Actor Jerry O’Connell said his wife, Rebecca Romijn, and the couple’s two teenage daughters &#8220;became physical” with him on election night after he commented on Kamala Harris’ campaign failures.
The 52-year-old “Stand By Me” alum said as much during an interview with Bill Maher released earlier this week. 
&#8220;If I say this, will I stay married?&#8221; he joked with the “Club Random” podcast host. O’Connell went on to describe how Romijn and their children weren’t open to hearing honest feedback. 
&#8220;I said something along the lines of &#8216;there was no planning. This is what they get. There should have been a primary.&#8217; I said something along those lines, you know, like I was just spit-balling ideas. It was a shock. My wife and daughters, without saying anything, became physical with me. They were filled with rage,&#8221; O&#8217;Connell said.
&#8220;So if I am being careful with you in how I say things, yes, I live in California. I live with not one, not two, but three people who, if I made any kind of joke, they&#8217;d become very angry with me,&#8221; the actor added.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Jerry O&#039;Connell | Club Random with Bill Maher" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g_7IpYkjCIc?start=3517&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Maher replied by saying he wouldn’t do well with that kind of behavior in his house.
&#8220;Whatever household situation I&#8217;m in, I say what I truly think, and if it makes you angry, I&#8217;m sorry. We&#8217;ll have to work that out. But I am not going to tuck my tail between my legs and just shut the f*** up,&#8221; Maher said.
O’Connell has been married to former supermodel Romijn since 2007, and their twin daughters, Dolly and Charlie, were born in 2008.
He actively supported Harris during the 2024 presidential election, even <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C-EPwB9sGRE/">attending a rally</a> in Georgia.
Maher and O’Connell’s discussion about the 2024 presidential election came just after Maher criticized Hollywood for not recognizing Paramount+ hit “Landman” because it’s seen as a “conservative show.”
“First of all, even if it was a conservative show, that should be allowed,” Maher said. “This is f***ing America, you a**holes.”
He continued, “I mean, it’s just not exactly what you are. And so we have to ignore that and pretend it doesn’t exist. You want to know why people vote for Trump? That’s why. Your sh***y attitude is a real turnoff.”

Jerrry O’Connell Rebecca Romijn

Jerry O’Connell Says His Family ‘Became Physical’ With Him After Kamala Lost To Trump

2024 Election

Bill Maher

Celebrities

Donald Trump

Entertainment

Kamala Harris

Liberals

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1931-iran-war-fallout-two-islamic-terror-attacks-in-one-day?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
For years, American elites have told us a simple story about religion and reason: religious people are the crazy ones.
They are irrational, superstitious, emotionally needy, clinging to old myths in an age of science and sophistication. The serious people, we are told, are the secular people. The smart people have moved on. The enlightened people know better. Faith is for the weak, the backward, the unthinking. Religion is a crutch. Orthodoxy is neurosis. Church is for the people who cannot handle reality.
It is one of the most enduring prejudices in modern public life. And it is one of the most revealing.
Because when you look at the actual data, the picture is not merely more complicated than the stereotype. It is, in a very important way, the opposite of the stereotype.
According to <a href="https://x.com/howertonjosh/status/2032488566933131385">survey data</a> from the Pew American Trends Panel, the least crazy people in the country are conservative Christians who go to church weekly. The craziest people in the country are liberals who do not go to church. That is not the story we have been told for the last hundred years. It is certainly not the story we were told during the New Atheist moment, when public intellectuals and their admirers assured us that religion was the great enemy of reason, sanity, and civilization.
But the numbers point in another direction. Asked whether a doctor or health care provider had ever told them they had a mental health condition, the highest rates came from liberals with no religious attendance. The lowest rates came from conservatives who attended weekly religious services. One can quibble around the edges. One can offer caveats, and there are caveats. But one cannot escape the central fact: the people most committed to regular religious practice appear, by this measure, to be the least crazy, and the people most detached from religion appear to be the most crazy.
That does not prove every theological claim. It does not mean every churchgoer is mentally well or every secular person is mentally unwell. It does not justify cruelty toward people who struggle. But it does demolish a civilizational assumption that has shaped elite culture for generations.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1931-iran-war-fallout-two-islamic-terror-attacks-in-one-day?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1054531" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/MK-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
What we were told, over and over again, is that religious people are crazy. They are illogical. They are irrational. They believe in “sky daddy” and other cartoon versions of religion invented by people who have no intention of grappling with what believers actually believe. The secularists do not want to deal with the substance of faith, because that would require argument. It is easier to sneer. Easier to reduce millennia of theology, metaphysics, and moral reasoning to a punchline. Easier to dismiss the churchgoing neighbor as simple-minded than to answer him.
And yet the data say the opposite. The religious people are the sanest people. The irreligious people are the craziest people.
That reversal matters for reasons beyond partisanship. It suggests that faith and reason do not stand in opposition after all. In fact, the Christian tradition has always insisted on precisely the opposite. The Gospel of Saint John begins not with sentimentality, not with anti-rational emotionalism, but with a profound metaphysical claim: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word, the Logos, is not merely speech. It is divine logic, divine reason, the intelligible order of reality itself.
That is why Christianity, properly understood, has never been a rebellion against reason. It has been a fulfillment of reason. Faith and reason go together. God is not the negation of logic. God is the source of logic. Orthodoxy is not a retreat from reality, it is an attempt to live in right relation to reality.
And perhaps that helps explain why the most orthodox believers are often the least crazy. A serious religious life imposes moral structure. It disciplines desire. It situates suffering within a larger frame of meaning. It teaches that man is not the measure of all things and that appetite is not destiny. It offers ritual, continuity, accountability, community, repentance, forgiveness, obligation, inheritance, transcendence. In a lonely, fragmented, hyper-individualistic culture, those are not small things. They are stabilizing things.
By contrast, a secular culture that severs itself from transcendence does not become neutral. It does not become merely rational. It often becomes disordered. If there is no higher truth, then the self becomes sovereign. If the self becomes sovereign, then every desire demands validation. If every desire demands validation, then limits feel like oppression. And if there are no limits, no sacred order, no given nature, no created purpose, then the person is left not liberated but untethered.
That is not sanity. That is confusion with better branding.
None of this means Christians should gloat. It is fine to dunk on the libs a little, but only if it is a loving dunk, one intended to bring them over rather than merely humiliate them. The deeper point here is not mockery. It is vindication. A great many people fell away from religion because they thought religion was for stupid people, for weak people, for crazy people. They assumed smart people had outgrown God. They assumed sanity belonged to the secular.
That just is not true.
Actually, the opposite appears to be true. The people most rooted in orthodox belief and weekly worship are often the least crazy people in the country. And the people who have spent decades mocking them from the commanding heights of culture are, by this measure at least, faring much worse.
The choir does need preaching sometimes. But this argument is not only for the choir. It is for the many people who have absorbed the modern prejudice against religion without ever seriously examining it. It is for those who have been told that faith is irrational, that church is for fools, that belief is a form of neurosis. The data do not merely complicate that prejudice. They shatter it.
Maybe the real madness is not believing in God. Maybe the real madness is building a culture on the assumption that man can remain sane after cutting himself off from truth, order, and the divine logic of the universe.

People praying and singing inside St. Paul Cathedral

Not The Crazy Ones: Why Churchgoing Is A Mark Of Sanity

Atheism

Catholic Church

Christianity

Leftists

Michael Knowles

Opinion

Religion

Secularism

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1913-are-aliens-real-the-truth-about-obama-s-interview-explained?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen just interviewed Barack Obama, and the former president decided to make a little news. 
Obama declared that aliens are real.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I asked <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BarackObama</a> if aliens are real. <a href="https://t.co/ZPw5zT9PfD">pic.twitter.com/ZPw5zT9PfD</a>
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) <a href="https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/2022808515082096843?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @briantylercohen/X.com
<blockquote>Cohen: &#8220;Are aliens real?&#8221;
Obama: “They&#8217;re real, but I haven&#8217;t seen them, and they&#8217;re not being kept in — what is it?&#8221;
Cohen: &#8220;Area 51.&#8221;
Obama: &#8220;&#8230; Area 51. There&#8217;s no underground facility. Unless there&#8217;s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.” 
Cohen: “What was the first question you wanted answered when you became president?” 
Obama: “Where are the aliens?” </blockquote>
That’s a funny answer. But Cohen just moves on. 
Brian Tyler Cohen has set the new gold standard for incompetence at interviewing. There&#8217;s no follow-up. 
A president of the United States declares that aliens are real, and Cohen decides to not follow up on it. Oh, how do you know that? How do you know aliens are real?
Obama has now come out <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/barack-obama-clarifies-seen-no-evidence-aliens-saying-real-rcna259232">to clarify</a> his statement, offering a whole lot of liberal nonsense about the distance between solar systems:
<blockquote>I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!</blockquote>
Liberals always say things like this — the solar system is so large, statistically there has to be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
But they never explain why that is. Because in order to ascertain the probability of something, you have to know how that thing came about in the first place. You have to know something, anything, about that thing. And at the level of pure nature, we don&#8217;t.
Now from a theological and anthropological level, I think we do know. But from the point of view of nature, we do not know how life came about. We don&#8217;t know, for instance, how one goes from inorganic to organic matter. There have been a zillion theories over the years, and none of them have been proven, but some of them have been disproven. 
So the argument that the universe is really, really big actually does not imply that there is intelligent life — or life of any kind anywhere else.
But the reason that the libs love aliens is because the existence of aliens diminishes the distinction of human beings. It makes us less special. That&#8217;s usually their explicit argument.
They say things like, What, you think you&#8217;re so special? A universe that&#8217;s eight gazillion bajillion miles wide and expanding, with countless worlds — you think you&#8217;re so special?
And my answer — and I believe the Christian answer — is yes, I think we’re pretty special.
The deeper reason the libs always promote aliens is because it diminishes the Incarnation. Because Christ is a man, because God becomes a man. He doesn&#8217;t become E.T., he doesn&#8217;t become a gazelle. He becomes a man, and he raises our very humanity to inestimable dignity.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1913-are-aliens-real-the-truth-about-obama-s-interview-explained?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+</a></h3>
And the libs (and demons) want to diminish that. Satan falls from heaven because he can&#8217;t bow down to a man. Basically that&#8217;s what&#8217;s at the heart of this. I&#8217;m not saying that all the libs who promote the alien stuff are actively working with demons. I&#8217;m not. I really am not. I don&#8217;t see demons under every rock. But it is curious that so much of liberalism comes down to a prideful attempt to exalt man above his station and ends by degrading man below his station.
It begins by this notion that we&#8217;ll have no kings or priests. Man will only be free when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. We&#8217;re just humanists now. We&#8217;re going to raise humanity up. We&#8217;re going to maximize individual autonomy.
And then what&#8217;s the end of it? The end of it is we degrade ourselves. We pretend that we&#8217;re just sacks of meat that exist only for pleasure. We promote things like abortion, slaughtering babies, and degrading humanity. We promote things like suicide, slaughtering ourselves, again degrading humanity.
We reduce ourselves below the station to which we&#8217;ve been raised. No surprise there. So when Obama says, look, I&#8217;m clarifying, I don&#8217;t see any evidence of aliens — I think he&#8217;s probably being honest here. I think his knee-jerk reaction of, well, of course aliens exist, the certainty in that just comes from his liberalism: we have to be — humans aren&#8217;t special. You think you&#8217;re so special?
But we are. We are actually.
It&#8217;s actually a harder truth. It is a more realistic view, but it&#8217;s more difficult, and it entails more responsibility to say yes, we are special. It&#8217;s kind of weird, right, that we, among all of the created things, have rational wills. Isn&#8217;t that kind of weird that we can conceive of abstract things? Unlike every animal and plant and all organic matter on Earth? We are finite and mortal, we die — but we have this immortal, eternal aspect to ourselves because we can reason.
Isn&#8217;t that kind of weird that nothing else that we&#8217;ve ever encountered or really even can conceive of has that combination of flesh and reason and will?
That makes us kind of special.
You are special, believe it or not.

Untitled design (18)

Obama Tells Liberal Podcaster Aliens Are Real

Aliens

Barack Obama

Bible

Conspiracy Theory

New Mexico

Podcast

The following is an edited transcript excerpt of &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1909-treason-americans-trash-their-own-country-at-the-olympics?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show.</a>&#8220;
* * *
During the Bad Bunny halftime show at the Super Bowl a slogan appeared on the big billboard at Levi’s Stadium, right next to a Bud Light ad. Very fitting. 
The message was posted in all caps on a white background in black text and reads:
“THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE”
Then a guy on X <a href="https://x.com/WesleyBout/status/2020692160153370972">tweets</a> it out and writes this message above the image: “imagine getting mad about this and still thinking you’re a good person.”
The post has taken off and gone totally viral. Over 4 million views at this point.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Imagine getting mad about this and still thinking you’re a good person <a href="https://t.co/jWdNzJmCCE">pic.twitter.com/jWdNzJmCCE</a>
— Wesley (@WesleyBout) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesleyBout/status/2020692160153370972?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @WesleyBout/X.com
Why would you get mad at the transvestite, anti-American, vulgar, degenerate rap singer babbling in a foreign tongue that the vast majority of Americans don’t understand, featuring two men grinding on each other in front of a sports game that is supposed to be viewed by children? 
Why would you get mad about that? How could you get mad about that when he put up a sign that said, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”?
Imagine getting mad about this meme. This is a meme that the Right uses to make fun of the Left, and the Left is just now doing it sincerely and unironically. And the meme is this: While they’re killing people, slaughtering babies, mutilating little children, flooding the country with rapists and poison peddlers and murderers, the Left comes out and says, Yeah, but we stand for love. We define everything we do as love and everything you do as hate. So we’re actually the good guys. Did you know that?
Did you know that when the libs redefined marriage for basically the first time anywhere in human history, they did so in such a way that excludes mothers from their children’s families — or alternately excludes fathers from families — and leads to all sorts of horrible things, up to and including creating children for the purpose of denying them their natural mother and father? Really heinous stuff. But what did they say? They said, Love is love. Love wins. How could you oppose love? We have defined the disordered things that we’re doing, that are contrary to reality and to the common good and human flourishing, we’ve defined them as love. And if you oppose us, you hate love.
Checkmate, conservatives.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1909-treason-americans-trash-their-own-country-at-the-olympics?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on DailyWire+.</a></h3>
This is like when Anthony Kennedy decided to abdicate his responsibility to interpret the law as a Supreme Court justice. Instead, he decided to write cheap romantic poetry that is fitting for an eighth-grade English class. He decided that his interpretation of the Constitution was going to find a right to privacy, just as he earlier, in an abortion case, had found a right to define the sweet mystery of life somewhere in the Constitution.
I don’t know where it is.
And they say, Look, we support mystery, we support love, we support life.
That’s the key here. Because when your lib friends send that meme around — hate is worse than love, love beats hate — how could you get mad at that? 
At that point, you should tell them that you are pro-life. And they are angry at people who are pro-life. How? Imagine being against life and thinking you’re the good guy.
And what would they say? They’d say, No, no, no, but you’re not really pro-life. You’re anti-choice. You want to control women’s bodies.
They would use all of their own silly euphemisms.
That’s when you say to them: Okay, before we get into the abortion issue, I just want to point out you have granted me the premise. You have accepted the premise that sometimes people use words in ways that can be misleading or tell a partial truth, or at the very least can be euphemistic. You’ve granted that point, right? Okay, great. So you don’t like my phrase “pro-life”? I think pro-life is an honest phrase that accurately depicts what we’re talking about. But you dispute that. Okay, fine.
Then let’s dig into the real substance of it. I support the law coming in and restricting women from going to a medical professional to kill her baby. That’s what we’re talking about. You want to get past the euphemisms and the slogans? That’s what we’re talking about. And what you support is women being able to kill their babies in defense of their own disordered autonomy. Right? That’s what we’re talking about.
With marriage, you support excluding mothers or alternately fathers from marriage and denying babies their natural mothers or fathers. Okay. That’s what you support, along with other acts that we don’t even need to get into when it comes to gay marriage. I support that babies have a demonstrated right to their mothers and their fathers.
Nevertheless, I think you will find that the libs love to promote all their slogans: “love beats hate,” “love is love,” “love wins,” or whatever. I think you will find conservatives, on the other hand, are more than happy to put the slogans aside and talk about the real issue.
The libs will focus on more and more hyperbolic and preposterous slogans. They will do whatever they can to avoid looking at the real issue. They will only speak in euphemisms, and that very fact tells you everything you need to know.
Yes, all politicians use slogans, but the way they use them tells you everything you need to know about the issues.
Conservatives use slogans and euphemisms to try to convey the truth. The Left uses slogans and euphemisms to deny the truth.

Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show

When Super Bowl Slogans Replace Truth In American Politics

advertising

Bad Bunny

Conservatives

Democrats

Hate Speech

Super Bowl

Breaking into the arts is difficult under any circumstances. Doing so as an openly conservative theater producer? Well, that’s nearly impossible. Robert Cooperman knows this better than anyone because he appears to be the only one who actually did.
Do a quick search of “conservative theater companies” and you’ll find just one response: <a href="http://stagert.org">Stage Right Theatrics</a> in Columbus, Ohio. Cooperman founded the company in 2016 with the mission of presenting plays that reflect a conservative point of view. For the past decade, that decision has come with predictable consequences.
Stage Right has been boycotted, mocked, marginalized, and largely ignored by the local theater establishment and media. Cooperman himself has been branded a “clown,” a “fascist,” a “racist,” a “homophobe,” and every other label that conservatives are usually called.
“Right from the start, I was considered unserious or dangerous by the theater community, said Cooperman. “One member said I was dismissive of theater being a safe space for marginalized people.”
But despite the valiant effort to trample it into the dust, Stage Right has survived, and even thrived, in a world where liberals believe they “own” the arts and entertainment.
<div id="attachment_1040369" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1040369" class="size-large wp-image-1040369" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-864x576.jpg" alt="Stage Right Theatrics-The Uncanny.jpg: These are the lead characters, Sophia and Richard, in our 2022 production of Andrew Klavan's superb play, &quot;The Uncanny.&quot;" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/theater.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Stage Right Theatrics. &#8220;The Uncanny&#8221; by Andrew Klavan.</div>
In January 2017, the company staged its first Conservative Theatre Festival, a modest one-night event featuring six short plays by conservative writers from across the country. The name was intentional and unapologetic. Stage Right was announcing itself to an industry that prides itself on “diversity” while blatantly discriminating against conservatives at every turn.
To the surprise of no one, progressives responded with derision and outrage, while conservatives showed genuine curiosity. Stage Right offered something rarely seen before. Instead of presenting conservatives as caricatures, they were painted as multi-faceted, inherently interesting individuals. The work was pro-tradition, pro-culture, and anti-woke.
What followed over the next decade was more of the same. The Left’s treatment of Stage Right mirrors its approach to every conservative institution. They kept up with the intimidation, ridicule, shunning, and a smug moral superiority. Despite their best efforts, Stage Right kept right on existing and promoting values that used to be mainstream.
<div id="attachment_1040377" style="width: 877px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1040377" class="size-large wp-image-1040377" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop-867x576.jpg" alt="Donut Shop Dates.jpg: From my 2019 annual festival. That's me and my wife, Sandra, in the lead roles. The play, &quot;Donut Shop Dates,&quot; is by Jeff Strausser." width="867" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop-867x576.jpg 867w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop-300x199.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop-768x510.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/stage-right-shop.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" />2019 annual theater festival. Robert and Sandra Cooperman in &#8220;Donut Shop Dates&#8221; by Jeff Strausser.</div>
After the 2024 election, Cooperman briefly held out hope that the cultural temperature might shift. It wasn’t just that Trump was elected president, but more that voters indicated their exhaustion with endless woke virtue signaling and the dismantling of Western traditions. Instead, the leftists came out kicking and screaming.
“I really thought, naively it turns out, that the Left would see very clearly the moral and philosophical direction the country embraced in the 2024 election, said Cooperman. “I thought they would realize that they have been losing audiences — and now voters — and that the election results might humble them a little bit to reach out to half the population they have been disparaging for years. I was wrong. They doubled down.”
One incident clearly illustrates the hostility.
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Cooperman dedicated three performances of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire Under the Elms” to Kirk’s commitment to free speech. He framed the dedication as a celebration of the free exchange of ideas and invited post-show discussion.
<div id="attachment_1040383" style="width: 809px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1040383" class="size-large wp-image-1040383" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill-799x576.jpg" alt="Desire.jpg: From my 2025 production of Eugene O'Neill's &quot;Desire Under the Elms.&quot;" width="799" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill-799x576.jpg 799w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill-300x216.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill-768x554.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill-1536x1108.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/eugene-ONeill.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" />Stage Right Theatrics. Eugene O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s &#8220;Desire Under the Elms.&#8221;</div>
The response was ugly. Audience members shouted that the dedication was “inappropriate.” Someone scrawled “Bigot” on a box of playbills. A lead actor threatened to quit. Two patrons demanded refunds. Word spread quickly through the local theater community, further isolating Stage Right.
This cultural enforcement extends far beyond Columbus. When President Trump restructured the Kennedy Center’s board with the stated aim of broadening ideological inclusion and halting overtly woke productions from being staged, several prominent artists canceled their performances, claiming the institution had become “political.”
The irony was glaring. For decades, the Left has insisted that art is apolitical while simultaneously saying anything conservative is propaganda. Institutions like <a href="http://stagert.org">Stage Right</a> and the Trump-era Kennedy Center expose that lie.
While the hostility from the Left was expected, Cooperman now faces a new challenge as conservatives fracture over key political issues.
Cooperman says his pro-Israel stance has led some conservative and libertarian figures to distance themselves from the organization. A prominent podcaster declined an interview for that reason. A local classical academy backed away from a potential partnership. Cooperman now finds himself defending his principles on two fronts, both from friends and foes.
In 2026, Stage Right celebrated its tenth annual Conservative Theatre Festival. He hopes to encourage conservatives not only to criticize the state of the arts, but to engage in them.
There are conservative artists across the country who remain silent, fearing professional or personal fallout. Cooperman understands the fear, but insists that meaningful change requires courage. There will be consequences, but he insists that standing for something true and good is worth the cost.
The theater company&#8217;s motto says it plainly: “Disagreement Does Not Equal Hate.” 
Cooperman also hopes that one day there will be dozens of companies like his across the country.
&#8220;I&#8217;d love to see theatre companies that present counter programming to what is currently being offered by &#8220;mainstream&#8221; theatre,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not talking about the &#8220;tied and true&#8221; classics that conservatives will generally attend, but experimental pieces and musicals that present a conservative worldview with hope and redemption built into their structure.&#8221;
After ten years, he has learned that no amount of wokeness, past or present, is going to bring him down.

theater

How One Conservative Built A Theater Company The Left Tried To Silence

Acting

Ohio

Theater

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1905-lib-mom-threatens-to-murder-her-kids-because-of-ice?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Five years ago, the big issue in America that showed the impaired judgment of Democrats was transgenderism. It&#8217;s not that guys playing on girls tennis teams or guys going into the girls bathroom were the biggest issues, it&#8217;s that those were the issues that most clearly showed the impairment of judgment among Democrats. You don&#8217;t know what a woman is? Then you don&#8217;t know anything. That&#8217;s why it was such a big issue.
Now, in 2026, the question is, what is an American? What is a nation?
The big issue has now shifted from transgenderism to immigration. And that&#8217;s what largely impelled Trump to a popular vote victory. It’s also what&#8217;s causing the riots in the streets, because most Americans voted for mass deportations. But the liberals don&#8217;t want to give up their mass migration strategy because they are counting on mass migration to fundamentally alter the demographics and the political order of America so that they can have a permanent electoral majority.
Which leads us to the protests over ICE.
Why are unhinged white liberal men and women going out and provoking cops to shoot them on behalf of protecting mass migration?
Why are mothers and CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/02/us/teenage-brothers-ice-watchers-minneapolis?Date=20260202&amp;Profile=CNN&amp;utm_content=1770064615&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">encouraging</a> young teenage boys to skip school, to obstruct law enforcement and put themselves in dangerous situations?
What is the political unrest all about?
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, just told us on C-SPAN.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): &#8220;I have deep concerns about the fairness of our elections in &#8217;26 and &#8217;28…If it doesn’t scare the heck out of you, it should.&#8221;
<a href="https://t.co/kbLXQwnSD9">pic.twitter.com/kbLXQwnSD9</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2018754503424565342?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @Breaking911/X.com
Senator Warner says,
<blockquote>I remember back, you know, a year ago at this time when people would often ask me when they were seeing the actions of the Trump administration, you know, do you think we&#8217;ll have free and fair elections in 26 or in 28? And my response at that point was, you know, I think you&#8217;re overreacting. I have deep concerns about the fairness of our elections in 26 and 28. Right now. I have concerns about the elections in primaries in our country. I have a lot of concerns about the elections that may take place in Virginia in terms of a redistricting referendum.</blockquote>
We were told for about five years that anyone who ever questions the legitimacy of elections is a terrible, insurrectionist traitor who needs to be thrown in solitary confinement.
And now Mark Warner, based on nothing, is already questioning the legitimacy of the 2026 and 2028 elections, including primaries.
It&#8217;s very strange, especially because when conservatives raised questions about the election in 2020, it was after the libs had changed all the election rules, in some cases illegally and unconstitutionally.
So there was this huge change. I think it was fair to question the elections in that specific, once in a lifetime circumstance where you just change all the election rules, you get rid of a lot of the protections that protect against fraud.
But before 2020, it was basically only the Democrats who questioned elections, and they questioned Bush v. Gore, taking that one all the way to the Supreme Court.
They didn&#8217;t really question in 2004 because Bush won it so handily. Then they won in 2008 and in 2012. They changed election rules in 2020. And now, just after the 2024 election, they&#8217;re already saying 2026 and 2028 are going to be rigged.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1905-lib-mom-threatens-to-murder-her-kids-because-of-ice?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
So, it means they&#8217;re probably not feeling as good about the upcoming elections as they previously did. Also, they&#8217;re trying to set the stage for political violence, for political unrest. That&#8217;s why these riots are happening now.
Notice, the riots weren&#8217;t happening in the first part of the year with the Trump administration. You had mass deportations almost immediately and they weren&#8217;t really kicking up then. Well, it&#8217;s kicking up now that we&#8217;re looking ahead to the midterms, and they probably started it a little too early. Winter is not the best time to riot, especially when the libs who are too sensitive don&#8217;t like the cold that much.
But that&#8217;s what this is about. The reason the unrest is kicking up almost immediately after 2026 begins is because this is all about the elections they want to win. They have two objectives here: First, they want to create great instability that will allow them to exert more control over elections, which always opens up the question of fraud. Second, they want to make a threat. And the threat is: we&#8217;re going to keep violently rioting if we don&#8217;t get our way.
That&#8217;s what they&#8217;re after. It&#8217;s all about elections.
We will see if their strategy works. As an issue, however, the immigration matter works well for the GOP. Republicans are completely on the right side of immigration by basically any public opinion poll.
In terms of the political violence, though, the Left just might be able to ram their way through.
That remains to be seen.

Senator Warner Speaks To Reporters On Intelligence Oversight

Why Are Democrats Already Questioning The 2026 And 2028 Elections?

2026 Midterms

2028 presidential election

Elections

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Mark Warner

Transgender

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Zohran Mamdani just made a really sad and totally predictable announcement.
When the recent winter cold front made it to New York, it was not nearly as bad as the ice storm Nashville residents experienced. There was very little ice in New York, mostly just snow. Nevertheless, 16 homeless New Yorkers died during that brief little cold snap.
Here is the new mayor of New York:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mayor Mamdani confirms sixteen deaths during dangerously cold weather in NYC <a href="https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz">https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zHAPfvu95u">pic.twitter.com/zHAPfvu95u</a>
— New York Post (@nypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/nypost/status/2018388455508656233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @nypost/X.com
Mayor Mamdani says,
<blockquote>A severe cold front continues to bear down on our city. Today is our 11th consecutive day of below freezing weather, and we could very well be in the middle of the longest period of consecutive sub-32-degree weather in our city&#8217;s entire history. Without temperatures rising above freezing, snow has hardened into blocks of ice. But the greatest danger posed by the sustained cold is to vulnerable New Yorkers who remain exposed to the elements. As of this morning, 16 of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold. In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths. We await final results from the medical examiner&#8217;s office and will inform New Yorkers as we learn more. Each of these lives lost is a tragedy. My heart was with the family of those mourning their loved ones.</blockquote>
Mamdani blames the deaths mostly on nature, though he admits a few of them were drug deaths. 
Unlike other areas of the country where recent ice storms knocked out power for weeks, New York City is built for cold weather. Cold weather hits New York every single year. New Yorkers knows how to deal with cold weather, especially when they have competent management and government.
The people who died in New York did not die because their power went out. New York didn&#8217;t lose power. They died because they were left to die on the streets. Why were they left to die on the streets? Is this just some immutable characteristic of New York? What can we do? Throw our arms up in the air? A long-standing problem?
No, it&#8217;s not.
They were left to die on the streets specifically because Zohran Mamdani, who has been in office for just one month now, left them to die on the streets. In fact campaigned to leave them to die on the streets.
Don&#8217;t take my word for it. Here is CBS News.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mamdani says he&#039;ll end homeless encampment sweeps in NYC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CWjUfoi6YCg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Credit: @CBSNewYork/YouTube.com
The reporter states,
<blockquote>Local New York Mayor Alexander Mamdani says that he will end the Adams administration&#8217;s practice of removing homeless encampments from city sidewalks. But advocates argue it will be a step backwards for the city&#8217;s quality of life. Ali Bauman questioned the mayor-elect about this tonight. For the past three years, the NYPD has been systematically removing homeless encampments from New York City sidewalks, a practice mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows to end once he takes office — vows to end it.</blockquote>
This is Mamdani campaigning and saying we are intentionally going to leave the homeless — who are almost entirely drug addicts and mentally ill — on the streets. And this is supposedly going to be compassionate. That&#8217;s a change of policy from the previous administration, which just left office.
A little history of New York City during the 1970s and 80s may be helpful. Back then, there were a lot of bums, a lot of criminals, and a lot of homeless people on the streets. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani came in in the 1990s and got rid of all that. He said, No, no, no — if you&#8217;re homeless, you need to go to shelters or we&#8217;re going to arrest you, but we&#8217;re not going to leave you on the streets.
After he was mayor of New York, Giuliani reiterated the same idea about the Occupy Wall Street protests. When people set up encampments all over the city, he said, No, no, no, you can&#8217;t do this. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act which harms society and the individual.
In other words, letting the homeless stay on the street is contrary to the common good.
It&#8217;s not just that letting the homeless stay on the street is good for the homeless but bad for the rest of the New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want to see them — that&#8217;s how Mamdani is presenting it. The real argument, however, is no, it&#8217;s actually bad for everyone. Because it&#8217;s bad for the law-abiding New Yorkers who don&#8217;t want criminals and drug addicts and crazy people running around the streets all the time.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1904-zohran-mamdani-freezes-16-new-yorkers-to-death?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
It’s also bad for the homeless because they&#8217;re susceptible to crime — susceptible to being assaulted or raped or killed. And they&#8217;re also vulnerable to the elements. It&#8217;s very, very dangerous to leave them on the streets year round, especially in the winter. And now we see the results.  This is the “warmth of collectivism.”
This is the compassion that Mamdani has promised. Leaving 16 New Yorkers dead during a totally predictable, minor cold front. And he even gives away the game in his speech by trying to mitigate his culpability by saying, “In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
They basically froze like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.”
He then seems to avoid taking responsibility by saying, “&#8230;and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”
Like that&#8217;s better. Like it’s good that they chose to die, as if they were consenting adults. First of all, you can&#8217;t consent when you&#8217;re crazy, or when you&#8217;re addicted to all kinds of vices, or when you&#8217;re underage, or when there are all sorts of things that compromise our consent.
So Mayor Mamdani&#8217;s whole policy is based on a misconception of freedom — what freedom really is. Like all liberals, he thinks freedom is just neutrality in choosing. Well, some people choose not to do heroin, but some people choose to do heroin, and who are we to say which is the better choice?
It&#8217;s a misconception of freedom. It&#8217;s a misconception of the common good. It&#8217;s a misconception of what&#8217;s good for everybody. The common good is not just the random collection of all the individual goods of people, some of which are contrary to each other. In this kind of utilitarian calculation that tries to lead to the greatest utility for the greatest number, the common good is what we all share — what is good for all of us, what is not diminished by any individual good.
It’s also a misunderstanding of compassion. It is not compassionate to just ignore people. It&#8217;s funny because the Left accuses the Right of this: you just ignore people. You retreat to your nice neighborhoods and your penthouses and your money, and you ignore your common man. You don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re your brother&#8217;s keeper.
Sometimes the Right is guilty of that, especially the more Libertarian Right. The Left is just as guilty of that. Oh, just leave people to their degradation. Leave people to their vices. Leave people to their destructive behaviors — be it sexual ideologies, be it just license more broadly, be it with regard to living on the street — just leave them there.
It&#8217;s fine. You know, who are you to intervene? Who am I?
Well, I&#8217;m a reasonable person, and I&#8217;m a member of society, and I&#8217;m a citizen. And the consequences of all three of those misconceptions from Zohran Mamdani are that 16 people die on the street, whether from drugs or from exposure. That&#8217;s the “warmth of collectivism.”
What would have been more compassionate for the homeless: Zohran Mamdani, who says all sorts of sweet things about the homeless and leaves them to die on the street, or Rudy Giuliani, who talks a little tougher, who seems a little bit meaner, but who protects those people?
Where&#8217;s the real compassion?
That&#8217;s it. We&#8217;re one month into Mamdani — one month in — and you&#8217;ve got homeless ice cubes lining the streets of New York, some of which also have heroin and fentanyl in their blood.
We&#8217;re in for a real treat with Mamdani.

NYC Mamdani Holds News Conference On Healthcare At New York City Health Clinic

The Deadly Consequences Of Zohran Mamdani’s Homelessness Policy

Death

Democratic Socialism

Homeless

Homelessness

New York City

Snow

Winter Storm Fern

Zohran Mamdani

Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration as the Old Dominion’s 75th governor on January 17 and the subsequent unveiling of her legislative agenda shared by her Democrat colleagues in the legislature have once again proven a very important point: You cannot take Democrats at their word when they claim to be moderate. Once they win, they will drop the mask.
During last year’s campaign for governor, Virginians were told again and again that Spanberger was a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/abigail-spanberger-thinks-that-democrats-need-to-listen-more?utm_source=chatgpt.com">moderate</a>, a <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/the-new-democrat-divide-socialist-mamdani-v-security-moms-kn38qjgfk?utm_source=chatgpt.com">pragmatist</a>, a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/democrats-spanberger-sherrill-virginia-new-jersey-trump-5869ac164d05f00f4ca07d7919e3960b">bipartisan problem-solver</a> who would govern from the center and resist the ideological excesses of today’s Democrat Party.
The New Yorker ran <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/abigail-spanberger-thinks-that-democrats-need-to-listen-more?utm_source=chatgpt.com">an article</a> just two days before election day titled: 
<blockquote>Abigail Spanberger Thinks That Democrats Need to Listen More: The front-runner for Virginia governor has long made the case for moderation.</blockquote>
In an interview with The Times of London, a liberal pundit <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/the-new-democrat-divide-socialist-mamdani-v-security-moms-kn38qjgfk?utm_source=chatgpt.com">said this</a> about Spanberger:
<blockquote>“The last word you would use [about] Spanberger is populist,” says Colin Mortimer, founder and director of the Centre for New Liberalism. “She is a pragmatic, grounded, moderate Democrat who is hyper-focused on delivering results for Virginia.</blockquote>
Voters were assured that campaign slogans about “working across the aisle” and choosing “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/reel/791441170380360">pragmatism over partisanship</a>” meant something real, as Spanberger herself emphasized on the campaign trail and on election night.
Now that the election is over and governing has begun, Virginians can see the truth clearly: Spanberger’s promises of moderation should be thrown into the trash, where they belong.
The <a href="https://x.com/greg_price11/status/2013350008733487510">legislative agenda</a> now being advanced by <a href="https://vahousedems.org/2025/11/17/virginia-house-democratic-caucus-announce-first-bills-and-legislation-for-2026-session/">Democrats in the General Assembly</a> is not by any means a moderate agenda. It is not a centrist agenda. It is not a pragmatic agenda. It is a radical leftist agenda, clearly aligned with priorities laid out by Democrat leadership in Richmond.
<div id="attachment_1037217" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1037217" class="size-large wp-image-1037217" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2256776000-864x576.jpg" alt="RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - JANUARY 17: Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger speaks after being sworn into office at the Virginia State Capitol January 17, 2026 in Richmond, Virginia. Spanberger is the first woman elected to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s highest office. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2256776000-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2256776000-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2256776000-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/GettyImages-2256776000.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Win McNamee/Getty Images</div>
Even though outgoing governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, left the new governor with a <a href="https://wydaily.com/latest/2025/07/31/virginia-closes-budget-year-with-a-nearly-2-7b-surplus/">$2.7 billion budget surplus</a>, Virginia’s Democrats want new and higher taxes on income, investments, landscaping equipment, food deliveries, and hotel stays.
Spanberger’s <a href="https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2026/january-releases/name-1111414-en.html">agenda</a> also includes new restrictions on free speech near abortion clinics, taxpayer-funded education for illegal aliens, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, lowering the criminal penalties for robbery, and potentially eliminating Virginia’s right-to-work protections.
Spanberger also wants to change the way elections are administered in Virginia. She wants to <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/session-details/20261/committee-information/S08/dockets/20933">extend</a> the time absentee ballots can be received and counted after Election Day, extend the deadline for ballot curing, ban the hand counting of machine-readable paper ballots, allow people to cast votes electronically, and <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB965">add Virginia</a> to the National Popular Vote Compact, which destroys the Founders’ vision for the Electoral College.
This is not a bait-and-switch in theory; it is bait-and-switch in practice.
That should not surprise anyone who has been paying attention to how modern Democrats govern. It should matter to voters, however, who were explicitly told that this governor would be different.
The agenda now being pushed through the General Assembly reflects the same ideological commitments we have seen from Democrats nationwide: more government, more mandates, more power centralized in Richmond, and less deference to parents, taxpayers, and local communities. It reflects a belief that government knows best, and that, once the election is over, dissenting voices should be ignored.
This is the fundamental problem with the “moderate Democrat” brand. It exists entirely as a campaign tactic. Once power is secured, the mask comes off, the talking points fade, and the base demands results. And when the leftist base of today’s Democrat Party demands results, it demands policies that are anything but moderate – a reality <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5694763-progressive-populism-democratic-party/">even acknowledged by</a> some of the Democrat Party’s best strategic thinkers.
Virginia voters were told they were electing a governor who would check the excesses of her party. Instead, they are watching a governor who appears ready to sign off on those excesses.
To be clear, this is not about one bill or one issue. It is about an overall governing philosophy. Taken as a whole, the legislative package being rapidly advanced by Democrats in Richmond represents a sharp turn to the radical Left – on spending, on regulation, on social policy, and on the role of government in everyday life.
This is not what Virginians were promised.
Elections have consequences, and governors are entitled to advance their priorities. But voters are also entitled to honesty. If a candidate intends to govern as a reliable partner of radical leftist lawmakers, voters deserve to know that before Election Day, not the morning after the inaugural ball.
We should all take note and remember that when it comes to Democrat governance, moderation is just a campaign costume, discarded the moment the votes are counted.
* * *
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action and host of <a href="https://jennybethshow.com/">The Jenny Beth Show</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Abigail Spanberger Is Sworn In As First Female Virginia Governor

In Virginia, The Mask Comes Off The ‘Moderate’ Democrat

In Virginia, The Mask Comes Off The 'Moderate' Democrat

abigail spanberger

Glenn Youngkin

governor

Taxes

Virginia

Voters

As tensions in Minnesota continue to flare up over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions and allegations of rampant fraud, far-Left actors and activists have decided that it would be expedient to inflame the issues further. So, it shouldn&#8217;t come as a shock that the teachers unions and their activist allies have chosen to join in and provoke further unrest and strife.
In fact, a recent <a href="https://x.com/BGOnTheScene/status/2011524444905435353">video</a> posted on X claims to show K-12 students and teachers in Saint Paul, Minnesota walking out of school in protest over ICE. Days later the Saint Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) put out a <a href="https://x.com/JennaReports/status/2011493535812338109?s=20">statement</a> calling for its members to engage in a “Day of Action” and stating that there would be “no work, no school, and no shopping.” Unsurprisingly, the communiqué comes with a list of demands such as the removal of ICE from the state and the defunding of the federal agency.
The organization of “educators” then publicly proclaimed that it was “on the side” of the students, while simultaneously shutting down schools in a district where roughly 70% of all elementary students are not <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/minnesota/districts/saint-paul-public-schools-104201">proficient</a> in math and reading. However, SPFE and its members are sending a clear message that their top priority is not the education of the children and families they serve, but far-Left social justice activism.
Unfortunately, this is a feature, not a bug, of the dominant ideology permeating the Gopher State’s education system writ large. Social justice activism is now the primary ethos of a system corrupted by Left-wing political actors who have been turning classrooms into street activist training programs in service to a Revolutionary Industrial Complex.
In the Colleges of Education, for instance, teacher candidates are conditioned into far-Left political ideas that are often sold to budding educators as “best practices.” Future K-12 instructors are then expected to incorporate these ideas into their own methodologies.
For example, Minnesota State University Mankato’s College of Education <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/minnesota-state-university-mankato-corrupted/">states</a> in its “Conceptual Framework” that the teacher training program’s vision is to “inspire lifelong learning and professional engagement through racial consciousness, social justice, and inclusion.” The program aims to prepare “anti-racist practitioners” by using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a foundational framework focusing on privilege, oppression, systemic racism, and social justice activism. In fact, future elementary school teachers are required to take a course titled “ED 101 – Introduction to Critical Race Theory in Education.”
But it is not just the training of teachers that is problematic. Some university programs are offering free lesson plans and resources to K-12 teachers that promote Left-wing biases and agendas.
Such is the case with the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender &amp; Sexuality Studies (RIDGS) program, which has <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/liberated-university-of-minnesota-twin-cities/">created</a> and made publicly available ethnic studies lesson plans for K-12 schools that are riddled with far-Left ideologies promoting youth activism. For instance, a sixth-grade lesson titled “Protest Art &amp; the Movement for Black Life” focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and how to “create their own protest art for a cause of their choice.” The multi-day plan reads like a revolutionary training program meant to prepare eleven-year-olds for some yet to be determined protest.
However, if there is any doubt about these ideologies trickling out of the universities and into K-12, look no further than Saint Paul Public Schools’ (SPPS) <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/liberated-saint-paul-public-schools/">critical ethnic studies</a> curriculum. A 2023 RIDGS report on the deeply divisive course highlights the “seven principles” students are taught throughout the year, including “critical consciousness” and “resistance.” According to statements included in the document, students learned about “protests” and “civil disobedience” and were inspired by the Third World Liberation Front.
Like SPPS, Minneapolis Public Schools’ (MPS) <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/minneapolis-public-schools-ethnic-studies-course-teaches-students-that-capitalism-and-western-culture-is-exploitative-and-leads-to-slavery-colonialism-genocide-and-white-supremacy/">ethnic studies</a> courses are also saturated with revolutionary dogmas. In one of the classes, students learn to “challenge the ‘white savior’ narrative” and that slavery, genocide, and white supremacy all stem from capitalism and Western culture. Naturally, the course in question also includes student activism.
So, it should come as little surprise that K-12 students from both SPPS and MPS appear to be <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2026_Twin-Cities-Student-ICE-protest-chat.pdf">planning</a> their own mass &#8220;strike” and “walkout” over ICE. Of course, it is highly probable that they are getting “guidance” from parents, teachers, and local activists.
While Minnesota’s streets heat up during the dead of winter, parents and the public need to be aware that far-Left actors inside and outside the education system have been preparing teachers and students for years to be street activists and protestors.
Local and national leaders, first and foremost, need to ensure that the youth and their teachers can peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights safely. But there also needs to be investigations into the Revolutionary Industrial Complex that has taken over Minnesota’s entire education system. Families, students, and communities deserve better from their education system.
 * * * 
Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master&#8217;s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of volleyball coaching experience from Women’s Division I down to junior high.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

St. Paul, Minnesota student anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) demonstrations, January 2026

Teachers Unions Shut Down Minnesota Schools For Activism

Children

Critical Race Theory

Education

Ethnic Studies

K-12

Minneapolis

Minnesota

Progressivism

Public Schools

Teachers Unions

Woke Culture

Liberals have taken many radical, nonsensical positions in recent years. Few are as baffling as their outrage over President Trump’s removal of Nicolás Maduro, the illegitimate, narco-terrorist dictator of Venezuela — a move the long-suffering citizens of Venezuela are openly cheering.
But not so among progressives, such as the clueless governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, <a href="https://x.com/GovPritzker/status/2007864220017115141?s=20">who claims</a> Trump&#8217;s action was designed, &#8220;To distract from Epstein, the explosion of health and homeowners insurance costs, and the tariffs that are decimating small businesses &#8230;&#8221;
Or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who downplays Maduro’s tyrannical brutality <a href="https://x.com/AOC/status/2007472955882692798">by claiming,</a>&#8221; It’s about oil and regime change. And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from Epstein + skyrocketing healthcare costs.&#8221;
So, who exactly are Pritzker, AOC, and others of their ilk defending? Why are they saying we should have left him in power?
In 2023, Joe Biden&#8217;s State Department produced a 76-page <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/528267_VENEZUELA-2023-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf">assessment</a> of specific human rights abuses committed by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his thugs (many of whom were apparently Cuban mercenaries) against their hapless victims. The assessment documents a staggering range of abuses, including:
<blockquote>&#8230;unlawful or arbitrary killings… enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention by security forces… political prisoners… punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative… use of children by illegal armed groups; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists… harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations; extensive gender-based violence… trafficking in persons… and the worst forms of child labor.</blockquote>
The report makes for a tough read, given its summation of the viciousness, cruelty, and ruthlessness of Maduro and his henchmen. 
Want more? What about the details in the federal <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl">criminal indictment</a> of Maduro issued by a grand jury in New York?
The superseding indictment charges Maduro and a host of other confederates with running a drug cartel “to import tons of cocaine into the United States.” Makes sense from Maduro’s point of view: his disastrous policies turned Venezuela into an economic basket case, making a once-prosperous country a bankrupt third-world hellhole. Thus, Maduro had to get money from somewhere to line his pockets and finance his depredations.
According to the indictment, Maduro essentially turned the Venezuelan government into a massive drug and illegal weapons smuggling operation, doing everything from using Venezuelan law enforcement to protect his distribution system to issuing “diplomatic passports to drug traffickers” and providing “diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds.”
All of the money was used to enrich himself, his family, and the “political and military elite” who kept him in power. That also included partnering “with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world,” extremely dangerous criminal cartels and terrorist groups that have kidnapped and murdered Americans, like FARC, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, or Cartel del Noreste, and Tren de Aragua.
By the way, the Caribbean drug smugglers that our military has been taking out? Part of the indictment talks about the 200 to 250 tons of cocaine “trafficked” to the U.S. annually by Maduro and his cartel cronies through “maritime shipments…north from Venezuela’s coastline using go-fast vessels, fishing boats, and container ships.” Additionally, “air shipments were often dispatched from clandestine airstrips, typically made of dirt or grass, and also from commercial airports under the control” of Maduro and his corrupt officials.
I don’t think the majority of Americans have a lot of sympathy for the criminals smuggling drugs on these “go-fast vessels, fishing boats, and container ships.”
From the drugs poisoning our citizens, especially our youth, to the citizens of Venezuela who have been censored, arrested, tortured, and killed, Maduro has been a scourge who has caused untold harm and suffering.
The political parties and both sides of the political aisle may disagree on many domestic issues. But when it comes to the removal of Nicolás Maduro Moros, progressives, liberals, and Democrats, along with conservatives and Republicans, should be praising the president for finally taking action to rid our hemisphere of this menace.
* * *
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-VENEZUELA-POLITICS-TRUMP

Why Are Democrats Defending A Narco-Terrorist Dictator?

Cartels

drug boat

Drug Cartels

Nicolas Maduro

Smuggling

Venezuela

Actress Sydney Sweeney just addressed the viral backlash against her following the American Eagle jeans campaign, not explicitly admitting to being woke but instead saying she is “against hate.”
Mostly, the 28-year-old star just expressed confusion about why everyone was up in arms over the ad campaign.
“I was honestly surprised by the reaction,” Sweeney <a href="https://people.com/sydney-sweeney-shares-emotional-response-to-american-eagle-jeans-campaign-exclusive-11863206">told</a> People in an interview published over the weekend. “I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand. I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true.”
“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness,” she continued. “In the past my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it. So I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us.”
The comments come after many assumed Sweeney was a closet conservative, as evidenced by her being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftists-melt-down-after-report-that-sydney-sweeney-is-registered-republican" target="_blank" rel="noopener">registered as a Republican</a> and her unwillingness to comment on the American Eagle controversy when it happened, including when <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sydney-sweeney-praised-for-keeping-her-cool-as-gq-reporter-tries-to-shame-her" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confronted</a> by an aggressive GQ journalist last month in a viral exchange. 
Controversy erupted over the summer over an ad campaign featuring Sweeney in various seductive poses while saying she had “good jeans.” The double entendre with the word “genes” made leftists deem the ad racist, noting that Sweeney is white with blond hair and blue eyes.
In one of the ads, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
American Eagle responded to the backlash by issuing a simple statement: “&#8217;Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
The denim collection did exceptionally well, with most of the featured pieces selling out despite calls from leftists for a boycott.

Sydney Sweeney

‘I’m Against Hate’: Sydney Sweeney Speaks On Viral Jeans Ad Controversy

Sydney Sweeney Speaks On Viral Jeans Ad Controversy, Says She's 'Against Hate' 

Hollywood

There was a time not so long ago when Americans debated ideas around dinner tables, not timelines. We wrestled with differences in living rooms, classrooms, and church halls. But now? We live in the age of &#8220;I don’t believe you. Prove me wrong.&#8221; The default mode of curious conversation has turned into combat.
Scroll through any comment section and you’ll see it: people don’t log on to learn, they log on to win. They enter digital arenas, not classrooms. Social media has turned intellectual inquiry into an Olympic sport of outrage where every disagreement demands a takedown, every nuance is flattened into a meme, and every opponent becomes an enemy. That shift—from curiosity to cynicism—is quietly dismantling the very foundation of a free society: Trust.
Once upon a time, conservatism—and really, American discourse as a whole—was built on questions. Our Founders argued fiercely, but the goal was understanding. Debate was an act of discovery, not destruction. “Teach me” was the posture of a citizen who loved truth more than tribe.
Today, that posture is rare. We’ve mistaken being informed for being inflexible. We say, “I’ve done my research,” but really mean “I’ve read five posts that agree with me.” We talk about “owning the libs” or “crushing the cons,” but what we’ve really destroyed is the middle ground where reason used to live. This new culture doesn’t seek understanding. Rather, it seeks affirmation. The tragedy is that the tools meant to connect us have been weaponized to divide us.
Let’s be honest: social media isn’t a modern-day marketplace of ideas. It’s a slot machine that rewards outrage. Every swipe and tap feeds a machine designed to give you more of what you already like. It’s not expanding your mind; it’s tightening your echo chamber.
As a capitalist, I have no problem with profit. Platforms are businesses, not ministries. Their product is attention—and they’ve mastered the art of keeping it. But when the free market of attention becomes the only market that matters, ideas become entertainment, and truth becomes whatever gets the most clicks. The algorithm doesn’t care if you’re right—it cares if you’re riled up. It feeds you more of what you think you want instead of what you might need. It’s like a spiritual diet of junk food: easy to consume, but hard on the soul.
And look, I get it. I have social media, too. (<a href="https://x.com/GatesGarciaFL">Please follow me</a> before I sound too self-righteous.) But it’s time we’re honest about what these platforms are and what they aren’t. They aren’t designed to elevate ideas; they’re designed to amplify emotion.
At 40 years old, I still remember what life looked like before all this—before the dopamine hits, before algorithms knew our habits better than our parents did. I remember when you actually had to call someone to argue about politics, when disagreement came with a voice, a tone, a relationship. But we’re now raising entire generations that only know a world filtered through social media. And the ramifications of that are enormous. Kids are learning to form their identities in front of an audience instead of within a family. They’re measuring truth in likes, not logic.
The answer, though, isn’t to abandon social media altogether. Like any tool, it can build or destroy depending on who’s holding it. Used well, it’s the most powerful communications platform in human history. It can spread truth faster than tyranny, unify movements for good, and give a voice to people long ignored by legacy media.
That’s the paradox of our age: we have the means to hold the world’s largest conversation, yet we’ve reduced it to a shouting match. Free markets are supposed to thrive on innovation and exchange, but our digital marketplace has become a monopoly of emotion. And that’s not capitalism. That’s chaos.
As conservatives, we should be leading the charge to reclaim these platforms for dialogue, not diatribe. Free speech is more than the right to speak. It’s the responsibility to listen. We should want social media to be the world’s public square, not its virtual food fight.
Imagine if, instead of “prove me wrong,” we started from “help me understand.” Imagine a culture where humility was a virtue again, not a weakness. That’s not naïve—it’s necessary.
Before social media, you couldn’t just parachute into a conversation armed with rage and a Wi-Fi connection. You had to engage face-to-face. There were natural filters: manners, context, tone. You couldn’t just drop a bomb and vanish into anonymity. Those days weren’t perfect, but our debates had weight. They demanded patience, presence, and perspective. Today, our political culture is built for the opposite. Speed over thought. Visibility over virtue. Snark over substance.
We used to shake hands after arguments. Now we block people. That’s not progress. That’s paralysis.
The challenge before us isn’t simply to win elections; it’s to win back curiosity. To remind a cynical culture that disagreement isn’t dangerous—it’s democratic and that the purpose of argument is not annihilation but illumination.
If conservatives want to shape the next generation, we have to model what it means to seek truth, not just victory. We can defend principles and still learn from people. We can hold convictions without closing our minds.
There’s nothing “soft” about humility. Jesus Himself—who held the ultimate truth—still asked questions, still taught through dialogue, still invited people to understand. Maybe that’s the model we need again.
So, here’s my modest proposal: the next time someone says something you disagree with online, try answering with, “I don’t understand, teach me.” It won’t always work. Some people will still argue in bad faith. But if enough of us adopt that posture, we might just start rebuilding the bridges that algorithms have burned.
Because at the end of the day, a nation built on freedom depends on the free exchange of ideas. Not just the loud ones. The honest ones.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go post this on social media. And please—prove me wrong by following me there.
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast We The People. Follow him on IG and X @GatesGarciaFL
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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