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Stop Pretending Conservatives and the ‘Alt-Right’ Are the Same Group

January 23, 2018
Staff

WRITER

A recent USA Today news article wrongly tied Nazi Twitter accounts and the Daily Stormer to the conservative group PragerU.

CEO Marissa Streit joined Glenn on today’s show to talk about why conflating conservatives who believe in American principles with white supremacist hate groups is a serious problem. It’s ridiculous and inaccurate to list PragerU as part of an article about the “alt-right,” a group generally characterized by nationalist and white supremacist ideals.

PragerU, which makes educational videos on conservative topics, is suing Google and YouTube for arbitrarily censoring and demonetizing its videos on U.S. history; Christians who are persecuted worldwide; American leadership; and other topics.

Looking for the petition discussed in this podcast? Follow this link.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: There's an incredible story that was in USA Today.

Alt-right escalates war against Silicon Valley. Pledges to expose bias against conservatives. The alt-right. If you read this story, it talks -- you know, it talks about Nazi groups. It talks about the Klan. It talks about the website. The Daily Stormer. Which is a Nazi website.

And then, lumped in along with everything else, is Prager University.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think there's a difference between Dennis Prager and Hitler. One of them might be the whole Jewish thing.

The other might be that one is driven by facts. Prager University, if you have not seen a Prager U video, this is something that you need to turn your kids onto. You need to share them. You need to support them in any way you possibly can.

Prager University is -- is not a flash point. They are facts and fact-driven.

It's why you never see them taken apart. You don't see a, you know, Prager University facts are wrong, website. Because they're fact-driven. And not emotionally driven.

They are being painted as the alt-right. That just shows that the media has absolutely no idea what the alt-right is, or worse yet, they do, and they don't care.

We have the CEO of PragerU on with us. You've been on before. Melissa (sic), how are you?

MARISSA: Wonderful, thank you for having me on.

GLENN: So, you know, how are things at the office when you read about you and the alt-right and the Nazis all being, you know --

MARISSA: You know, I wish it was laughable because it's almost laughable. But, you know, a few things I know you know about me. First of all, I'm a Jew. Dennis Prager is a Jew.

GLENN: Whoa, when did the Nazi party start to let Jews in?

MARISSA: I mean, we couldn't be further away from the alt-right. Basically, nothing that we believe in, the alternative right, which is basically the alternative to the right, the alternative to conservatism, has more in common with the left than with conservatives. We actually have a video on that, by Mike Knowles.

But this is -- this is a typical tactic of the left. They conflate any of the bad guys with conservatives. And try to make consumers and the audience assume that because we are the bad guys, it's okay to take us down.

As you know, Prager University's videos are completely fact-based. To claim that we have in common with the right is a typical tactic to try to undermine our efforts and our lawsuit against YouTube.

GLENN: So, Marissa, you and I have talked about this privately and on the air before. There is a concerted effort by, I believe, the big four, Facebook, Apple, Google, what's the -- what's the last one? I'm trying to think. The big four.

Anyway, there is a -- there is an effort to silence the voices of anyone on the right.

I mean, what Facebook is doing now with, you know, hey, tell us what news sources you think are credible. That's going to put places like Breitbart, TheBlaze, Daily Wire. It could put us out of business. And they know it. And they know it.

How do we survive in this world where -- where Google and Facebook can control so many eyeballs and are -- and are using these kinds of tactics to ban people who are really trying to be reasonable like PragerU.

MARISSA: You know, Glenn, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you get this. Because this is so dangerous. As somebody who works with millennials and runs an organization that specifically is geared toward speaking and educating millennials, this is very, very dangerous. This is exactly why we've taken on this lawsuit, because the public needs to be aware of the fact that these big fours, as you're saying, have an ideological bent. They have an ideological bias.

And they're not afraid to do whatever it takes to take conservatives down. And that includes lying about who their -- their content creators are.

And, I mean, they hide information from us. This past week, we had another issue with Twitter. It's -- it's pretty unbelievable what's happening out there. I'm not sure what can be done. But the public needs to be aware of the fact that they are in control of the biggest communication platforms in the world. And if we don't do something about it, it's going to get real bad, real soon.

GLENN: Well, it's really disturbing. You know, people don't know this. But Facebook runs an algorithm. Not only are they now saying that we're going to choose which news sites are credible and which ones aren't, and we're not going to spread ones that we think are not credible, I can guarantee you, there's nothing on the right that is going to be deemed credible to Facebook.

Not only are they doing that, and that hasn't even started yet, that is coming very, very soon. They are also changing their algorithm, which is, you know, their right to do. Et cetera, et cetera.

But I will tell you that not my website, thank God, but one of the conservative websites went from their largest day ever and their largest quarter, just keep growing and growing and growing -- in one day, they lost 90 percent of their traffic. Because Facebook targeted the algorithm differently. There's no way media companies, especially on the right, that, you know, are not getting big funding, there's no way to survive.

MARISSA: For social media platforms to claim that the reason that some of the conservative platforms are not getting as many views is because of some sort of algorithm, is -- is ridiculous. Because at the end of the day, who is writing the algorithms? You can't just say, well, it's the algorithm's fault. A human being is behind writing the algorithm. And that's the main issue.

GLENN: I agree. I agree.

MARISSA: They are writing algorithms that are suppressing our information. We see this -- I mean, YouTube has admitted to us. In writing, they've sent us an email saying, we review your content, and we deem your content inappropriate for a young audience. So they make us look like we're some evil bad guys. And because of that, they can block our -- our content and our information, which is exactly what was done in this USA Today. Whoever reported on this, is totally irresponsible, to conflate PragerU with the alt-right is basically irresponsible reporting.

GLENN: And, you know, I have to tell you, the Young Turks, one of the most irresponsible group of people I have ever seen, they got a 20-million-dollar funding from people including Jeffrey Katzenberg.

And I can also guarantee you that their YouTube channel is never going to receive anything. They'll always be spread by YouTube. They'll always be spread by Google. And they are indeed radicals.

I mean, just look up the definition and the history of the Young Turks. And you kind of know where they're coming from. And yet, Dan Rather joined them because they've been normalized.

MARISSA: It's interesting you bring up Young Turks because they have done video responses to some of our videos. And, you know, they get millions of views on -- on the videos that they create. And YouTube has no issue with that. But when PragerU creates videos on opposing views, you know, our videos end up getting demonetized and restricted.

GLENN: And, you know what, I have no problem -- if the Young Turks wants to present an opposing opinion to PragerU, more power to them. But it should be on an even playing field, and we should not be having this nonsense back and forth, algorithms, and people that we know through the words of Media Matters themselves, that they are inside of YouTube and Google and all of the big four, trying to help them understand what radicalism is on the right. They have absolutely no idea. And by -- by coming after people like PragerU, you are only making the alt-right much stronger. Do you agree with that?

MARISSA: First of all, I agree with it. And secondly, the alt-right is actually not as big as they claim it to be. But they create this hysteria around the alt-right. And then they conflate conservatives, conservative Christians with the alt-right in order to make us look like -- again, like the bad guys. In order to justify their efforts to undermined our efforts. I mean, if you think about it, the alt-right has more -- again, they have more in common with the left. They are obsessed with race and identity politics. They reject Christianity. Many of them are actually atheists who reject God. They have a disdain for the individual. They're obsessed with group identity, as anti-American as a concept as it gets. They have more in common with the left. But they try to make conservatives look like they're the same thing as the alt-right. And it's all under one specific agenda, which is to undermine those who have opposing views to theirs. And they'll do whatever it takes. Anything from lying, you know, making up facts that are obviously, you know, lies.

I don't know where it's going to end. This is why we need the public to help us. This is why we're suing YouTube. We have a petition. I invite, you know, your audience. Many of your -- I know that many of the people who listen to you have already signed our petition. But there needs to be a public outcry over this.

GLENN: I cannot urge you strongly enough to get involved.

I mean, PragerU is taking on not YouTube. Google. You don't take on Google with, you know, your hat in your hand.

We must band together. This may be one of the more important lawsuits that are fought in our lifetime. Because your voice is going to be silenced. There is no ifs, ands, or buts. When Prager University is deemed as radical and something that YouTube really needs to watch over and this he need to make sure they keep it away from kids, we have real issues.

When they -- when the press starts to compare PragerU with Nazis, we have real issues. And you will lose your voice. And it's happening right now.

Where can you go to sign the petition and help?

MARISSA: So if you go to our home page, PragerU.com -- P-R-A-G-E-R-U.com -- you'll find an icon. Just click on it. All we're asking for is that you put your email in. We want to show Google and YouTube that there are people out there who are upset about what's happening. And you can help us in whatever way you can. We just want to make the public aware and put some pressure on Google to change their ways.

GLENN: Marissa, thank you so much, God bless.

MARISSA: Thank you. God bless you. Bye.

GLENN: My best to Dennis.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.