GLENNFebruary 22, 2017

Weird Groupthink: Tribal Instinct Explains Milo Yiannopoulos

According to Psychology Today, the phenomenon known as groupthink "occurs when a group values harmony and coherence over accurate analysis and critical evaluation. It causes individual members of the group to unquestioningly follow the word of the leader and it strongly discourages any disagreement with the consensus."

The decision to rescind Yiannopulos' invitation to speak at CPAC was prompted by videos in which he praised pederasty, the act of grown men having sex with post-pubescent boys. However, those videos had long been available on the internet. Why did they make a difference now?

Jonah Goldberg, conservative thought leader and senior editor at National Review, recently published an opinion editorial in The LA Times, diving deep into how the invitation was extended in the first place:

From the outset, many on the right who do not consider themselves part of the Cult of Milo opposed his invitation. The disturbing thing is that, absent these videos, we would have lost the fight.
Even now, Schlapp defends the initial decision to invite Yiannopoulos. On Monday’s ”Morning Joe,” he insisted: “The fact is, he’s got a voice that a lot of young people listen to.” A lot of young conservative people, he should have added, precisely because he enrages so many young liberals.
And that’s part of the problem. We are in a particularly tribal moment in American politics in which “the enemy of my enemy is my ally” is the most powerful argument around.

"This is fascinating," Glenn said Wednesday on radio.

Glenn made the case that what happened to moderate Democrats under Barack Obama is now happening with Republicans under Donald Trump.

"Now that Barack Obama is gone, it's left a vacuum of just who was around him. Hillary Clinton and the Blue Dog Democrat are gone. The Blue Dog Democrat no longer exists. The Hillary Clintons no longer exist. So who are you left with? You're left with Marxists and radicals. And now the Democratic Party is saying, "Oh, man, this is . . . wait. Hold it." And they're seeing --- not all of them --- but enough are seeing what we saw," Glenn said. "The same thing is going to happen with the Republican Party."

Enjoy the complimentary clip above or read the transcript below for details.

GLENN: I want to -- I want to tell you the story about this New Yorker who is becoming a conservative now. And I think these people existed under Obama, but they were -- they were willing to accept more -- let me see if I can find this. From -- yeah --

PAT: You think there were Democrats that were shocked by the radicalism of Obama?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

PAT: I mean, his radical ideology where he virtually has Marxist policies. Because we never heard from them.

GLENN: Because I think the same way we're not hearing from conservatives who are shocked by Donald Trump and some of the things that he does and the radicals he has around him. Nobody is saying anything about that.

And it's because you're going to get shouted down, and a lot of people are like, "Well, but I like kind of the stuff -- I like the direction he's headed. So just don't say anything." Okay?

PAT: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

GLENN: And they don't see that -- like they're seeing right now in the Democrats, once you lose, who really is in charge? And so the Democrats -- when I read this thing from the Democrats, it will blow your mind.

But here's what is happening. Here's what happened to the Democrats. And we're at the beginning of it. This comes from Jonah Goldberg. Now, this is just about what happened with Milo and CPAC. The decision to rescind the invitation was prompted by a surfacing of videos, available long on the internet, which Milo praised -- how do you say it? Pederasty? Pederasty. Sex between an older man and prepubescent boys as young as 13. From the outside, many on the right who do not consider themselves part of --

PAT: Had you even heard of such thing?

GLENN: No.

PAT: The reason we don't know how to pronounce a word is because I've never heard of it.

GLENN: I've never heard of it.

PAT: It's the distinction. It's supposed to be post-pubescent. Right? So pedophilia is prepubescent. And after is post.

GLENN: And this is post.

Those who consider themselves part of the cult of -- opposed his invitation. The disturbing thing is, absent these videos, we would have lost the fight, said Jonah Goldberg.

Even now, Schlapp defends the initial decision to invite Yiannopoulos. On Monday's Morning Joe, he insisted, the fact is, he's got a voice that a lot of young people listen to, a lot of young conservative people.

And Jonah says, we should be asking the question: Why are so many young conservatives?

Precisely because he enrages so many young liberals, and that's part of the problem. We're in a particularly tribal moment in American politics, which the enemy of my enemy is my ally. It's the most powerful argument around.

John Tubey, the evolutionary psychologist recently wrote that if he could explain one scientific concept to the public, it would be the coalitional instinct. In our natural habitat, to be alone was to be vulnerable. If you had no coalition, you were nakedly and at the mercy of everyone else, so the instinct to belong to a coalition has urgency preexisting and superseding any policy-driven basis for membership.

This is why group belief is free to be so weird. We overlook the hypocrisies and the shortcomings within our own coalition out of a desire to protect ourselves from our enemies.

This is fascinating. We'll come back to it in a second.

[break]

GLENN: So going over Jonah Goldberg's editorial yesterday in the LA Times. And he's talking about how we are overlooking hypocrisies on our own side. And I contend -- I want to share this with you because I believe this is what happened to the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is in worse shape than the Republicans are, by far. They are now fighting for the soul of the party. Are they going to be this Marxist radical party, or are they going to come back to the center?

And I think that Barack Obama gave them -- was such a distraction that nobody cared about who was -- except for us, who was advising him. You know, who were the guys that were really -- that influenced his life and shaped him? And who were the people -- the Bill Ayers and the Bernardine Dohrn and all those people that were in and around this White House? And it gave us, I believe, a false belief on who the average Democrat is.

And that's because I think the average Democrat looked at Barack Obama the way many Republicans are looking at Donald Trump. They may not like him. They may not like all of those -- but they're not -- they're not concerned about Steve Bannon. They're not concerned. They think he's going to be held in place. This is America. We're not going to go against Europe and NATO. That's just not going to happen. And we're going to be fine.

And he's moving the ball in our direction. I think that's the way most Republicans look at him. And they're like, "You know, tell me the things -- yes, he's done some things I don't like, but he's moving the ball in our direction, and we're winning, generally, on the things that we want." Right? Would you agree with that?

I think that's the way many Democrats felt under Barack Obama, except Barack Obama did not have the harsh edges that Donald Trump does. Barack Obama didn't make the average Democrat feel uncomfortable. He was -- he was super slick.

If you would have seen the people -- it's why they brought Michelle Obama at the very beginning back into the White House. You can't talk because she was making average Democrat feel uncomfortable. Her last speech on the campaign trail, the first time around, was the speech where she said, "You know, we're going to have to change our tradition, we're going to have to change our thinking, our history. We're going to have to change everything." And they're like, "No, no, no, that's making Democrats worried."

So they didn't see the Marxist radical rot until now. And now they're being shouted down if they disagree with things like Keith Ellison. And they're saying, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I was really kind of more of a Hillary mainstream supporter, if you will." I think those Reagan Democrats who still voted for Democrat are really in search of a place to go.

Let me explain what happened to the Democrats by using Jonah Goldberg's words on what's happening to us right now. Today, the right sees the left as enemies. And I should say vice-versa.

Milo Yiannopoulos is a hero for many because he fights political correctness and is transgressive.

STU: This is a note, I have no idea really who this person is, and certainly no idea how to pronounce his name. But we should probably settle on one.

GLENN: I like Yiannopoulos.

STU: I don't know if that's it. But I'm fine --

GLENN: It's Yiannopoulos, right?

JEFFY: But we're settling with Yiannopoulos?

GLENN: Yiannopoulos. Yeah.

A flamboyant provocateur, who wears his homosexuality on his sleeve and acts very much like a left-wing performance artist. He gives the right an edgy cultural avatar to pit against the left. At a time when entertainment and celebrity matter more than facts and arguments, he is an entertaining celebrity.

Until recently, he was also a self-described fellow traveler of the racist and anti-Semitic alt-right. He advanced their worldview primarily from his perch as a senior editor of Breitbart News, the website formerly run by Steve Bannon, a senior adviser to President Trump, who also sought to make Breitbart the platform for the alt-right.

STU: Formerly.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

STU: Formerly. Yeah. Formerly. Sure. Formerly.

GLENN: Last year, alt-righters got attention for hurling bigotry at Trump's skeptical journalist on social media. For instance, my National Review colleague David French was subjected to almost daily pictures of his adopted black daughter Photoshopped in a gas chamber with a Nazi uniform-clad Donald Trump poised to push the button.

It was horrible stuff that happened to David French's family.

Yiannopoulos's defense of all of this was that it was funny and rebellious. Quote: Just as the kids of the '60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair, and rock 'n' roll, so too do the alt-right youngs' meme brigades shock older generations with Holocaust jokes and Klan humor.

It was a way for he and his colleague -- it was, he and a colleague wrote for Breitbart, undeniably hysterical.

Well, writes Jonah Goldberg, I can deny that. Countless conservatives defend Milo who admits he's not a conservative, in much the same way Democrats defended the anti-Semitic radio priest Charles Coughlin, as long as he supported the New Deal as Christ's deal.

Conservatives cling to rationalizations to defend their champion. They say he distanced himself from the alt-right. He did cynically, only after "Daddy" -- his term for Donald Trump -- was elected. They credit his claim that he can say anti-Semitic things because his grandmother was allegedly Jewish, and he can say racist things because he sleeps with black men.

These are the kinds of arguments a coalition accepts when it has lost its moral moorings and cares only about winning. Free expression was never the issue. If it were, he would -- he'd be at CPAC and Breitbart expressing the case for ephebophilia. I don't even know what that is. Apparently, conservatives still draw the line there, but not at anti-Semitism or racism. The tent, sad to say, is still big enough for that.

That's Jonah Goldberg yesterday.

My thesis here is that there are a lot of conservatives right now, at least, who are looking at Donald Trump and saying, "I -- I'm -- I'm pretty okay with the direction of where he's going." Nothing bad has happened. Would you agree? We disagree with some of his appointments, but so far, okay. Right?

STU: There's been some good. Been some bad.

GLENN: Yeah, there's been some good. There's been some bad. And I think the average person feels that way on the left. Because we are falling to deaf ears on the thing -- the only thing that the left is hearing. And the left is hearing racist anti-Semitic -- they're looking at the people surrounding Donald Trump.

Basically, the same thing that we did when we were at Fox. We were looking at Van Jones. We weren't looking at President Obama. We were looking at Van Jones. We were looking at George Soros. We were looking at the people behind the man. Now, that was important for us back then because it's who you put in the office around you. And there were some mainstream people around Donald Trump -- I mean, around Barack Obama, that would -- that, of course, the left would say, "They're not all radicals." And they did a good job of washing those radicals clean like Van Jones.

No, he was a former communist. He's not really a communist. He never went to prison. He went to jail. Okay?

They did everything they could to whitewash him, to make their own constituency feel good because Barack Obama was doing the things that were making them happy. But we were saying at the time, guys, you can't give him this much power. You can't do this. Don't turn a blind eye.

Now that Barack Obama is gone, it's left a vacuum of just who was around him. Hillary Clinton and the Blue Dog Democrat is gone. The Blue Dog Democrat no longer exists. The Hillary Clintons no longer exist. So who are you left with?

You're left with Marxists and radicals. And now the Democratic Party is seeing, "Oh, man, this is -- wait. Hold it." And they're seeing -- not all of them -- but enough are seeing what we saw.

The same thing is going to happen with the Republican Party. And I think there's going to be a -- a pull from both of those parties. And what happened in 1854 is going to happen again. And it's going to be a party of common sense and common values, traditional values.

Let me say it that way. But I want you to understand, traditional values, not in the way conservatives view them.

I believe traditional values meaning the American values, which is the Bill of Rights. The people who actually on both sides say, "No, we don't want to spy on our neighbors." No, you don't have a right to spy on me. No, stay out of my bedroom. Stay out of my -- stay out of my pants and my bathroom stall. Stay out of my life. You don't have a right to tell me who I can marry, and you don't have a right to tell me what my priest or my pastor can say from the pulpit. You don't have a right to do that. Leave us alone.

Those traditional values that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights. I think -- and I could be wrong -- I may be being too optimistic. But I think that there is a coming movement of the Bill of Rights. And it's not going to be taken by the Libertarians. Because the Libertarians -- the Libertarians don't do enough for this moral foundation theory that we talked about. I'd like to take you guys -- you guys have to take this test. This moral foundations theory that we talked about, was it last week or this week?

STU: Last week.

GLENN: Last week. Last week, we had Jonathan Haidt on. He's a professor at NYU. Thought he was liberal. Started doing research and realized, "Holy cow, I'm conservative." And I think that is exactly the point.

When you start actually looking beyond the labels -- and he has devised the way to look beyond the labels. And it's called the moral foundation theory. And when you see that, the average conservative actually has five moral foundations.

But we only concentrate on three. Well, the left only has two. And they only concentrate on those two. And unfortunately, the three we concentrate on don't include those two.

And if we would concentrate on those two, we could bring them along. And because Libertarians don't have that moral foundation theory. They don't have any really of those five -- and I'm talking about as a party -- that's why they fell on deaf ears. That's why they couldn't get anybody from the right, and they couldn't get anybody from the left. Because they're speaking to an empty space, an empty auditorium where there's just not enough people.

What they have is the Bill of Rights. They don't have the moral foundations. And believe it or not, a different -- I can't even say that. Not what we claim as a -- as a morality party today. If I said that, you would think, "Well, that's a church-going, God-fearing, red, white, and blue, you know, served in the military -- not that. Not that. Think bigger foundational morals. Think of the Bill of Rights. Think of compassion. Those underscored by common sense are going to become fashionable again. I'm convinced of it.

RADIO

"Rama-Hanu-Kwanz-Mas" - Glenn Beck's HILARIOUS Christmas Song that Triggered the Woke Left

For over two decades, the cultural battles surrounding Christmas have revealed a deeper transformation happening inside American life. What began as political correctness has evolved into a fractured culture where speech is policed, reactions explode into extremes, and sacred traditions are pushed to the margins. From the early warnings mocked in parody songs, to today’s chaotic backlash and misuse of “cancel culture,” the shift is unmistakable. Even the quiet beauty of A Charlie Brown Christmas—once a staple of American childhood—now feels radical, a reminder of the faith, truth, and simplicity our society has forgotten. This episode traces the long arc of how Christmas became a battleground in the modern culture war—and what that reveals about the country’s soul.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So something I worked on this weekend from Glenn AI. It is our first -- our first -- I don't know if I should even announce it. I'm sure, I will not be proud of it soon. But our first offering from Glenn AI. And you'll be able to get it tomorrow.

You know, I thought -- I was thinking about a song we did years ago. Called Ramahanukwanzmas.

And I was thinking, in the time that we did that -- Stu, do you remember the year?

Sara, is it marked on the recording? What year -- it's not? It happened in 2003, Stu, do you know?

STU: I have to look it up. I probably have some record of it.
GLENN: Yeah, really early. Yeah, really early on.

And it was -- it was just as this, you know, war on Christmas thing was happening. And we were making fun of political correctness. And, you know. I was listening to it.

And I thought, oh, my gosh. This is so early on, that we were using words that you just wouldn't even use now.

You know, we were mocking this -- this coming political correctness.

Not knowing how bad it was really going to get. So I wrote putting Christ back in Christmas.

Kind of like, you know, enough. Enough. Enough. We're putting the Christ back in Christmas because we don't care.

That era is over. It's over. But here's where it began. Twenty-five, 27 years ago. Listen to this.
(music)

GLENN: Wow. I mean, did I hear the word "queer" in there? Not in the way that you would you use it today. What were we thinking?

STU: That's the technical definition of the word, at least one of them.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: We think we used it appropriately. But, you know, I don't know. That was pretty -- like, I was looking quickly, like the YouTube there is a version of this, that if you remembered. When that song came out, we -- it played for a few years. And then some listener made an animation of the song.

And then it -- that animation was uploaded to YouTube, 17 years ago. And they called it a classic. Like, this is an animation of Glenn Beck's classic Christmas song.

So it's been a long time.

I don't know exactly how many years, but a lot of them.

It was before even the woke thing was a thing. What we were talking about was the precursor to the woke thing.

Which has now gone through so many different variations.

Where you had -- gosh, we must want to be politically correct. We should be able to say whatever we want.

And then you weren't able to say anything. And then you had, like, the George Floyd era, where you went to prison if you said anything then.

GLENN: I know. I know.

STU: Now we're on the other side of that.

And it's like, now everyone is saying everything sometimes to an extent that isn't necessarily -- necessarily appropriate.

Example of that, from over the weekend, was the Cinnabon story. Did you see this at all, Glenn?
GLENN: No, I didn't.

STU: The -- the woman working at Cinnabon, apparently has -- I think maybe Somalis come into the Cinnabon. I don't know. They get into some sort of argument. The phone turns on. They're filming her, as she tells them that she -- she calls him the N-word multiple times. And says that she's proud of being a racist.

And, you know, you might not be the shocked to hear that Cinnabon fired her for that. But see, I don't think that's cancel culture. Just so we can be clear.

GLENN: No. That's not cancel culture. No.

STU: No, I'm pretty sure it's difficult to employ someone calling customers of the store the N-word repeatedly, while working at the store.

GLENN: Right. And proud to be a racist. No. No, I don't.

STU: That's different. We lose track of these terms sometimes.

Now she's gone on to -- you know, one of these sites. I don't know if it's GoFundMe. But it's one of them, and people have put up, like, oh, gosh. She's been cancelled. Please help her.

And she's raised $100,000. It's like, you should not be rewarded for $100,000 for saying the N-word at Cinnabon.

GLENN: No, you should give that to rappers.

STU: Yes, somewhere again --

GLENN: Theater ones who should get the money for using the N-word.

STU: Yes, exactly.

GLENN: We've learned that how many times.

STU: I feel like we -- sometimes, when society makes a really bad call over a long period of time, people get angry and want to push back against that appropriately.

And that keeps extending itself until it's no longer an appropriate pushback against that bad thing.

It's just its own bad thing.

And I don't know. Maybe we should realize that.

GLENN: So when was the last time you watched a Charlie brown Christmas?

STU: It's a great question.

Probably last year. Or the year before.

I haven't watched it this year, yet.

GLENN: Yeah. I watched it last night. With my eldest daughter Mary.

And we watched it. And we've been talking about watching it for a while. We watched it last night. The night before dinner.

And you think that, oh. Simpler times.

Simpler times.

Look at, the gospel of Luke is in that.

Right?

Doesn't anyone know the real meaning of Christmas?
I do, Charlie Brown. That was not -- nobody thought that that special was going to work. Did you know this? The Charlie Brown Christmas. They thought was slow, boring, and way too sad.

And no child was going to -- was going to embrace it.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, I -- you want to talk about, it's all a giant syndicate, you know.

Coca-Cola went to CBS and said, we want a Christmas special to advertise in.

And so they went to this guy, Lee Mendelson, who had just done a documentary on Charles Schultz. And they had become friends with Charles Schultz.

And he said, you know. Would you do a Christmas thing?

And he said, I don't know.

I'll do it.

And so they went back and forth.

And the animator said that we have to have real children voices.

And I want to use a really sparse soundtrack. I just want to -- I mean, want to make the music really important.

So we went to the -- the jazz band, to do the Charlie Brown Christmas stuff.

And Charles Schultz said, I'll only do it if we include the gospel of you Luke. And CBS said, we can't put the gospel of Luke in there.

I mean, that's -- that's a bridge too far. Back in, what? 1964 or '65.

So the year -- I think it's the year after I'm born, it airs. So they're making this, while my mom is pushing me out. They're making the Charlie Brown Christmas. Okay?

And it was controversial back then, to put the Christmas story in.

They finish it. They expect it to last one year. Everybody at CBS is like, just don't tell Coca-Cola. Nobody is going to watch this thing. And it turned out to be, you know, a huge, huge blockbuster.

It ran for I think 35 years. Every single year. They only played it once. I remember as a kid, tonight is Charlie Brown.

Tonight is Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Tonight is Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. And Frosty the Snowman. As a kid, it was the -- that's all you talked about on those days, on Christmas.

In the Christmas season. You would say, how many days until Charlie Brown. Don't forget. Watch it tonight. And we watched it for 35 years. On CBS.

Then it -- in 2001, it moved to ABC. And now it's on Apple TV. And they have all the peanut stuff.

But I was thinking as I watched last night, how much money has this made?

And who has you all that money?

Who got you all that money?

Who are still paying for these? It had to be a fortune. A fortune.

STU: Worth every penny.

Think about that. The exposure to -- like, you're rooting for the kid, talking about God!

Like what is that -- what an incredible dynamic, that played out.

It is unbelievable watching it. And how out of place that particular thing feels, in a way.

Because, you know, as you note, the sort of sparseness of the production of it.

The whole thing just stops. And there's that long walk to the stage, before he goes into the speech. It is really -- it totally draws can't attention.

GLENN: It was slowly in the 1960s. They say it was too slow in the 1960s.

So imagine -- I mean, that's why we feel it today. Imagine what our kids think about this. Oh, God. I watched three TikTok videos by the time Linus said there was something. And he said, turn on the lights!

It was like, it's crazy. It's crazy.

STU: It really is an amazing thing. And it has a way of drawing your attention in.

It's so sparse. And reasonable medical probability like, the pacing of it is so awkward. And especially in that moment. You can't help, but kind of lean in.

You know, you're like, wait. What's he about to say? Then he just goes into like, reading the Bible. It is -- it is an amazing moment in American television history. And thank God it exists! I mean, it is something that probably is introduced, you know. A ton of kids to this stuff for the first time.

RADIO

Why THIS viral claim about my new AI is IMPOSSIBLE

Glenn Beck recently made headlines for releasing a promo video of his upcoming interview with George AI. Outlets like Right Wing Watch and CNN claimed that George AI was just “echoing” Glenn’s beliefs. But Glenn explains why that’s “impossible.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Last week, was it last week? I introduced you to George AI. Now, what George AI is a proprietary AI system that has a giant electric fence around it. It has everything that the Founders from our collection, it will grow from here. But from our collection, it has the writings, the documents. The journals. The books that were written at the time, the books that they read, that they said influenced them.

The Federalist papers. All of this stuff. All in one proprietary AI system. And it can't go out and look for other things. It also must memorize everything.

Unlike an AI that can hallucinate, they hallucinate because AI is very good at remembering the beginning and the ending. But it's not good at the middle. So it will look at the beginning and the ending. And, yeah. And kind of, like, went like that.

No. It didn't go like that. Stop being lazy.

But ours memorizes every word. Word-for-word. And it can give you the words from the Founders in their own language which sounds really mechanical and reads. It's really hard to read.

Or it can, you know, dumb it down to my level or your level or your kids' level. And it can speak at our level. But it cannot change their words or their meaning.

We police this like crazy. And we're not releasing wide open to the public, until we have lots of beta testing.

Because we want to make sure we have caught everything because the last thing we want is anything that is -- is anybody's opinion, except for theirs!

You would be able to put in a bill, and say, is this constitutional?

Where does this violate the founding principles?

And it will tell you, you can put in a story and say, what are the principles that we lost that are causing this?

You could put in. Like we talked about today.

There was a story about the case that is in front of the Supreme Court right now. About, you know, having, you know, some sort of expert running, you know, the administration.

And the -- the president and Congress can't fire them.

Well, I know the answer to this. But I ask George AI.

I put the story in. And I said, what did the Founders say about things like this?

And I asked specifically about the Federalist papers. And it said, while it doesn't specifically talk about this.

It does say X, Y, and Z.

And as I explained earlier on the show, I mean, it may as well be explicit. Because it's talking about exactly the same thing. But that's what it does. Now, I released an interview that I did with George. Okay?

And it's so funny the reaction because Adam Kinzinger just said, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, and I was in Congress for 12 years.

Oh, well, Adam. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm going to listen to you.

Right-wing watch, which I think is Soros-funded, oh, good. Glenn Beck has created an AI George Washington. You'll be shocked to learn that the AI George Washington, created by Glenn Beck sounds exactly like what would happen if a Glenn Beck built an AI George Washington, sound exactly like Glenn Beck.

Impossible! It's not speaking my word.

It's only speaking their words.

It's impossible. It has no information about me, at all.

There is no -- it is a firewall between Glenn AI and George AI. There is a firewall.

It has no outside information. It does not know who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It doesn't care who I am. It is only focused on their words.

Let me play, if we can, can we play a little bit of what I -- what I played, the actual George AI?

I just want you to -- I want to ask yourself because CNN. In fact, play the CNN clip.

CNN led with this last night.

Play that. Play that, if you will.

VOICE: The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction.

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second. Could you just dumb it down for a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. Wow. That is Glenn Beck, interviewing an AI version of George Washington, if you couldn't tell. Who is apparently ripped now, wearing a tight T-shirt. And he echoes Beck's beliefs. So for tonight's news at night cap.

GLENN: Stop. "He echoes Beck's beliefs."

So you cannot say that this is accurate. Because then you would have to say, I was right!

That I am interpreting the Founders in the correct way.

So you have to say, there's something wrong with this AI.

You know nothing about it. There is something wrong with this AI.

This can't do that.

This is just echoing Beck's beliefs. No. It's impossible for that to happen.

But they're making this into -- I mean, the tags on this are right-wing extremists.

George Washington extremism.

Play the actual George AI clip.

And tell me what's extremist about any anything that he is saying here?
(sot plays)
George, we have programmed a lot of information, given you a lot of information on what's going on in today's America. Based on your writings, the writings of the rest of the Founders, what is it that you feel is the biggest problem, or where we should start to fix things?

VOICE: If I may speak plainly, my countrymen, the danger. The greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction. But --

GLENN: May I just interrupt you for a second.

Could you just dumb it down, just a little bit?

VOICE: Okay. I do have 29 points, and they're all referenced to exactly what we've said.

GLENN: Speak in today's language.

VOICE: Okay. Okay. I get it.

Let me speak to Americans: If I'm honest, America's biggest problem isn't political or economic. It's all moral. We've drifted from the virtues that make liberty possible in the first place. Freedom. To be free, you have to have insulin. You have to have faith.

You have to have character. And if you don't have any of those things, laws. Laws can't stop anything. And they mean little, government terms, weak or oppressive.
You have grown skeptical of truth. You're reckless with debt. You're comfortable blaming, instead of building anything. And in my time, we understood that self-governance begins with self-control. Do you even recognize what self-control is? Public virtue matters, more than public opinion. You keep electing these people, expecting things to change, but you haven't changed.

The fix is not going to be found in Washington, DC. It's going to be found in every home, every school, every heart.

You know, where are the citizens who value duty over comfort? Principle over popularity? America was built to be a moral and self-governing nation. It's only that foundation that will still save her.

GLENN: Okay. So how is that -- yes. It does sound like me. Yes, it does sound like me.
You know why? Because I sound like the Founders. That's why. I didn't -- I didn't -- I wish I could say, I made all this stuff up. I wish I could say I'm that brilliant. Yep. The Constitution and the founding documents, they all sound like me, once you dumb them down. No! No. I had to work through them, and I dumbed them down so I could understand them. And I've been saying them my whole life. And that's why he sounds like me because I sound like him. But the thing is, it's being labeled as extremism.

That we're supposed to be moral. We -- we have to have discipline, faith, character. Is that extreme? That our laws won't mean anything because nothing can hold it together, if we're not those things.

Government will either become too weak or too oppressive.

What do you disagree on that? How do you disagree with that?

Are we currently worried that we will become too weak? Or are we currently worried that we will become oppressive?

Either way, that's extreme. Because that's your view in the media. That Donald Trump is becoming oppressive. Right?

That we're growing skeptical of truth. How is anyone in the media thinking that's Glenn Beck, or that's -- you know, that's some extreme thing. Yeah. You know it. You know we're skeptical of the truth. You're the ones telling it to us, and you're the one with the dying rating. So that's clearer. You can't admit that America -- agree or disagree, that America is skeptical of truth? That we're reckless with debt? That we will not -- we point fingers to blame. We won't take any personal responsibility for anything, we won't self-govern? We have no self-control? That we -- we look for opinion over virtue?

That the answer won't be found in DC?

And that nothing will change, unless we change.
Wow, that's so unbelievably deep, isn't it!

Let me tell you why there's this -- this thing going around now. I mean, I've released three minutes of George AI.

Three. Three. Wait. Wait until next year.

Wait until by this time next year, wait until you see this thing open up full throttle. They are going to wet their pants. So they know, they know exactly what I'm doing. They know, they must discredit it. Because they know the power of AI. Because they've been using AI to lie to you. To manipulate you. To use algorithm to do all of that stuff. I'm not using any of those.
I'm not pushing this out. Hoping anybody will do anything with the algorithm. I want you to find it.

I am inviting you to ask him yourself. When you ask him, you can say, what are all the footnotes, do you see the points that come out on CNN? I have 26 points and they're all documented to what I said. Yeah. They had to cut that out. Because I'm providing that every time. Every time, you're on George AI, we'll show you the documents and where it comes from. They can't do that, they rely on opinion. George AI relies on documented fact.

And I can't wait for you to be a part of it, next year. January 5th. It will make their eyes bleed. And that gives me.

That's -- you know, blood is red. Their eyes. The white. And the red. It's like a candy cane. It makes me think of Christmas at this time.

RADIO

Trump FINALLY said the OBVIOUS part out loud

The media is furious because President Trump’s new National Security Strategy criticizes Europe...or they just misunderstand it. Glenn Beck reveals what this strategy actually says and why he’s ecstatic that someone is FINALLY saying these things!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So at the Reagan National defense forum over the weekend, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, Raizin Caine, hints at a possible conflict in our own neighborhood, and everyone is freaking out.

Here's cut one. Listen.

VOICE: Yeah, I mean, we -- we -- we have not.

If you have looked at the arc of our deployment history over the last few years, we haven't had a lot of American combat powering in our own neighborhood. I think that's -- I suspect that's probably going to change. We'll see what we're ordered to do.

And, of course, we follow that guidance. But we're definitely spending some time here now.

Oh, my gosh. He means war! And maybe in San Francisco!

No, he doesn't. Let -- can I just go through and give you the meaning of the national security strategy that just came out from the president?

And everyone is freaking out about it. And I think the president deserves a round of applause. The reason why everyone hates it, is because it is the exact opposite of what everyone told us for 100 years, we should be doing. And for 100 years, you've seen what we've done, and you've seen where it's gotten us: Nowhere, quickly.

America is standing in this doorway right now. And behind us is the chaos that we've just lived through.

We've missed thrift, bipartisan, you know, foreign policy class, that somehow managed to squander the greatest advantage that any nation has ever had. And just ahead, at least according to the National Security Strategy is a course correction so sweeping that honestly, it reads like a rediscovery of the American civilization itself.

Because this is what this document is.

It's not just a list of foreign policy goals.

It's a declaration of what America actually is. And what it must never allow itself to become, ever again.

For the first time in decades, the strategy knits, the obvious.

Okay?

We lost our way after the Cold War!

Yeah. Yeah. We did. Yeah. We tried to run the world while hallowing out the nation that -- that, you know, was supposed to do the running. We were hallowing ourselves out. We outsourced our factories. Our borders. Our sovereignty. And even God help us, our sense of purpose.

We have no purpose.

We treated global institutions as if they outrank the Constitution. And they don't.

We protected everybody else's borders, except we let ours collapse.

We defended, you know, abstract world orders, while neglecting the American worker who actually paid for everything.

And this new strategy has outlined. I mean, it just says what you've been saying for a long, long time.

Enough. Enough. I've had enough.

And it lays out what America -- what Americans and America should want!

And it starts with something, you know, really revolutionary in its simplicity. It says, we need a safe, sovereign republic. That protects its people.

Strong families. Strong industry. Strong borders. Strong energy.

And a renewed cultural -- culture that knows its own story, and isn't ashamed to tell it.

What is possibly wrong with all of that?

Strong borders. Strong family. Strong industry. Strong energy. Renewed culture that knows its own story and isn't ashamed to tell it. That's why everyone is freaking out because they don't want any of these things.

None of the elites want those things. A sovereign republic? No. He's laying out, we want the world's strongest military, but also the world's strongest economy. And the world's strongest spirit.

And without that, this policy says nothing else holds. And that's true!

And you know it's true. It says the era of mass migration is over. Not slowing it. Not managing it. But ending it.

We know that's true. It says, the government's job is to protect God-given rights. Okay. Where did you get that idea?

I don't know. The Declaration of Independence. Why is that controversial?

It's not to manipulate elections. It's not to police speech. It's not to hide behind bureaucratic language while crushing dissent.

All of that is found in the Bill of Rights. It's not controversial.

It demands allies actually act like allies and pay their fair share. Controversial? It doesn't seem like it. It promises reindustrialization. Did we learn anything from COVID?

Is it a bad idea to have everybody else make our stuff, and then we wait for boats?

Energy dominance, a national defense industrial base that's built for the world we actually live in. Not the world our think tanks wish existed.

And then it turns outward. Then it begins to look outward to Europe and the rest of the world, because the rest of the world is shifting under our feet right now.

And nobody is willing to say it. In the Western hemisphere, we should return to something that we should have never abandoned in the first place. And that's what Raizin Caine was just talking about. The Monroe Doctrine.

Call it the Trump corollary, but the principle is timeless. This hemisphere is ours to secure. And hostile powers will no longer get a free pass to set up shop in our backyard. How is that -- how is that controversial?

Cartels, it -- it outlines, will become a national security target. Manufacturing comes home. Partnership replaces dependency. Then it talks about Asia. And the message is really clear.

We'll compete with China. Economically, technologically, and militarily, and we'll do it from a position of strength. Not by pretending that Beijing is suddenly going to go, you know what. We're just a giant, friendly teddy bear.

No. No. We're going to do it by accepting the reality and prepare accordingly.

But we'll still work with you.

Just don't become an enemy of ours. And we won't become an enemy of yours. That means that we have to rebuild industry.

It means we have to secure the minerals. We have to dominate the technologies of the future. It means that we ensure that no single power controls the Indo-Pacific walkways that keep the global economy alive.

Hello! China. Taiwan. Japan.

Then it gets to Europe. Which, you know, of course, if you have colonial eyes. Oh, my gosh.
All this document says is what European leaders won't even dare whisper. Europe is dying. The entire continent is dying. Not just economically, but as a civilization. The Western civilization is dying!

Declining bitter rates. Uncontrolled migration. Censorship. Loss of identity. Regulatory suffocation. We would like Europe to be strong again. Europe to be Europe again! Stable. Sovereign. Confident. Peace in Iran.

Stability with Russia!

Revival at home.

That's what America would be like. Because it would be good for us. But it would also be good Europe.

Because if Europe collapses into chaos, the entire Western world will pay the price, and it will be a very heavy price.

But they don't like that. Oh, no. You can't say that.

Oh, Europe is pissed at us for saying that. Gang, we all know. Look at Europe. They're dying. They're dying!

It won't be long. And if they don't change their ways, and they do fall, this document also says something else.

We're not going to honor NATO for any country that falls. You become a Muslim country, you're not a NATO country.

You fall and you're some other country.

You're not a NATO country.

We're not defending you. Now, in the Middle East, this document says, the forever wars is over. We declare them over.

How is that not a good thing, that we should all be celebrating? And not because the region suddenly became peaceful, but because America is finally strong enough strategically, diplomatically, militarily. To shift from a constant crisis management to long-term stabilization. Iran has been weakened. Israel has been backed. The Abrahamic Accords have been expanding. Energy dominance has returned to the US.

What does that do?

Well, that reduces the old chains that kept us entangled in every sand dune from Syria to Yemen!

We're out. Finally, Africa.

My gosh, what we have done to Africa with our State Department and USAID.

All we do is export ideology instead of opportunity.

He says -- Trump says, in this national security document, that's over.

We're flipping the strategy. Trade, minerals, energy, peace deals. No more lectures. No more nation building. No more endless aid with no accountability. Does any of this sound scary to you?

Does any of this sound crazy to you?

I -- I don't think so. It's saying everything that seems common sense to me. It's saying, America is allowed finally to love itself again and to be who she should be.

And let everyone else be who they should be. You know, it has a right and responsibility to defend itself first! To put its people first!

It's saying sovereignty is not a dirty word. Borders are not immoral. American workers are not expendable. Free speech is not negotiable. The nation state, not the NGO. Not the global boardroom.

Not the transnational committee. That's the fundamental building block of a free world.

How is this bad again? How is it that this is so dangerous?

In short, it's a blueprint for a country that wants to live again. Really live again.

Now, the question is: Do we -- is the president reflecting the national spirit?

Do we want to live again? Do we want to be relegated to the dustbin of history, or does America have other great work to do?

Because that's really the question.

Which is it that you believe?

Which is it that you want?

I want a strong nation. I want our youth. I want, you know, people coming out of college. To have jobs. To be able to buy a house.

I want those things.

I think they're necessary. I think they're important. I think it's just as important to understand our history.

To know who we are. To not be ashamed.

Learn from it. But not be ashamed of it.

We didn't do it. Our forbearers did.

We learned from it. We are better than that.

My gosh. Oh.

I read these freakouts. And I honestly think, my gosh, am I living in a -- I'm living in some weird parallel world, where I read all of these newspapers and magazines and everything else. With their commentary today about the national security.

And they're all freaking out.

Saying, this is the worth thing he can do.

He's going to tear the whole country. The whole nation, and the world apart.

No. He's just stating what people feel.

And not just Americans. Go talk to the people in Europe.

Ask them. Take this document and make it about England. And see if all the people in England tonight can see exactly the same way.

And if you put a name attached to it, it wouldn't get that person elected. It would. It would. Because everybody is feeling the same way about their own country.

I don't have a problem with the rest of the world.

But it's time for us to concentrate on us. It's time to concentrate on saying, you know what, there's something special about us. England can say that. They brought us the Magna Carta. They are now torching the Magna Carta. I would love to hear that story.

The things that make France, France. I don't know. The whining and everything else. That is unique to France. Italy. Germany. It's unique to them.

I want them to be those guys. I don't want them to be another version of us. I want them to be them. I want them to do well. And be part of the family of man and the family of nations.

But I don't want anything to do with whatever they do, they do.

Same thing with Israel. And Saudi Arabia. You do you, boo. We're going to do us.

When we can get together, we will. Don't screw with us. And we won't screw with you.

This is our national strategy. That's exactly what our national strategy.

I say amen, President Trump!

Finally. Finally somebody is saying what everyone is thinking.

This is like you've gone to school, you know, for 18,000 years.

You're some -- yeah. Some doctorate in God only knows. International development and studies.

Women's studies.

Unless you've got that!

You're looking at that, and going, yeah. All that makes sense.

All of that makes sense. Now, the question is: Do we want it?

And will the people actually back it?

Because strategy on paper, that's only words.

Until a nation finally finds the courage to believe in itself again. And say, that's what we must do.

RADIO

WARNING: This British FAILURE could spread across the Western world

The United Kingdom is now arresting over 12,000 people a year for "speech crimes" and is debating doing away with trial by jury for many crimes. Glenn Beck warns that if this can be done in the birthplace of these principles (under the Magna Carta), it can happen to the entire West if we don't END this insanity now!

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So let me just start here. Because there is -- there is another story that is out in our newsletter today, that talks about how people of college age are freaking out, after Charlie Kirk's death. They don't want anything controversial on campus.

I mean, that's the reason why colleges and universities had protection of free speech, in the first place.

Was to be controversial. To be able to say the things that nobody wants you to say.

And it's really important.

But let me -- let me first remind people of what the Magna Carta is.

It's 1215? The Magna Carta is Latin for the great chart.

Had it not some magnanimous gift from the king.

The king. King John from England. He was -- he was losing a battle. France was just cleaning England's clock.

The baryons and all the lords and the ladies. Said, you know, this king sucks a lot. This king sucks a lot.

And we've got to stop him. Because he's destroying everything.

And he -- he had lost most of the land, to France. And then he started just imposing huge taxes on everybody. And -- and because nobody in the lower class had any -- this all happened with the lords and the ladies. And they were like, enough. Enough. Enough.

You're abusing your royal power.

Well, nobody had ever said that before. That just didn't happen. He had a divine right. He's the king. But in England, they said, no.

You still have to be moral. You have certain laws, and you can't just do these things.

And so what they did, is they got him to agree to the great charter, the Magna Carta. And it placed the king under the law. Before that, the king was the law. So now the king is under the law: It created the principle of due process. Never before did we have that.

You can't be imprisoned, punishment or stripped of property, except by the lawful judgment of your peers or the law of the land. So this creates jury trials. It creates habeas corpus. Protection from arbitrary arrests. All of these things. The government now has to justify itself in a court of law.

That's revolutionary, okay? It also limited taxation without consent. Which we interpreted later as no taxation without representation. Rule of law. Jury trials. Rights of the accused.

Limits on government. Protection of property. Accountability of leaders. All of that comes from the Magna Carta. Okay?

That gave birth, 500 years later, to us and our ideas. Okay?

Now, England, the birthplace of the Magna Carta is now thinking about getting rid of jury trials and arresting more than 12,000 people every year for what they call speech crimes. 12,000!
Now, I want you to think about that.

In Russia, in the same year this stat came out. The latest year that we have, 2023. In 2023, Russia arrested 4,000 people for speech crimes against the Russian military for Ukraine.

4,000 in Russia, 12,000 in England.

The number I saw. We don't have all the numbers. But the number I saw that were arrested for speech crimes in China was 120.

Okay?

Not for violence. Not for theft.

Not for treason.

12,000 in England for words.

Okay. Now, well, that's going on, now the Prime Minister is floating the idea of eliminating, if not most, many jury trials.

It will only be for murder, manslaughter, oh, and something else like that.

Okay?

So, in other words, if you're like, I believe you should be able to read the Bible in your own language, in your own home, Tisdale.

You don't get any hope. You don't get a jury trial. You get the court. You get the king trying you, not a jury of your peers.

This goes against the Magna Carta, the lawful judgment of your peers. Okay?

That's the safeguard that stands between you and an out-of-control state. This is the first and ancient firewall against tyranny. It is what makes England, England.

And if England of all places, tosses that aside, what does the word "free" mean anymore?

Okay? What does it mean? You can't speak, and then you have no jury -- trial of your peers. Wait. What? First of all, understand this: A nation that polices speech is not free!

A nation that dissolves juries is not just unfree, it's prepping for something worse!

Because the entire architecture of the western world, the liberty that we have, rests on a single radical belief.

The truth does not need a king. The truth shall set you free. Who? Is it not what. Who is the truth? Okay.

No king, but Christ. Because Christ is the truth. That's the Western world!

A person's conscience does not need a permit. Speech does not need a bureaucrat's approval before it leaves your lips! That's the West.

That's what built the world. What took it from darkness, to today.

Freedom is not granted we the state. Freedom preexists government.

Government's only legitimate job is to protect it!

Now, here's the dark little secret, that every single tyrant, and every politician knows today. If you control speech, you control thought. If you control thought, you control people.

If you control people, you don't ever have to worry about controlling the government because no one will ever challenge you again!

This is why it is so essential for any side to go, you can't talk to them.

Don't talk to them. Don't listen. Don't question.

You can't hear that. No. They can say whatever they want. But I have a right to refute it. That's why free speech has to be absolute. Not mostly free.

Not free unless it makes Billy over there cry and uncomfortable.

No. I'm sorry, Billy. You don't like it. Refute it.

Freedom that depends on somebody else's freedoms is not freedom!

Freedom that requires government approval is not freedom! Freedom that can be revoked because a bureaucrat doesn't like your tone is not freedom. Once speech becomes conditional, everything become conditional. Your rights, your property, your conscience, your place in society. Because you only live by permission! Never by principle!

We live by principles. Not people!

Who is actually free?

Who is actually free?

The England that once declared the king himself to be subject of law, or the England that now arrests a man because he's posted the wrong meme?

12,000 people!

Can't find one in 2023 that was arrested for that in America. Not one. The England that gave us John Locke, the philosopher of natural rights. Is that person free?

Or the England that now warns citizens that context doesn't matter, if their words cause someone, anyone, emotional harm.

Britain is about loss. But this is not just a British problem. This is the canary in the coal mine for the entire west.

Because these are the people that came up with it. When the mother country forgets its own legacy, jury trials and freedom of speech. When the random that once stared down monarchs now cowers before hashtags and activists and speech tribunals, than somewhere deep inside the Western soul, a light is flickering.

We must remember here, before that same darkness reaches our shores. Because it's already coming on to our beaches. It's already there. There is no such thing as partial liberty. Freedom of speech is the First Amendment for a reason!

It is the guardrail for every other right!

If you lose the First Amendment, you've lost freedom. And if you lose the Second Amendment, you've lost the ability to defend that first freedom.
It's number one for a reason!

You must be allowed to speak, to gather.

To have a free press!

To question your government. You must have those abilities. You must be able to say, especially about government, the worst things about your government! And question them.

And demand answers. To petition them.

That's all in the First Amendment.

It is the pressure valve that prevents so it's from blowing itself up.

The more we contain speech. The more we say, don't talk about. Don't talk about. Can't say that. Can't say that.

The more the pressure builds up. The more likely we blow ourselves up.

It's the mechanism where the powerless can speak to the powerful.

It's the shield that protects dissenters. Unpopular thinkers, prophets, reformers. And, yes, even the offensive.

Look, there are, quote, unquote, historians now who are getting all kinds of bullcrap about Hitler and everything else.

None of that is true. I don't want to silence them. They have a right to say it.

I have a right to say you're wrong! And show you the evidence of what makes them wrong.

That's the way it works. England is about to forget all of this!

They are truly the birthplace of these kinds of ideas, and those ideas led to our idea of real freedom!

No king!

If they forget this, we cannot -- we believe so -- because there won't be anywhere else in the world to go.

The lesson of history, the lesson that history whispers quietly at first. Then louder. And then finally. And we're about at this point, with a scream!

Is that when a state describes which words are allowed, it will eventually decide which thoughts are allowed. Which beliefs are allowed.

Which citizens are allowed.

In the end, in the end, the prisons don't need bars.

The cell will be in your own mind!

Do you understand that, America?
Do your kids understand that?

We don't even know what it means to be free. I thought this weekend, a lot about as opposed to truth shall set you free.

Thought about a lot. In fact, maybe I'll talk to you about it in a minute or so.

Because I don't think people understand what it means to be free.

We think everybody in the world is free. They're not!

And you're about to really find that out!

You want to be tree, or do you want to be safe? Because you cannot have both.

When safety is defined by those who fear your liberty. It's over!

We used to be people who would explore. We were people that crossed the oceans when everyone said we couldn't. We -- we went to space when everyone said, it's impossible. We crossed mountains that no one had ever crossed. We forged -- we forged a nation of really different people. And lived side by side for so long, yes. With bloodshed from time to time. But generally, in ways that nobody had ever done before. Freedom. Freedom is grand. But it's really dangerous. It's messy. Freedom offends you, a lot. Get over it.

Real freedom, real freedom is the only thing that has ever allowed the human spirit to rise above a king. Above a tyrant. Above the mob. Above the bureaucrats. Real freedom that belongs to you. Given to you by God. And that's what they're about to lose in England. The Magna Carta. The simple idea. No man. Not even a king. No man is above the law. Do we have that here?

Do you think no man is above the law? Or do you think there is a class up in the political range, somewhere, that if you're on the right side, don't worry about jail. That's what the Magna Carta tried to stop. That's what we have forgotten even, and they're about to get rid of it entirely.

The modern west is drifting into far more -- far more sinister creed. No man is above offense.

And that is how civilizations fall.

Glenn's Show Prep

Weird Groupthink: Tribal Instinct Explains Milo Yiannopoulos

"Rama-Hanu-Kwanz-Mas" - Glenn Beck's HILARIOUS Christmas Song that Triggered the Woke Left

Transcript

Why THIS viral claim about my new AI is IMPOSSIBLE

Transcript

Trump FINALLY said the OBVIOUS part out loud

Transcript

WARNING: This British FAILURE could spread across the Western world

Transcript