You may recognize Leland Vittert from his work as an anchor on NewsNation. What you may not recognize, however, is that Leland got to where he is after being diagnosed with autism.
With renewed scrutiny on the causes of autism, his new book “Born Lucky” is flying off the shelves, landing at #4 on the New York Times bestseller list. It&#8217;s not just a story about how Leland managed to build a successful life with autism, but also about the people who sacrificed to make that possible.
So when we asked about publishing an excerpt from it, Leland suggested the afterword, written by his dad. After reading it, we understand why. But we asked him to explain it to our readers as well.
We hope you enjoy. — The Editors
* * *
When I was diagnosed with what we now know to be autism, my father quit his job and became a full time parent, coach, and friend. It was, as he describes it, my only hope. He felt hopeless and helpless and with good reason. The psychologist who tested me told him there was “generally not” anything parents could do for kids in my situation and it was “difficult to understand” what&#8217;s going on in my head.
My father’s mission to adapt me to the world, rather than the world to me, took him 15 years – to be fair, I am now 43 and he is still working on it.
In my new book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lucky-Dedicated-Grateful-Journey/dp/140025468X/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=M2Kgd&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631%3Aamzn1.symc.5a16118f-86f0-44cd-8e3e-6c5f82df43d0&amp;pf_rd_p=4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631&amp;pf_rd_r=ZH2H6KCH5RD7206BW8AE&amp;pd_rd_wg=ZzvPM&amp;pd_rd_r=39261712-bad5-42ce-93ea-31acd52c574f&amp;ref_=pd_hp_d_atf_ci_mcx_mr_ca_hp_atf_d">Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism</a>,&#8221; I tell the story of my father’s journey and how he never told anyone of my diagnosis: not teachers, not therapists, not his friends, and not even me!
<div id="attachment_985495" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985495" class="size-large wp-image-985495" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-1024x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Leland Vittert" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-14-Oct-2025-08-37-AM-5895-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Leland Vittert</div>
Thanks to my dad (and mom) things have worked out pretty well. We endured the hell that was middle school, where principals told my parents I was “weird” and teachers compared me disfavorably to their dog’s asses. I am now married to a magnificent woman and I’m a national cable television anchor. What dad didn&#8217;t know at the time was that the hell of middle school would be great training for a Washington newsroom.
Dad says he isn&#8217;t a hero. I would argue that point, but he can describe himself however he wants.
At first, he didn&#8217;t want to tell this story because the book would contain my darkest moments. So, we made a deal: I would write the manuscript and at the end, if he didn&#8217;t like it, we wouldn&#8217;t turn it in to HarperCollins. To be honest, I had no plan if he said he did not like it.
But at that moment of decision, I asked him a question: If, when I was originally diagnosed, the psychologist had given him our book “Born Lucky’ (rather than saying there was not much to do), how would he have felt?
He responded that he would have read it every week because it would give him hope.
The book is hope for every parent with a kid who is struggling, not just with autism but anxiety, ADHD, difficulty at school, etc., and proof of what a father and mother’s love can do.
That’s why I asked my dad to write the afterword in the book in the form of thoughts for parents facing some of the same challenges he did.
I would like to share that with you now.
— Leland Vittert
<div id="attachment_985155" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lucky-Dedicated-Grateful-Journey/dp/140025468X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3O3L1UKLC7BU8&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.MCP08BnE6vI4ikVNkhJBg72CUwiVpmvlL8qZybVTSZLx_BEqUQGmyDmGpK7jXlU7iZCcob-eOUDY6rbg3C1NjBxWSU2Qe7cCc8CaNp8qCwQ7jeHWCo-3GvFE_ZYtE5X1HiiDd4mb-Kg5aF8mQtn0KNs6EYCmCB-12b31vB_-5jrAx6Zuj6Gsjf3oFbwy2yo9QmShQlmJ7m55riGBazN3-QDQblrGsUiWAs0R9M9NLPk.z4MTp6JWwZEIj8QmHoKGWHoBiTGIr1B6V_Uz9VbpCLo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=vittert&amp;qid=1760449473&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=vittert%2Cstripbooks%2C112&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985155" class="size-large wp-image-985155" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-384x576.jpg" alt="Cover credit: Harper Horizon" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/MixCollage-13-Oct-2025-12-47-PM-5986-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Cover credit: Harper Horizon</div>
* * *
The following excerpt is taken from the Afterword from the book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lucky-Dedicated-Grateful-Journey/dp/140025468X/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=M2Kgd&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631%3Aamzn1.symc.5a16118f-86f0-44cd-8e3e-6c5f82df43d0&amp;pf_rd_p=4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631&amp;pf_rd_r=ZH2H6KCH5RD7206BW8AE&amp;pd_rd_wg=ZzvPM&amp;pd_rd_r=39261712-bad5-42ce-93ea-31acd52c574f&amp;ref_=pd_hp_d_atf_ci_mcx_mr_ca_hp_atf_d">Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism</a>,&#8221; by Leland Vittert with Don Yaeger. (Harper Horizon, September 2025).
 * * *
<h3>Afterword From Dad</h3>
As you have already read, Lucky, decades ago, placed me on a pedestal.
This occurred simply as a result of his fundamental needs, that there was no one else, no other man, to help him and hold him. Consequently, it might appear in this book that I offered him support as a secure and knowledgeable father. That was not true.
I was scared for years. I still am to a degree, uncertain quite often and holding on for my family till sleep comes, bringing a few hours of peace.
For all of us who are in the most difficult and complex battle to help our special children survive, there is no finish line.
I am positive that every father and mother engaged in the monumental effort to help and protect and love our challenged children are dealing with the same issues.
Believe me, despite Lucky’s admiration, I did only what any father would want to do.
All of us in this battle, this fight against what feels like the world has left our side, are in the same place.
We all feel enormous love and responsibility to those little ones who are absolutely lost and, without us, alone. Mothers and fathers need to know that there is definitely hope.
I am not that smart nor capable to have known what to do for him, except to love him and listen always to his cries for help, and to enlist a couple of personal rules that seemed to make sense in a frightening circumstance.
Let me say that his mother, Carol, was the unsung angel here. She not only had to hold Lucky, but also me.
<div id="attachment_985497" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-985497" class="size-large wp-image-985497" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98-1024x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Leland Vittert" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/81f71ca0-3ba6-4bba-99a5-3eea97064c98.jpg 1829w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Leland Vittert</div>
I really did not know what was ahead, who could help, or if the verdict was just “give up.” Well, the purpose of this book is to offer hope, real hope. Here are the principles that I wrote down for myself when Lucky was diagnosed:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Have no expectations about the future.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Under no circumstances let your child feel that they have ever disappointed you. EVER, under no circumstance.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">You are the depository of their hurt, their frustration, and their humiliations. You must listen and listen—morning before school and late into the night.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Tell them that they have the right stuff for life. That the currency of high school, etc., is not the currency of life. There are many more years after the six years of junior high and high school.</li>
</ol>
There were times where I reflexively responded to a seemingly endless difficult day with temper. Those were the most regrettable of times.
I fully understand that so many had and will have far more significant challenges and difficulties than we had.
You will need to remember that your child will continue, no matter the advancement, to simply be themself. This is not a broken arm that heals; it is the way they were made.
Together, whatever the circumstance or how dire the situation, there is hope, good hope, but it will require endless understanding and the firm belief that your child can be better.
With the advent of so much bullying and other negative effects from today’s social media culture, it will be hard to escape. We did not have to address that issue.
We did not discuss Lucky’s issues or labels with anyone, nor did we seek outside assistance. Perhaps that would have been better. I do not know.
Whatever your child’s issue, I believe their best chance to progress is you and your love and patience and, in particular, your unwavering belief in them.
It was felt that writing this book could possibly help. There are so many of us who were and are lost in the nightmare of this despair.
If you are in this fight, it will be a challenge that is the most worthwhile of your life. It will probably take years and years, but it will be worth it.
If someone would have told me about what the future held for our little boy, I would have likely yielded right then. I would have been terribly wrong to do so.
If I can do it, you can. You can make an enormous difference for the ones you love dearly.
With all my heart, I wish for you and your child a future that you will make better together.
— Mark Vittert
* * *
This excerpt is published by permission from Harper Horizon. &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lucky-Dedicated-Grateful-Journey/dp/140025468X/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=M2Kgd&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631%3Aamzn1.symc.5a16118f-86f0-44cd-8e3e-6c5f82df43d0&amp;pf_rd_p=4efc43db-939e-4a80-abaf-50c6a6b8c631&amp;pf_rd_r=ZH2H6KCH5RD7206BW8AE&amp;pd_rd_wg=ZzvPM&amp;pd_rd_r=39261712-bad5-42ce-93ea-31acd52c574f&amp;ref_=pd_hp_d_atf_ci_mcx_mr_ca_hp_atf_d">Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism</a>,&#8221; by Leland Vittert with Don Yaeger. (Harper Horizon, September 2025).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Leland Vittert book IV

‘My Father Never Gave Up On Me’: Leland Vittert On Being ‘Born Lucky’

'My Father Never Gave Up On Me': Leland Vittert On Being 'Born Lucky'

Autism

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The Story of All Stories

First Look: The Catholic Storybook Bible Families Have Been Waiting For

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The following is an excerpt from Andrew Klavan&#8217;s &#8220;After That, the Dark,&#8221; which hits shelves on October 28 from Mysterious Press. Order Andrew Klavan&#8217;s new book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UHUZV0KR5ZCL&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVxyOpeKP3JVNzqVzQEoUqTDYetfnM5jJ-zSdBCnnqJca21IR-wiPqdoDcoeVUJqsuXZxhH1lL7-iHlZuiUP2QZ3bwN5aYdXnxKMqj0aw_faw7tMt89Rfj2P1c2PAycMnxt6PJOMVe5fGMaYWOwqHqQL0LPOjBOKNFWz2EnMhlg1sFpKiIxeqm7J1NnAvi7SYoF_wfqbLVOdIZbJNiWbvR-NVAbWyTcbFhfBUoGz104Y2UrLnNpOec4lCYEhjwuourZ1D8TAK1ZqOSMtgODWNieS8.NFgErijMwSBhec-8g6VDXe24uux7UsRqZtAI2iYHtEQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=andrew+klavan&amp;qid=1759257999&amp;sprefix=andrew+klavan%2Caps%2C146&amp;sr=8-1">Amazon</a> or pick up a signed copy at <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/after-that-the-dark-cameron-winter-mysteries-book-5">Daily Wire Shop</a>.
* * *
<h3>Prologue</h3>
Tilda Bach folded the laundry and thought about the devil. The sunlight at the basement window was just beginning to lose its edge of mid-day brilliance. The sun, unseen beyond the left-hand border of the long, narrow pane, had dropped behind the screen of the summer leaves. The sparse grass of the small backyard was darkening.
Tilda gazed out through the dusty glass. Her hands, moving automatically, worked a bath towel into a tidy square. She set the square down on the pile of towels atop the dryer. She reached into the plastic basket for another. But her eyes remained on the window all the while; the long, narrow window set high on the wall in front of her, just above the level of her head.
Outside, just visible at the right edge of the glass, lay the dirt path along the border of the lawn. The path led to the doorway of her husband’s storage shed.
Tilda felt sick inside at the thought of what she was about to do. But what else could she do? The devil was in her house. Or a demon sent by the devil. She didn’t pretend to know the ins and outs of such things. She didn’t even know if she really believed in such things. But she did know this.  Something had gotten inside her husband. Something evil. Something alive. It was taking him 
over. It was eating his soul away. It was turning him into itself.
At night, in bed, asleep, in dreams, he said things, horrible things, murmured obscenities full of violence. She woke sometimes to find him sitting in her armchair, his laptop on his thighs, the white light from the monitor shining on his face, his face demonic, twisted into a grin. Sometimes he went out at night. For a drive, he said. Sometimes he went into the shed and locked the door and did not come out for hours. It was not like him. It was not him at all. It was something else.
Whatever it was, she had to stop it. For his sake. For her sake. For the sake of the baby growing inside her.
She lay another fresh-folded towel on the pile atop the dryer. Then she stopped moving altogether. She stood there, still, gazing out the basement window. Gazing at the shed.
She knew she needed help. She had to tell someone. Someone at the church, someone who might understand. But no one would believe her unless she brought them proof. Everyone at church knew Martin. Everyone loved Martin. If she went to Pastor Mike or her friend Gretchen, the junior warden on the vestry—if she went to them and started babbling about devils and demons and evil, they would think she had gone crazy. She herself was half-afraid she had gone crazy, thinking about these things. Sometimes she was sure she had. She needed proof, proof to show the pastor, proof to show herself.
She believed the proof was hidden in that shed.
For long moments end to end, she stood motionless in front of the dryer, her arms at her sides. She went on gazing out the basement window. Finally, she drew a long deep breath. When she let it out, it trembled. The fear in her chest was a cold fire, an icy flame that made her body feel hollow and weak. She feared that it would stop her heart. She feared that it would hurt her baby.
But she could not talk herself out of her suspicions anymore.
It was getting late. She wasn’t wearing her watch, but she knew it had to be four o’clock at least. Martin had left for work early this morning, before eight. He probably wouldn’t be home for another hour or so, but she couldn’t be sure.
She had to go out there. She had to go out there now.
Tilda was a small woman, twenty-eight, thin except for the baby bump beginning to show at her center. Her lank yellow hair framed a sharp face with sharp features. As she drifted across the basement floor toward the stairs, she felt her own frailty. She felt insubstantial, like a ghost, like a piece of paper blowing on a breeze. In her flowery blouse and her sandals and her pale blue shorts with the stretchy waist to fit her growing belly. She felt as if there were nothing to her except that icy fear.
She rose up the stairs as if she were floating, as if she could not stop herself even if she wanted to. Her mouth was open. Her throat was dry. The only sound she heard was her sneakers on the steps. She felt as if she must be whimpering, but she was only whimpering inside, silently.
She came into the kitchen. She moved a stride across the withering linoleum to the backyard door. She pushed out through the screen into the heat of the day. It was odd. The houses on Linden Street were close together. She could see the Mullers’ house through the leaves of the walnut tree, not far at all, a few yards away. If she turned her head to the left, she would see Bill and Mary Weber’s place across the street, and if she looked over her right shoulder, there would be the side of Jeff and Abbey’s house with nothing but a narrow slate pathway between the wall of her own house, hers and Martin’s. Why did she feel so isolated? The late afternoon was coming on, but it was still bright daylight. Why did she feel like she was swimming in shadows? Why did she feel so utterly alone in a darkness like the dead of night?
She reached the shed. It was a worn resin box only a couple of feet taller than herself, walls of mock clapboards, dull gray. Her hand went out to it, drifting away from her as if on its own. She wanted to stop herself, but she couldn’t. She gripped the handle, pressed the latch. She drew the door open.
There was the darkness, the darkness she had felt all around her. It was waiting for her inside the shed.
She stepped into it, drawing the door shut behind her.
The shed had no windows but there were vents beneath the eaves. Some light trailed in through these, enough to see by. She found the switch on the wall and flipped it. A bare bulb glared angrily down from the low ceiling.
She swallowed hard. How could she be so close to home and so afraid? Afraid of her own husband, her own Martin. She could still remember—she would never forget—the sweetness of his smile the first time she had seen him. She was serving drinks in the Bar and Grill, a place so low it had no other name, just Bar and Grill, that’s all. The music there was so loud it had no tune but noise. The walls shook with it. She was moving down the line of customers, looking for empties she could refill. She came upon his smile among the cunning faces and the angry faces and the faces, as she now understood, of men who did not even know they had despaired. There was Martin, his sweet smile, like sudden water mellow in the midst of baking sand.
“How about you and me go somewhere quiet, darling, and talk about Jesus Christ,” he said.
He had really said that. It had made her laugh out loud. It had got her talking with him, flirting back and forth, trading lines until she’d made a date with him for after work, good-looking boy that he was, big strong man that he was, muscles outlined in the fabric of his tee, a workingman’s hands, rough and sure. She knew how it would be, but that didn’t matter. It would be the same as it always was in the end, but if it was good for even an hour, that was something, wasn’t it? A little dream of something, floating like a bubble, pink and pretty, in the air. A feeling like someone cared for her or at least thought she was pretty enough to be worth having. So she went with him, same as she always went with all of them.
Martin drove her in his pickup to the overlook by the lake, the usual lover’s lane. And there, in a surprise as shocking as a scene in a movie, as a ghost-monster jumping out through the glass of a mirror or the killer lurking in the house after the heroine rushes inside and locks the door, he had sat with her in that place of forlorn surrender and talked with her till dawn about Jesus Christ. He really had. Talked and talked about religion and the sadness of worldly things until she heard herself talking back to him, not just the usual jaded cliches, but real talk, just as the stars were fading, about the misery she pretended was “doing okay,” and the pain she had figured was just the way things were. It all came pouring out of her into his gentle eyes and she knew with a kind of childlike wonder: She had found love.
She stood where she was in the shed. She breathed unsteadily, cold with fear. Her eyes traveled over the space beneath the glaring light from the naked bulb. The red tool chest she had bought him for his birthday. The power tools hung on the wall. The shelves of paint cans and buckets and weed killer. The workbench with its segmented trays of electronic bits and pieces: black boxes and wires and glassy elements. They looked to Tilda like the bodies of some alien robots gathered up for burial after their starship crashed to earth. Martin had a genius for electronics. He could fix things, make things. Toys for poor kids at church who didn’t have any toys. Computer add-ons that could pick up the videos from nearby drones or trace what a neighbor’s computer was doing on wireless. Some of these things—Tilda wasn’t even sure they’d been invented yet. She was always telling Martin he ought to turn this skill into a business somehow. He could make real money at it. But he’d just laugh and say it was only a hobby, nothing special. Then he’d go back to rooting through the pieces splayed out over the workbench, putting them together—at random, it seemed to her—like he was a sorcerer magically transforming junk into technology.
But all those doodads were stowed away now, each in its compartment, like mashed potatoes and peas in a frozen dinner tray. Fearful as she was, Tilda almost smiled at that. For a big, shambling, sloppy boy, Martin was neat as a prissy old maid. She had always found that kind of adorable. He liked things in their proper places, all just so.
That’s why she spotted the hiding place right away.
A cardboard box stuffed with wires, shoved under the workbench where it shouldn’t have been. That was the telltale sign.
She moved to it slowly. She wasn’t sure she was breathing at all anymore. The fear had gutted her. She felt dead and empty. She knelt down. She wrestled the box to one side. She saw the rectangular gray metal chest hidden behind it. She drew it toward her. It scraped against the floor.
The chest was locked, but she knew where the key would be. She reached up and pulled open the workbench drawer, right at her eye level. There it was in the front compartment, right in its proper place. She picked the key out and, kneeling there, unlocked the chest.
Everything came on her all at once: all the horror and all the fear together.
Tilda lifted the lid of the chest and in the harsh, pitiless glare from the bare bulb she caught a single glimpse of an image—a printed picture—of pornographic brutality. Martin’s nighttime murmurings come to life. The girl’s body. The girl’s face. Her wide-eyed terror. Her mouth strapped shut. There was also a stained T-shirt, bunched in a corner of the chest. Blood—the thought was like a siren going off inside her. That’s blood!
At the same time, at the very same second, there came the sound of tires on the driveway outside. Martin’s pickup. A sound she knew well: her husband had come home.
A noise escaped her. A single, strangled cry. She shut the chest with a clanking bang. Too loud! He’d hear her. She shoved it back in place. Was it back in place? The right place? Would he notice it had been moved? She put the cardboard box in front of it again and was already rising from her knees as she dropped the key back in the workbench drawer and shut the drawer as quietly as she could. She could hear the door of Martin’s pickup opening.
The driveway was on the near side of the house. She had seconds—three or four or five, no more than that—to get out of the shed before he stepped from the pickup’s cab and saw the light shining through the vents. He may have already spotted it as he was driving up. She had no way of knowing.
Another whimpering cry came out of her as she raced to the door and hit the switch. The shed went dark. The darkness seemed to tilt and spin around her. She opened the door the slightest crack. She slipped through the gap like liquid smoke. She shut the door and started walking quickly through the afternoon sunlight. She looked up toward the driveway. An instant—half an instant—later, Martin shut the truck door and turned to see her moving toward him across the lawn.
How much had he seen? The light in the shed? The door closing? Or maybe just this, just Tilda walking toward him. Maybe she could tell him she’d heard his truck in the drive and had come out the kitchen door to greet him. Maybe. She didn’t know what he knew.
Her mind was a panicked stampede of images. That girl in the printed picture. That T-shirt stained with blood. And had she put the chest away in the right place? And was her fear visible in her eyes? And was her horror visible on her red cheeks? No way of knowing.
Tilda smiled brightly, sick at heart. She waved as she walked toward her husband. He towered over her, broad shouldered and muscular in his workingman’s tee, the underarms dark with sweat. He had his toolbox in his right hand. He was smiling over her. His sweet smile. But was he masking something? Suspicion? She couldn’t tell.
“Hey,” he said. And with his big bear-paw of a hand behind her head, he drew her up on tiptoe into a kiss. Tilda felt as if a whole world inside her was collapsing into dust.
Martin set her down and grinned and touched her belly.
“Hey there, baby,” he said to the bump there. “Daddy’s home.”
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/after-that-the-dark-cameron-winter-mysteries-book-5"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-979061 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/ATTD-Book-Mobile-461x576.png" alt="" width="461" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/ATTD-Book-Mobile-461x576.png 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/ATTD-Book-Mobile-240x300.png 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/ATTD-Book-Mobile-768x960.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/ATTD-Book-Mobile.png 960w" sizes=" (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" /></a>
* * *
Published by permission of Mysterious Press.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is now available for Pre-Order. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>

Andrew Klavan, After That, the Dark

EXCERPT: Get A Sneak Peek Of Andrew Klavan’s Forthcoming Book, ‘After That, The Dark’

Andrew Klavan

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro is a bestselling author yet again with his latest book, “Lions &amp; Scavengers: The True Story of America (And Her Critics).” 
Shapiro reached the coveted New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2025/09/21/hardcover-nonfiction/">bestsellers list</a> shortly after the release of “Lions &amp; Scavengers,” cementing his place as one of the conservative movement’s top writers. This comes after Shapiro moved up the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0">Amazon bestseller list at launch</a>. “Lions &amp; Scavengers” marks Shapiro’s third-straight book to hit the Times bestsellers list after the “Right Side of History” and the “Authoritarian Moment” became bestsellers in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2019/04/14/">2019</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2021/08/15/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/">2021</a>, respectively. 
The Daily Wire host called “Lions &amp; Scavengers” his “most important book.” The book was written following Hamas’ horrific attacks on innocent Israelis on October 7, 2023. The destructive “scavenger” mindset that Shapiro highlights in the book shows an issue even larger than recent gross antisemitism and attacks against Jews. 
“This is something different. It is a united, coalitional hatred of the West,” he says.
Lions, like America’s founding fathers, strive for the highest good, building systems that promote freedom, prosperity, and equality of opportunity. Meanwhile, Scavengers degrade these ideals, spreading resentment and entitlement that threaten to dismantle the foundations of Western civilization. The attacks on the West call for the lions to rise up and defend the traditions and values that we hold dear, Shapiro argues. Only if the lions triumph can America’s success continue to the next generation. 
“We need to be a civilization of Lions. We need to teach our children to be Lions, and to fight the Scavengers,” Shapiro writes. 
Signed copies of “Lions &amp; Scavengers” are still available at <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/lions-and-scavengers?utm_campaign=ben-book&amp;utm_content=20250902&amp;utm_source=slash-ben">Daily Wire Shop</a>.
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Lions & Scavengers NYT Bestseller

Ben Shapiro Hits NYT Bestsellers List With Roaring Success Of ‘Lions & Scavengers’

Ben Shapiro

New York Times

Bestselling author Jodi Picoult went on a full TikTok tirade over the reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The 59-year-old fiction writer, who has sold more than 40 million copies of her 28 published novels and short stories, is receiving a significant amount of backlash for her angry rant.
“An undeserved violent death does not negate the terrible pain that he inflicted on others,” <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1967347462051704996">Picoult said</a>. “I&#8217;m not buying into the hypocrisy.”
“You won&#8217;t trick me into believing it&#8217;s just about respect for life when your side has cheered families being ripped apart, when your side has proudly supported Alligator Alcatraz merch,” the “My Sister’s Keeper” author continued.
Picoult went on to accuse conservatives of “immediately jump[ing] to blame trans people and targeting HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), even though — shocker! — the shooter was a cis, white man from a Trump-supporting family who was raised to love guns.”
“I have always condemned all gun violence and I will continue to do so, but, as usual, the right only cares about violence when it happens to them. So, you know what? Miss me with the fake self-righteousness.”
Her rant spread quickly on X, sparking fierce opposition. By Monday morning, the TikTok was still public, but once it went viral, Picoult locked it down to private.
“Totally unhinged,” Libs of TikTok replied to the clip.
“Jodi, you write novels where the bad guy always gets exposed in the end. Congratulations, you’ve just made yourself the villain in real life,” another commenter <a href="https://x.com/merikuh/status/1967347960976654797">wrote</a>.
“Another brainwashed liberal spreading lies about Charlie Kirk. You can guarantee these people never watched any of Charlie’s videos. They live in their echo chambers believing each other’s lies,” a third agreed, vowing to boycott Picoult’s books.
This isn’t the first time the woke side of the publishing industry has shown its blatant bias regarding Kirk’s assassination. Author Stephen King was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stephen-king-walks-back-lie-about-charlie-kirk-with-half-hearted-apology">forced to apologize</a> after falsely accusing Kirk of advocating for gay people being stoned to death. 
The horror writer admitted his statement was untrue and deleted the original after social media comments flooded in, with followers proving him wrong.

Jodi Picoult

Author Jodi Picoult Melts Down On TikTok, Lashes Out At Charlie Kirk Supporters

Author Jodi Picoult Directs TikTok Tantrum At Charlie Kirk Supporters

assassination

Charlie Kirk

TikTok

We&#8217;ve known for a very long time in this country that if you said the wrong thing about the trans issue, you could be canceled.
But now, finally, there are people — heretofore on the Left — who are acknowledging that the threat of cancellation has been real.
This is just one of the beautiful flowering fruits of the Trump administration: people are now free to say things they weren’t allowed to say before.
It’s not clear whether people are deciding that they want to say what is currently more popular or if they genuinely repent having been bullied into acceptance of the trans agenda.
On Wednesday, Malcolm Gladwell, a famous bestselling author, explained his amended point of view on transgender athletes, meaning men playing against women in sports. He was speaking specifically about a 2022 appearance at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, where he moderated a panel discussion in which they talked about the path forward for the inclusion of trans athletes in sports, meaning men competing against women.
On Wednesday, Gladwell stated to 2022 panel co-host Ross Tucker, &#8220;I’m ashamed of my performance at that panel because I share your position 100%, and I was cowed. The idea of saying anything on this issue — I was, I believe in retrospect — in a dishonest way, I was objective in a dishonest way.”
That is honest. Many people were so scared of saying what was obviously true that they didn&#8217;t say it.
This happens all the time in politics. It happened in Great Britain during the Rotherham grooming scandal, when members of the media specifically decided not to cover the fact that there were Muslim grooming gangs, Muslim men, who were grooming underage white girls for sex and then passing them around.
People in the media knew about this, and they decided not to say anything, because to say something would have resulted in censure and public opprobrium as well as people in power suggesting that you were somehow in league with the Right.
And for a very long time in this country and the UK, being in league with the Right was code for being thrown out of public life.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2273-unspoken-truths-on-trans-can-now-be-said?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
I don&#8217;t believe that every view is equivalent. I&#8217;m not a moral relativist. I don&#8217;t believe that we should take every view with equal seriousness. I do think that there is an Overton window, meaning the arena of valuable discussion.
The problem is that the Left shut the Overton window so much that if you disagreed with the Left and fundamentally true principles such as “men are not women,” they would throw you out.
So, for many members of the Right, the question becomes: what do you do when Malcolm Gladwell says something like this? What do you do?
The answer is you probably should offer forgiveness. You probably should offer some form of generosity. While you can make the argument that what Gladwell did was cowardly, it’s more about the insane echo chamber that exists in so many of our elite spaces.
The reality is, if you said what Malcolm Gladwell now says in 85% of the country, you&#8217;d be totally fine; it is the mainstream view.
But if you were in the elite circles in which Malcolm Gladwell travels, you would have lost your social standing. You might have lost your job; people would stop reviewing your books. There was a real risk attached.
It is a credit to President Trump and the American people that the Overton window has been opened again. The American people didn’t want to do this anymore. They were done.
That’s not true in Great Britain, where cancel culture has been enshrined in government policy.
What prevents that from happening in the United States is not our magical adherence to First Amendment principles as a people. Unfortunately, there are many, many people in the United States who — if they had the opportunity —would vote to curb free speech. If you look at the polls of young people, young people overwhelmingly believe that hate speech should trump free speech. According to many polls, young people believe there should be legal limits on the kinds of speech one should be allowed to say out loud.
What protects us is the structure of the Constitution. It is the fact that the Constitution bars Congress from doing what the British government is doing in Great Britain. And the Supreme Court has made very clear that in deference to the Constitution, free speech must be protected at the highest possible level.
The Founders knew what they were doing.
And President Trump, by opening the Overton window and making it possible for those on the Right to be heard and not canceled, is paying tribute to the Founders in the best possible way.

Audible’s The Unusual Suspects With Kenya Barris And Malcolm Gladwell Live With Brené Brown – 2025 SXSW Conference And Festival

Unspoken Truths On Trans Can Now Be Said

Cancel Culture

Democrats

Leftists

Malcolm Gladwell

Opinion

Transgender

Transgender Athletes

Women's sports

Legacy media made another feeble attempt to malign Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the eve of the release of her new book. But contrary to the whispers of palace intrigue surrounding the Court’s Dobbs decision, her book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Law-Reflections-Court-Constitution/dp/0593421868/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ILSOy3KahPQkW1N9rrNO_q4yhhX-A5gHnGstjpJkVxIJEAnrRe9w_lF2EUAzY8ASQZ9CZqVDHgKZt8ve0nfVVfwqI92ZVk_q0-xS0_0MvGjhlohklgHmlqVEi16JQXap9StaJ9rMCJYS5c-zfbRU2u7nrMK7Ps-ryfWBC5LGZTDLoJ6JVQxpOU7zm2FeSFITwHaNi6WP9-IfOtCiQoJ3-HjnOJseV05XFTe7FBtb5Jo.5_511Qkt6JuwwSSsSnxDilB7c5pvyEXA08tcA6xNPMM&amp;qid=1757008559&amp;sr=8-1">Listening to the Law</a>,&#8221; is a window into the careful legal reasoning and conscientious commitment to the law that has defined her career. It reminds us that liberty depends on intellect, conscience, and the steady moral vision women of faith uniquely bring to public life. Barrett embodies these traits, and they are mirrored in women across the country who refuse to be cowed. 
Barrett’s convictions never wavered when she was maligned for her Catholic faith. During her Seventh Circuit confirmation, Senator Dianne Feinstein warned of the “dogma living loudly” in Barrett — a jab she met with intelligence, poise, and unflinching calm. Her Supreme Court confirmation displayed the same razor-sharp clarity. While many American women see in Barrett traits they recognize in themselves — dedication, moral clarity, and attention to conscience — there will only ever be one ACB. I recognized it in small, ordinary ways, too. A friend once gave me a coffee mug that read, “The Dogma Lives Loudly Within Me”—a playful badge of honor. Even when the mug was accidentally shattered by a child unloading the dishwasher, the sentiment remained intact, much like the enduring faith of women who live their convictions quietly but resolutely, holding conscience above convenience.
In &#8220;Listening to the Law,&#8221; Barrett reflects on family, faith, and the role of law in society. She recalls her great-grandmother, a widowed mother of thirteen during the Depression, noting that “No generation starts afresh; each is shaped by its predecessors.”
<div id="attachment_968825" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Law-Reflections-Court-Constitution/dp/0593421868/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ILSOy3KahPQkW1N9rrNO_q4yhhX-A5gHnGstjpJkVxIJEAnrRe9w_lF2EUAzY8ASQZ9CZqVDHgKZt8ve0nfVVfwqI92ZVk_q0-xS0_0MvGjhlohklgHmlqVEi16JQXap9StaJ9rMCJYS5c-zfbRU2u7nrMK7Ps-ryfWBC5LGZTDLoJ6JVQxpOU7zm2FeSFITwHaNi6WP9-IfOtCiQoJ3-HjnOJseV05XFTe7FBtb5Jo.5_511Qkt6JuwwSSsSnxDilB7c5pvyEXA08tcA6xNPMM&amp;qid=1757008559&amp;sr=8-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-968825" class="size-large wp-image-968825" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Sentinel Books" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-40-PM-5434-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Sentinel Books</div>
She observes that “Law is but one piece of what it takes to make a healthy society, and it (like everything else in life) exists in the midst of relationships.” She underscores that the Constitution commits us to pluralism through protections like those guaranteed by the First Amendment, which “requires the government to tolerate all opinions and all religions.” To critics who “suggest that people of faith have a particularly difficult time following the law rather than their moral views,” Barrett reiterates her understanding that “the guiding principle in every case is what the law requires, not what aligns with the judge’s own concept of justice.” Such resolve, she shows, can be met exactly because of the humility that derives from faith. And her own grounding in a large, loving family shines through — the book is dedicated simply to “Jesse,” her husband — a tribute both understated and profound.
When it comes to safeguarding America’s first freedom, Barrett’s rigor is urgently needed. Sooner rather than later, the Supreme Court will revisit Employment Division v. Smith. Authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Barrett clerked, Smith held that sincerely held religious objections do not exempt people from complying with “neutral and generally applicable laws.”
In practice, Smith has often crushed religious liberty, particularly regarding anti-discrimination laws tied to sexual orientation and gender identity. Barrett’s careful attention to conscience — the “feminine genius” St. John Paul II celebrated—is precisely what the Court needs to craft a workable framework for protecting the free exercise rights of those whose beliefs are countercultural. The stakes are far from abstract: the religious convictions of real women hang in the judicial balance.
Consider Cathy Miller, a Christian baker from California, fined for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage, who has asked the Court to hear her case this term. Or the Little Sisters of the Poor, who still refuse to include abortifacients or contraceptives in their health care plans despite the authoritarian demands of the Affordable Care Act’s “contraceptive mandate,” holding fast to Church teaching. Lori Smith, a Colorado website designer, refused to create speech she did not believe in — and won at the Supreme Court. Jessica Bates, a widowed Oregon mother, was blocked from fostering children because she would not embrace gender ideology — until the Ninth Circuit, of all places, vindicated her. These women were not seeking to impose beliefs on others, but to defend the right of all Americans to live out their faith without government coercion. They stand as sentinels between the state and the citizen’s conscience.
Backing them are brilliant women lawyers and scholars who turn principle into action. Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, has argued multiple Supreme Court cases. Lori Windham of the Becket Fund shields institutions and individuals from government overreach. Legal scholars like Mary Ann Glendon, Nicole Garnett, Helen Alvaré, and Stephanie Barclay provide indispensable intellectual firepower. Protecting religious liberty is neither abstract nor optional. It demands moral clarity, expert advocacy, and strategic rigor.
&#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Law-Reflections-Court-Constitution/dp/0593421868/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ILSOy3KahPQkW1N9rrNO_q4yhhX-A5gHnGstjpJkVxIJEAnrRe9w_lF2EUAzY8ASQZ9CZqVDHgKZt8ve0nfVVfwqI92ZVk_q0-xS0_0MvGjhlohklgHmlqVEi16JQXap9StaJ9rMCJYS5c-zfbRU2u7nrMK7Ps-ryfWBC5LGZTDLoJ6JVQxpOU7zm2FeSFITwHaNi6WP9-IfOtCiQoJ3-HjnOJseV05XFTe7FBtb5Jo.5_511Qkt6JuwwSSsSnxDilB7c5pvyEXA08tcA6xNPMM&amp;qid=1757008559&amp;sr=8-1">Listening to the Law</a>&#8221; shows that defending liberty requires both intellect and conscience. Barrett’s reflections illuminate the careful reasoning and moral clarity she brings to public life. Just as the other women highlighted here confront cultural and legal pressures with courage and fidelity, Barrett’s reflections on the law remind us that protecting religious freedom — our First Freedom — depends on women of faith. Through courage, attention to conscience, and steadfast commitment to the common good and the rule of law, they ensure liberty endures for generations to come.
* * *
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is Director of the <a href="https://conscience-project.org/">Conscience Project.</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated Kristen Waggoner was the former president of Alliance Defending Freedom. She is, in fact, the current president of the ADF.

MixCollage-04-Sep-2025-01-28-PM-1170

The Dogma Still Lives Loudly: Amy Coney Barrett And The Witness Of Women Of Faith

Amy Coney Barrett

Dobbs

First Amendment

Supreme Court

Women

There are various types of what I call “scavengers.”
There are “leeches,” people who seek to tear down the institutions of free markets because they believe that they are entitled to the gains of others.
There are the “lechers,” people who believe that the traditional family, the church, have to be torn asunder because those things are an imposition from the outside.
And then there are the “barbarians.”
The barbarians are people who emanate from places outside the United States, outside the West. And they see themselves as representatives of civilizations that have been laid low by the West. They believe that all of their failures are the fault of Western civilizations.
As I write in my new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers</a>”:
<blockquote>The barbarian is an outsider to Western civilization who believes that all of his own maladies and ills can be laid at the feet of the colonizers of the West. In fact, the barbarian argues, only violence against his purported victimizers can free him of the servile mentality that these very colonizers have instilled in him. The barbarian speaks in the language of mass-murdering communist monster Che Guevara —whose visage still graces the T-shirts of thousands of misbegotten American college students — championing the power of hatred: “Hatred is an element of struggle, unbending hatred for the enemy which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.</blockquote>
The barbarians never posit a moral justification for how the destruction of the Western order ought to operate at their hands. They never explain just how, for example, a Palestinian state is somehow a burgeoning wellspring of human rights, or how an America without American values would make the world a better place. The only thing that matters is the destruction of the West, for in that destruction lies the supposed reclamation of the barbarian identity.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2271-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Last Friday, there was a big gathering of barbarians over in Detroit, Michigan, called the People&#8217;s Conference for Palestine. It was attended by a sitting member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib along with a wide variety of people who talked about the evils of America. They talked about how the country they were sitting in, this place that has given them prosperity, that has given them freedom, was an awful place. All of its core values are evil and terrible and need to be destroyed because America is a bad place, and Western civilization is responsible for all the ills of the rest of the world.
If you&#8217;re wondering why there are so many people in the West right are now moving toward right-wing parties, it is because those right-wing parties are saying, “We don&#8217;t need more of these people in our civilization.”
We don&#8217;t.
One speaker quoted someone saying that “the average American will never understand the plight of the Palestinian person, because the State of Israel is a carbon copy of the United States, and therefore the thing to do is to destroy the idea of America in American&#8217;s heads so that they can see the humanity of everybody outside of the warping of American exceptionalism and imperialism and all these evil things. We have to dismantle this idea of American exceptionalism, of supremacy, of being beyond reproach.”
He continued, “We live in an evil country.”
So get out. You can leave any time now.
Remember, the people who are being defended here by this person are the terrorist group Hamas.
There was not a single speaker at this event who said that Hamas should surrender, go into exile, and disarm, thus ending the war in Gaza and simultaneously ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
That was never mentioned by any of these people, because, of course, the fault always lies with America. It lies with the West. It lies with Israel. Anyone successful in the world is supposed to be a repository of exploitation.
Another speaker intoned, “We wanted to globalize the intifada, to expose to the world that Israel&#8217;s policies have nothing to do with security, that Israel tries to tell the world, and that our governments also regurgitate gaslighting us. We thought that if we could get this message out, the world would wake up and not allow Israel to do this, to do what it&#8217;s doing. And I must admit, that was a bit of naiveté on our part. But we have and we will continue to globalize the intifada, and we will force our government to listen to us, because they want us to accept a world that is inacceptable.”
“Inacceptable?” You mean unacceptable.
In any case, putting aside the grammar, the bigger problem here is the fact that “globalize the intifada” is a phrase that calls for widespread violence. That is what an intifada is, a violent uprising. Anybody who claims otherwise is lying to you.
<div id="attachment_967927" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-967927" class="wp-image-967927 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1024x576.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/MixCollage-02-Sep-2025-03-58-PM-6584-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>DailyWire+</div>
This is happening on the soil of America, as I write about in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lions-Scavengers-Story-America-Critics/dp/1668097885/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tHy4SBp_hHF-vHhtJtJe1QIrxRz7s0Aj13eFEmYaXMkg9SrRHykHV_NHWW6XhQWoxW_rAOTa8CabDdBGhR-hiGxPlwULwtB0j0lCq6HTT435WCOIrExCNI18TVrbTwSf7166CTZarphzcNjpZCtlTA.3BzLBNx3TKfvkr_UgYlzL5F_NdZR1DsGAEXY3t63SrE&amp;qid=1756846409&amp;sr=1-1">Lions and Scavengers</a>.” It&#8217;s not just that barbarians come from abroad and they enter our gates because we are soft-headed and soft-hearted. It&#8217;s also the enormous number of Americans who then side with the barbarians, because they don&#8217;t have confidence in their own civilization. They don&#8217;t have the belief in their own ideas to actually stand up to this garbage.
Lions are reflexively self-critical. What I mean by that is that in the West, there is actual moral merit to admitting your mistakes, to exposing yourself to the shame and ridicule of acknowledging guilt. That is something that good people tend to do.
Lions tend to do that because, after all, we live in a civilization, a Judeo-Christian biblically-based civilization, in which repentance is part of life. You&#8217;re supposed to acknowledge your sins so you can get stronger and get better.
The problem is that the barbarians and their allies are not interested in your proclamations of guilt. They&#8217;re not interested except to use it as a way to destroy you. They are interested in you shaming yourself. They want you to shame yourself and kneel before them so they can claim dominance. That&#8217;s the entire goal.
The co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, last seen being ushered out of Congress after yelling at Marco Rubio during his confirmation hearings, called for the “taking out” of anyone who opposes his pro-terrorism agenda, saying they “need to be neutralized.”
This was in Detroit. Not in Qatar, or Iran.
This culminated with Rashida Tlaib, a sitting congresswoman from Michigan, ripping America and saying, “We are in your Congress.”
We know. We understand that the barbarian mentality is quite prevalent in our Congress.
“They thought they could kill us, rape us, and imprison us, violently, uproot us from our olive tree farms, starve our children to death, and we would disappear. Well, guess what? Now we&#8217;re in Congress and we&#8217;re in every corner of the United States,” she threatened. “We are just getting started.”
Yes, we understand that you have infiltrated Congress. We understand that. We understand there is a wide variety of people who have decided to stand in solidarity with all of this.
What is going to tear down the West is not just a West not confronted by the scavengers, but a West that allows the scavengers in; that somehow believes it is an aspect of its own greatness to allow the supremacy of people who wish to destroy its civilization.
That is the danger that lies within.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Speaks To Press On Gaza Food Shortages

The Hate-America Barbarians Inside The Gates

Anti-Semitism

Congress

Detroit

Israel

Palestinians

Pro-Hamas

Western Civilization

It all started with one book reading being denied at more than 50 public libraries even as Drag Queen Story Hours across America were welcomed with open arms. This was enough for actor and author Kirk Cameron to go on a mission to create something different, and now, See You at the Library returned for its third year this past Saturday, August 16.
This year, over 200 story hours were hosted in libraries across the country, uniting families around timeless values like faith, family, and freedom.
The flagship gathering this year took place in the heart of Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress. The historic event featured special guest readers Kirk Cameron, “Duck Dynasty” alum Missy Robertson, and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles. Held in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education’s Center of Faith, the moment marked a turning point, elevating the event from a grassroots effort to a national movement.
Cameron spoke candidly about what was at stake, telling the assembled crowd, “At the end of the day, it is about us recognizing that it is our job, not his, not theirs, to turn our country back to what made her great in the first place — faith, moral integrity, and courage.” He said America will either experience a “great awakening” or a “rude awakening” depending on the moral courage of its people.
Robertson echoed his words, saying, “When we say we are coming back as a country, we are saying we are coming back to the values that God wrote on each of our hearts.”
<div id="attachment_962541" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-962541" class="size-large wp-image-962541" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/Michael-Knowles-864x576.jpg" alt="Michael Knowles" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/Michael-Knowles-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/Michael-Knowles-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/Michael-Knowles-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/Michael-Knowles.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />See You At the Library</div>
Knowles said a love of reading is the future. “Cultivating a love of reading, a love of stories, and the written word, and the spoken word is not just about entertaining yourself or getting through school. It’s essential to our entire understanding of the world and how we live our lives.”
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See You at the Library is continuing to grow, despite the Left’s efforts to shut it down.

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron’s Story Hour Lands At Library Of Congress, Featuring Michael Knowles

Drag Queen story hour

Faith

General

Library

U.S.

The following excerpt is taken from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Conservatism-Unlikely/dp/1641774495">The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer</a>,” by Daniel J. Flynn, (Encounter Books, August 19, 2025)
* * *
&#8220;For the ﬁrst time in the past few months I find myself viscerally as well as intellectually deeply concerned about the immediate future of the country,” Frank Meyer wrote in March 1968 to co-founder of National Review Willi Schlamm in Europe. “Between Vietnam, this summer’s projected insurrectionary riots, and the real threat to twenty years of economic stability that the monetary situation poses, almost anything could happen.”
Everything did.
Lyndon Johnson soon announced his decision to neither seek nor accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Days later, a career criminal on the run after escaping prison murdered Martin Luther King Jr. The tragedy, and the initial elusiveness of the murderer, fueled riots that killed dozens in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and points beyond. Uprisings that spring plagued campuses. Columbia, where student activists occupied university buildings and held administrators hostage, served as the focal point. In June, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant incensed over U.S. aid to Israel, murdered Robert Kennedy. All the while the Vietnam War reached peak violence; more than three hundred American men died in combat each week.
The chaos jarred Meyer. Even prior to Kennedy’s murder, the National Review columnist had described the times as the most fateful for Americans since Fort Sumter. The upheaval, he reasoned, emanated not from deprivation but abundance. This did not lead to a more contented society. Riots, campus takeovers, civil disobedience, crime, and other actions often vaguely or specifically linked to political demands counterintuitively followed. The more authorities rewarded disobedience, disorder, and disregard for law, the more disobedience, disorder, and disregard for law proliferated. The damage from nihilism and a West alienated from itself, he concluded, bore this bitter fruit of attempted civilizational suicide.
His articles adopted an ominous tone. More shocking to readers, his order-liberty emphasis flipped. He still articulated libertarian positions in opposing the draft and in shunning calls for gun control in the wake of the assassinations (“An unarmed citizenry is potentially the victim, ﬁrst of anarchy, then of tyranny and totalitarianism”). The holstered ﬁrearm spotted under his jacket at a Philadelphia Society meeting in Chicago, where American Communists knew him best, indicated he practiced what he preached. The times dictated a condemnation of freedom’s unsavory cousin chaos. In March, Richard Nixon identiﬁed order as the priority. Meyer followed that summer by telling readers that “order is the ﬁrst condition of civilizational existence, the only foundation of freedom and well-being for anyone and everyone.”
<div id="attachment_961609" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Conservatism-Unlikely/dp/1641774495"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-961609" class="size-large wp-image-961609" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Encounter Books" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-16-Aug-2025-04-20-PM-7447-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Encounter Books</div>
His son John’s attendance at Columbia amid the takeover and riots laying waste to his hometown of Newark the previous summer personalized the events. So did his own history. He had once stood on the other side of the barricades. If he regarded many antiwar protestors as effectively aiding the Vietcong, then he surely recalled his own role in the 1930s peace movement that had softened Great Britain, the United States, and other countries. Meyer the Communist had shouted down speakers, disrupted meetings, and scoffed at campus authorities the way Mark Rudd now did. He saw others reliving his life and wanted to stop them from inflicting the damage that he had once caused.
“The issue facing the United States this summer is the survival of a free society,” he told readers. “No society can exist in a state of endemic disorder. Specifically, a representative republic cannot function if its magistrates and its representative assemblies are subject to blackmail by mob violence.” From Death Valley Days came a sheriff to make things right.
Meyer saw in Ronald Reagan the ﬁgure to lead Americans out of the smoke, grime, and darkness of 1968 to a place more resemblant of America. Some regarded this as a pipe dream; others as unwise.
◆ ◆ ◆
HUGH KENNER wrote William F. Buckley, Jr., a private letter critical of his “Ronald Reagan: A Relaxing View,” an unusually long cover article. Kenner explained of his letter to Guy Davenport, “It is to their honor that they want it revised for print. Imagine, per contra, The Nation running a pro-Reagan piece.” Not everyone welcomed Buckley’s tolerance. And, because
of that, Kenner’s view of the magazine changed. “Communication from WFB just re[a]d from Switzerland says that my Nervous View of Ronald Reagan has been held over till April (!) at Frank Meyer’s (!!) intervention, in the interests of fairness, Frank having held that Reagan (!!!) should be given a chance to reply,” Kenner wrote Davenport. “If Reagan does not, the accompanying rebuttal will be by Frank (!!!!).”
Behind the scenes, a January editorial meeting resulted in the board’s endorsement of Meyer’s personally rebutting the anti-Reagan piece. In February, Bill Rusher supplied the Master — the sobriquet he had long ago given to Meyer — with a dossier. Jeffrey Hart later received the task of writing the Meyer-engineered counterpoint to an article preoccupied with Reagan’s treatment of the universities. This substitution, given that it negated one English professor’s charge of anti-intellectualism with another’s rebuttal, struck as a master stroke to anyone paying attention but too cute by half to anyone really paying attention.
When “A Nervous View of Ronald Reagan” ran in May as an “Open Question,” Kenner, though a major asset as a literary critic, appeared outside of his element. Unlike Davenport, who had threatened to resign in 1965 after being assigned to cover a Philadelphia Society meeting, Kenner did subscribe to the general tenets that animated National Review. Nevertheless, the University of California–Santa Barbara professor came off as a parochial cosmopolitan in portraying California’s governor as a philistine for supporting the ﬁring of the university system’s president, Clark Kerr, and for his periodic clashes with academia, which to many conservatives increasingly resembled a left-wing training ground. The philistinism, to them, occurred among the people perverting intellectual pursuits toward the service of narrow, ideological ends.
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Hart, on leave from both Dartmouth and National Review to write speeches for Reagan, authored the “Open Question” that appeared immediately after Kenner’s. He juxtaposed Reagan’s widely shared critique of the campuses with Kenner’s use of “zamindary,” a ten-cent word even by National Review standards. He wondered why Kenner must psychoanalyze his subjects as though the mind holds the answer for all questions. For Kenner this undoubtedly avouched philistinism’s further inroads on the intellectual right; for many readers, it likely contrasted California’s man of the people with yet another of its professors above all in an ivory tower. The byline did not fully obscure who lurked behind every word. As a bewildered Davenport had explained to Kenner, “Frank thinks that Reagan ought to be president of the USA.”
Kenner lost sleep. He went from gaining respect for the magazine to losing it. Buckley, though playing a passive role, allowed this to happen. He acted as godfather to Kenner’s daughter, paid for another daughter’s freshman year at college, and served as best man at the widowed Kenner’s second wedding. The active involvement of his other friend of more than a decade, the editor of his book reviews, sharpened the sting. So did yet another colleague’s mockery of him in print as an egghead. “I can sympathize with you,” Davenport wrote, “knowing how I would feel to be hee-hawed at by a cold bastard like Hart who can scarcely hide the fact that he has been called in to wipe a well-aimed egg off a politician, and to denounce the opposition with cultivated yelps and whimpers.” Meyer lost his section’s most accomplished literary critic.
He pleaded with Davenport to beg his friend back. The last issue in May listed Kenner as an associate. Any trace of him had disappeared from the masthead by June.
Meyer succeeded in shielding his favored candidate but at terrible cost. The tear revealed the frayed fabric holding together the two elements — the cynosure for conservatives and a citadel for reﬁned literary appraisal — that made National Review great. Meyer could play conservative pope. He could serve as keeper of culture. Could he play both? The question did not always yield an answer in the affirmative.
◆ ◆ ◆
THE SAME WEEK that National Review offset Kenner’s criticism with Hart’s rebuttal, The New Republic published Meyer’s “Why I Am for Reagan,” one in a series from supporters of the various presidential contenders. The magazine commissioned Meyer to write the piece for obvious reasons. His campaign for Reagan began the moment the campaign for Goldwater ended.
In December 1964, Meyer spotlighted Reagan as the Republican future. The veteran actor had delivered a compelling infomercial for Goldwater that aired a week before the election. He did not merely replace Goldwater’s scowl with a smile. He eviscerated Great Society liberalism with humor, anecdotes, and folksy logic. Reagan connected. One could almost see the studio audience, and Frank Meyer listening in his living room, wondering, “Why can’t I vote for this man?” People who knew him as a star nevertheless experienced a revelation that night that they had watched, well, a star.
Reagan parlayed that speech into a run for governor in the state that suddenly boasted the most people. He vanquished Nixon’s vanquisher. Weeks before Reagan assumed office, Meyer touted him as the next president. As with Goldwater, the enthusiasm masked a <a href="https://youtu.be/WBMWd49rtu8?feature=shared&amp;t=187">Johnny Bravo</a> quality. Ronald Reagan nevertheless ﬁt the suit better.
Reagan met the requirements of “a candidate who can stir conservative enthusiasm and behind whom a campaign for delegates to the Republican National Convention of 1968 can be launched,” “Principles and Heresies” maintained in 1966. “By the principled positions he has taken, and by his proven ability as a campaigner, demonstrated both in 1964 and this year in California, Ronald Reagan, should he prove the governor he promises to be, qualiﬁes for this role.”
Rusher shared Meyer’s enthusiasms. Buckley touted Reagan, too. Again, James Burnham opposed.
“I insist that Reagan is a serious candidate,” Meyer responded to Burnham’s insistence to the contrary. “Furthermore, if it were journalistically advisable to support a single candidate, it would unquestionably be our duty to make Reagan our choice with Nixon as our second choice.”
* * *
This excerpt from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Conservatism-Unlikely/dp/1641774495">The Man Who Invented Conservatism</a>,” by Daniel J. Flynn is published by permission of Encounter Books.
Daniel J. Flynn is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has authored seven books, including “Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America;” “A Conservative History of the American Left;” and “Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco.”
The views expressed in this excerpt are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

1968 Republican National Convention

The Man Who Backed Reagan Before Reagan Was Ready

Conservatives

National Review

Ronald Reagan

William F. Buckley Jr.

They say you should never meet your heroes, but that statement should come with an overarching disclaimer: “&#8230;*unless your hero happens to be Ben Shapiro.”
Few idols measure up in real life and almost none of them exceed your expectations, but the one glaring exception to this rule is the Daily Wire co-founder himself. Shapiro is just as impressive in real life as he is breaking down news headlines on his daily show, and now you and a friend have a chance to find that out firsthand.
Along with the release of his new book, “<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/ben">Lions and Scavengers</a>,” on September 2, Shapiro is hosting a contest for loyal fans featuring a grand prize that comes with eternal bragging rights. One lucky winner and a friend will have a chance to visit Daily Wire headquarters in Nashville to experience a live taping of “The Ben Shapiro Show” and meet the man himself. 
Entering this contest couldn’t be simpler. All it takes is pre-ordering “Lions and Scavengers” and registering that purchase at <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/ben">this link</a>. Everyone who registers will also receive the first two chapters of the book immediately.
Even if you don’t win the top prize, the runner-up gifts are pretty sweet. Ten runners-up will score a limited edition hooded sweatshirt. And five lucky winners will receive something even rarer: a personal phone call from Ben himself.
The best news of all is that everyone who pre-orders “Lions and Scavengers” will receive the book itself, which cuts through the noise to ask a question that might just define the future of America: Will we rise as noble Lions, or pick at the scraps as destructive Scavengers?
The New York Times best-selling author doesn’t just present these as provocative metaphors. Instead, he holds a mirror up to the modern West and forces us to face reality. 
Lions are brave, principled, and willing to do the hard work of building and preserving civilization. Scavengers tear it down, feeding on resentment, envy, and complaints. It’s a high-stakes choice, and Shapiro doesn’t shy away from saying exactly where he thinks our country is headed if we don’t choose the right path. 
With his trademark “facts don’t care about your feelings” clarity and unapologetic willingness to buck the status quo, Shapiro makes the case that inequality in a free society isn’t a sign of oppression, but is rather the natural result of differences in talent and work ethic. And while Scavengers complain, Lions try harder.
This isn’t just a book drop – it’s a moment to decide which side of the battle you’re on. The Lions are prowling. The Scavengers are circling. Where do you fall?  
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/ben">Pre-order “Lions and Scavengers” now!</a>

Lions and Scavengers sweepstakes

Lion Or Scavenger? Win A Trip To Nashville To Meet Ben Shapiro

Daily Wire

Nashville

The following excerpt is taken from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22E4UEYSZLK9L&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7OpVlvjzAMkKLRoafpVC5BbfjWiiv_d1HNPN1kmFXABtw90xnU8oHEEAF-C1mFSw.m6gzq7MX5HeMeyZUsEzNWkKLTJiFGUtfa6NHjZv0eDw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+war+on+science+lawrence+krauss&amp;qid=1754574679&amp;sprefix=the+war+on+sc%2Caps%2C111&amp;sr=8-1">The War On Science</a>,&#8221; edited by Lawrence M. Krauss (Post Hill Press, 2025), with contributions from Jordan B. Peterson, Niall Ferguson, Richard Dawkins, Gad Saad, and many more. 
* * *
<h3>The Archetypal Fate Of The Universities</h3>
The institutions of higher education in the West are administratively top-heavy, in precisely the manner allowing that very administration to prey upon the future earnings of the students they hypothetically serve. Furthermore, the faculty itself leans very heavily in the radical direction despite being the dubious beneficiaries of administrative expansion. Student-to-faculty ratios have increased dramatically. The status and autonomy of the faculty have been very badly compromised. None of this seems to have made the professors and researchers any more forthcoming in their resistance or any more skeptical about the self-righteous “progressive” ideals they advocate. Finally, the students themselves have been infantilized, as well as taught outright that progressive radicalism is identical to virtue. It is, therefore, very difficult to imagine anything approximating an across-the-board improvement in behavior at the universities, in consequence. There are no imaginable circumstances under which the extant Ivy League institutions, for example, would be likely to dispense with the 80 percent of administrative staff and a somewhat lesser but still high proportion of the faculty that would have to disappear for any real change in orientation to occur. 
There have been recent initiatives, most famously in the states of Texas and Florida, to push back against the diversity, inclusivity, and equity bureaucracy-mob, but a simple name change is no trouble for the serpentine Machiavellians of the radical fringe to manage. This means that the same old corrupt players can just change their ideational camouflage, and at the surface level, just as they did when the revelations of Communist excess became too self-evident to deny in the 1970s, and Marxism metastasized into the intersectional oppression idiocy of today. It is, therefore, highly possible that the academy in the West is rotting because it is, in fact, dead and cannot be revived in anything resembling its current form. In that case, the flame will have to be kept burning at new institutions, whether in the classic bricks-and-mortar and in-person guise, if that proves possible (and I doubt it), or electronically, if the major changes in the conceptualization of education and the technology necessary to offer mass higher learning prove capable of delivering on their obvious but by no means certain promise.
<div id="attachment_958091" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.uHHyjHn4r9-5D55ze0R9Gk-xy5AIFtAEK7qQ4oR-WpQLi51rBu79jgtR88ZY5U4VgKNq4guJpjpfz4JBsu0CN4ZKfzsmHlY2xOTX5ypfus0dPolpFU3YLRuD1JycE93FkmrEi8sJQT_-K9sN8c2aXpVu9KANTbLiCQ7kDTygeqz7Oh8iBp7BWNSPZkoE6i9QqlYnHbmAMe8OQScq8S7oi0FoZ5cX6CV4hwRSurj_rO8.zNhWL4XZiBpgI8rDMadnYyGjqoUHGwS4_vcJYlypv18&amp;qid=1754575409&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-958091" class="wp-image-958091 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Post Hill Press" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-07-Aug-2025-09-35-AM-9729-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes=" (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Post Hill Press</div>
Is there a way out personally, psychologically, or conceptually? Or, more specifically, what is presently incumbent upon those who are currently or will in the future be engaged in the university teaching or research enterprise? We can turn, once again, to the Enuma Elish account to elucidate the archetypal pattern. It is always in the very darkest hour that the redeeming hero emerges. Deliverance comes to the faithless murderer-children of chaos and order in the story in question in the hero-form of Marduk, the Mesopotamian savior-son-of-God. After Cain and Abel, we are presented with the cataclysm of the flood, as well as the erection of the Tower of Babel, the totalitarian edifice which is a structure of value with the wrong value at its pinnacle. Those are the twin fates of the descendants of Cain, the parasites who will not sacrifice properly and who undermine what even they themselves most truly value and depend upon. What are these fates? The descent of the world into the primordial waters of chaos that reigned before the beginning; alternatively, the worship of the false idols of the Luciferian intellect that likewise produce disunity and confusion — in the latter case, the eventual inability of those who aim wrong to even understand or utter the same words. “What is a woman?” — indeed. What is the way forward in the biblical narrative — perhaps running parallel to the Mesopotamian story? 
Careless pride eternally comes before a fall, but the humility that is its medicament is the attention that leaves nothing out of its purview and can, therefore, perceive the proper course forward. We could consider the account of Jonah, the everyman alerted by his conscience to speak the words of truth that set society straight. He flees, initially, from the requirement — who wants to risk standing against the mob? — but upon encountering the abysmal consequences of maintaining silence when there is something that demands to be said, he reconsiders his cowardice, turns his voice over to the control of the divine, and redeems the corrupt city of his enemies. What is the moral of such stories for the timorous, ideology-addled professors of today — or for those who enable them through their silence or even “allyship”? What might be done by forthright and faithful believers in the redeeming quality of truth and sacrifice when the walls we relied on to protect us have been breached and the barbarians have entered the gates? And have they? Here’s a telling data point: it is none other than the despicable Michel Foucault, darling of the Luciferian radicals, who is by some accounts the most cited “scholar” in the world.
What might be done, indeed? We professors, scholars, and researchers could open the eyes and the mouths God has given us instead of continuing to take each of the thousands of small steps backward that have enabled the devouring ideologues at our institutions. We could forthrightly note the chaos that looms and identify and hold to account its purveyors and acolytes. We could do the duty required of us by the people who have charged the inhabitants of the academy with the responsibility of preserving and seeking the truth, and we could call out the frauds, hucksters, Machiavellians, and outright charlatan-psychopaths of the faux disciplines and idiot theories of oppressor and victim. We could, by so doing, speak the words of truthful magic that redeem the fragmented world and position the foundation back in its place. Alternatively, we could remain frozen in the corner like the petrified rabbits we have far too often revealed ourselves to be and let the parasitical rabble attain their temporary and inevitably self and society-destroying “victory.” What did the great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn say so effectively in his all-out and eventually successful assault on the predatory tyrants and parasites of the envious and ideology-possessed radical world? ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD. The protected professoriate pays for the opportunity and protection historically granted by the community to the academic endeavor with the vow to protect what is true, beautiful, and good. If we once again found the courage to be the standard-bearers of such value, the mad and ideological mob would be rapidly defeated. 
Will we do what needs to be done? We have failed so far, and it would take a mad bit of optimism to suggest that the course could be reversed. Nonetheless, the situation is far from hopeless. Here is another bit of traditional mythology to consider with regard to such a situation. When Abraham is informed by God of the latter’s decision to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the great prophet objects, making the case that wholesale destruction is no temperate and proper response to the sins even of the many (Genesis 18: 22–33). God agrees to spare the threatened cities if even fifty righteous people might still be found dwelling within their walls. Abraham persists in his objections, even after receiving such consideration from God, bargaining the divine down to forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty — then ten. What does this strange story indicate? Nothing less than this: an entire polity, and all of its denizens, can be saved even from an impending, dire, and deserved fate if even a tiny number of its inhabitants remain willing to risk the great adventure of the truth.
The moral of the story for the current denizens of the academies of higher education? It would not take a great number of professors, researchers, and students even now to speak and turn the tide. The moral, even more specifically, even more personally? It is incumbent on each and every one of us engaged in such enterprise to risk being one of the redeeming ten. We should remember, too, when considering such things: it is indeed a risk to see what is in front of our eyes and to say what needs to be said. It is also true, however, that willful blindness and failure to speak when there is something to say are ventures with perils of their own. The ten in question may find themselves in trouble when they speak, but they are simultaneously saving themselves and all those around them from the invisible hand of doom, threatening the future. This is an existential fact, alluded to in the great story of Jonah. It is not by mere chance that the fleeing prophet finds himself drowning when he holds his tongue after being commanded to speak — and then, worse, devoured by the beast of the abyss. There is indeed a descent into hell that threatens, both psychologically and socially, when conscience is ignored. It is the wisdom of the ages that the risk of seeing and speaking, all things considered, is much less than the risk of hiding and silence. There may be a price that is to be paid for the former — but the price of the latter is both soul and society. The true spirit of the academy is the prophetic voice that redeems. We abandon that at our great peril and to the detriment of all that depends on education itself. 
See, therefore, and speak — or pay the inevitable price.
* * *
This excerpt is published by permission of Post Hill Press. “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22E4UEYSZLK9L&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7OpVlvjzAMkKLRoafpVC5BbfjWiiv_d1HNPN1kmFXABtw90xnU8oHEEAF-C1mFSw.m6gzq7MX5HeMeyZUsEzNWkKLTJiFGUtfa6NHjZv0eDw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+war+on+science+lawrence+krauss&amp;qid=1754574679&amp;sprefix=the+war+on+sc%2Caps%2C111&amp;sr=8-1">The War on Science: Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out About Current Threats to Free Speech, Open Inquiry, and the Scientific Process</a>,” edited by Lawrence M. Krauss. (Post Hill Press, July 2025).
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-role-of-the-holy-spirit-distinguishing-between-your-will-and-gods-will" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Jordan B. Peterson</a> is a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. From 1993 to 1998 he served as assistant and then associate professor of psychology at Harvard. He is the international bestselling author of “Maps of Meaning,” “12 Rules For Life,” “Beyond Order.” Be sure to order his newest book, “We Who Wrestle with God” (Portfolio/Penguin).
Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally renowned theoretical physicist, bestselling author, and acclaimed lecturer. A passionate advocate for science and reason, and the public understanding of science, he is the author of twelve popular books, including the international bestsellers &#8220;The Physics of Star Trek, A Universe from Nothing,&#8221; and his most recent book, &#8220;The Edge of Knowledge.&#8221; He received his PhD from MIT and then moved to the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is currently President of The Origins Project Foundation, Chair of the Board of the Free Speech Union, Canada, and host of The Origins Podcast.

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