims became evangelical Christians tomorrow, would the world be a better place or worst place? He paused. That pause felt like a week.

GLENN: It was amazing. What went through my mind was, oh, my gosh, this guy might answer this question.

RABBI: What went through my mind, I said to myself, you know, I straight away, I can think of three ways to put me down, get a lot of the and move to the next topic. If I can think of three ways to put me away, Penn probably thought of five.

GLENN: What would you have said of that?

RABBI: I would like to think I would have said what he said, but I'm not sure. I know most people would have come back with something, oh, yeah, right, a million Muslims are going to turn into evangelical Christians. They might as well turn into Jews.

He thought about it and said, all things being equal, I have to say, yes, it would be a better place.

GLENN: That's extraordinary.

RABBI: He paid a price for that because many of his atheist followers were terribly upset.

So Jews who don't believe in Jesus, at that point, their entire identity is not I'm Jewish because I believe this, I'm Jewish because I don't believe in Jesus. And, therefore, Jesus becomes this cross to the vampire. This frightening thing which has to be kept out of my sight because if I allow it in my sight, it is violating my last lingering remnant of connection to the Jewish faith.

STU: You see this in politics too. It's always a danger when you belong to something because you don't believe in something. I think that a lot of times has happened in politics and a lot of other things.

GLENN: I was sitting in the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, sitting in the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. Gone to a couple of synagogues. They had the choir and everything. It was really amazing.

RABBI: We call that high church.

GLENN: Okay. And it was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And my wife was sitting upstairs. I was sitting downstairs. And I'm just observing and I don't understand -- I don't understand anything he's saying. And I had just been over in Europe. So I had just been over at the Vatican. And I hear the music start. And I'm thinking to myself, this is Gregorian chant.

RABBI: All that music is derived indirectly from the music we have on tradition that was played by the Levites in the temple.

GLENN: Now, let me speak as somebody who is observant. I love going and observing other religions. And I love -- because I'm not -- I celebrate other religions. I really love it, and I love people who are really deeply into their traditions. And you can learn so much, and you can also -- my father taught me, he said, Glenn, you search everything, and you look for the intersection points. There's a line of theology and a line of theology, but where they intersect, that's where you know there's truth. There's something there that's truth. And so I love that.

And I'm sitting there in the Great Synagogue. And I'm hearing this music. Now I'm hearing Gregorian chant. I'm hearing the essence of it. Then I'm looking at the way they're dressed. I'm seeing, now that's a catechism. The Catholic's have taken the catechism. Now I'm starting to think, if I'm a Jew, and I put myself back in time, you know, declare your support for Jesus Christ or you're dead, and I would think to myself, my gosh, they have taken all of our rituals. They have taken away all our most sacred stuff. Back in the time they may have done it. But they perverted it and declared them theirs and said if you don't accept it now -- it's almost a mockery if you hold onto that anger. It becomes almost a mockery.

I thought to myself, if I was Jewish, I would have a hard time if I knew my culture, I loved my culture, and I loved my faith, I would have a very hard time letting go of the past, because most Christians don't know. Most Christians don't look at the history of what Christians did to Jews. And I don't -- past is past. We can't correct that. But we can recognize the strife that has been there and open up our hearts to one another. Wow, I see -- and maybe you don't see, where that rub comes from, you know.

RABBI: It's dangerous to drive with your eyes only in the rearview mirror. It's equally difficult to run affairs, whether it's society, a family with an eye only on the past and what happened back then.

The sad truth when we had our Sabbath table a couple of years ago, a judge sitting on the bench in New York. A very sophisticated and educated woman. And she said to me, she said, and she spat these words out with fury after eating my food, if you don't mind -- how can you be friends with Pat Robinson? If he has his way, the pope will be in charge of America.

GLENN: Pat Robinson, but he's not a Catholic.

RABBI: No. I said to her, what do the words Protestant Reformation mean to you? She had no idea. This is a woman who grew up as a college, went to college -- in New York. In New York, there are only two kinds of people: Jews and Catholic. You go to Brooklyn, you got Italians and Jews. She never knew anything else.

GLENN: Here's the amazing thing, and I didn't know this. So many -- just like Christians don't know about Judaism, so many Jews really don't know about the reformation. They really don't --

RABBI: Jews did not know that there has never been an instance of Protestants committing anything against Jews, never happened in history.

Now Martin Luther certainly wrote some unpleasant things about Jews. Nobody ever acted on that. There are no records of Protestant killing Jews. There have been fights between Protestant and Catholics. Most Jews are totally unaware that there's that enormous difference historically.

One of the things that brought about the reformation, of course, was the popularization of the Bible that came about because finally translating become acceptable. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. Fifty years later, you have a Protestant Reformation.

People are saying, you know what, we need to go back to the roots. We need to go back to the Bible.

GLENN: Let me jump off a bit. I'm listening to you say mistranslation, we got to get back to the Bible. I'm looking at you. Behind you it says peace on earth. To men of good will. Most time in the holiday people say peace on earth. Good will toward men. The actual phrase is peace on earth to men of good will. That's totally different.

RABBI: Oh, sure it is.

GLENN: What do you think the most mistranslated or misunderstood phrase in the scriptures or the Torah that jumps out at you, if people understood -- maybe not mistranslated --

STU: What is the most misunderstood scripture? We have one minute. Go ahead.

RABBI: If I'm put on the spot -- I wish we did more rehearsal or something.

GLENN: I tell you what --

RABBI: It's very simple. Something called "Tikkun olam". I don't know if you've heard that phrase. It's improving the world. I wish people wouldn't improve the world. Just don't wreck it. That's all. Stop improving it. That's all. And it's interesting, that's the spirit of the socialist revolution. We're improving it. Just stop improving it. That phrase doesn't appear in that way. The correct Hebrew phrase is to improve the world in accordance with God's blueprint.

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

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

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

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

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

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

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

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

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Global reality.

And moral reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our faith is almost gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why can't we open the government?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in nostalgia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A conservative in 2025, '26.

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

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

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

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

And one can't be stronger than the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

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

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

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

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

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

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

Ancient evil, new clothes

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

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

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

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new currency of power

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

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

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

The forgotten way

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

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

Both are traps.

The only way

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A restoration, not a renovation

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

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

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

The selective guardians of history

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

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

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

The real desecration

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

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

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.