Cities and states — even blue ones — have been walking back COVID mandates for weeks now. But, The Federalist’s Chris Bedford tells Glenn, this isn’t the end of the COVID era. In fact, it’s the BEGINNING of a new era in America that’s only just begun. Bedford explains how ‘everything is completely different now’ thanks to COVID restrictions, and why Americans should prepare for ‘trying times.’

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Christopher Bedford, the founding partner of Right Forge, which if we have time to talk about GiveSendGo sure made a huge mistake, by not think a partner with you. You're also the senior editor of the Federalist. And I wanted to bring him in, because he has -- he has an article out. Two years after lockdown, the West's troubles aren't ending. They are just beginning.

By the way, welcome. A great article.

CHRISTOPHER: Thank you.

GLENN: Lay it out.

CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Looking at this covid, the end of covid policies are happening right now. People are feeling springtime is here. It's return to normalcy. The masks are finally going off the children. This morning, the masks went off kids in DC. Public schools for the first time. And people have this -- this reaction, to say, we can move on.

But I don't think that covid -- this is the end of an era. I think this is just the beginning of an era, that we're entering into, in the West. We just made -- over the last two years, we've changed our relationships with every single major aspect of our society. Our churches, we have a different relationship with. A lot of they believe were closed for a period of time.

GLENN: A lot of people -- yeah. A lot of people fell away. And never returned.

CHRISTOPHER: About 20 percent less seats in the pews right now. Because people who -- people who told you that sacraments are essential to eternal life. Said, don't worry, you might get sick. That's a break in faith. Our relationships with the teachers are completely different than they were. The parents are now under the boot of teachers. They're in charge. Parents weren't even allowed in schools, to check on their kids, or make an appointment for years. Our relationship with the politicians are completely different. And the bureaucrats. They make the rules. We just answer them. We're all in this together.

You're selfish to say otherwise. Our relationship, even with the police, if you're in a place like New York City or California, the police officers who are already under assault all over the country now have to come in and arrest people, with their children for dining out.

Our relationships even with health care workers, someone who always thought, well, these folks are on our side. Now they're saying, a husband is dying of covid, can't be with his wife who is dying of covid. They have to die alone.

You can't see your parents when they're dying. You can't visit someone who has terminal cancer or hold your baby after you have one, because somebody might get covid.

We've -- the entire west's interactions are with our society have completely, fundamentally altered. And now everyone just wants to move on. But this is -- I think when historians look at this, just like when they look at black Tuesday. Was the kickoff. The stock market crash. The Dust Bowl. And eventually World War II. They'll look back and say, covid was a kickoff. The lockdowns. Not the disease. The human reaction. The kickoff to the stagflation we're risking. These wildly fluctuating fuel prices, a land war in Europe. This is going to be the to the best of my knowledge of what defines a pretty dark era, for the American people. We need to wrap of our heads around it.

GLENN: What does that mean to you?

CHRISTOPHER: It means that this is going to be a very, very trying time. And --

GLENN: In what way?

CHRISTOPHER: For the American people. Because we'll be pushed into all sorts of policy decisions. You talk about all the time, The Great Reset.

At a time when what's made the American regime possible for all these years is a thriving middle class. Christian beliefs. And strong church attendance.

Civic institutions, that keep us going. Every one of those things has been weakened.

GLENN: And entrepreneurship. The small business.

CHRISTOPHER: The people who are absolutely wiped out. One of my cofounders at Right Forge had a thriving catering company and event space down in Washington, DC, doing over a thousand events. He ended up staying with me for a period of time during covid. Because he lost everything. Fortunately, he's been able to hire most of those employees back for Right Forge, but the entrepreneur class was smashed. If we'll enter this era, where people -- the elites are trying to say, we're doing a big reset. We're changing this world. We'll make it in our image. We lack the civic institutions. The middle class. The economy to really push back. Then we're in trouble. I have news for you. Electing a bunch of Republicans will happen. DC will not fix it.

GLENN: It will not fix it.

CHRISTOPHER: It needs to be local. Actually, talking to Ricky yesterday.

GLENN: The executive producer of TV.

CHRISTOPHER: Yeah. Sorry. Talking to Rick yesterday, blew my mind. Because she said two years ago, no one knew the name of the county judge in Dallas. No one was paying attention to the local politicians. People -- San Francisco couldn't name their school board. Loudon County couldn't name their school board. If there will be a rival, which we really do need, in the spiritual and a political sense, the local politics of it are what's going to drive it. People seizing that.

GLENN: I was talking to a pastor just this weekend. And he said, I'm just disconnected. I don't know what is going on in the world. I'm just focusing on my thing. And I'm like, pastor, you better wake up. Because things are happening. And they're on your doorstep. And your people are going to need to know, how do I weather this?

How do I weather this? If you're not as a pastor, speaking out right now, it's why your pews are becoming more and more empty, quite honestly. You didn't have enough to offer, to be able to have people understand through a Biblical sense, what they're seeing with their own eyes.

CHRISTOPHER: When you see the American great revivals that we've had, and we're famous for, those weren't pastors who simply opened up the church doors, and said, I hope someone comes in. They were people who rode on horseback and carriages, thousands and thousands of miles, up and down the Eastern seaboard, talking and preaching, two, three times a day. To thousands and thousands of people. Having to reach a lot of modern folks would be amazed at their reach. And they did it just by who could hear their voice.

So we need exactly what you're talking about. Priests and pastors can't just open the doors and say, I hope you come in.

We need to go out. We're engaged in spiritual warfare right now at the technological level, political level, and our people need to understand.

GLENN: Big time.

CHRISTOPHER: If they don't -- our religious leaders don't serve governors and mayors. They are princes of the church. They should address each other as equals, not as servants. And go out there and realize, that they're the people who saved this country.

GLENN: You know, I mentioned this a couple of times today. I think it's worth saying.

Was it the grand leadership of any politician in the world, let alone ours, that -- that got Nike and Adidas, and, you know, PornHub. And all these gigantic corporations, to pull out of Russia?

No. It wasn't our politicians.

It wasn't a government. It was The Great Reset.

It is these corporations, who have now put us in a situation to where we're on the edge with Russia, and the American people or its representatives haven't really even spoken yet.

And it's a little concerning, that we're just going along for the ride. And we're not recognizing that we're in the backseat.

CHRISTOPHER: Yeah. I wonder what we could do to make PornHub pull out of the United States. I would like that policy. But exactly. I think this is part of -- some of what we've gone through in the last few years with covid. Where this whole disinformation. This censorship. This shutting down. This deplatforming you. Became normal.

For the good of us all. That switched pretty seamlessly. Republican senators. Or -- or daytime talk show hosts, On the View. Calling for the investigation and imprisonment for those who say, hold on a second. Why am I fighting Putin right now?

I understand what's going on is awful over there. But why is this an American war, and you see these folks coming out and saying, we need to do a no-fly zone. And that sounds nice. It sounds nice.

GLENN: It does. It sounds like World War III.

CHRISTOPHER: It sounds like World War III. It's not a humanitarian action. That's called putting jets in the air with Russian jets at the same time, in a way they will fight. And that's how they get their foot in the door, for -- for the war, that a lot of folks want.

GLENN: You know, it's really disturbing to see -- just like you said, Tulsi Gabbard is called a tool, just for questioning. Just for questioning. She's now a tool for the Russian state, and should be investigated. Tucker Carlson should be investigated. And possibly face prison time.

Russell Brand, they're now coming after him as well. If we don't stop this destroying any idea of freedom of speech, and, you know, toleration of another opinion, we don't make it very long.

CHRISTOPHER: That's part of what covid did. That's what the lockdowns did.

It's disinformation.

That's a freaky word.

That's that phrase, you're on the wrong side of history. It dehumanizes your opponent. It makes it on the right side.

GLENN: We have said this. Many of the people who said, that's disinformation, turned out to be right. Covid is over --

CHRISTOPHER: Masks.

GLENN: Yeah. And what's his name? Fauci. I think he's in the FBI witness protection program, at this point. I haven't seen him at all.

CHRISTOPHER: And it's hard to keep him away from a camera.

GLENN: It's really hard. So we have this. People know it, but nobody is standing up. Why? Why is there this disconnect from what people know, and standing up?

It seems to have only happened at the schools, really.

CHRISTOPHER: The schools, I think. And I hone that's the beginning of something that is broader. It's getting remembering folks who are involved.

I was hopeful that the Tea Party would lead to more local involvement. It seemed like after some of the big great rallies we had. The prayer rallies that we had. A lot of it faded away.

Because went back, because it was comfortable. But the left has made things so uncomfortable for the last two years.

I'm hoping folks do get involved. And I'm really hopeful of the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, or on abortion. Because that will put it back, politics to a local level.

GLENN: It will.

CHRISTOPHER: That will make people. It suddenly really matters who your state representative is. Because that decides whether or not there's baby sacrifice in your state or not. The left and right will be reinvigorated. And this whole kind of national news cycle that we live on, people will start to realize, it's actually my town meetings that matter. It's my state meetings that matter. That's what drives this country. That's what built this country. But at the same time, we have big tech. They won't take their foot off of our throats. Amazon web services, shutting down internet servers for Donald Trump right after the riots. They're -- they're going to keep on trying to censor, keeping us down. That's what they do. At TheBlaze. Build that alternative, because we can't rely on the corporate media.

GLENN: So tell people about Right Forge. If they don't know. Because I think this would be the answer for GiveSendGo. And I think they were with you for a while. And then dropped out.

CHRISTOPHER: Yes. We worked together for a few days. And they were great folks.

But they ended up going the different direction from ours. And then they were hacked shortly after.

Because those hackers are out there, trying to destroy you. Whether your Texas right to life, hackers attacking them. Anonymous group of hackers.

What we do is we build internet servers. The Libertarians, I've always said in DC, if you don't like it, build your own.

A lot of them didn't actually believe that. Because they're working with big tech. So parliament went out and they built their own alternative to Twitter.

Then the powers to be, just decided that they were going to destroy them, for completely spurious reasons. The New York Times and CNN would just cheer it on, like it was a victory for free speech or disinformation.

And the American Dream was shut in public. The idea, if you don't like something, do it better.

So we started an internet service company, because suddenly the infrastructure that the websites are built on, becomes a politicized war zone. Now we're just trying to make one, that is a Bill of Rights, in the internet infrastructure.

It's just American infrastructure. I don't care what your politics are. I want you to be free to express them. What your business is.

People should be free to express themselves, as we are in this country. The laws that govern what we say and do, should be made by the people's representatives. Not by terms of the user agreement in Silicon Valley.

GLENN: You know, what you would have done, would have been championed by the Libertarian. And by the left.

Even, I bet, more so than the right. Twenty-five years ago.

CHRISTOPHER: It's been such a shift.

GLENN: It's been such a crazy shift. And if you're at all awake, put you in a situation, where thinking people are finding themselves in a room. And allies with people that the rest of the world said, you. You should hate. It's weird.

CHRISTOPHER: Glenn Greenwald. Elon Musk. Tucker Carlson. Donald Trump. And Glenn Beck walk into a room together. I wouldn't have believed that five years ago, but now it's all happening.

GLENN: It's crazy. It's really crazy. Thank you so much for everything you're doing. This is Christopher Bedford. He's the founding partner of Right Forge. You should check Right Forge out. Also senior editor of the Federalist. You guys are doing extremely great work right now. Thank you. I I read it every day. The Federalist.com. You can find. Or rightforge.com. Back in a minute.