Uh oh! The Democrats don’t have anyone if Hillary blows up her candidacy

With Hillary Clinton caught up in a scandal over her use of a private email to conduct government business, who is left on the side of the Democrats to run for president in 2016 if she gets knocked out? Joe Biden? Elizabeth Warren? Al Gore? None of these see like strong candidates. Have the Dems lost before they've even begun? Pat and Stu had the story and analysis on radio this morning.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment. In this section, Pat and Stu analyze the article 'What if Hillary bows out' from Politico:

Pat: Hillary has got yet another scandal. Of course, she's been embroiled. As much as a democrat could be embroiled in any scandal lately -- in the Benghazi situation. So she already has that baggage. She -- she also now has this email situation where she broke the law by establishing not just her own email account but her own email server, which is just really weird. What is she trying to hide, you have to wonder. And --

STU: And we'll never know, because they make no attempts to save the emails that they were supposed to save.

PAT: Does that surprise anybody? Of course they didn't. So if she decides to bow out because of health or because of scandals or she's forced out or whatever the case may be, the Democrats really, really are in trouble.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: Just great as far as I'm concerned. But it's kind of interesting when you stop and think, okay, well, legitimately, if you're trying to help them, who do they have in the bullpen? Okay, you lost your starter. Your starter has been knocked out in the first inning. He's given up -- she's given up seven runs and the bases are loaded and there's nobody out. So who do you bring in from the bullpen at that point to stop the bleeding? Are you going to bring in Elizabeth Warren? She's pretty wild. She's got a wild pitch. She'll walk in at least a couple of runs for you.

STU: Oh yeah. And that's kind of the point of the political article, they don't --

PAT: They don't have any confidence in Elizabeth Warren, do they.

STU: Quote, there isn't any enthusiasm for the nonHillary democrats already flirting with a run. Vice president Joe Biden.

PAT: Oh, Biden, can't. He's a buffoon. He doesn't have a chance. He could run and he probably will run if Hillary is out.

STU: I don't think he'll run if Hillary is in.

PAT: I don't think he has a chance.

STU: Bernie Sanders, Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, which everybody knows, but every once in a while those types of guys.

PAT: Client was that type of guy.

STU: Harry was very low in the polls as well early on. Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb. Then there's of course --

PAT: No way.

STU: Right. No, right?

PAT: No.

STU: Then you've got -- there are others who they considered talking about fighting a fire in their belly like Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York.

PAT: I think he wants to. I think he'd like to. But he doesn't have a chance.

JEFFY: No way.

STU: I don't think he has no chance. I --

PAT: Very little.

STU: Yeah. Governor Duval Patrick. Governor Brian Schweitzer. I don't think he has a chance.

PAT: The ex-governor from Montana?

STU: Yeah. Mark Warner. Kirsten Gillibrand.

PAT: Look at the base Montana has. He's got the 650,000 person base. Just loch him.

STU: And then the democratic expert they're talking to here says they believe pressure would build for a really big names who enter, such as Al Gore.

PAT: Yeah, has to be.

JEFFY: We talked about that months ago. That's a great plan. And Al might be the one. They might not have to pressure him for that.

PAT: He wants that.

STU: I don't think --

PAT: 15 years ago. Desperately wanted it. He's 66 now. He made a billions. I don't know if he still wants it but I don't think he'd mind.

STU: I think Al Gore would only do it if he felt it was being handed to him. Look, you're not going to have to go out there and shake hands like did you last time. You're going to cruise through this nomination. You're going to get all the funding. You're going to essentially the path right now envisioned for Hillary Clinton, which is a very easy primary, very little resistance. You're able to raise all the money while Republicans are fighting it out. People know you already. Back in day were you stodgy and robotic.

PAT: That's all changed. Now you're a rock star, Al.

STU: Yeah, you're a rock star.

PAT: You've won a Nobel Peace Prize. You've won a Grammy award.

JEFFY: Even when you were stiff, you were still -- for the presidency, Al.

STU: Let us make this right for you Al. I think there's a legitimate rich that will happen. Why I see surprised to see the odds are still 250 to one for him to become president.

PAT: That's a great belt.

STU: There's some money to be made there. Potential. I think the odds are better than 250 to one, because if Hillary drops out, he becomes --

PAT: He's the only one. I'm serious. Other than him, you're calling Richard Gephardt on the phone and saying, Dick, what have you been doing for the last 20 years? Would you consider -- would you consider a presidential run?

STU: I don't think they'd go to Dick Gephardt. I think maybe they'd put the vice president of the United States in probably first. But again, I don't think there's -- I think the answer to that is no.

PAT: I think it's no.

STU: And we have to remember this, because we look at Hillary Clinton and she leads by 60 points and the only time we ever talk to her, there's another little scandal here, another little scandal there. Remember her book tour. She is terrible at this.

PAT: Oh.

STU: She can't get out of her own way when people are focusing on her.

PAT: Remember this, every day it was something else. Every day. It was -- I'm dead broke when we left office, blah blah. Every day she stuck her foot in her mouth.

STU: Every day. And then she'd try to answer for those and she'd make it worse. Hillary Clinton is a bad candidate. For all the things you can say about Barack Obama, and he's a terrible president and the guy who's done a lot of things that have hurt this country. However, he's a good candidate. He gets out there and he's fairly disciplined on the campaign trail. He makes speeches that people tend to like. Especially in 2008 people were very excited over him. And he was able to beat Mitt Romney who again is not -- was not the greatest candidate and certainly not conservative enough for me. But again, he isn't a terrible candidate. John McCain was a terrible candidate. Literally, you know, a foot could have beaten John McCain. But Mitt Romney was, you know, much better. And while he did not run a great campaign, much better than John McCain. And really wasn't -- you know, I mean, Barack Obama won that fairly easily, too. The guy is -- he can't run a country but he can run a campaign. And so I don't know that Hillary Clinton can do either. I don't think she can -- she is not capable. Again, she went into the race with Barack Obama with essentially the same path we're talking about now. She was the overwhelming favorite. Everyone thought she was going to win the election. People thought her closest competition was going to be John Edwards.

PAT: And she was 50 points -- people forget this. She was 50 points ahead last time, too. She was 50 points ahead of Barack Obama when they started that campaign.

STU: Very early on.

PAT: And he overcame that.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: That's how bad she is. That's how bad a campaigner she is.

JEFFY: You're making a case for Dick Gephardt.

PAT: I'm trying.

(overlapping speakers).

JEFFY: He's in solution, heart of the country.

PAT: Heartland guy. Come on, don't discount Richard Gephardt.

STU: He's not going to run.

PAT: Don't discount him.

JEFFY: No, don't.

PAT: He's terrific.

JEFFY: Mid 70 s . He's seasoned. He's good to go.

PAT: He's seasoned.

STU: I like that.

PAT: That's a good word for Dick.

STU: I like this rant by Politico, though. This is such -- such a typical way the media handles Barack Obama. Now, they go through a longer spiel will how Elizabeth Warren might be a little bit too leftist because she you know, it's hard to get corporate donors with her because she's so progressive, which is a legitimate problem with Elizabeth Warren.

PAT: What's interesting about her is she's honest about her Progressivism.

PAT: Wave.

PAT: Obama tries to hide it. Obama is I'm not an ideologue. That's all you are is an ideologue.

STU: And remember --

PAT: I think she is proud of her idealogy.

STU: Remember you didn't build that, that whole thing and Barack Obama spent a month trying to figure a way to parse it so people could accept it. That came from Elizabeth Warren.

PAT: She said it first.

STU: And she never backed off of it. That's her spiel. You need the roads that we built for you to build your business. That's the big factor there. So this is what they say about -- because they're saying, Clinton, meaning Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, are very similar, not like Elizabeth Warren. They're both -- look, they played both sides a lot. Listen to this. Argument from Politico. Clinton, Bill Clinton, raised taxes on the wealthy. But also pushed through financial deregulation.

Obama satisfied the progressive demand for universal health care bit bargained with the insurance companies and drug lobbies.

PAT: Wait. That's his giving something to the right credential?

STU: So he --

PAT: Bargained with insurance companies?

STU: Right. Wait. We didn't ask you to bargain with insurance companies.

PAT: To bring us universal health care? No, I didn't ask for that. Not, but it's on the way to that.

STU: Now Clinton was obviously very progressive. But he did actually do things that Conservatives liked at the time. Welfare reform is another one. Financial deregulation.

PAT: Defense of Marriage Act.

STU: Defense of Marriage Act is another. You know, where Obama has no examples of this. Listen to what they -- they struggled to try to find something. First they stay he implemented universal health care but he negotiated with insurance companies. How the hell else was he going to do it?

PAT: Remember when Barry Goldwater was like, I will negotiate with insurance companies. Yeah.

STU: Yeah. A big Ronald Reagan speech as well.

PAT: That's our conservative guy.

STU: Remember when Ronald Reagan did this tear down this wall speech and the I will negotiate with the drug lobby speech.

PAT: That's when everybody said he's my man.

STU: Both sought to move the country left ward on social issues but championed international trade agreements.

PAT: There's another hot issue for me.

STU: His big movement to the right are international trade agreements. Wow. And then it goes -- again, ends with both campaign on hope and change but tempered with flashes of pragmatism. You forgot to include an example for Barack Obama. You still haven't -- there's nothing here. We have trade agreements.

PAT: And --

STU: Nothing specific but just international trade agreements and then it ends with --

PAT: And it was tempered with pragmatism, though.

STU: What pragmatism?

PAT: That's what I'd like to know.

STU: He gets to do whatever he wants when they wants to do it, his pragmatism is ObamaCare. He said he wanted single payor and instead he went down the road of universal health care where the government controls every aspect essentially of what you get in your coverage but it goes through a private company.

PAT: Thank you for admitting finally admitting how pragmatic Barack Obama is.

STU: It's so frustrating.

PAT: It is. But they're in real trouble F. it's not Hillary, they're in serious trouble. Even if it's Hillary, because there's so much baggage, they're in real trouble.

STU: What does it feel like four months after she's announced her run? I think it's considerably different. Remember, they didn't have anything in 2008 either. I mean, Hillary Clinton would have been in big trouble in the -- you know, I guess if John McCain, she probably still would have won, but she would have had a tougher time. John Edwards, I know how that thing turned out. Imagine if he got the nomination. He finished two points behind Barack Obama in Iowa?

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: He was close. He was in it. So if that hadn't worked out, where they didn't get this guy out of nowhere who no one knew in 2004 to come out in the ranks and win, they don't have anything back in 2008. And I see what happened when Barack Obama wasn't running, what you had was 2010 and 2014 two wave of elections for Republicans. As bad as the last eight years or six years have felt for Republicans and Conservative at times, when you kind of step back and you look past just one person, Barack Obama, what else do they have? I mean, it is -- there is not a strong bench for the Democrats and when they haven't had Barack Obama to rely on, they've been destroyed in two out of two elections.

PAT: Gives you a little bit of hope. It does. And we've got a strong field of potential candidates. I just don't know if the strongest among them is even going to run. You know, Ted Cruz. Is he even going to run? It's kind of interesting because we talked to Mike Opelco on Glenn's show last night on the roundtable. And Michael went to CPAC and he said had Ted Cruz was underwhelming in his speech. And that's disappointing.

STU: That's why he's 50 to one. Right now Ted Cruz is in the same category as Rick Santorum, Joe Biden, and -- I mean, and Elizabeth Warren. Again, who you have Hillary Clinton up 50 points, I mean, you'd think Ted Cruz had a better chance than that.

PAT: You would think so.

STU: Jeb Bush is the favorite for Republicans, by the way. He's at six to one.

PAT: There's no way he's the favorite.

STU: He's the only --

PAT: I don't think he's top five with the American people.

STU: You might be right on that, but he is the only one who's also really announced. I mean, Santorum has announced but Jeb has been even more overt about wanting to run. And he's doing commercials.

PAT: And Cruz has said nothing.

STU: Not a word.

PAT: 888-727-Beck. For Pat and Stu for Glenn on the Glenn Beck Program coming up.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

What triggers the Bubba effect

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

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

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

A country cracking from the inside

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

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

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

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

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

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

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

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

How to respond without breaking ourselves

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

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

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Truth-seeking is real work

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

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

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

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

Bad-faith questions

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

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

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

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

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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

The real target

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parallel societies do not end well

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

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

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

A crisis of confidence

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

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

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

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.