WATCH: It’s time to take control of your own life

It’s time to stop accepting the world the way it is and to start fighting for something different - and much, much better. That was the message Glenn shared this morning on radio during a passionate call for people to break free of their comfort zone and to start fighting for what they really want and believe in. Why are we still trusting the systems that have been around for twenty or thirty years to be they key to the future? It’s not going to work. Listen to Glenn’s message HERE and start changing thing now!

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

GLENN: I have to tell you, and I want to share this with you, I want to share this with you, because I want you to empower yourself. I want you to find out what it is in your own life and empower yourself.

We are in the age of a renaissance. Everything is about to change in a very good way. And it could go dicey. I mean, I think it will. It's going to go dicey. The world will come unhinged for a while. But if we hold on to each other, we'll be okay.

But we have a choice. We can either make things good and right and better and empower ourselves.

Do you realize that the bushmen in some place in Africa, as long as they have access to a smartphone in the middle of a bush, they have access to more power and information than President Clinton did in 1986. Your smartphone, what the hell are you doing with it? What are we doing with it?

Now, I want to tell you, I just said to the floor crew, I have been trying to find somebody that would listen to me about a redesign of a camera and a whole camera system. This studio, I own a stupid movie studio, and all the technology put in here was put in the '80s, and we're still putting the same crap technology in this building because that's what everybody makes.

I know what the future is. And it ain't this. And for how long, Stu? Five years, four years? I've talked to Canon. I've talked to --

PAT: You've been on this camera kick for a long time. I think it's six years.

GLENN: I've talked to everybody. I talked to the head of equipment at Warner Brothers, and I explained this idea. And he was like, that's really good. Now, do you know how do that? Yeah, I'm not going to do that because that would probably put me out of work. That sounds good.

PAT: I'd rather buy the 80,000-dollar camera that doesn't work as well. Why don't we just keep doing that?

GLENN: Yeah, we'll just keep spending money like it's crazy. So I just said -- and this is the mind-set that I want you to have. I've talked to all kinds of people. All the people I've talked to are either experts with no money or people with money and no expertise. And I can't get those two together. I can't get those two together. And I just know what the future is.

So I just said to the floor people, you know, these guys are creative. They're creative. They know what it is. I mean, who owns the jib? It ain't me. Who owns the jib?

CRM. Okay, a lot of times individuals own these big pieces of equipment. These pieces of equipment were made by guys -- I think steady cam thing was made by a guy in a hotel room.

STU: That was Rocky. One of the first uses of it was Rocky because they did it in Philadelphia, by the way. The whole reason that's tied to Philadelphia because they wanted to get around the unions.

GLENN: Isn't that crazy?

STU: That's how innovations happen.

GLENN: Exactly. That's how innovation happens. And what we've become is a consumer nation. Wait for somebody to make something, and then I'll buy it. And I know someone will make something better, and I'll buy that. And I'm just waiting for the next thing that's better. What are we waiting for? That's not America.

America is the one that says: I don't have to do it that way. I want to get around the unions. I want to get around this. I want to go around the price. It doesn't make sense to me. So I just said to the guys, you know what, let's redesign it ourselves and put it up on Kickstarter. I don't know how much it will cost us to do it. I don't have the money to do it. So let's just build one, and then we'll put it up on Kickstarter. Because I think it will revolutionize television. What are we waiting for? That's the key. What are you waiting for? What is it in your life that drives you?

Everything, look, everything is about passion. It's about intelligence and passion. As I tell the staff here, somebody is like, well, I'd really like to try this. Okay, what are you waiting for? Well, I just wanted to see if you bought into it and, you know, if you would help me get some people -- no, I'm not going to help you. I'm working on stuff I can't get done. And the things I can't get done usually tell me because it's not quite right because I can't convince enough people that it's right or I don't have the right team around me to see that vision. So then I have to keep working on it. You have to go out and convince two or three people. And with your passion and your intelligence, you go out and you convince two or three people. And you get them to buy into the -- the -- what you're trying to do. And then you do it together.

And then, you don't go to some VC. Some venture capitalist or anything else. You don't have to do that. Put it on Kickstarter. Here's an idea. I think this would revolutionize -- Pat and I were talking about this. This is how crazy the world is getting right now.

Do you realize that right now if you could come up with a tricorder. Now, this is somebody -- a Star Trek fan. A tricorder. This is a tricorder prize. Okay?

STU: I don't know what a tricorder is.

GLENN: Okay. Tricorder is when Bones, the doctor in Star Trek back in the 1960s, he had this little device that he would hold up. And it would be like, [sirens].

PAT: It would tell him exactly what what's wrong with you.

GLENN: He's an alien with a head cold.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: Total future stuff. You know, like --

PAT: In Star Trek 4, he held it up to somebody in a hospital, and he realized they had kidney failure and he gave them a pill and it corrected their problem.

GLENN: Okay. So that's what it is. You don't have to be a doctor. Just turn the tricorder on. And you're like, oh, he has kidney failure.

So the guys who did SpaceX are now doing with Qualcomm, a 20 million-dollar prize for the tricorder. Why are they doing it? America is going to be about 20 million doctors short. Who would see that coming? I don't know who said that. I'm sorry. That's another monologue. We'll be about 20 million doctors short by 2020, 2025. That will cause a real problem. So what do we do? Well, you come up with things like a tricorder. And you don't give it to doctors. You make it available for parents. 3 o'clock in the morning, my kid is sick. Oh, he has a head cold. Oh, he has kidney failure. Okay, that one I have to have checked.

This one -- and it's all -- it is artificial intelligence, which will only get stronger. It's cloud-based. So all the information, you can cough on it. These are some of the specks they're looking for. Cough on it, it will analyze the spittle. You can prick your finger on it, and it will give you a blood test. It has to be linked to artificial intelligence and to the cloud and give you a diagnosis.

PAT: Wow. Do we know if someone is close to that?

GLENN: You ready for this? It's a $20 million X prize through Qualcomm and SpaceX people. A $20 million Qualcomm prize. They've had it out now for a couple of years. They're down now to the 15 finalists and expect to have a working one in 18 months.

PAT: Wow.

STU: Wow.

PAT: That's a bigger prize than they're giving to somebody going to space.

GLENN: That was 10 million.

PAT: Wow. Wow.

GLENN: What are we doing?

PAT: That's huge.

STU: If you point one of those things at Jeffy, it explodes.

PAT: Oh, my gosh. It can't compute all the various diseases on there.

JEFFY: Actually I'm a good test case for a few million.

PAT: Yeah. You might be. Syphilous. Gonorrhea.

GLENN: What's amazing to me is, this is the world we're living in. And why are we not taking -- we're the entrepreneurs. We're the ones who believe in the future. Right?

We're not the ones sitting, waiting for a handout. We're not the ones saying, oh, let somebody else do it. We're the ones out marching in the streets. We're the ones going way out of our comfort zone. I'm telling you, Pat and I were talking about something this morning. About going way, way out of our comfort zone. Way out of our comfort zone. We have to. All of us have to go way out of our comfort zone.

Let me ask you this question: What is it that you have done in the last four weeks, 60 days, what have you done in the last eight weeks that has made you really uncomfortable?

Have you done anything? If you haven't, you're not growing.

Let me say that again: Have you done something in the last 60 days that has made you way uncomfortable? And if you haven't, you're not growing.

STU: If you're no good at being uncomfortable, then you can't stop staying exactly the same. Right?

GLENN: What?

STU: If you're no good at being uncomfortable, then you can't stop saying exactly the same?

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Fiona Apple suspect she beat you to the punch. Multiple years ago, she beat you -- this little monologue you're going on --

GLENN: I'd give good money to Fiona Apple to beat you in the face.

STU: She would probably do it with pleasure.

GLENN: I know you were in front of her. We were in front row and you were afraid.

STU: I do love her. But I was in the front row many times, but I don't think -- I don't think she -- she probably has no idea --

GLENN: No. She has no idea. No, you were just a random person that she could get up from the piano and just beat. Oh, yeah, no, not for any real reason. Just because she might attack someone in the audience.

STU: She's that awesome. Yes, that could definitely happen.

GLENN: You describe that as awesome?

STU: I do. With her? Yes.

GLENN: She is awesome.

STU: She is. But, you know, that's a great point. And I remember hearing that song years ago and thinking, that's a great point. If you don't put yourself into that place where you're doing things that make you feel that way, you're just living the same day over and over again.

GLENN: Okay. So one of my favorite lines from Muse, and I'll butcher it because it's been a long time since I've heard it. Is, I had a nightmare that everybody loved me for who I am. Crap. Now, I can't remember the last part of the line.

I had a nightmare that everybody loved me for who I am. I'm going to have to look it up. I don't want to butcher the last part of it. But basically it is, and so I wasn't the man I could be.

If everybody loves you for who you are, you're not going to push yourself to be the best man you can be.

STU: Yeah. This is kind of -- we're going through references, and I pray Pat has a good one coming.

GLENN: Oh, Pat has a solid one coming. It's going to be something like from Paul Revere and the radars. He's already gone.

STU: There's a line, it was -- the meanest thing you can ever say to someone is good job. It was in that movie, Whiplash. The drumming movie. Of course, this guy is a psychopath in the movie. You don't necessarily want to replicate his behavior. But when you think about that, it's so central to the way humans react to things. If you can sit there and be rewarded for your behavior over and over again, then, of course, you'll never change.

You know, it's -- it's very typical.

PAT: Although, some people are motivated pretty strongly by positive reinforcement and feedback.

STU: Yeah, that's why I wouldn't go as far. He was actually a pretty bad guy in the movie. But I think the point is there.

PAT: Did he get the kid where he needed to go?

STU: I don't want to give away the movie. He drums well.

PAT: Spoiler alert. Okay.

GLENN: Here it is. I've had recurring nightmares that I was loved for who I am and missed the opportunity to be a better man. Isn't that great?

PAT: Yeah, it's good.

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

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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

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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

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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.