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What happens when a reasonable constitutionalist meets a reasonable progressive? A useful conversation ensues.
Eric Liu, CEO of Citizenship University and author of You're More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen, joined Glenn in studio to discuss the destructive nature of politics and how to push back against a rigged system.
Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.
GLENN: Eric Liu is a new friend. We started to get to know each other maybe two months ago. He came down from his hometown of Seattle, which is also my hometown.
He is a CEO of Citizenship University. He teaches civics at the University of Washington. Just that is enough to say, I don't think we're going to have a lot in common.
(laughter)
GLENN: He is -- he was described by a mutual friend of ours, Matt Kibbe, as a progressive who wants to talk to the other side. And I -- I sat down in my office with Eric, and I said, "This is going to be an interesting conversation." And you -- you pretty much, if I remember correctly, started the conversation with, I'm not an early 20th century American progressive.
Is that -- am I remembering that right? Or did I hear that in my --
ERIC: Well, you asked if I was.
GLENN: Yes. And so your answer was?
ERIC: Yeah.
Well, my answer was, I'm a progressive in the sense simply that I believe you can't just let things be. I think that society, a community, a political system, an economy is like a garden. You know, when you leave things be, for a while, things grow awesome. They're great. Right? They grow like gangbusters.
But after a certain point, noxious weeds take over, and they start to kill the whole thing. After a little while of letting things go, the garden tips over and it dies.
GLENN: Well, there's a difference between that and to use your garden -- let me take it to a farm. Theodore Roosevelt. So I'll take it out of the Republicans. Talked about breeding of humans, in compared to breeding like cattle, because noxious weeds -- people will marry, and they're too stupid to know who to marry and who not to marry. I mean, there is -- there is a place to where the farmer or the rancher takes it too far.
ERIC: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I think, you know, there's a good wide open space between that vision of, hey, we're citizen gardeners. We own responsibility for making sure that we tend, that we weed, that we see the plot between that. And eugenics. You know, that whole world view --
GLENN: Yes. Yeah.
STU: Just a personal thing for us. But would you mind using an analogy that isn't related to vegetables? We're not familiar.
ERIC: You don't get what I'm talking about?
STU: Yeah, we just don't understand.
GLENN: He's a vegetarian and still doesn't understand them. He hates the fact that he's a vegetarian.
You write, why do most people think "power" is a dirty word? Because they think it means coercion and violence. They associate it with the worst in human nature. And if I can summarize, a couple things that you say: There are three laws of power. The first, power concentrates, that it feeds itself and it compounds, as does powerlessness. Second, power justifies itself. People invent stories to legitimatize the power that they have. And third, power is infinite. There is no inherit limit to the amount of power people can create.
Take me through those three points.
ERIC: Yeah. These are pretty fundamental to any understanding, I think, of whether you're on the right or the left, how we live in this incredible age right now of bottom-up citizen power. People all across-the-board are knocking over entrenched monopolies, knocking over entrenched systems of status quo. And so when you look at those three laws, number one, power concentrates. You know, when you have it, you tend to get more.
GLENN: Yeah.
ERIC: When you don't have it, you tend to get less. Right? And that plays out in economic terms, in terms of the rich get richer and so forth. But it's also political.
GLENN: You see it honestly with the conservatives. Progressives have control of much of the media, and the conservatives struggle to have a toehold in that media. And we seem to get less and less.
ERIC: Well, I think that's right. I mean, I think there is a way in which -- okay. So that's number one: Power concentrates.
GLENN: Yes.
ERIC: But what you're touching on is also law number two: Power justifies itself, right? So people who tend to be in power, and from your perspective, that's progressives in the media. In other times in American history --
GLENN: Well, let's take it in your field, I mean, in the university, you can't tell me that you think that progressives don't control the universities and manipulate and justify itself?
ERIC: Well, I think progressives dominate the academy. Progressives dominate the media.
GLENN: Yeah.
ERIC: But domination is one thing. It's justifying itself as telling these just so stories about why that ought to be so. Right?
GLENN: Correct.
ERIC: And so an example I'll use more from the left is the classic case is trickle-down economics. To me, the idea that people who are already wealthy and already privileged telling you, you've got to take good care of us, man. You've got to coddle us and make sure you give us nice tax breaks because that's the only way any of my wealth is going to leak down to the rest of you, right?
Economic theory tells you, there's not actually a whole lot of truth to that. But it's a story. It's a way of justifying people having what they have. Right?
White supremacy has always been that kind of story line. You know, that, hey, look, whites are better and more suited for governing and governing themselves and running the show than non-whites, so this just ought to be the way it is. Right? You non-whites ought not to be kind of crowding into the public square.
So if all you had were these two laws here, that power compounds and it justifies itself, you get into a pretty grim doom loop. Right? You get into a situation -- well, you get into a dictatorial authoritarian situation. The only thing that busts you out of that doom loop is law number three, which is that power is infinite. And that people, wherever they are, even if they're outside of those circles of concentrated power, can generate new countervailing power out of thin air, simply by organizing.
And, you know, I actually on the road have been completely consistent in saying exhibit A is the Tea Party. The Tea Party, 2010, arrived without clout, without connections, without permission, without anybody saying, "Hey, go on and kind of lead a movement here to challenge the entrenched status quo in both parties." But these people remembered that they had infinite power, and that if they simply began to organize with another, which is simply asking one other human to join you in a common endeavor and say, you know what, let's make some plans here. Let's get on a common message. Let's do some things together. They began fundamentally to change the game, right?
And I think this age that we're in right now is one that connects the Tea Party, with Occupy Wall Street. With $15 an hour. With Black Lives Matter.
You may think, wow, all these people. I don't agree with all these people. But the reality is, all of them are remembering that in this bottom-up way, citizens can exercise far more clout and muscle than most of the time we remember we have.
GLENN: So this is -- and I know this audience is -- is feeling it. And I say this in the spirit of just defining where we are. Okay?
As I'm listening to you and I heard about, you know, trickle-down economics, I wanted immediately to stop and battle you on that.
ERIC: Yeah.
GLENN: There's several things that you said that I immediately wanted to say, no.
(chuckling)
STU: That's okay though.
GLENN: It's okay. It's okay. But that's where we get lost. Because we don't listen -- we don't let the other person finish. And so we're not listening to each other.
But let me -- instead of battling on those things, let me take you here on that. I agree with your three points. And I agree with you on the last point. And I -- you know, I -- I'm sorry, I have to say it, but not only power is infinite, with power comes money too. Money is infinite. So we spend so much time telling people, sit down, shut up, to protect your own power. Okay?
And I can't -- you can't do it because that guy is in your way. You can't make money because that guy has it all. Money and power. They're usually put together. And they are infinite. As we see in Silicon Valley. You can dream, you can do. It's the idea of America.
Here's the thing that I want to get to on this -- on this power: There are progressives on both sides of the aisle. There are progressives that are Republicans, progressives that are Democrats. And the -- the original idea was either fascism in the early 20th century. They thought fascism and communism was neat. So the early guys were, who is going to control the cows? Who is going to be the rancher on the cows? Who is going to tell these dummies that don't get it how to live their life? We'll protect them, and we'll have the power.
And so there's fascists, and there's communists, if you will. Both of them end the same way in authoritarianism.
How do we get to a point to where the people who are truly constitutionalists -- this is what makes us different. What the progressives started in the early 20th century is just to bring us back to the European model. Look what's happening in France: Communism or fascism. Forty percent is voting for fascism or communism. That's craziness.
How do we get to the point to where we can say, "I want you to -- I want you to have the power that you want. I want you to have all the success that you want." But I -- I don't want you telling me what success I can have or what I have to believe or what line I have to tow. I don't want control of your life. I want -- I want 330 million experiments happening that will pop up, and I'll go, "My gosh, look at that life. I'd like to pattern my life after that." Instead of somebody trying to cookie-cutter us all. And I think that's what a lot of people on the left are feeling, especially youth. They're seeing that -- that -- that current running through the right, that says, I want a strongman. And they miss the strongman on the left.
So how do reasonable people come together in the middle that are saying, "Eric, I love you and I respect you and I don't have a problem. Don't control my life. I won't control your life."
ERIC: So I want to start with appreciating what you said at the outset, which was, there were three or four moments when I was speaking earlier where you just wanted to hop up and say no. Right?
I think that's huge. I don't want to just kind of skip past that. I think it's really worth naming that. And I'm sure many of your listeners are like, no.
JEFFY: A couple of people in the room.
(laughter)
ERIC: Yeah, I'm sure. So I think that ability to hear that inside yourself, to kind of sit with that and say, "Hold on. Let's let this play out."
GLENN: And not -- and hang on. And not stew on that like, okay. I got to wait until he stops. I got to remember this.
JEFFY: That's hard. That's hard.
GLENN: Because I couldn't remember -- I couldn't remember -- I know there were three or four things that I thought of that I wanted to say no. But it's stop yourself and let it go. And listen to the other side. That's really hard.
ERIC: That verb right there, man. I think politics, especially in DC, is filled with what I call debaters listening. Right?
GLENN: Yes.
ERIC: You're just listening inasmuch as you need to get the quick gist of what the guy is saying. And then your wheels are spinning, how am I going to pound him back? How am I going to destroy what he just said, right?
GLENN: Yes.
STU: Yep.
ERIC: And what I'm talking about is basically citizens listening.
GLENN: Yes.
ERIC: Like humans actually full-body listening. Right? And checking yourself and saying, okay. Before I react -- I know my talking points I'm going to kind of wheel out here. Right? And the same thing just happened for me.
GLENN: I could see it.
ERIC: You were describing this vision of what you're articulating. You know, you're describing progressivism as top-down, cookie-cutter, controlling either fascist or communist, you know, the state solves everything or tries to solve everything for people.
GLENN: And the reason why you're here is because I don't believe you believe that.
ERIC: I don't believe that, right?
GLENN: Right.
ERIC: And I don't accept that definition in the first place.
GLENN: But do you believe there are those that do that?
ERIC: I do. And I think we're here because precisely as you say, because there is a space between that caricature and the caricature that I could throw out, you know, that all Libertarians are just complete individualistic kind of, you know, sociopathic selfish people that just want to go their own -- that would be equally wrong and stupid, right?
GLENN: Correct. Correct. We've made the media and sound bites. And we are reflecting it in our own conversation. If we can't judge each other in one sound bite, then we don't engage.
ERIC: Yeah.
GLENN: We get lost. And those sound bites make us into cartoon characters.
ERIC: Yeah.
GLENN: And we're not those cartoon characters.
Glenn Beck and Eric Metaxas expose the spiritual crisis gripping America’s churches — a moment they compare to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warning before World War II. As the culture descends into moral confusion, too many Christians retreat into silence, claiming faith while refusing to act. Together, they argue that true belief demands courage — that “faith without works is dead” — and warn that neutrality in the face of evil is itself a form of complicity.
Watch the FULL Interview HERE
The American Dream used to mean freedom and the chance to build your own life through hard work, faith, and independence. But today, it’s been replaced by comfort, consumption, and debt. Glenn Beck breaks down how America traded liberty for lifestyle, why socialism is gaining ground, and what it will take to reclaim the real American Dream before it disappears for good.
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: I don't know if you saw the visualizing the American dream, Stu.
You know, what the American dream actually is, is that you can forge your own way.
You can -- you know, you can have a scrap of land, and grow your own food if up.
You can, you know, go to school. Not go to school.
You can find a job. If you're qualified for it, you have an equal chance of getting it, you know, based on merit.
But the percentage of Americans who say the American dream is retirement is 86 percent. Health care, 86 percent. Owning a home, 85. Raising two kids, 78. Owning a car, 72. Vacations, 71. Pets, 66. A wedding, 55 percent. That's the American dream, I can get married.
The American dream, if that's what you think, they've now estimated, the cost per household over the cost -- over the lifetime, retirement is $1.6 million. Owning a home now, 30-year mortgage, 20 percent you want to, is $957,594. Owning a car, buying and finance to begin with new cars every ten years is now $900,000 over your lifetime. Raising two kids to 18, plus four years of public college, $876,092. Two kids. Health care, over your lifetime, spending from ages 22 to 85, $414,000. Vacations, annual vacation from '22 to '85, $180,000. One dog and one cat for 11 to 13 years is $40,000!
That's more expensive than a wedding. The engagement ring, the ceremony, and the reception is now estimated to be $38,200.
There's a reason socialism is doing well. You look at that, and you're like, wow. I mean, if that's the American dream. And for a lot of people, that is the American dream!
That's not what the American dream is supposed to be, but, you know, once -- you know, once Woodrow Wilson and FDR got a hold of us and they started advertising, it became stuff instead of freedom. It became stuff. And, you know, when there's a new report out. Let me see if I have that.
There's a new report out now that shows, first time home buyers made up just 21 percent of the home purchases. That's the lowest on record.
The typical age of repeat buyers hit an all-time high of '62. The median downtowns, reaching 23 percent.
The highest since 2023.
And also, where is it?
The last one is -- the median age for first time home buyers, in 1981, it was 29 years old.
I'm sorry. Yeah. Twenty-nine years old. In 2021, it was 33 years old.
What is it this year?
Median age, first time homeowner, forty.
You're 40 before you can buy any kind of home. That puts these things that people want, dream about, out of reach, until you're 40?
You know, 29 is one thing. But if you're not seeing -- you're not seeing your life really kind of settling down until you're 40, I -- I can understand why you're like, you know what, this system doesn't work.
Because you've never seen it work. It's betrayed you.
Or so you've been sold. It's betrayed you.
And everything is being pushed out of your reach. And when you're young, the one thing you're not is patient.
And at 40, I can see why people are not, you know, yeah. Well, socialism is neat because capitalism isn't working. How would you respond to that?
STU: I mean, it's more lengthy than we have time for. But I would say that the response to, you know, you thinking that you want a home is not to embrace an ideology that murders 100 million people.
That's not -- that's not a good answer to the problem that you think you have.
GLENN: But they're not learning that anywhere.
They're not -- that is our responsibility! To teach those things. Because they're not learning it anywhere.
Socialism is spreading fast among America’s youth, and the shocking election of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani for mayor in New York City marks a major cultural and economic shift. Glenn exposes how runaway debt, record home prices, AI job disruption, and the collapsing stake in capitalism have led many Millennials and members of Gen Z to embrace socialism and communism. He reveals the three possible economic futures for 2026: two that are disastrous and one that could change everything if the Trump administration’s global financial overhaul succeeds. Plus, Justin Haskins, president of the Heartland Institute, joins to reveal some terrifying truths about why young Americans are embracing socialism from a poll he conducted with Rasmussen Reports.
"The world doesn't understand yet. We're already in World War III," Glenn Beck warns. "That foe is not China. That foe is militant Islam." Glenn explains the battle we're currently facing and what's to come if we don't wake up soon...
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: From New Jersey, it's Brian. Hello, Brian.
CALLER: Hello!
GLENN: Hey.
CALLER: Yeah. Thanks for taking the calls today.
GLENN: Sure.
CALLER: Yeah. I'm worried that we are headed towards another French Revolution-style because we have entire generations. Or actually people just not being heard by their representatives.
GLENN: Hmm.
CALLER: And it's not just here. It's around the world.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
I -- actually, I had scheduled for this time, I'll just do it some other time. Talking about what's happening in -- in England.
I think England is headed for a Civil War. And -- and it's very close.
I mean, you can't put 4,000 people. 4,000 people, in jail, or try them for hate crimes. And speech crimes.
You can't -- you can't do it. In England!
You can't do that in one year. And expect people to just put up with it!
You can't -- you know, we're -- we're -- America doesn't understand yet.
The world doesn't understand.
We're in World War III. We're already in World War III.
I don't know when it becomes a hot war. Or even a war that we on our side recognize. But we are in World War III. And that -- that foe is not China.
That foe is militant Islam, period. And, you know, when we have a situation to where people are -- when the government is just like, no. It's not a problem.
It's not a problem. You know. You've got illegals all over.
It's not a problem.
It's not a problem.
It is a problem. Don't tell me what -- what the problems are not!
Because we're the ones living it!
You're the experts, who keep telling us, no. It's going to work out fine.
And it doesn't work out fine. And it just gets worse and worse.
Oh. We can spend this money. No. It looks like we can't spend this money. Oh, we can afford this. No. It looks like we can't afford this.
You know, if we do this with Ukraine, it will work out fine. No, it didn't, did it? These endless wars, all of this stuff, don't tell me what the problem is. Listen to the people and start talking to the people. Honestly, this is the reason why I'm doing this today. I -- I need to hear from you.
I need to know what's on your mind, so I stay focused and -- and clear on what America is saying.
Because I don't think -- look, you know, me taking phone calls is -- is not a true representation of anything, but it does give me a sense of -- of where you are, as an audience. Maybe not as America, but as an audience. And there are lots of things that concern me. But I want to hear it from you.
But I think you're right! We're headed for real, real trouble. All you need is real economic trouble.
You start getting real, true economic trouble. 1930s kind of depression stuff. And we're in Civil War.
Dan, Oregon. Welcome!
CALLER: Hello, Glenn. How are you?
GLENN: I'm great!
CALLER: Yeah. Good. It's been a long time.
I guess it's been over ten years, since I've had a chance to talk with you. I was one of your first insiders. I was listening to you, since you were in Florida.
GLENN: Wow. Wow.
CALLER: So it's been a long -- yeah. It has been. And I can't say I've enjoyed all of it.
(laughter)
GLENN: Neither have I!
STU: I can't say that either, I'll be honest with you.
CALLER: You know, you were talking on yesterday's show, reminiscing with Stu about how you guys started. And I remember those old shows. And, you know, at the end of the -- the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.
STU: Hmm.
GLENN: Right.
CALLER: And there was a lot more entertainment. I remember I laughed a lot.
GLENN: Oh, yeah. I know. I know. Those days are long dead.
(laughter)
STU: There's nothing to laugh about now.
CALLER: Yeah. I -- I'm 78. I still work 40 hours a week. I love my job.
GLENN: Good for you.
CALLER: Been married for 55 years. I have seven kids.
GLENN: Good for you.
CALLER: I've got a daughter -- I've got a daughter who is in her 40s. And she has severe TDS. She -- we don't -- I mean, we're not cutting each other off. She hasn't done that at all. We're still very close as a family. But she was down visiting the other day, and got into a conversation with my wife. And I wasn't in the room. But Kathy said it was just like listening to one of those young people out on the street that was being interviewed by the news media. And she was -- and she was in tears about it. My wife and my daughter both.
And, I mean, I love her, and I continue to support her. She's a single woman, not by choice. She just never found the right guy.
GLENN: Yeah.
CALLER: And I really think that's part of the problem. Because she started reading -- back when Trump was first running, she started reading all of this stuff about him being misogynistic and all of this stuff.
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.
CALLER: And it's just gotten worse. I -- I'm at a loss. I really am. Because I -- like, I see the country doing better. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I still feel like that at least right now, we're doing better as a whole. But what do we do about -- what do we do about our kids about -- she went to Portland State University for the last two --
GLENN: Oh, jeez, for the love of --
CALLER: Well, yeah. For the last two years, she went to -- she went to a little college in Idaho called Ricks for the first two years, and Utah State.
GLENN: Oh, yeah.
CALLER: And then she served a mission for our church in Brazil and came home, but then she went to Portland State University. And it just seems to have gone downhill from there.
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. So, Dan, I think you are suffering from the same thing that almost all parents are suffering from. If you're not suffering from this, then, I mean, God bless you. You know, get on your knees and thank God. Because you are a lucky, lucky family. Everybody has in their family. I have it in my family.
And you have to ask yourself, what is your goal?
My -- what is your goal with your daughter? Your real goal?
CALLER: My real goal is for us to be united eternally. That's my goal. That's my goal as a father and has been to teach her --
GLENN: And how -- and how is that going to happen with politics?
CALLER: We just stay together as a family regardless of what politics does.
GLENN: That's exactly right. Exactly right.
I think we're in a place now where as parents, you can ask your kids, but it has to be honest. It cannot be trying to win. It has to be honest. How did you get there?
I mean, I remember. You know, we've talked about this before. And you didn't believe that before. What has changed?
Can you help me with that?
I would like to see what you're reading, or what that was.
And just ask questions. But they have to be honest. They can't be, you know, because I'm setting you up. Because I want to change your mind.
But keep a dialogue open with them. And just love them!
Just love them!
Because if you do anything else, you're going to drive them away. And then they're really lost. So just love them.
CALLER: Oh, I know that. Glenn, when she was young -- when she was young, I considered her one of the elect. And the Scripture says, that in the last days, even the elect are going to be deceived. And that's what I'm seeing. But everything you've said, I -- I am doing. I'm doing it that way. Because I know --
GLENN: Okay. Good. Then you didn't need to -- I appreciate it. I'm so glad you called me. But you didn't need to -- my advice, you already have it down. You're a very wise man.
