Since 2021, more than 80 churches across Canada have suffered <a href="https://ccrl.ca/">arson attacks</a>. The most recent casualty is the <a href="https://x.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/2036815655941353570">reported</a> fire at the historic Christ Church Anglican in Maugerville, New Brunswick.
If Canadian media covers the fires at all, they will claim a total of 30 to 35 churches have burned across Canada, meaning churches that have burned entirely to the ground. The media will often use phrases like “arson is suspected” and “motives remain unclear.” By that description, one would think a Walmart had burned down. An attack on a house of God, however, is treated by the media as an incidental detail. This is not a stylistic tic — it is the prose of a society willfully blind to the crisis in which it is engulfed.
One need not be Socrates to see the obvious. These are not random accidents but episodes in a larger campaign: an open war being waged against the West. Our collective silence does not assuage it; it shields it and helps it spread.
Every Canadian understands, though few will confess publicly, that these burnings are half-applauded as revenge. Our previous prime minister <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/01/18/church-burnings-canada-unmarked-graves-246978/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIt%20is%20sad%2C%E2%80%9D%20Horgan,%2C%20including%20against%20Catholic%20churches.%E2%80%9D">assured us</a> they are “understandable,” albeit regrettable, responses to the “discovery” of mass graves at residential schools. Except there is one problem: it was and is a lie.
Nevertheless, hints became headlines, headlines became dogma, and dogma became license.
<div id="attachment_1067267" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067267" class="size-large wp-image-1067267" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can-1024x315.jpg" alt="Source: StatCan" width="1024" height="315" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can-1024x315.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can-300x92.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can-768x236.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can-1536x472.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/stat-can.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Source: StatCan</div>
To the Left, whether it corresponds to the truth is secondary to the permission it grants. It conceals under the guise of “justice” a hatred that long predates the tale. Much of what now presents itself as moral outrage is little more than repackaged hatred of Western civilization: of its God, its truth, and its nobility. Old resentments have now learned to call themselves righteous.
To refuse to name this as such is not neutrality but complicity. Consider Canada’s nominally Catholic Prime Minister, Mark Carney. He is known to thunder like a prophet when it comes to Trump or climate change. And yet here he is conspicuously silent. Indeed, he takes great pains to avoid invoking the terms “the West” or “Western civilization.” One gets the impression Mr. Carney prefers to deliver its eulogy rather than defend its inheritance.
This silence is instructive. It educates citizens, especially the young, that nothing is sacred, least of all its own civilization. Resentment, not reverence, becomes the proper orientation towards the highest things. Our enemies, both foreign and domestic, understand precisely what must be erased if the West is to be disarmed.
<div id="attachment_1067255" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067255" class="size-large wp-image-1067255" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422264-1-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422264-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422264-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422264-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422264-1.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Toronto, ON &#8211; June 10: Investigators survey St. Anne&#8217;s as they begin to piece together what caused the fire. Historic St. Anne&#8217;s Anglican Church at 270 Gladstone Ave. was destroyed by a fire early on June 9th. (Photo by Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)</div>
These fires, however, did not begin in sanctuaries but in the seminar rooms of our universities. Our reigning orthodoxy and radical relativism, pushed by the Left, have filtered down through every institution: from our classrooms to our boardrooms and even our bathrooms. The church burnings are simply where theory meets action: where the lit match meets our steeples.
For decades, we have taught students that all ways of life are equal; that any claim to superiority is a disguised will to power; and that distinctions between noble and base, just and unjust, good and bad, and above all, true and false, are instruments of “oppression.” Relativism came promising peace. We were told that wars and persecutions arose from the conviction that one’s own way is best. Reduce all virtues to “values,” all truth to “opinions,” and civilization to “cultures,” and the source of conflict would dissolve. After all, if there is no truth, there is nothing over which to fight.
But relativism produced not gentle tolerance but a new and fanatical intolerance. “Everything is relative” except, of course, relativism. This alone is absolute and unquestionable. The one unforgivable sin is precisely what the West at its best affirms: that our way of life is superior not by race or conquest, but because it is true; therefore, it is good, just, and noble.
For these radicals, the West represents a rival claim to their tyrannical rule. The West does not simply assert that it is true: we boldly proclaim it is true by both God and nature. Our founding is constituted by the twin roots of Jerusalem and Athens: biblical revelation and reason. Despite their differences, both converge on the same point: there is the Truth; there is a best way of life; and there is a standard that stands both outside and above us.
This is why our churches must burn. Our steeples are the most visible symbol of the biblical half of our inheritance. It is no wonder these steeples were once the highest structures in cities and towns, rising above parliaments, banks, and homes. Our steeples served as silent reminders guiding our eyes, and with them our souls, upward to the highest things, higher than political power, commerce, or comfort.
When the Christian claims that Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” it is a living rebuke to these radicals. It not only condemns them as inferior or unequal, but exposes them as false. The Church testifies that there is an order and law greater than ourselves and accessible to all through our reason: we are neither our own Creators nor legislators. For leftist radicals, this is intolerable. For, when there is God and Truth, then everything is not permissible.
<div id="attachment_1067257" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067257" class="size-large wp-image-1067257" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422018-864x576.jpg" alt="Toronto, ON - June 10: St. Anne's Reverend Don Beyers looks towards the remains of his church. Historic St. Anne's Anglican Church at 270 Gladstone Ave. was destroyed by a fire early on June 9th. (Photo by Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422018-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422018-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422018-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-2156422018.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty Images</div>
Our American friends should not delude themselves into thinking this is some uniquely Canadian phenomenon. The same doctrine, the same hatred for the West, and the same fanatics are already entrenched in your universities, bureaucracies, and halls of power. They look north and see not an aberration but a guiding model. Given the opportunity, they would happily bury your churches under ashes, too.
And yet, our enemies pay us great compliments. Hatred and resentment always look upwards: inadvertently, they betray our superiority. If we were truly inferior, the proper orientation would be pity or indifference. Confident victors do not waste precious time and energy making war against defeated opponents. One does not attempt to murder a corpse.
In this way, we owe our enemies thanks. The vehemence of their rage is proportional to the threat they perceive. Our enemies declare that the West is not dead: it is alive and well and remains the greatest obstacle to the tyranny they wish to institute. Our enemies understand this; it is we who have forgotten.
The proper response is not to hide or to apologize for existing, but to regain a seriousness equal to that of our opponents. If they judge this way of life dangerous enough to burn, then it is time we judged it once more worthy of living and of defending in full.
* * *
Dimpee Brar currently serves as the Director of Engagement for Allies for a Strong Canada. She is a writer whose work can be found in the Federalist, the Western Standard, and the Toronto Sun. She appears frequently on various podcasts and radio shows. You can follow her on X: @isthisdimpeeb

Catholic church in Morinville destroyed by fire

Churches Are Burning, And The Lie Fueling It Still Holds

Arson

Canada

Catholic Church

Church

Graves

indigenous

Leftists

Legacy Media

Progressivism

James Talarico is having a moment. The Texas state representative and Democratic Senate candidate has gone viral more times than most politicians manage to in a full career, partly because he’s young and articulate, and partly because he does something unusual for a Democrat: he talks about Jesus. A lot. 
He quotes Scripture on the House floor. Joe Rogan told him to run for president. The political media has decided Talarico represents something new: a Democrat who can finally speak Christian and counter their secular reputation.
I want to take that claim seriously because I think it deserves a serious answer. And the serious answer is: no, he doesn’t.
James Talarico simply stands for an old form of religious progressivism that is more interested in achieving progressive outcomes than holding sincerely to the Christian faith.
The question isn’t whether Talarico is personally sincere. I have no reason to doubt that he is. The question is whether his Christianity is doing any actual work in his politics and whether it functions as a theological foundation or is merely a rhetorical costume. When you look closely, the answer is pretty clearly the latter — Talarico’s Christianity is a Trojan horse with a progressive interior and a Christian exterior.
There is no progressive policy that Talarico’s Christianity hasn’t made peace with. Talarico supports abortion access, transgender ideology, expansive redistribution, and a vision of government robust enough to accomplish the full progressive policy agenda. He opposes the Ten Commandments in public schools and has described God as “nonbinary.” He attends a PCUSA church whose congregants celebrate being free from “<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/25/texas-senate-democratic-primary-crockett-talarico-christianity-faith-religion/">dusty old creeds and dogma</a>.” Now, here’s what’s interesting: you could arrive at every single one of those positions through standard secular progressive reasoning: appeals to autonomy, identity, equity, and the expansion of the administrative state. You don’t need the Bible to get there. You don’t need the atoning work of Jesus. Christianity is merely decorative. It’s a rhetorical add-on bolted onto a political program that was already fully assembled before Scripture even entered the room.
Here is what I mean when I say progressive Christianity wears Christianity as a skin suit. The framework is secular progressivism: identity politics, abortion, sexual revolutionary politics, and redistributionist economics. Christian language gets stitched over the top of it to make the whole thing look familiar to voters who grew up in church. It is smarmy and syrupy in its appeals to the “brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.” But the theological content has been hollowed out and replaced. What remains is a set of emotional associations strangely redolent with progressivism (funny how that happens, isn’t it?), and it goes something like this: Jesus loved people, therefore expand Medicaid; the prophets cared for the poor, therefore raise the marginal tax rate; love your neighbor, therefore no borders. The assertions don’t hold up when the Bible is used responsibly, but they feel right to people who want the warmth and consolation of faith without the theological demands that counter progressive orthodoxy.
But oddly, none of this actually works in the long run for the people who employ it. Liberals don’t need Christianity to reach the conclusions Talarico is reaching. They already have a fully operational secular moral vocabulary — rights, autonomy, justice, and equity — that gets them to the same place. So why bother with the theological window dressing? The answer is purely electoral. Democrats have been hemorrhaging religious voters for a generation, and they’re looking for a way to stop the bleeding. Talarico is the proposed solution.
But the solution has a structural problem, and sociology is rather clear about it. Liberal theological commitments corrode religious belief across generations. This isn’t a conservative talking point; it’s one of the better-documented findings in the sociology of religion. Churches that accommodate the surrounding culture’s moral assumptions tend to empty out within two or three generations. The children of progressive Christians disproportionately become religiously unaffiliated. Why? Because if Christianity is just a more emotional version of what MSNBC already told you, you don’t need to get up on Sunday morning to hear it. You do not have to tithe; you do not have to bear social scorn for holding to supposedly outmoded dogmas “on the wrong side of history.” 
Theological substance — creation, fall, redemption, resurrection, judgment, human dignity, sexual ethics, and the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ — is precisely what makes Christianity worth believing. Strip that away in the name of openness, and you’ve kept the brand while destroying the product. That Talarico is having a moment should surprise no one. Previous generations of religious progressives had their moment, too, and in time, it all ends the same way: churches mutating into art museums and social justice clubs.
What Talarico and the progressive Christian project are doing is trying to make the Democratic Party look religion-friendly while simultaneously denying religion its actual substance. This betrays what Christianity really is by transforming it into progressive sentiment. Orthodox Christians won’t be persuaded, because they can see the theology has been replaced. Secular progressives don’t need Christianity anyway, so the whole performance ends up as a media-fueled vanity project to bolster progressive politics.
Talarico may mean well. But Christianity isn’t a political tool. It’s a truth claim about reality at odds with the progressivism of his “Christianity.”
* * *
Andrew T. Walker serves as Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. You can follow him on X: @AndrewTWalker.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico Holds Campaign Rally In Houston On Eve Of Primary Election

Christianity As A Costume: What James Talarico Reveals About Progressive Religion

Christianity

Democrats

James Talarico

Opinion

Transgender

A peculiar ritual has emerged on Sunday afternoons in online evangelical discourse. After the benediction, after the coffee, after lunch, some settle in to read David French at The New York Times. He is, after all, a self-proclaimed evangelical and political conservative (this, despite using his platform to repeatedly hector evangelicals for all their supposed shortcomings, namely, voting overwhelmingly for Donald Trump).
This past Sunday, French turned his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/opinion/james-talarico-christian-democrat-texas-primary.html">column</a> into something of a paean to James Talarico, the freshly minted Texas Democratic Senate nominee who has parlayed his Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary enrollment into a national brand. French called Talarico a “Christian X-ray” and reframed the country’s primary political divide not as Left versus Right but as decent versus indecent. The implication, apparently, is that a smiling seminarian who talks about love, who denies essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and who supports unfettered access to abortion and affirms gender ideology represents the decent side in opposition to “MAGA Christianity” that trades virtue for cruelty. In truth, Talarico is a walking caricature of the very worst elements of progressive Christianity, coupled with his Boy Scoutish looks and deep Southern folksiness.
To be fair to French, he does note his disagreements with Talarico. That caveat deserves acknowledgment. But a caveat buried in a column is not a serious engagement. It is a cover for a bait-and-switch that occurs later in the column. While espousing heresy is a grave error for Talarico, only slightly less severe is papering over doctrinal errors and legitimizing them on the pages of The New York Times, as French has done.
And French gets something else right before we can understand where he goes wrong. French has consistently and correctly argued that too many Christians have, at times, embraced a pragmatic ethic when evaluating Donald Trump. That is a real problem, and character defenses that are, in fact, indefensible can cheapen Christian witness. Paul’s instruction to Timothy is not optional: “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Tim. 4:16). But in my estimate, I do not regard Donald Trump as a Christian (even while I maintain the importance of upholding good character for all politicians). The framing French relies upon is more acutely applied to Talarico than to Donald Trump. Doctrine and character go hand in glove. The Christian moral tradition has never treated them as divisible, even as we understand that on-the-ground politicians do not always neatly align with Christian desires. But what French is doing is far worse than the hypocrisy he accuses “MAGA Christians” of; he’s now embarking on a final phase of his transformation by downplaying doctrine and elevating practice, which is a historic trajectory seen in the journey toward theological progressivism.
And here is the difficulty. French is making, in his treatment of Talarico, the precise error he has spent years denouncing, an error that malforms Christianity as a packaged whole. He is accepting the appeal of a charming political figure while setting aside the doctrinal catastrophe underneath. He is doing with progressive Christianity exactly what he accuses MAGA Christians of doing with Donald Trump: trading away sound doctrine for the aesthetic satisfaction of a candidate who seems nicer, nay, “decent.” But consider: Talarico says, “God is non-binary.” He supports the dismemberment of unborn children in the name of reproductive freedom. He does all of this with the backing of Christian moralism. He publicly positions Christian faith as the engine for a progressive political program that would have been unrecognizable to any historic expression of the Christian tradition. This is not a candidate with some character flaws. This is a candidate whose stated theology repudiates the faith he claims to represent.
The Apostle Paul did not admonish his readers to focus solely on their ethics. He also admonished them to watch their doctrine, and to understand that the two cannot be disaggregated. Kindness is a genuine Christian virtue. It is not sufficient. A kind heretic is still a heretic. A man who speaks about Jesus with warmth while denying the moral order that Christ himself affirmed is not a Christian statesman. He is a wolf in a very well-pressed suit (Matt. 7:15). What French is doing in his column is making an unbiblical tradeoff—accepting the legitimacy of bankrupt doctrine under the ethics of character while accepting Talarico’s dubious, silver-tongued deceitfulness.
What is saddest about French’s column is not the argument itself, but what the argument reveals. There is a deep and corrosive bitterness driving it. His contempt for conservative Christians who have voted for Trump has mutated over time into something uglier: a reflexive and condescending derision of anyone who refuses to share his political judgments, dressed up as prophetic moral clarity. Let us all take a lesson that deep-seated rage at Donald Trump and his Christian supporters does not justify placating doctrinal error. When you begin describing a progressive politician who affirms abortion as a “Christian X-ray” that illuminates the failures of orthodox Christians, you have not elevated your commentary. You have descended into trollish editorializing with a more elite platform.
And here is the frustrating thing: none of this requires choosing between character and moral substance. Christians are perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum. We can and should refuse to excuse indefensible behavior from any politician, Republican or Democrat. We can acknowledge that character matters across the board. And we can simultaneously recognize that there are genuine, serious moral asymmetries between the two major party platforms on questions near and dear to evangelicals, namely abortion, human dignity, and religious liberty. Recognizing those asymmetries is not capitulation to MAGA Christianity. It is an honest moral assessment of less-than-ideal political realities.
Progressive Christianity is not Christianity. Any movement, and any thirty-something seminarian, that denies the core doctrines of the Christian faith has not offered a fresh reading of the tradition. It has departed from the tradition. The tradition has a word for that departure. It is called heresy. And anyone, including certain New York Times columnists, who aids and abets such departures by insisting they still count as authentic Christianity, is not offering serious commentary on the Christian faith. It is offering theological malpractice to a very large audience.
* * *
Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Senate Candidate James Talarico Holds Primary Night Event

A Kind Heretic Is Still A Heretic

Abortion

Bible

Homosexuality

Religion

Here we go again. Minnesota’s elected officials have proven that the extreme progressives are in charge in the North Star State, beholden to the radical progressive activists who crawl out of every nook and cranny of the Twin Cities’s prestigious, white, liberal suburbs and exurbs. 
 
If you thought this was still the land of the milquetoast, “Minnesota Nice,” I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. 
 
In the aftermath of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation that began last summer and ramped up as the White House began cracking down on widespread fraud, Minnesota has been ground zero for purity tests of the far-Left regime. Now, there’s a horse race for the Democrat Farmer Labor candidate for Minnesota’s Senate seat, after current Senator Tina Smith announced her retirement at the end of this term. 
 
The race to the Left — or the bottom, depending on which way the political winds are blowing — is between current Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig. Both women flash their “girl power” bone fides at every chance, except when they’re appealing to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walz-signed-exec-order-protecting-trans-procedures-on-minors-while-holding-hand-of-gender-confused-12-year-old">trans-affirmative activists</a> who claim sex is a social construct, or to the abortion rights radicals who endanger women’s health and applaud the death of baby girls up to the <a href="https://alphanews.org/angie-craig-voted-against-bill-to-establish-protections-for-babies-who-survive-attempted-abortions/">moment of birth</a>. 
 
The latest show of extreme views comes from Craig, who, in a <a href="https://www.startribune.com/ice-agent-surge-minnesota-protests-federal-enforcement/601591429">commentary</a> in The Minnesota Star Tribune, writes of her “regret” in voting for the Laken Riley Act, the first bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in his second term. 
 
It’s “become clear that supporting any bill that gives ICE new authority in this administration was the wrong decision,” Craig writes. She cites the act’s expansion of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to include the detention without bail of noncitizen aliens while their immigration proceedings were pending to nonviolent offenders and provides for detaining aliens who are charged with or convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer. 
 
Craig comes to her lament after standing “side by side with protesters on the streets of Minneapolis and opposite dozens of armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Whipple Federal Building.” She makes no mention of the victims of these aliens’ <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-dozens-criminal-illegal-aliens-convicted-murder-child-rape-and-more">crimes</a> — crimes that put them on the ICE radar and, thanks to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, were free to live as “neighbors” instead of being detained by law enforcement in the local jails. 
 
How did her fellow DFL-er and political rival Peggy Flanagan respond? She pounced on it as an inexcusable failing in the moral purity test that the Minnesota extremist cabal uses as the standard operating procedure in politics. Flanagan posted on X a video clip of Craig voicing her support for the bill before her walk-back, adding, “Nothing can undo the damage that has been done.” Shots fired.
“Minnesotans want common sense,” Michele Tafoya, a Republican seeking that seat, told The Daily Wire. “We want law and order. But we are run by far Left career politicians who put their own careers ahead of the safety of innocent, law-abiding Minnesotans. Some of them are crazy, some of them are cowards and some of them are both. It has to change.”
“Angie Craig turning her back on the Laken Riley Act because her far Left base demands it is a craven act. Moderate Democrats have gone extinct in Minnesota,” she added.
In Minnesota, we were offered a bait-and-switch with Walz, who, in statewide elections and in his miserable bid for vice president alongside Kamala Harris, was touted as an American Everyman action figure, complete with a vintage truck, Mountain Dew, and hunting accessories. But his <a href="https://www.americanexperiment.org/what-america-needs-to-know-about-tim-walz-of-minnesota/">record </a>reveals extremist policies and disdain for the average fellas he was recruited to represent. Walz is one example of a new trend on the Left: Campaign as a moderate and, once elected, push hard-Left, radical policies.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has appeared on various conservative platforms with a moderate <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/15/us-news/gavin-newsom-backtracks-on-outrageous-ice-claims-made-by-his-own-team-in-shapiro-interview/">tone</a>. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger&#8217;s State of the Union <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-rising-stars-sotu-rebuttal-ripped-conservatives-anyone-who-claims-she-moderate-liar">rebuttal</a> last month displayed rank hypocrisy and a laughable attempt at &#8220;Moderate Dem&#8221; rebranding.
Spanberger, who ran as a moderate, is now proposing sweeping, state-wide tax hikes, and criticizing immigration enforcement to the point of <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/dhs-blasts-spanberger-potential-release-182714286.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">denying</a> an ICE detainer for an illegal immigrant with over 30 arrests accused of stabbing a 41-year-old woman to death at a bus stop in Fairfax County. Even socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani leveraged the &#8220;affordability&#8221; buzzword and an inclusive demeanor to obfuscate sky-high tax policies and his anti-Jewish, anti-Israel history.
We’ll continue to see this leftward march, purity tests, and hyperbolic rhetoric in support of these extreme measures — unhindered hormone and surgical procedures on minors for sex transitions, unlimited abortion, allowing males to compete against females in sports and opening bathrooms and locker rooms to all genders — and now siding with criminal aliens against law abiding citizens who truly want their neighborhoods safe rather than be battlegrounds for the latest Karen to proclaim her woke creds with an “ICE OUT” sign and safety whistle. What do you expect from a governor who publicly called ICE officers Nazis and compared them to the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5307956-minnesota-gov-tim-walz-gestapo-trump/">Gestapo</a>? 
 
Rest in peace to the moderate Democrat who understood the errors of the Biden administration&#8217;s open border policy, who saw the damage of crime, rising welfare burdens, failed assimilation, and the deaths of innocent Americans at the hands of illegal aliens, and worked toward a common-sense solution — even (gasp!) voting with Republicans. In fact, high-profile wins like Mamdani&#8217;s and Spanberger&#8217;s have emboldened the progressive wing, raising the possibility of an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://x.com/SteveGuest/status/2028301350006595984?s=20">presidential bid</a> in 2028 over a moderate candidate. 
 
Bucking the far-Left puts politicians and civilians alike squarely in the fascist camp — just ask former Minnesota <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4982938-dean-phillips-my-voice-was-ignored/">Congressman Dean Phillips</a> or Pennsylvania <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-old-city-fridays-at-fettermans-protest-gaza-israel-war/">Senator John Fetterman</a>. If you’re a moderate, you’re owed any targeted violence, protest, or condemnation coming your way, even if it’s in a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/anti-ice-mob-storms-minnesota-church-over-pastors-alleged-ties-immigration-enforcement">house of worship</a>. 
 
How far Left are Democrats willing to go? If it’s a way to rile up the extremist base, keep the spotlight off the bottomless fraud scandals, and make the Trump administration Public Enemy Number One, the sky’s the limit. The extremists are at the wheel, and after flattening any moderates in their party, they’ve backed up the truck, ready for another round of hit-and-run.
* * *
Jenna Stocker is editor and publisher of American Experiment’s quarterly magazine. A former Marine Corps officer, Stocker also contributes to The Federalist and National Review.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Minnesota Democrats Hold News Conference Ahead Of State Of The Union

R.I.P. The Moderate Democrat

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Leftism

Liberalism

Minnesota

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

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Woke Culture

When Democrats want to slam their political opponents, they resort to a kind of linguistic reductionism. Everyone to their right is a neocon, or alt right, or MAGA, or a Christian nationalist, or whatever the popular term of art is at the moment.
Republicans have the opposite problem. For years, they’ve used “liberal,” “leftist,” and progressive” interchangeably. Today things are even further obfuscated by more specific but still somewhat vague concepts like “DEI,” and of course, the ever-evocative but incredibly diffuse “woke.”
This isn’t a good rhetorical strategy. Liberal hasn’t meant what it really means in a century, and it’s such a useless term that even the liberals don’t want to claim it. Leftist is probably the most accurate, but it’s still so dripping with the blood of 1968 that Democrats will sooner call themselves socialists before they proclaim themselves leftists.
That leaves progressive, which has more or less been the go-to epithet for partisan Democrats since Barack Obama.
But what is progressivism, and why is it bad? Progress in and of itself seems like a good thing: we like that our cars are safer and our phones are faster, and that we no longer have lead in our paint or children in our factories. Those on the Right, of course, know that “progress” as a political concept is something altogether more sinister, a Hegelian tidal wave that if left unchecked will wipe out the nuclear family and Judeo-Christian values in one fell swoop.
What relevance does any of this have, though, for contemporary politics?
If ever there were a man who could answer this question, it’s Ronald J. Pestritto. A graduate dean and professor of politics at Hillsdale College, Pestritto has been writing, researching, and teaching about progressivism throughout his career, which began at Claremont McKenna College in 1990 and continued through his graduate work at Claremont Graduate University, where he earned his Ph.D in 1996.
I&#8217;ve had the pleasure of hearing Pestritto lecture on the progressives, by which he means the early 20th-century American political movement defined by presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and thinkers like John Dewey and Herbert Croly. Unlike some of his colleagues at both Hillsdale and Claremont, who — due respect — love to sound off on contemporary political debates, Pestritto is a thinker and teacher through and through.
This is reflected not just in his engaging classroom demeanor and professorial aesthetic, but in his body of work. His first book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Liberalism-American-Intellectual-Culture/dp/0742515176/ref=sr_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZy4hrvGVUDju8aQhN-S92NE1HYjCNZgxbKQscvrjc9p6AaoUpqGOyHPer3AK54SupWi8HfFj2yx6hCmB_bcxmlGD-1vyALpgLAnsi28K0Maeg.T_1I2viGooACkQVFk8PNtFp8BvjbKajD1b6VBkL4KGQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766077924&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism,</a> is a sustained engagement with the controversial progressive president. He has edited a fine collection of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Wilson-Essential-Political-Writings-ebook/dp/B00EJKJGXY/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZx3BcY0ba2YCzmoLq3MaDTFr09KNZ88X8pJlfkXNS5D0sqb2136e2O-z3mgoE5tPt12NjeAipXXr0ODTrHeO6V_helDXyECIovH12fQYsgluA.a0cCKFHfONuUQoSeQ_RpaFfNqExHJe0n0fHNi1hZypQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766078016&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-6&amp;text=Ronald+J.+Pestritto" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wilson’s political writings</a> as well as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Progressivism-Ronald-J-Pestritto/dp/0739123033/ref=sr_1_5?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y0zFGAtuwQqPwDeNJuKGfVWPvluFeMoF5qWn89yfGZy4hrvGVUDju8aQhN-S92NE1HYjCNZgxbKQscvrjc9p6AaoUpqGOyHPer3AK54SupWi8HfFj2yx6hCmB_bcxmlGD-1vyALpgLAnsi28K0Maeg.T_1I2viGooACkQVFk8PNtFp8BvjbKajD1b6VBkL4KGQ&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1766077924&amp;refinements=p_27%3ARonald+J.+Pestritto&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Progressivism: A Reader,</a> both indispensable volumes for anyone interested in progressivism or turn-of-the-century American political history.
It is precisely these academic bona fides that make it all the more exciting when Pestritto starts talking about contemporary politics — which he did in a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Wire.
The occasion of our conversation was the publication of Pestritto’s latest offering, “Government by the Unelected: How It Happened, and How It Might Be Tamed.” The ninth installment in the Claremont Institute&#8217;s <a href="https://dc.claremont.org/provocations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Provocations” series</a>, Pestritto describes it alternately as a long essay or a small book.
It is, according to the précis, &#8220;a comprehensive, historically-grounded account of how America moved from the founders’ vision of republican self-government to a regime governed by a permanent, unaccountable class of administrators.”
But the book&#8217;s goal is less lofty than that makes it sound. Pestritto says he wrote it with the 2026 midterm elections firmly in view, and in the hopes of providing Americans with a deeper understanding of precisely what is at stake when they go to the polls.
“The point is to help people understand the current controversies, because the way that they&#8217;re explained in the press is often not useful,” he says. “These are things that have been boiling for 80, 90 years, and we&#8217;re now finally at a point where there&#8217;s going be a fight over it. So, that background is necessary to hopefully help explain what&#8217;s been going on legally to bring us to this point.”
By this, Pestritto means the administrative state and its discontents. Better known as the bureaucracy or the “deep state,” this unelected leviathan is both the outgrowth and steward of American progressivism. Now a popular conservative bugaboo, the administrative state, as Pestritto admits, “something that most folks did not pay much attention to until probably Obama.”
If Mr. “Pen and Phone” raised hackles about the deep state, it was his onetime vice president who really laid bare what was at stake. From mandating coronavirus vaccines to banning gas-powered stoves, Joe Biden’s administration made clear to Americans what happened when elected officials ceded all authority to government bureaucrats.
A quick refresher for anyone who fell asleep in Deep State 101: federal agencies like the EPA, CDC, FCC — pretty much anything with a three-letter acronym — aren’t in the Constitution. They were largely created by congressional action, and the idea was that Congress would fund them, the president would control them (as part of the Executive Branch), and the courts would intervene when necessary.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the system of checks and balances most of us had drilled into our heads in school. But things changed in 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The result of the case was, in short, that administrative agencies were allowed to interpret and enforce federal guidance about themselves however they saw fit.
In other words: screw the branches, we can do whatever we want.
The result of that case, which came to be called “Chevron Deference,” led to a bloated and powerful administrative apparatus with no fear of legislative or executive oversight. It also fueled the neutering of Congress, and, until the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, made it seem like the rule of unelected bureaucrats over the United States was simply a forgone conclusion.
That, to Pestritto, is unacceptable.
“Government by bureaucracy contradict our principles of law and constitutionalism,” he says, in addition to violating “the basic democratic idea, that the people are supposed to govern themselves.”
“We have guards against majority tyranny, but basically you have people making rules, you have people governing who aren&#8217;t accountable to voters, and that&#8217;s not kosher in a republic.”
This is not merely a partisan gripe. It’s not that the federal bureaucracy is often staffed with liberals because liberals tend to gravitate toward government work. No, the liberal bias is built into the machinery — a machinery that seeks to shred the foundations of the country.
The original progressive idea, he notes, was that “the circumstances are different today than they were at the Founding. Progress means new circumstances, and requires a new kind of government.”
In other words, “our constitution&#8217;s outdated.” This, more than anything, Pestritto sees as the progressives’ lasting legacy.
“I would say the main way in which, uh, you see the Progressive legacy today is in the deference to the administrative state,” he says. “I am not naive enough to think that contemporary Democrats who call themselves progressives are true believers in the way that the original progressives were.”
While the original progressives at least had some kind of political program — workplace safety protections, things like that — “the contemporary Left is all about power.”
But that doesn’t mean that the bureaucracy the progressives built isn’t a useful tool for the Left.
“The bureaucracy, given the nature of what it does, is inherently Left ideologically,” Pestritto tells The Daily Wire. “It&#8217;s not conducive to conservative priorities.”
Here, Pestritto sounds increasingly like the odd man out among conservatives. It’s popular on the Right these days to say that the problem with the federal bureaucracy is simply that the wrong people are running it. Put patriots in charge, the argument goes, and things will turn around.
Pestritto isn’t buying it.
“You&#8217;re never gonna get an entity like the Federal Trade Commission but conservative, or the EPA but conservative,” he says. “That&#8217;s where I get off the bus.”
But this hardly means Pestritto is the kind of conservative intellectual who waxes poetic about Congress reasserting itself as a coequal branch of government — quite the contrary.
“Congress has basically ceased to become a legislative body,” he says. “It&#8217;s not a legislative institution anymore. It&#8217;s a kind of public media company.”
Asked how he would rate congressional efforts to rein in the administrative state, he pulls no punches.
“I&#8217;d give the congressional Republicans an F,” he says, noting that lawmakers are “failing to take advantage of a historic opportunity.”
That opportunity, of course, is the re-election of Trump, who has made “draining the swamp” one of his top priorities. On this front, the president is succeeding, Pestritto says.
“Trump&#8217;s really trying to go after the kind of inherent ideological bias in the federal government that&#8217;s sort of seated there in the bureaucracy, and that’s why they&#8217;re fighting like hell right now,” he says.
While Congress gets an F, “The current Trump administration I would give almost an A+,” Pestritto says, “because they are peddle to the floor trying to take advantage of every opening to rein in the bureaucracy, with the agency firings, with DOGE, and with a lot of the executive orders pertaining to rescinding regulations pertaining to bringing the independent agencies under the control of the president.”
Pestritto is quick to distinguish between his kind of robust executive authority and an effort to make the bureaucracy conservative.
“I’m much more an advocate of making the agencies directly accountable to the president by a total removal of power that he has, and then by paring back their authority and returning governing to actual elected officials, not so much in the federal government but probably in the state governments.”
Trump isn’t the only reason Pestritto is optimistic about the future of representative government. The Supreme Court, he says, has over the past decade begun “to try to turn the tables on the bureaucracy.”
The Court took a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-seems-likely-to-give-trump-power-to-remove-independent-agency-heads" target="_blank" rel="noopener">major step</a> in this direction earlier this month during oral arguments for Trump v. Slaughter, which deals with the president’s ability to remove independent agency heads. The Court’s conservative majority appeared to side with President Trump, who contends he had the ability to remove Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
In January, the Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Cook, a similar case that hinges on Trump’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/appeals-court-protects-biden-appointed-fed-governor-lisa-cook-from-trump-ouster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attempt to remove</a> Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
“This stuff is kind of filtering up to the grownups in the judicial system,” Pestritto says.
Though Pestritto is optimistic about all of these developments, he is clear that we never should have gotten to this point.
The best way to dismantle the administrative state, he says, “would be for Congress to reverse all of the discretionary authority it has delegated to bureaucratic executive agencies.”
But of course, “they&#8217;re not going to do that — that ship has sailed.”
“Congress is never going to be what it should be,” he says. That’s a pity, because in the not-so-distant past, congressional appropriators from both parties (he names Democrat John Dingell as one example) were so bullish about protecting their own power that they would fight the bureaucracy if only for territory.
“Nowadays, ideology has transcended all of that,” he says. “So the Democrats in Congress essentially know that the bureaucrats are their proxy.”
“And so, they are perfectly happy to let the bureaucrats disparage and ignore and resist congressional efforts for oversight,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;Because they understand that the bureaucracy will do the hard legislative work of legislating for the Left.”

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Could Donald Trump Finally Dismantle The Deep State? Ronald Pestritto Thinks So.

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Don’t Let Them Lie To You. Charlie Kirk’s Killer Is A Left-Wing Terrorist.

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In the past year alone, titles like &#8220;Assassin’s Creed: Shadows&#8221; (which featured a <a href="https://notthebee.com/article/new-assassins-creed-game-has-gay-black-samurai-kiss-theythem-character">romance</a> between a bisexual black samurai and a nonbinary Japanese character) and the remastered version of &#8220;The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion&#8221; (which <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/app/2623190/discussions/0/604154245960211414/">replaced</a> the “female” and “male” options from the original game with “Body Type 1” and “Body Type 2”) have drawn significant backlash. 

But forcing woke content into video games isn’t the only way progressives are trying to ruin the gaming industry.
Now, they’re coming for its business model. 
 
Recently, the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), a <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/about/#">think tank</a> stacked with progressives, <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/ninth-circuit-affirms-epic-games-victory-over-google-forces-monopolist-to-lift-app-store-restrictions/">cheered</a> a major court victory against Google’s app store that they aggressively pushed.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Epic Games’ case against Google was legitimate. Per the suit, Google forced developers into a rigid system with up to 30% fees, banning rival app stores and alternative payment methods, hurting both creators and consumers.
But don’t be fooled. AELP’s broader agenda has nothing to do with helping gamers or developers. Its antitrust crusade would shackle gaming — and every other innovative industry — under permanent bureaucratic control.
For example, AELP was the <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/ftc-must-pursue-administrative-case-against-unlawful-microsoft-activision-merger/">loudest cheerleader</a> for the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2210077-microsoftactivision-blizzard-matter">Biden-era push</a> to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision-Blizzard — a case the Trump administration just killed.
Biden’s FTC, egged on by AELP, claimed Microsoft would make &#8220;Call of Duty&#8221; and Overwatch Xbox exclusives, supposedly “suppressing competitors” in consoles and cloud gaming. They wouldn’t have. Microsoft committed to keeping &#8220;Call of Duty&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/16/microsoft-and-sony-sign-deal-to-keep-activisions-call-of-duty-on-playstation.html">on PlayStation</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/02/21/microsoft-signs-call-of-duty-contract-with-nintendo-pressuring-sony-and-regulators/">bringing it to Nintendo</a>.
Courts saw through the AELP’s claims. A federal U.S. judge <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/11/microsoft-activision-ftc-decision/">rejected</a> the FTC’s suit in 2023, and by May 2025, Trump’s FTC wisely <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-ftc-walks-away-from-microsoft-activision-merger-fight-started-by-biden-131433987.html">dropped</a> the case. Even the ultra-liberal European Union <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/eu-antitrust-regulators-clear-69-bln-microsoft-activision-deal-2023-05-15/">approved</a> the Microsoft-Activision deal.
Liberal activists like those at AELP may not want to admit it, but the truth is that gaming is a fiercely competitive industry. It doesn’t need Washington activist groups or government bureaucrats picking winners and losers. 
 
Consider the very video game example that AELP loves to harp on — &#8220;Call of Duty.&#8221;
Yes, it’s a mega-blockbuster franchise that has sold over 500 million copies since 2003. But it is far from unstoppable. When &#8220;Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare&#8221; launched in 2016, its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeF3UTkCoxY">reveal trailer</a> was ratioed with 4 million dislikes to 667,000 likes. 
Four days later, video game developer DICE <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7nRTF2SowQ">unveiled</a> &#8220;Battlefield 1&#8221; — a rival shooter with a World War I setting — and its trailer’s likes outnumbered dislikes 37-to-1. &#8220;Infinite Warfare&#8221; only <a href="https://www.vg247.com/call-of-duty-infinite-warfare-was-the-best-selling-game-of-2016-despite-all-your-protests-but-battlefield-1-was-hot-on-its-heels">outsold</a> &#8220;Battlefield 1&#8221; because it bundled a remaster of &#8220;Modern Warfare.&#8221; Activision learned its lesson and abandoned the futuristic setting.
Market dominance in gaming seldom lasts. AELP <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/media/vertical-merger-scrutiny-needs-an-upgrade-after-microsoft-activision/">argues</a> that video game consoles “rely on unique intellectual property that cannot simply be replicated,” but that’s simply not true. Blockbuster franchises are frequently copied, challenged, and displaced.
For example, &#8220;Guitar Hero&#8221; ruled the mid-2000s until &#8220;Rock Band&#8221; split the market — and soon after, both faded into irrelevance.
Yet, if regulators used AELP’s &#8220;Call of Duty&#8221; logic, perhaps they would have treated &#8220;Guitar Hero&#8221; like an untouchable monopoly, freezing the industry in place while gamers missed out on the next wave of competition.
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have spent decades battling to build their own “killer apps.” Players bought Xboxes for &#8220;Halo,&#8221; PlayStations for &#8220;Uncharted,&#8221; and Nintendo consoles for &#8220;Zelda.&#8221; If Microsoft ever made &#8220;Call of Duty&#8221; exclusive, the proper response from Sony wouldn’t be to run to regulators, it would be to make something better. That is how markets are supposed to work.
Instead, AELP and the far left’s vision appears to be to turn antitrust into a permanent chokepoint for the entire economy, swapping innovation for bureaucratic control.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft-Activision case was just a warm-up for them. After celebrating victory with Epic, AELP continues to push crackdowns on everything from <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/ain-vetoing-anti-algorithmic-rent-fixing-bill-gov-polis-sides-with-corporate-landlords-over-colorado-renters/">dynamic pricing</a> to <a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/dot-greenlights-united-jetblue-partnership-deepening-airline-consolidation-crisis/">airline partnerships</a> that help travelers redeem miles across carriers.
If AELP succeeds in locking its mindset into law, it won’t just be gamers who lose — it will be every industry that depends on competition and creativity to thrive.
Gamers don’t need Washington lawyers and think tank activists deciding what they can play, and neither does any other sector caught in AELP’s crosshairs. What the market needs is the freedom to build, compete, and win without having to beg permission from the same professional regulators who mistake every successful product for a monopoly.
If AELP gets its way, innovation won’t just stall in gaming — it will stall everywhere. That would be bad news for everyone.
The Trump administration should continue to stand its ground and fight AELP’s agenda tooth and nail. We’ll all be better off for it.
* * *
James Skyles is a legal policy analyst and the principal of Skyles Law Group. He has written for some of the largest legal publications in the United States, including Law.com and Law360.
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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It’s More Than Woke Storylines Ruining Video Games

It's More Than Woke Storylines Ruining Video Games

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The ‘No Kings’ Protests Were A Disaster

The 'No Kings' Protests Were A Disaster

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You recall Greta Thunberg when she was a not-particularly-cute child, and we weren&#8217;t allowed to make jokes about her not being particularly cute because she was a child.
Well, now she&#8217;s 22 years old, so I can say whatever the hell I want about her: She is an obnoxious brat. She was always obnoxious.
Thunberg first heard about climate change in 2011, when she was eight; she said she stopped talking, stopped eating, and lost 22 lbs. over it at age 11.
Instead of going to school and getting the treatment she probably deserved, her father got her treatment, took her out of school, and put her on camera repeatedly. He said, “She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest and be happy.”
She has spent the last ten years gallivanting around the globe and protesting. She started with climate change, where she famously lectured all the adults for not doing enough, in her humble opinion, to stop the world from getting warmer.
Just kidding, she wasn’t humble, she was obnoxious.
But it was that very obnoxiousness that endeared her to the Left-wing media machine, which finds small children saying idiotically reductive things to be wise and useful.
In 2018, she yelled at the adults like a brat, “My message is that we’ll be watching you.  &#8230; You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. &#8230; We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
Now that she’s 22, she still dresses like a little girl and cosplays as a teenager, but now she’s graduated to the new Leftist radical cause of the day: standing for terrorists in the Gaza Strip. 
This Swedish truant who still hasn’t graduated college is now heading for Gaza in a boat – a boat reminiscent of the terrorist flotilla from 2010 in which friends of Hamas sent a set of ships to Gaza laden with goods that would immediately have gone to support the terrorist group. They were offered passage at Ashdod, an Israeli port, and turned it down, fearing that Israel would confiscate the goods, even though Israel had offered to coordinate any aid with the UN. Many of the participants in that flotilla attacked Israeli troops attempting to stop it, and some even grabbed weapons of the Israelis; ten Israeli soldiers were wounded. Seven of the nine people on the ships killed in response by Israeli troops had openly issued wishes to die as martyrs.
Anyway, back to our moronic story – Greta’s pleasure cruise. Our Pippi Longstocking wannabe heroine has now loaded onto the Madleen ship, launched by the so-called Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Thunberg herself has taken the lead, calling to “dismantle Zionism” – which, for the record, means the forcible killing of millions of Jews, who currently live in an actual, not fictional state, called Israel.
A few months ago she declared, “What are we going to do? We will crush Zionism.”
Thunberg has been joined by propagandists from the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera, as well as an actor from &#8220;Game of Thrones.&#8221; They say they’re trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, even though Israel has actually taken over the distribution of humanitarian aid directly, thus breaking Hamas’ stranglehold over the Palestinian population, who are now free to actually receive aid without having to worry about having it stolen directly by Hamas.
One of the big problems with the UN is they worked for Hamas. And so all the aid that was going in was being hijacked by Hamas. Hamas was then taking it and using it themselves, or they would sell it back to the Palestinians at inflated rates to pay for their terror tunnels. What&#8217;s happening right now is that Palestinians are actually beginning to get aid, and it&#8217;s breaking the Hamas stranglehold over the Palestinian population. It&#8217;s actually creating the possibility of a true Palestinian uprising against Hamas.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2210?elementPosition=6&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
So what Thunberg is doing is actually part of a gigantic propaganda effort launched by the exact same forces that lied earlier this week by claiming that Israel had shot dozens of people at an aid distribution center, a complete and total lie parroted by the Left-wing media.
Thunberg has suddenly decided that climate change is soooo tiring and boring and that Hamas is super-hot right now.It’s all part of her broader crusade to get herself arrested so she can attain the same levels of attention she used to when she was a child actress.
Now, this sort of stuff — taking a boat to Gaza — is super silly and kind of funny — and stupid. I’m hoping that this whole thing turns into one of the world’s most entertaining reality specials, with the engine of the boat breaking so that we get the world’s most ridiculous version of &#8220;Gilligan’s Island.&#8221;
The problem is that Greta, despite the hair, doesn’t really carry it forward the way Marianne did, and the whole crew of the USS Minnow has been replaced by smelly environmentalists who really, really hate Jews. And just like the USS Minnow, they may be stuck wherever they land for years at a time, because none of these people are going to make a radio out of a coconut.
The real question here is the same as always: Why is it that we can almost certainly identify – always! – climate change activists as fans of Hamas, one of the least environmentally-friendly groups on the planet? 
The answer is simple: the Omnicause. These people are simply interested in “fighting the system,” by which they mean capitalism and the West, which was always Greta’s thing. She’s been saying a version of this crap since 2019, when she released a book and somehow, incredibly, became even more obnoxious, saying, “What we refer to as ‘normal’ is an extreme system built on the exploitation of people and the planet. It is a system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order.”
These people hate the West. And so I wish them a pleasant three-hour tour. And if they land on the shores of some uncharted desert isle, I hope that they land without their keffiyehs, so that they can see how the Hamas locals treat them without their terror solidarity insignias – how Westerners are treated when they end up among the actual barbarians they believe they support.
This is part of a broader movement that actually is quite dangerous, because when the West begins to parrot the absolute lies of terror groups, that has consequences. When you continue to say the word “genocide,” when a genocide never has applied in this area, you are fomenting the same language that leads to a raising of the temperature.
And when you raise the temperature this much, people are going to get violent.

‘Freedom Flotilla’ And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For Gaza

Greta Goes To Gaza

Ben Shapiro

Gaza

Greta Thunberg

Hamas

Israel

Middle East

I believe that America’s core ideals are very much linked to its Christian faith. So as Easter has just passed, I thought this would be a good time to take a closer look at the state of the American church and then weep quietly and say it was a great country while it lasted.
Now, according to a Pew poll, 62% of Americans identify as Christian. This is a slight drop from the 1697 poll which showed 99.9% of Americans were Christian with one heretic hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat wouldn’t blow his head off with a blunderbuss.
But today’s religious landscape looks different depending on political affiliation. For instance, on the political Left, 43% of those who identify as progressives say they have abandoned Christianity and become Episcopalians. Fourteen percent of progressives say they have renounced the corrupt beliefs of colonizing white men, have returned to the innocent and beautiful natural religion of indigenous peoples, and were preparing to sacrifice a virgin to the volcano God until they realized that by the time they were sure she was a virgin, she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and if they threw her into a volcano there’d be no one left who knew how to make breakfast.
Other progressives say they are sick of the sort of restrictive religions that ruined the 1950’s by making everything so great. Instead they have turned to more modern faiths with practices that reflect the moral progress of mankind. These practices include yogic meditation, ritual mindfulness, and tantric sex followed by butchering any unborn babies conceived during tantric sex, then celebrating the mass slaughter by dancing around a pole in a wild blood-drenched frenzy, getting a full body tattoo featuring goat-headed demi-gods with flaming eyes, then running naked through a forest while grunting inarticulately and listening to music that’s mostly composed of drumbeats and shrieking because classic rock is just the best.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
Among Christians on the political Right, 17% say they believe in Christ so hard they’ll kill anyone who disagrees with them, 14% say their faith is so strong they might even be willing to go to church as long as porn is provided, and 8% say their worship mostly involves posting unspeakably cruel remarks on social media to people who aren’t as Christly as they are. Four percent of conservative Christians say they have abandoned their own egos for Christ’s sake and have thus elevated their souls into a state of suffering-yet-serene agape love, and are now hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat won’t blow their heads off with a blunderbuss.
The remaining 57% of Right-wing Christians spend most of their time sobbing and whispering, “Oh God, I suck so bad, please, please, please have mercy on me and don’t send me to hell or California.”
As far as other American religions go, 94% of limousine drivers identify as Muslims, 16% of Christian women pretend they’re Buddhists, and 82% of Jews control 90% of everything except which parts of Ivy League campuses they’re allowed to walk on without one of their professors pointing at them and making that awful insect noise like Donald Sutherland at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Approximately 29% of Americans have no religion whatsoever and they say that makes life much easier because they&#8217;re able to rotate their heads 360 degrees and spider walk across the ceiling, which comes in very handy when they’re trying to escape from the exorcist.
Around the world, the religious landscape is much more varied. For instance, in Great Britain, while 47% of the people identify as Christian, 70% of them say that Islam is also absolutely great, totally fine, really wonderful and not a problem at all, no, really, it’s fantastic, they’re not just saying that because they’d be arrested for telling the truth.
In France, 49% of the population were excited because they thought they belonged to a dark, obscure, mystery cult with elaborate secret rituals until they found out they were actually just Catholics.
And in China, 23% of high-ranking Communists identify their kidneys as Uiger.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins).

US-ENTERTAINMENT-FILM-FESTIVAL-CARTOON-COMICCON-RELIGION

Progressives Abandon Christianity, Become Episcopalian

Andrew Klavan

Conservatives

Easter

Episcopal Church

Humor

Satire

In a recent piece, the great <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/03/21/democrats-10-part-strategy-to-stopping-trump-at-any-cost/?utm_source=TDS_Email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=MorningBell&amp;mkt_tok=ODI0LU1IVC0zMDQAAAGZXFVF8EiGHTOyBnThyW4grIVUl7BZT15Afcq-EIHg2MlGbVXGiYW0vNjgf4M2VoXDCfdVx3aPXat1HzDwjX0OzlMzAiZsyuw1NrKva4F7ED5RIRjnxQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victor Davis Hanson</a> apologized to his readers for previously contending that Democrats were both disorganized and without a plan. Upon reflection, he now sees a very clear and organized ten-point plan largely focused on continued demonization of President Trump and Elon Musk, the opposition to any federal budget cuts or the deportation of anyone, continued promotion of open borders, support of radical Palestinians, the Ukraine war, DEI initiatives, and chaos, and an amplification of hysteria in all of their communication. Their actions thus far would indicate that he is spot on.
It is a truly audacious plan — audacious because it involves, in many ways, simply doubling down on the messaging from the losing 2024 presidential campaign, and audacious because with each of these issues, the Democrats are on the opposite side of the fence with regard to public sentiment, in some cases dramatically so. Nonetheless, their aim is to change that public perception on at least enough of those issues to overcome their opponents in the midterms and ultimately regain power. What would make them think they could pull that off?
The answer is likely that the Democrats have grown accustomed to having a very finely tuned, powerful and successful network for public influence at their disposal.
In 2019, author and researcher Dr. Robert Epstein<a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%20Testimony.pdf"> testified before Congress</a> about the dangers posed by just one piece of that network — Google. He concluded that Google represents a dire threat to both democracy and human autonomy, and provided numerous examples from his extensive data collection going back to 2016, including this one: “In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton (whom I supported). I know this because I preserved more than 13,000 election-related searches conducted by a diverse group of Americans on Google, Bing, and Yahoo in the weeks leading up to the election, and Google search results – which dominate search in the U.S. and worldwide – were significantly biased in favor of Secretary Clinton in all 10 positions on the first page of search results in both blue states and red states.”
However, the Tech players are only one part of the larger Democrat propaganda apparatus. The revelations from the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2877184/twitter-files-have-exposed-the-unholy-alliance-between-democrats-the-fbi-big-tech-and-the-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter/X Files</a>, from DOGE regarding <a href="https://www.newstarget.com/2025-02-08-usaid-funds-6000-journalists-1000-platforms-worldwide.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">USAID</a> and other governmental funding have laid bare the indisputable <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/governments_collusion_with_social_media_is_worse_than_you_realize.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unholy alliance</a> of the Democrat party, key governmental and non-governmental agencies, and factions of the mainstream and social media.
We now see that these entities have worked together to simultaneously push false narratives and censor truth — often demonizing and punishing those parties that interfered with this process in any way. Michael Shellenberger warned and testified to Congress about “<a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Censorship Industrial Complex</a>.” He observed: “The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. Military during the Global War on Terror, with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing. Federal government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans and disfavored public figures.”
Executive Director of Foundation for Freedom and former State Department official Mike Benz refers to the entities behind much of this clandestine activity as simply “<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/24/mike_benz_the_history_of_the_intelligence_state.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Blob</a>.” In describing the blurring of the lines in our intelligence state he says: “This means that when the U.S. government provides funding or assistance, suddenly the churches they were working with are no longer simply churches — they are instruments of statecraft. The nonprofit charities are no longer simply charities; they become instruments of statecraft. The media is no longer independent; it becomes an instrument of statecraft. Hollywood becomes an instrument of statecraft, and organized criminal mafias do as well.” 
He describes the technological methodology of state narrative control in his presentation “<a href="https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MikeBenzCensorhip070924.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Whole-of-Society Censorship Framework”</a> saying, “This is why I refer to these AI super weapons as Weapons of Mass Deletion. They effectively did for internet censorship what weapons of mass destruction did for war. You didn’t need a standing army anymore of a million soldiers ready to go. You could have a few lines of code take out an entire political organization.”
In his piece <a href="https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2025/03/06/the_artificial_culture_1095413.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Artificial Culture</a>, Mathew Gasda refers to this political/governmental/media cabal as “the propaganda regime.” He asks and answers, “Why did newspapers, universities, publishing houses, record labels, and movie studios uniformly fall in line behind Trump Derangement Syndrome, Russiagate, cancel culture, COVID safetyism, dogmatic gender ideology, and other authoritarian ideological certainties? Because key figures in public and private institutions across the globe — literally — were being paid to propagate these narratives; this much we now know.”
Call the alliance what you will; the Democrat complex is an extraordinarily powerful, technologically sophisticated, and overwhelmingly partisan machine — not like a mere airplane to use a simile, but more like an F-47 Stealth Fighter.
This fighter jet has a storied track record of success in getting most or enough Americans to ignore the facts that surround various issues and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-2024-election-was-a-referendum-on-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embrace a preferred alternative narrative</a> — at least for a while. From Obamacare, to Benghazi, to Russiagate, to Covid, to belief in multiple genders, to the activities of the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden Crime Family</a>, to the authenticity of <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/19/its-been-two-years-since-51-intelligence-agents-interfered-with-an-election-they-still-wont-apologize/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hunter’s laptop</a>, to border security, to a host of specific individuals, the Democrats’ warplane inflicted massive damage on their enemies and got them through turbulence and countless battles with shockingly low casualties.
It is perhaps understandable that with this impressive history of success, party leadership would be hesitant to abandon this awesome weapon. They will look earnestly for alternative explanations for the 2024 election result. Perhaps the pilot, whoever that was, had the wrong flight or battle plan for the aircraft? Perhaps the pilot didn’t understand and adequately maximize the sophisticated evasion and engagement capabilities of the aircraft? In fact, perhaps the pilot didn’t even employ or fully engage the aircraft’s most powerful weapons, or focus them on the correct targets?
Sure, a jackbooted DOJ may no longer be part of the arsenal (although the judiciary certainly isn’t on the sidelines), Twitter/X has now fallen to the enemy, and it looks like the plug is being pulled on some of the funding for sycophant NGOs, so the Democrat warplane has taken a bit of flak and may be down to only five or so of the eight engines. But those are big engines, and five of them still garner a lot of power — maybe more than has yet been shown. So it will obviously require more than the results of a single election to convince them that their combat-tested warbird needs to be mothballed. They’re going with pilot error, not aircraft design.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for <a href="https://starrs.us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">STARRS.US</a>. 
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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