Is progressive NYC mayor getting ready to run for President?

NYC mayor Bill de Blasio just got back to New York City after taking his 13-point progressive agenda on the road. One of the main points is a $15 minimum wage, a policy that is already destroying cities like Seattle. Some are wondering if the tour was a prelude to a presidential race. Glenn tore apart de Blasio, his progressive agenda, and more on radio this morning.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment

GLENN: So here's the latest from Bill de Blasio because Bill de Blasio is thinking about running for president of the United States. I don't know if you know that. Fabulous.

But he's thinking about running for president. And he's come out with a new progressive agenda. A 13-point agenda. And Barack Obama has talked about it. He said, there was sort of this progressive statement of principles about what it means to be a progressive by some of these friends of mine. I noted that it was basically my agenda, except for the trade.

Uh-huh. Now, while he says that, one Democrat, one prominent Democrat unnamed in this article says none of that stuff is going to help us with elections and help us win back the House.

What is the agenda? The mayor wants to stop Democrats from running away from the discussion of progressive economic policy, and I do too. Please, please run on your progressive ideology.

Here's what he said. Raise the federal minimum wage so it reaches $15 an hour, while indexing it to inflation.

PAT: So raise it to 15. And then attach it to inflation.

GLENN: Federal. Federal. So imagine what a 15-dollar federal minimum wage would do to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

PAT: And then if inflation goes up 2 percent a year, so does the minimum wage. Wow, that's going to be good.

GLENN: There is no way that minimum wage can be raised to $15 in small towns and survive. It would destroy Middle America. Just destroy us.

PAT: It's already creating shock waves in Seattle. And it's not even at 15.

GLENN: And in San Francisco, I believe.

PAT: Yes. Yes.

GLENN: In both of those, you've had all kinds of stores and restaurants closing. More to come. They're only up to $12 so far.

PAT: 11.50 or something in Seattle.

GLENN: Okay. They're not even at 15, and places are already starting to crumble and close. And this as reported by progressive media. So you know it's much worse than what the media is saying. Can you imagine what it would do even in New York City, where prices are already skyrocket? I mean, you get a glass of orange juice, is it ten bucks?

PAT: Probably in some places, yeah.

STU: Certainly at the hotels it is.

PAT: Oh, for sure.

GLENN: At the hotels it's more than ten bucks. So the first one is raise minimum wage. Which would cause massive unemployment.

Then reform the National Labor Relations Act. Enhance workers right to organize and rebuild the middle class. So the right to work goes away.

PAT: Yeah. Because you're going to have unions everywhere.

GLENN: Yeah. Everywhere there would be a union.

PAT: It's a good idea. Good idea.

GLENN: Pass comprehensive immigration reform to grow the economy and protect the exploitation of low wage workers. Are you crazy?

PAT: Grow the economy. How does that -- how does that grow the economy, by all of a sudden granting amnesty to 12 to 20 million people who are here. It just makes it okay for them to be here completely and solidifies the fact that, you know, American citizens aren't going to have those jobs. I don't care America citizens of what color, they're not going to have those jobs.

GLENN: Here's what's interesting to me. The president said he's released -- I want to get this exact quote. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Stu, you give him the benefit of the doubt.

There was a sort of progressive statement of principles about what it means to be a progressive by some of these friends of mine, according to the president.

Quote, I noted that it was basically my agenda, except for trade.

Here's the trade section.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Oppose trade deals that hand more power to corporations, at the expense of American jobs, workers rights, and the environment.

So the president is saying, I agreed -- these were my agenda points, except for the trade agenda.

STU: And this is -- I assume is the fight between him and Elizabeth Warren.

PAT: On free trade.

STU: Where he seems to be --

GLENN: And why do you think the Republicans are for the free trade? It hands more power to the corporations at the expense of American jobs.

STU: Well --

PAT: I don't think they describe it that way, but, yeah.

GLENN: I bet it is.

PAT: Nobody knows.

GLENN: Nobody knows.

STU: Yeah. I'm much more free trade than Elizabeth Warren, certainly.

GLENN: Yes, yes.

STU: I think everybody on earth is more free trade than Elizabeth Warren. It's hard to know on this. You wind up thinking, am I choosing between Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren as my two choices?

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Which is more of a fundamental foundational problem with the country.

GLENN: Yes. You're going from a full-fledged socialist to a Marxist. Which one do you vote for?

STU: How do you parse that?

GLENN: She's full-fledged socialist. She would have us looking like Denmark overnight. He's a full-fledged Marxist revolutionary.

STU: He's probably more right on this one than she is. Right?

PAT: It looks like it.

STU: I think so.

PAT: Which is why Republicans say they have the votes to pass this thing. Have you seen that?

GLENN: Yeah. So, again, on one side, you have Elizabeth Warren. On the other side, the president. And on another side, Mitch McConnell. I don't trust any of them.

STU: No.

PAT: Although, Obama and McConnell seem to be on the same side.

GLENN: So that leads me to believe Elizabeth Warren.

[laughter]

I mean, I really don't know who to believe on that one.

PAT: Not in that triangle.

GLENN: I talked to someone in Washington who went into the room and read it and said, Glenn, it has to have -- I think it's 60 days -- 45 or 60 days of sunlight. Has to. Otherwise, it cannot be passed. Congress cannot pass it without it having an open airing. He said, I honestly don't know -- he said, I read it. I don't know why it's been kept secret. He said, there's nothing in there that glares at me. He said, but it would take a team of attorneys to go through it. That's why the sunlight is necessary. He said, these bills are too big and too complex. And he said, I know that there are attorneys out there, that once it is online, they'll go through every single line. And they'll bring it up and say, wait. Wait. This is in there. He said, I didn't see anything. But that doesn't mean it's not there. Because this president has shown over and over again that he makes bad deals.

PAT: Right. And someone we respect a lot too. So you would tend to believe him. If he says he didn't see anything bad in it, it sounds like there's nothing bad in it.

GLENN: But he did say it needs a full airing.

PAT: We're not against that.

STU: It makes you nervous when the president all of a sudden seems pro free trade. I just don't believe that those are his principles. But judging on the surface, you know, I'm certainly going to be more free trade.

PAT: Is it possible that he could do one thing right in eight years? Is it possible?

STU: Well, he did kill bin Laden.

PAT: Okay. Two things right.

GLENN: He didn't. I want to point this out. He didn't. It took him a year to decide.

STU: Yeah. But then when he did decide, he took the flight over there with a knife and stabbed him in the heart.

PAT: Yeah. And he made the toughest decision in 500 years.

GLENN: So it was Barack Obama in the library with a candelabra.

PAT: No. It was a knife.

STU: Don't be ridiculous.

PAT: Come on, Glenn.

GLENN: So here's what we have so far with the de Blasio plan. Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, nationwide. Allow the unions to organize anywhere. Make sure that we get all of the immigrants that are already here. The illegals that are already here. Make them legal.

PAT: You have to help the economy.

GLENN: Oppose any trade deal that gives more power to corporations. Pass national sick-leave. Pass family -- paid family sick-leave.

PAT: So if I'm sick, my wife gets to stay home as well? Is that it?

GLENN: Yeah, paid family leave.

PAT: The whole family gets to stay --

PAT: What?

PAT: Yeah. The Family Medical Leave Act. It's not just for super, hey, I have a cold.

GLENN: No. It's like cancer.

STU: Major. Yeah, something like that. You can actually leave. But the company is not forced to pay you for that time.

PAT: So this one the company would be forced. Wow.

GLENN: Here's the problem with that. Sure, you might have companies that are so grinchy. But those companies, eventually no one wants to work for. You know what I mean? They're so bad. But there's a lot of companies that, like, if you guys left and said, hey, my wife has cancer, I would do my best to hold on. But if it went on for however long --

STU: At some point, yeah.

GLENN: At some point, you know, this is a bad example.

PAT: How long? Like a week and a half?

GLENN: Like 20 minutes. If she's not better by the time I get back from the next break, I can't do it.

PAT: That's understandable.

GLENN: You can see that. It's the CFO of the company. Can you imagine how bad you would be if you fired somebody because their wife had cancer and was in the hospital. Nobody would want to do that. The press would be awful. Awful. You would make as many accommodations as you possibly could. But at some point, you're like, I have to have a CFO.

STU: Yeah, someone actually has to do the job.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: And I can't have some guy in the interim.

PAT: And you can't necessarily pay 2CFOs. One that's actually working and one at home with his --

STU: You can under this plan though.

GLENN: Yeah!

PAT: Is that funded by the government?

GLENN: No.

STU: By evil corporations and their profits, which they don't need?

PAT: Jeez. Can you imagine doing that to a small business. It would kill them.

GLENN: You can't make it. This is a kill all small businesses plan.

STU: It's a genocidal business plan.

GLENN: It really is. Small business genocide. Never again is now. Make Pre-K after-school programs and child care universal.

STU: Yeah. So this was his big change --

PAT: Oh, wow. Child care too.

GLENN: Yeah, babysitters are free now.

PAT: That's a good deal if you can get it.

STU: That's one of the first things he did in New York. It was universal Pre-K.

PAT: He didn't do child care.

GLENN: What kind of grinch is he?

STU: I don't know if he did child care.

GLENN: If I can get my kids from three years old --

PAT: To be raised by somebody else. And I don't have to pick them up until like 9:30 at night, and I just dump them in bed as soon as they get home, that would be ideal. That would be ideal.

GLENN: I don't know if I want to pick them up at all.

JEFFY: Thank you. Thank you.

PAT: Right. You don't need to pick them up at all. Why not child care overnight, every night.

GLENN: Here's what I want to do. I want to have sex with, let's call them surrogates.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: When they get pregnant, I'm not there.

PAT: Why would you be?

GLENN: You put them right in Pre-K. Mom's got child care.

PAT: Besides, she should have had an abortion, she wouldn't have to deal with any of this.

GLENN: Exactly right. That's what I was pushing for. The abortion. Okay. If I can't kill the kid, I don't want to see the kid. I want the kid going right to the government. It's a shared responsibility.

PAT: Should she decide to choose with her own body and have the kid, then it's her responsibility for the first three years. And then you dump them into child care.

GLENN: Right. So you know if she changes her mind anywhere in the first three years, she can still kill the child.

PAT: Like it's a late-term abortion. Really long-term. Like 25th trimester.

GLENN: That's Peter Singer: Before they reach the age of consciousness where they know tomorrow is coming.

STU: Yes, that's the way he phrases it. If they can't say, Daddy, please don't kill me, you're free to go.

GLENN: No. No. They can say, Daddy, please, don't kill me. They just can't say, Daddy, please don't kill me because I want to see tomorrow.

PAT: Or I want to watch Cartoon Network tomorrow.

GLENN: Tomorrow.

PAT: So you can't kill me today.

GLENN: As long as they say I want to watch the Cartoon Network today and today only, then you can abort them. As long as you can convince them there is no tomorrow, you can kill them. That's an actual Peter singer viewpoint.

STU: We may have mangled it a little bit, but not much.

GLENN: Not much.

STU: He initially said you should be able to commit an abortion. Infanticide. Beyond that, it was three to five years old.

GLENN: He said three. Then he came out and apologized.

STU: I'm glad. At least he apologized.

GLENN: Except he apologized and said, I shouldn't have put a time on it. It should be open to any time.

PAT: You don't want to limit yourself to three years. The kid could be 19 and not know tomorrow is coming.

GLENN: Exactly right.

STU: Yeah. What if he's turning out like Jeffy. You're not allowed to --

PAT: Exactly. Or orphan Annie. Well, I guess she knew the sun was coming out tomorrow, didn't she?

GLENN: Yeah, she was singing the song.

PAT: That was a bad example.

GLENN: That's all we have to do. Is, if we want to be evil bastards, once they start killing all the children because it's legal, we just sing: The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow! As long as we have that, our kids can live.

STU: Yay!

GLENN: Expand the income tax credit. Allow students to refinance student loan debt.

VOICE: Well, what if there is no tomorrow. There wasn't one today.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: Did you think about that?

GLENN: They can all die.

Close the carried interest loophole. End tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Implement the Buffett rule so millionaires pay their fair share.

PAT: Yes! Finally!

GLENN: Close the CEO tax loophole --

PAT: Another finally.

GLENN: -- that allows corporations to take advantage of performance pay write-offs.

PAT: Yeah. I hate that

STU: It's about time.

GLENN: Yeah. There's the 13-point progressive plan that Bill de Blasio is now hocking and thinking about running for president of the United States.

PAT: That guy would kill us. He would finish the job that Barack Obama has started.

GLENN: And when it wouldn't work, he would blame us. As they always do.

STU: Why is he doing this so fast? You just became mayor of New York. It's because if he hangs around long enough for his policies to really get into effect, no one is going to elect him.

GLENN: Well, the good news is, he's forcing Hillary Clinton to run to the left.

STU: Yes.

GLENN: So between him and Elizabeth Warren, she is running hard to the left. Notice nobody is talking about that.

PAT: There was an article on Drudge yesterday.

GLENN: Drudge.

PAT: Yeah, but at least it's out there. That she is, what, the most liberal elite candidate.

GLENN: Ever.

PAT: Yeah, or at least in decades.

GLENN: So she is going hard left, which is good. Because you'll see where she stands. We have her on record now, scoffing at the 20-week abortion rule. Passed Congress last week. She says, that's not right.

STU: It's amazing. You're talked about something that is supported by over 85 percent of Americans. It's the third trimester sort of stuff where, I mean, it's not even close.

GLENN: Money doesn't talk. It screams. And she needs money for her campaign now. She needs to be as far left as she possibly can be.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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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

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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

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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.

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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.