This is republished with permission by the author. The original, “<a href="https://www.restoringthewest.com/p/mamdanis-influencer-army-is-recruiting">Mamdani’s Influencer Army Is Recruiting Your Children</a>,” can be found at <a href="https://www.restoringthewest.com/">Restoring the West</a>.
***
For decades, those of us who warned about the subversion of Western institutions were dismissed as paranoid. We watched ideologues infiltrate primary school curricula, hijack <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/harvard-faculty-arts-sciences-dei-statements">faculty senates</a> at Harvard, and turn municipal governments into ideological laboratories. Many, including establishment conservatives, brushed us aside with a pat on the head.
They told us the free market of ideas would sort it out. They insisted that ordinary citizens would wake up and vote these crackpots out of office. They were wrong.
The battle has shifted, and the American Right is still playing by rules that disappeared a decade ago.
A recent Columbia Journalism Review <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/mayor-mamdanis-friendly-influencers-and-the-funding-of-public-messaging-in-new-york-city.php">report</a> on Zohran Mamdani shows how far this transformation has gone.
The narrative sold to the public was familiar. A young DSA candidate in New York captures the public imagination through grassroots energy. He speaks for the working class and mobilizes the youth. It is a comforting story of spontaneous democratic renewal for those eager to believe it, but it is also a deception.
The report exposes a political movement that manufactures authenticity. Nearly 200 digital content creators have been enlisted, many linked through a private Signal group. Political operatives distribute talking points, video clips, policy briefs, and invitations to official City Hall events. When a 22-year-old creator sits in a Brooklyn bedroom and delivers what sounds like a spontaneous rant about housing policy, tenant rights, or foreign affairs, the performance may have been fed through this communications pipeline.
Social media has given the DSA and politicians like Mamdani a direct path to young voters. Instead of organizing face-to-face campaigns, they inject ideology into young voters’ feeds. Algorithms build echo chambers where ideas are repeated, rewarded, and absorbed as common sense. That is what makes the process so effective: viewers do not believe anyone is selling them a political agenda. What passes for clever public relations industrializes intimacy and turns it into propaganda.
When I fled Somalia and arrived in Europe, political propaganda was easy to spot. The state spoke directly: it issued decrees through television networks, and you knew who was speaking to you and why.
Today, a teenager in Ohio or a college student in Florida opens TikTok and encounters someone who looks like them, speaks like their peers, and claims to share their experience. Their message arrives not as propaganda, but as advice from a trusted friend.
The Left, and Mamdani in particular, understands what conservatives continue to ignore: culture precedes politics, and digital culture runs on perceived connection.
While conservative think tanks publish policy papers for a few hundred readers, radical operatives build networks of lifestyle influencers, comedians, and podcasters.
Rather than assigning Karl Marx, these creators use humor and casual complaints to lower their viewers’ guard. Clip by clip, they normalize a worldview detached from reality, presenting state-controlled grocery stores, property seizures, and youth gender transitions as moral duties. They teach millions of young people to see the Western tradition through the binary of oppressor and oppressed. By the time these youngsters reach voting age, the foundations of their beliefs about property, family, and national sovereignty are already in place. The political campaign simply harvests what the culture planted years ago.
This fact is not lost on Mamdani. His winning-friends-and-influencing-people blueprint was on full display in May 2020, at the height of the Minneapolis unrest. While groups like the <a href="https://frso.org/statements/continue-the-fight-to-get-justice-for-george-floyd-withdraw-the-national-guard-from-the-twin-cities/">Freedom Road Socialist Organization</a> and local DSA chapters mobilized followers to push toward the Third Precinct, Mayor Jacob Frey surrendered the precinct and ordered police to abandon it. The political agitators celebrated. Families paid the price as <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/05/21/vacant-lots-dot-minneapolis-5-years-after-floyd-protests">dozens of businesses</a> burned.
With livelihoods destroyed, the online operation went to work. Influencers across multiple platforms deliberately downplayed the destruction, framed the violence as a moral imperative, and turned arson and looting into symbols of social justice. They recast George Floyd as a modern-day civil rights hero and stripped his <a href="https://x.com/i/grok/share/U8HvVQFJe8TAVAkkdPhXnG3uC">extensive criminal history</a> from the narrative. Young people across the country watched these creators and adopted not only their talking points but their entire worldview.
The same playbook was deployed after the October 7, 2023, massacres in southern Israel. Within hours of the attacks, before the blood had dried in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/06/world/israel-kibbutz-beeri-october-7-rebuild-intl-cmd">Kibbutz Be’eri</a>, digital networks mobilized to reverse the narrative. Hamas terrorists butchered and raped civilians; online voices repackaged them as “freedom fighters.” In an instant, they took acts of savagery and glorified them as liberation. Groups like <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/article/nerdeen-kiswani-and-within-our-lifetime-united-palestine-what-you-need-know">Within Our Lifetime</a>, led by antisemite <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-707294">Nerdeen Kiswani</a>, organized demonstrations across <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/11/17/metro/pro-palestinian-protesters-shout-long-live-the-intifada-in-union-square/">New York City</a> within days of the attack.
At the same time, hundreds of online influencers received their talking points. Instead of confronting the facts, they redefined the <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/article/adl-debunk-myths-and-false-narratives-about-israel-hamas-war">terminology</a>. They sanitized atrocities by calling them acts of resistance. A generation of young Americans with no grounding in the history of the Middle East watched creators sell Hamas as the hero of the story. The message spread from screens to campuses. Thousands of students across the country paralyzed universities, chanting slogans for a terror group that would execute them without hesitation, just as it slaughtered 1,200 people on October 7.
This is the danger facing American democracy: charisma and algorithms have displaced expertise and historical memory.
When politics becomes celebrity fandom, critical thinking gives way to loyalty. Those tempted to dismiss digital creators as harmless entertainment should remember who is watching. Ask children today what they want to be when they grow up, and many no longer dream of becoming doctors or astronauts. They dream of becoming <a href="https://fortune.com/2026/06/26/school-career-surveys-social-media-influencer-gap/">influencers</a>. The DSA exploits that cultural shift, using influencers to indoctrinate the next generation.
In political fandom, supporters defend their political idols with the intensity of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/SwiftlyNeutral/comments/1bijbcn/swifties_are_unconscionably_cruel/">Taylor Swift devotees</a>. They overlook policy failures, excuse moral compromises, and treat criticism of the leader as an attack on their personal identity.
This is the reality we face. Conservatives remain trapped in nostalgia. They believe reasoned arguments in intellectual journals can defeat coordinated networks of influencers that reach millions of young people every day. They trust traditional institutions to hold the line, but that trust could prove fatal. That faith belongs to a pre-social-media age. This is not 1996.
You cannot preserve a constitutional republic when political radicals dominate the ecosystem from which an entire generation takes its moral instruction. To win this war — and make no mistake, we are fighting for the heart and mind of our nation — conservatives must meet the young where they live. Not at state fairs or Rotary clubs, but on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. The young will inherit America. If we want a future we can be proud of, we must stop ceding their minds to Mamdani and the movement he represents.
***
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, founder of the AHA Foundation, and founder and contributing editor of <a href="https://www.restoringthewest.com/">Restoring the West</a>.

Mayor Mamdani Meets With Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva

How Zohran Mamdani Weaponized Social Media Against The West

democratic socialists of america

october 7 attack

opinion

protest

social media

zohran mamdani

Crickets. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re hearing from the pro-Clancy party of girl power.
The social media sleuths, peevish personalities, and malcontent mothers who spent the summer deriding, denouncing, and dragging a grieving father don&#8217;t know what to do with themselves now, at the release of the &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; episode between Patrick Clancy, the man whose wife murdered their three children with exercise bands, and Ross Douthat.
These female freedom fighters spent the entire summer tearing apart a man whose only crime was leaving the house on that fateful, frigid January day in 2023. Now they&#8217;re having to reckon with reality. Lindsay Clancy is seemingly soulless. Patrick is heartbroken, a hollowed-out man, and yet he forgives her.
The most telling <a href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2101812618679800102">moment</a> came when Douthat asked whether Patrick&#8217;s ex-wife had ever asked for forgiveness, after she violently strangled each of their children to death, holding on for at least four minutes each time. Patrick sat with the question a moment, his eyes drifting off, something like incredulity flickering across his face, as though he hadn&#8217;t yet considered that, while he forgave her, she had never once acted contrite or sought his pardon. He shook his head with a gallows-worn weariness and breathed out: &#8220;No. But I gave it to her.&#8221;
Lindsay, when confronted by the husband she robbed of three innocent souls, never showed remorse. She never said she was sorry for shattering his solar system. Yet he forgave her anyway. He won&#8217;t condone the names she&#8217;s called online. He defends her legacy as a woman who was incredibly mentally ill, not a &#8220;killer mom.&#8221; Raised Catholic, <a href="https://people.com/who-is-patrick-clancy-lindsay-clancy-12027561">allergic to hostility</a>, he seems, by every available account, simply good.
Certainly not the villain, as our illiberal intelligentsia made him out to be. Though with <a href="https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/2088522075380261269">Mars aligning</a> against his moon sign or whatever, some considered the case closed.
In the four days following the attack and the mother&#8217;s suicide attempt, the youngest child, eight-month-old Callan, was still alive and fighting for his life. Patrick <a href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2101823640794702120/video/1">held out hope</a> for the survival of his only remaining child: &#8220;Just give me one. I would give him the best life I possibly could.&#8221; He held Callan, lay beside him, and told him he was sorry. The boy died in his arms. On May 26, 2023, Callan would have turned one. Patrick <a href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2101813190841582038/video/1">marked</a> the day at St. Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral in New York City, where he lit a candle, told his &#8220;buddy&#8221; he loved him, and walked out onto Fifth Avenue and cried.
Lindsay knew Callan was alive during those four days too. She never once asked to see him. Instead, she asked if her legs were straight and if she could have an attorney.
Three years later, she&#8217;s been granted a mistrial: not enough jurors voted to convict. Patrick, meanwhile, is learning to live without his children. He keeps the baby sloth Cora carried everywhere, a photo of Callan swallowed by a too-big bow tie, and Dawson&#8217;s cherished toy helicopter. He <a href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2101813579104051690/video/1">dreams</a> of his babies constantly. In one dream, Cora walks into the kitchen; he asks where she&#8217;s been, and she wraps him in a hug. He <a href="https://x.com/60Minutes/status/2101813834507747665/video/1">wishes</a> the online frenzy around their deaths would quiet, not for his own sake, but because it steals attention from his children&#8217;s legacy and from the real crisis at the heart of their family&#8217;s collapse: perinatal mental health.
This is the man the internet told you to hate. This is the man who had to be put in an ambulance during his own testimony, after a massive panic attack seized him before the 911 call was played and forced him to relive the worst day of his life. This is the man they called the true murderer.
Set aside, for a moment, Lindsay’s obvious indifference to her children and their well-being in the days following her “mental break” — an indifference that doesn’t help paint the defense’s portrait of a woman in acute psychosis who otherwise was just the sweetest, kindest, most nurturing mother imaginable.
The real takeaway here is that our current media environment has a habit of taking tragedies that are human, delicate, and deeply personal, and warping them until they somehow mold onto our own lives. Everyone is perpetually, personally offended. Every story becomes everyone else&#8217;s story. Nothing is allowed to remain an individual experience, simply too heinous and too hard to comprehend. We feel compelled to label everything, to sort it into one of our tidy little boxes, and to assign blame. &#8220;Same, Lindsay&#8221; became a <a href="https://x.com/ItsAllPoliticss/status/2090192262600794246/video/1">rallying cry </a>not because hundreds of thousands of women have suffered postpartum psychosis, but because women found an online community that makes them feel seen in a dangerously intimate way. It manufactures a false sense of togetherness, one that breeds herd mentality, groupthink, and a sheepish brainwashing that leaves us dumber, more violent, and strangely more forgiving of sin. &#8220;Patrick did it&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/2089464066666610802">caught fire online</a> because that same mob assumes most men are evil, that children are a burden, and that none of us will ever answer for our sins in any afterlife.
We lost religion. We lost respect for one another. Now we&#8217;re losing our minds.
Maybe this interview will remind a few people that the subjects of the week on social media aren&#8217;t fiction. They&#8217;re human. They have very real lives, as we all do, and their tragedy doesn&#8217;t need to become your trend.
Maybe this all traces back to a lesson most of our mothers tried to teach us (or so I thought): mean girls tear others down to feel better about themselves. Stop tearing Patrick down. It won&#8217;t help you, anyone, or anything.

Patrick Clancy describes ex-wife’s mental health struggles leading up to children’s deaths in her murder trial

How Leftist Women Hollowed Out The Goodness Of Patrick Clancy

60 minutes

lindsay clancy

patrick clancy

postpartum psychosis

For many years, getting your driver&#8217;s license was a rite of passage. Teenagers counted down the days until their 16th birthday, anxiously awaiting the driver&#8217;s test and fantasizing about the new freedom their license would give them.
But at some point in the last few decades, that has all changed. The rush for teenagers to get their licenses has all but disappeared. In 1983, <a href="https://coastlineacademy.com/article/the-shifting-timeline-of-driver-licensure-in-america">46%</a> of 16-year-olds had their driver&#8217;s licenses. In 2026, that number has fallen substantially to just <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2024/dl20.cfm">26%</a>. While the drop began while millennials were coming of age, the number hit new lows with Gen Z. By the time most people are in their early twenties, the rate of licensure rises, but teens aren’t as eager to drive as they once were.
The number of 16-year-olds with driver&#8217;s licenses hit its low point in 2021 and 2022, falling to a weak 24%. During these years, getting a license was easier than ever, thanks to COVID-19 <a href="https://www.route-fifty.com/digital-government/2020/10/minnesota-online-knowledge-tests-driving-dmv/169123/">precautions</a>. Written tests for learner&#8217;s permits were often accessible online. After a few months of lockdowns, DMV offices were so overwhelmed that several states waived the road tests for certain teenage applicants. While this should’ve made licenses easier to obtain than ever, most young people still didn’t seem interested in acquiring them.
As a teenager in 2020, I remember asking one of my friends who had freshly turned 16 whether or not she was planning to take advantage of the waived road test to get her license. She shrugged and said, “What’s the point? Where would I even go?”
Getting a driver&#8217;s license has lost its prestige. Our country and culture have changed significantly since the age of &#8220;American Graffiti.&#8221; Young people don’t have the incentive to jump in their cars, turn on the radio, and spend the night cruising from place to place. 
One reason is that teenage car culture can’t exist in a world where the dream of owning a car feels completely out of reach. It has become increasingly difficult for young people to buy and maintain their own cars. In 2009, President Barack Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program intentionally destroyed <a href="https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/cah-for-clunkers-not-so-clever">678,000</a> running vehicles. Cheap, pre-owned vehicles were how many first-time car buyers were able to afford their own car. Obama’s program removed usable capital from the market, and it, alongside inflation and other factors, has made it difficult for young people to find cars available in their price range.
The cheapest cars, which often have extremely high mileage, typically still cost about $10,000. Something more sensible and safe will usually cost closer to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/your-money/buying-used-cars.html">$20,000</a>. Obama’s program also removed millions of workable car parts from the market, meaning that there were fewer spare parts available for the cars that did remain on the road. This scarcity further increased the costs of repairs and maintenance, placing the hope of car ownership further out of reach.
The exorbitant cost of car ownership simply isn’t worth it to young people, who feel like they have nowhere to go, anyhow. Teenagers who scrimp and save to buy a lemon don’t have any place to drive to. Part of the reason why teenagers wanted their licenses and their own vehicles was to find freedom. They could go out to restaurants, bowling alleys, arcades, dances, and drive-ins. These places, often called “third spaces,” were once relatively cheap, safe places for young people to spend their time. As they have disappeared from society, so, too, has the urge for teenagers to get their licenses.
If your home is your “first space” and your workplace or school is your “second space,” then the “third space” is the one where you should engage in community and recreation. For many years, the primary third space for teenagers was the mall. Several weeks ago, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh did an investigation into the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/matt-walsh-show-ep-1830">collapse of the American mall</a>, during which he revealed that by the end of the decade, as many as 87% of malls are expected to close. He cites factors such as safety concerns and private equity firms as contributors to their decline, gradually removing places where teenagers could harmlessly gather.
Other third spaces such as fast food restaurants and movie theaters have become more expensive and less welcoming. The number of bowling alleys has been cut in <a href="https://www.randalolson.com/2026/03/30/the-rise-and-fall-of-bowling-in-the-united-states/">half</a> since the 1980s, the number of arcades has almost entirely <a href="https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/will-arcades-survive-post-pandemic-gaming-industry/">collapsed</a>, and the number of indoor community centers has <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135382922500173X">declined</a> significantly in recent decades. There are fewer places for young people to gather and socialize, meaning that they have little motivation for earning a driver&#8217;s license. 
Social media has offered a cheaper, easier, and significantly worse alternative. The freedom once found in buying a car and socializing with friends has been relegated to chat rooms and social media platforms. Instead of taking the time to go through the hassle of taking the test, buying a car, and trying to find places worth going, teenagers can simply gather online. The pandemic convinced a generation of young people that in-person interaction wasn’t necessary so long as they had their phone or computer. Teens are much more likely to spend their evenings on FaceTime, meeting up with their friends on Roblox, or sending endless Snapchats to one another than they are to meet physically. The result is that teenagers have lost the desire for independence and are perfectly happy without the liberty afforded by a driver&#8217;s license. 
Rites of passage such as obtaining a driver&#8217;s license are incredibly important for the growth and maturation of young people. It’s a way to take on responsibility, and the growing indifference toward them reveals how repressed America’s youth have become. The driver&#8217;s license is a small piece of independence that we should encourage young people to seek.
***
Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is a senior contributor at New Guard Press, a publication she joined while attending Hillsdale College.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-524659706

What Happened To This Teenage Milestone?

car ownership

drivers license

generation z

lifestyle

teenager

“Barely any of these Gen Z kids know how to make eye contact, let alone hold a conversation.” That’s what one editor said about my age group, while I, an eager 21-year-old Zoomer, met him for coffee, where we’d do precisely those two things.
His observation is nothing new or unique: I’ve had teachers, coaches, and coworkers say the same. I’ve watched as my peers (and myself, at times) flat-out avoid social interactions as small as a wave hello in the hallway. Despite hearing the same diagnosis for years, his remark reminded me why. During my freshman year of high school, COVID-19 obliterated social communion as we knew it. My generation faced a tall task: persevere in a world that came to a stop during our most formative years. Once Zoom classes ended, though, it was hard to face a world that was forever changed. Gen Z lost more than half a decade of authentic social interaction, but the time has come to recover it. What better place to start than at the bar?
While we are certainly not blameless, lockdowns and pandemic pandemonium undoubtedly fostered Gen Z’s social paralysis. A <a href="https://theharrispoll.com/articles/covid-19-5-years-later/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://theharrispoll.com/articles/covid-19-5-years-later/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2ZZdMvhxlND9A8qp4XYbyy">2025 Harris Poll</a> found that two-thirds of Gen Zers (65%, compared to just 22% of Boomers) say they had to relearn social skills after pandemic restrictions were lifted. Likewise, a recent <a href="https://preply.com/en/blog/communication-skills-in-the-virtual-era/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://preply.com/en/blog/communication-skills-in-the-virtual-era/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3GrxKKhHbdOCKvki-Ul76F">Canadian survey</a> revealed that 52% of Gen Z reported a decline in social skills following the pandemic.
Six years later, the effects linger, and the old drivers of social interaction are dying: A new <a href="https://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/reports/human-connection-workplace-index.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/reports/human-connection-workplace-index.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3uccqaD4OMXN_DveS0RAjG">Workday report</a> found that Gen Z employees are 12 times more likely to feel completely disconnected from their colleagues than their Gen X coworkers, citing feelings of distrust and lack of substantive conversations. Though once a hit, even dating apps aren’t cutting it anymore. About 79% of Gen Z users experience dating app burnout, according to a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.forbes.com/health/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2N33v83Rlnf4IhxkVAKTfp">Forbes Health</a> survey. While the statistics paint the picture, anyone who&#8217;s encountered the gaping emptiness of the &#8220;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Z_stare">Gen Z Stare</a>&#8221; needs no numbers to illustrate the crisis at hand.
Whether in the workplace, on dating apps, or even in this eerily developing age of parasocial relationships, young people are yearning for community. Might I suggest grabbing a beer?
I know this might ruffle some feathers in the wellness community, especially among my peers who are apparently attending the frat &#8220;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ayychild/video/7681301075277745422" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.tiktok.com/@ayychild/video/7681301075277745422&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K0JVjgwsbHr6tw1L5lqft">wellness darties</a>&#8221; (darties = day parties), but I mean it. Several studies have found that Gen Z is drinking &#8220;differently&#8221; than its predecessors, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/non-alcoholic-beverages-flourish-as-more-americans-cut-back-on-drinking" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/non-alcoholic-beverages-flourish-as-more-americans-cut-back-on-drinking&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-Nzc2uSocrRwVmOXMR_Cj">replacing cocktails with mocktails</a> and trading Thursday keggers for <a href="https://www.mensfitness.com/news/run-clubs-are-replacing-bars-for-young-men-heres-why-everyone-is-joining" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.mensfitness.com/news/run-clubs-are-replacing-bars-for-young-men-heres-why-everyone-is-joining&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3gpYxzCW2GMJZws3jYOBuC">run clubs</a>. No shade to the wellness crowd, but let&#8217;s not forget the golden rule: Everything in moderation. Gen Z socialization needs just a little something to take the edge off.
Slight alcohol consumption provides disinhibiting benefits that reduce social anxiety, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-37383682" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bbc.com/news/health-37383682&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1wM1OofdC8Kb0RH6jjtwF2">research suggests</a> a drink also makes people want to be in a happy, talkative environment. A little bit of liquid confidence can help spark conversations that would never happen over text, leading to substantive connections and friends — and a reason to come back next week for more of the same.
I’m not suggesting every person struggling with community needs to drink; I am, however, suggesting that a few casuals with your friends will build social confidence in ways that other proposed remedies fall short. Take THC, for example, which is increasingly popular among young adults: A PubMed <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7792981/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7792981/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3DuLNGC9AQsLAtYa3djDHh">study</a> found that frequent use of marijuana, but not alcohol, is linked to higher levels of loneliness and psychological distress.
And, yes, group dinners and Strava runs are excellent social scenes gaining real momentum — but the Gen Z stare is still staring. Run clubs and fitness circles will never match the social design of bars. I know the last thing I want to do after finishing a run is socialize with my peers, and I’d venture to say that’s not just me. Conversations begin at a barstool, not a starting line.
Going to the pub like Ted and Marshall in &#8220;How I Met Your Mother&#8221; or the roommates in &#8220;New Girl&#8221; will not only help ease the rampant social tension, but it will also provide the chance to get to know that coworker more, or to buy that pretty girl a drink instead of finding her on Hinge to avoid the conversation.
Maybe next time I meet up with an editor, I&#8217;ll do it over a cold one instead of a coffee.
***
<div>Julia Cassidy is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh and an alumna of the National Journalism Center, where she wrote over 150 articles for Townhall. She writes and makes video content for the College Fix. </div>
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Gen Z Has Forgotten How To Socialize. The Cure Isn’t Run Clubs — It’s The Local Bar.

alcoholism

dating

gen z

mental health

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) can&#8217;t quit recycling her own social media posts, as it was revealed on Thursday that she four-peated a Thanksgiving photo between 2021 and 2025.
Klobuchar used different captions each time, but the photo — which showed her boxing up individual slices of pie between her husband John and her daughter Abigail — was identical.
Townhall columnist Dustin Grage shared the four posts side by side, commenting, &#8220;She did it. Amy Klobuchar did it again. After getting caught recycling the same photo to show off her Vikings fandom, it turns out she’s been doing the exact same thing every Thanksgiving. You can’t make this stuff up.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
She did it. Amy Klobuchar did it again.
After getting caught recycling the same photo to show off her Vikings fandom, it turns out she’s been doing the exact same thing every Thanksgiving.
You can’t make this stuff up. <a href="https://t.co/Ujitoro20e">pic.twitter.com/Ujitoro20e</a>
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) <a href="https://x.com/GrageDustin/status/2100630314385125864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Just three days earlier, Grage had caught Klobuchar recycling a different photo — which she&#8217;d posted on at least three previous occasions — to kick off the beginning of the NFL season.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Amy Klobuchar has now used the exact same photo to ring in the Vikings season opener four years in a row.
So authentic. <a href="https://t.co/Axy8DcviDT">pic.twitter.com/Axy8DcviDT</a>
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) <a href="https://x.com/GrageDustin/status/2099527255173067230?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The Minnesota senator — who is currently running for governor — joked in the caption of her 2026 photo about wearing the same shirt to cheer for the Minnesota Vikings every year: &#8220;Time to get out the shirt.&#8221;
But as Grage and others quickly pointed out, Klobuchar wasn&#8217;t &#8220;getting out the shirt&#8221; so much as she was getting out the photo.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-senator-torched-for-recycling-same-nfl-kickoff-pic-four-years-in-a-row">Klobuchar</a> has made headlines for a number of ridiculous things over the years, not the least of which being a New York Times story that alleged she&#8217;d once eaten a salad with a hair comb. The report, which dug into allegations that Klobuchar often treated her staffers harshly, stated that a staffer had brought her a salad to eat on a plane but had dropped the fork. Klobuchar reached into her purse, pulled out a comb, and proceeded to use that to eat the salad. &#8220;Clean it,&#8221; she reportedly told the staffer when she was finished.
During a 2019 interview — as she chased the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination — she admitted to killing a duck while playing golf. Laughing it off as just one more reason that she shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to play golf, Klobuchar explained that her errant swing had sent a ball flying into a duck&#8217;s head.
&#8220;It appeared to perish,&#8221; she said before laughing uncomfortably and saying that, for the sake of the American bird population, she would refrain from playing golf in the future.

Senate Commerce Committee Considers Nominees For NASA Administrator And Federal Trade Commissioner

Oops! Amy Klobuchar Did It Again

2026 midterm election

amy klobuchar

minnesota

politics

Socialist streamer Hasan Piker made repeated &#8220;ballsack&#8221; references during a crude exchange on social media with an X user who was in utero when their mother escaped the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The dispute began after the X user, who goes by Basil and posts under the handle @LinkofSunshine, shared their mother&#8217;s survival story on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“25 years ago, my mom was pregnant with me in the World Trade Center,” Basil <a href="https://x.com/LinkofSunshine/status/2098403536266510413?s=20">wrote</a>. &#8220;Over the loudspeaker, there were announcements to stay seated. Thankfully, almost everyone at her company decided to evacuate down the stairs instead.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
25 years ago, my mom was pregnant with me in the World Trade Center. Over the loudspeaker, there were announcements to stay seated.
Thankfully, almost everyone at her company decided to evacuate down the stairs instead. <a href="https://t.co/YiqnHX4Elz">https://t.co/YiqnHX4Elz</a>
— Basil🧡 (@LinkofSunshine) <a href="https://x.com/LinkofSunshine/status/2098403536266510413?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Basil said their mother escaped the building and watched from the ground as the towers collapsed, leaving her “covered in soot and dust.” The X user, who apparently uses they/them pronouns, also recounted how a New Jersey resident used a personal boat to transport people from Battery Park across the Hudson River.
In a <a href="https://x.com/LinkofSunshine/status/2099572498777924081?s=20">separate</a> post, Basil said Americans appeared to be taking the 25th anniversary of the attacks more seriously than previous anniversaries.
 Piker, who has previously said America &#8220;deserved&#8221; the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, responded by attacking Basil’s age and arguing that the defining legacy of 9/11 was the subsequent Global War on Terror.
“You are 24 years old,” Piker wrote. “Last time americans [sic] were whipped up into a frenzy over muslims [sic] like this you were protein in your fathers ballsack.” 
“Millions of people were slaughtered,” he continued. “The GWOT is largely credited with why americas [sic] standard of living diminished. We forgot THAT lesson.”
Basil shared a <a href="https://x.com/LinkofSunshine/status/2099572498777924081?s=20">screenshot</a> of Piker&#8217;s response after he deleted it. Piker then returned with another reference to Basil&#8217;s father.
Piker responded to Basil’s tweet with more defiance.
“I never blocked you, and i deleted it since i found out you were not protein in your fathers ballsack, but instead in your mothers womb,&#8221; Piker wrote. &#8220;Point still stands about gwot and subsequent cynical usage of the horrors of 9/11.” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
i never blocked you, and i deleted it since i found out you were not protein in your fathers ballsack, but instead in your mothers womb. point still stands about gwot and subsequent cynical usage of the horrors of 9/11. glad your mother made it out. i don’t think you disagree w…
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) <a href="https://x.com/hasanthehun/status/2099650397334065399?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 15, 2026</a></blockquote>
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“Glad your mother made it out. i don’t think you disagree w what i’m saying about how we eroded civil liberties/ waged endless costly and bloody wars since 9/11,” he added. 
The exchange sparked disgust and outrage, including from Democratic strategist Yemisi Egbewole, who took a shot at Piker’s language. 
“The repeat mentions of his dad’s ballsack is really weird, by the way,” she <a href="https://x.com/yemisi/status/2099673387798769675?s=20">said</a>.

Web Summit Qatar 2026 – Day Three

Hasan Piker Spends Days After 9/11 Fighting With A Survivor On X

hasan piker

september 11 attacks

Patrick Clancy, through attorney Howard Cooper, threatened legal action against the &#8220;minor celebrities,&#8221; &#8220;influencers,&#8221; and &#8220;conspiracy theorists&#8221; who have claimed that he was involved in the deaths of his three young children.
Cooper released a <a href="https://x.com/hannahecotter/status/2097288132110458953">statement</a> on Tuesday warning anyone who continued promoting those claims: &#8220;Law enforcement has been notified.&#8221;
&#8220;Over the past months, Patrick Clancy and his family have been subjected to a relentless, escalating, and destructive defamation campaign. This campaign of misinformation has been launched and promoted by minor celebrities, so-called influencers and outright conspiracy theorists who appear intent on boosting their own social media profiles and potential profit by publishing what they know to be outright falsehoods that Patrick was somehow involved in the death of his young children and other vile claims,&#8221; the statement read in part.
Cooper said growing media coverage has amplified the accusations and that the campaign has produced threats extending beyond social media.
&#8220;This campaign, now fueled by insatiable media coverage, remains at a fever pitch and has resulted in real-life threats to his reputation, livelihood, and life,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;Patrick has no choice but to address this situation — with the clear goal of stopping injurious behavior, creating accountability for lies that are self-serving to the perpetrators, and being able to return his attention to what matters: preserving the memory of Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy and supporting other women facing perinatal mental health challenges.&#8221;
Lindsay Clancy was charged with murdering the couple&#8217;s three children. Her defense did not dispute that she killed them but argued that severe mental illness rendered her not criminally responsible. A judge declared a mistrial Friday after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will retry the case.
A number of social media users have nevertheless <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/22/us/patrick-clancy-conspiracy-theories">blamed</a> <a href="https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/patrick-clancy-didnt-do-it-why-does-the-internet-think-hes-guilty-1236838968/">Patrick Clancy</a> for the deaths of his children — with some of them claiming that he&#8217;d manipulated Lindsay into believing that she had killed them.
Former &#8220;Real Housewives of Beverly Hills&#8221; star Lisa Rinna was among those claiming that Patrick Clancy was guilty, saying in a TikTok video on August 17, &#8220;All right, he did it. Patrick did it. Patrick’s the one who did it. Not Lindsay. Patrick did it. Because, you know, I also heard that women typically don’t strangle.&#8221;
Cooper concluded his statement with a stark warning to anyone who continued to spread those claims.
&#8220;Enough is enough — this spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Those responsible should understand that there will be consequences, and every appropriate measure will be pursued to hold them accountable, including legally.&#8221;

Patrick Clancy Puts ‘Minor Celebrities’ And ‘Influencers’ On Notice

Patrick Clancy Threatens Drastic Measures Against 'Influencers' Tying Him To Murders

defamation

lisa rinna

Creators of science fiction often correctly outline the contours of the future, if not exactly nailing down the specifics. Unisex jumpsuits, for example, have never taken off. People still mostly make babies the old-fashioned way, rather than as Aldous Huxley envisioned in “Brave New World.” George Orwell came very close with “1984,” a work of dystopian fiction that too many view as a guidebook rather than a cautionary tale. Kurt Vonnegut, in both novels and short stories, was especially prescient. In “Player Piano,” published in 1952, he foresaw a future in which college football players became paid professionals.
He also predicted the extent to which technology would hinder humanity rather than delivering promised improvements. As with many who delve into those themes, the future he envisioned was characterized more by sloth and loneliness rather than the jovial hedonistic endeavors of the jumpsuit-wearing characters in “Logan’s Run.” One such story, 1951’s “The Euphio Question,” saw a salesman take an invention that should have been hurled off a mountain because of its civilization-destroying capabilities and instead seek to monetize it, creating a world of pure happiness and very little human interaction.
The euphio was a device that amplified radio signals from space, with one location providing listeners with a form of digital soma, to hearken back to Huxley, that left them in a state of bliss for as long as the device was broadcasting. Only power outages roused the listeners from their stupor, one in which they didn’t much eat, speak, love, or even live. Phones may not be of the same strength as the euphio, but they are changing the way we communicate, and not in a way that makes life better.
They’ve affected dating, pushed people into online echo chambers rather than dealing with people who might think differently, and turned many office jobs into 24/7 positions. Reliance on smartphones has also reduced the number of words we <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/09/03/gen-z-stare-decline-saying-things-out-loud/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzg4NDk0NDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzg5ODc2Nzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3ODg0OTQ0MDAsImp0aSI6Ijg3ZDBmMzdhLTY2YzctNDMxZC1iZGFmLTE1NDk3YWI1YTQ4NSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9oZWFsdGgvMjAyNi8wOS8wMy9nZW4tei1zdGFyZS1kZWNsaW5lLXNheWluZy10aGluZ3Mtb3V0LWxvdWQvIn0.RfoiW3OscGXfVCczgzLvQ8FErTojnpsYvSWRWEflUl4">speak per day</a>.
The change isn’t huge, yet. The decline is roughly 300 words, or about 3 minutes per day. It’s more pronounced with Gen Z, though, which suggests the trend could accelerate. They are the digital natives, the generation that grew up with smartphones rather than remembering the days of being off the grid on a random Friday. They are also the generation that bore the brunt of COVID policies, left alone in their rooms on Zooms rather than in the classroom.
And while they’re not listening to a euphio, the ubiquity of earbuds does mean they’re often tuned out from the world around them. Granted, I’m an old man yelling at the clouds. I’m not with it. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlTexEXxLQ">I used to be</a>, but now what I’m with isn’t it. What is it isn’t necessarily weird and scary, though I’m not really sure what’s going on with trends in teen boy hairstyles, which look as though they’re drawing on “Golden Girls” for inspiration.
At the same time, Gen Z can be weird and scared to talk to people. My kids have at times implored me to not start a discussion with acquaintances in the grocery store. The smartphone — which replaced the dumb phone, which replaced the landline, which replaced letters and telegraphs — brought us full circle from an invention that allowed us to talk to people in real time into one that allows us to write digital letters. We’ve even <a href="https://davebarry.substack.com/p/modern-technology">gotten apps</a> that simulate the experience of communicating in a bygone era, with pigeons and lost mail, so perhaps the fear of the next one is a little unfounded.
In any case, the rise of asynchronous communication and fewer words is not something to celebrate nor accept as inevitable. For starters, the written word, of which I’m a big fan, isn’t as rich as spoken communication. It loses the vocal cues, the body language, the tells that let the listener know they’re hearing a joke and not a serious statement. Spoken language better reveals when a speaker is unsure, which was something lost in remote learning. The student who types “yes” in response to a teacher who wants to know if he understands the material conveys a hard “yes.” The student who verbally replies, with an uptick in pitch at the end of the word, lets the teacher know that, no, he does not understand.
It also invites more conflict as it’s all too easy for the reader to put his own spin on the text. Key and Peele gave a great example of how that can play out in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo">NSFW sketch</a>. Peele was being chill, but Key took his texts as hostile. Back in real life, the word “ok” is loaded with possible interpretations, many of them negative. In the early 2020s, “kk” became the softer way to say “ok,” to let the reader know that it was not a frustrated “ok” delivered with animus. Now, us old folks, not being with it, still use it, while Gen Z has switched to “okok.”
On the positive side, speaking less and reading more might be a useful corrective, since Gen Z <a href="https://fortune.com/article/gen-z-college-students-struggling-to-read-books-professors-forced-to-rethink-standards-warn-of-anxiety-lack-of-workplace-prepardness/">isn’t doing so well</a> when it comes to reading. But with voice to text and text to voice, it might not matter, though it’s odd that so many now communicate via voice, but with a robot middleman. And don’t get me started on the inefficiencies of trying to make plans, as Key and Peele were doing, over text.
At least they were planning to hang out, which is another part of the trend towards fewer words. People don’t spend as much time together. We aren’t talking to our neighbors. We use technology at the wrong time. There’s a reason “this meeting could’ve been an email” resonates. As Dave Barry once wrote, “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be &#8216;meetings.&#8217;” That is, bloviating about how the ask will impact key stakeholders is a time when fewer words, perhaps even zero, is the ideal.
We may not be wasting away on the ground while cosmic frequencies lull us into complacency. Three fewer minutes of talking per day may not be that big of a deal. But as the world gets <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/09/03/older-adults-outnumber-youngest-children-globally">older and smaller</a>, we cannot count on technology to keep civilization afloat. That’s up to citizens to do. And the way to do it is to have true communication of the type that conveys every angle and nuance as intended by the speaker. Gen Z, we’re counting on you here. You can keep staring, but eventually, the abyss is going to stare back.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin&#8217; Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cookin-up-a-story/id1624969096">here</a>. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4

3d image photo collage template sketch of shocked girl jump bubble communication mouth smile chatterbox blogging like reaction

This Could Have Been A Text: The De-Evolution Of Conversation

communication

smartphone

technology

There is no mystery about the most important fact in the Lindsay Clancy case: Lindsay Clancy killed her three children.
She admitted that she did it. Her own defense does not dispute it. There are serious questions for a jury to consider about her mental state and criminal responsibility, but who killed these children is not one of them.
And yet, spend enough time watching videos about this case on TikTok, and you can find yourself in an entirely different reality.
Videos circulating on the platform offer an endless stream of alternative narratives. Some accuse Clancy’s then-husband, Patrick, of being responsible. Others claim the timeline points to someone else, or that overlooked evidence changes what happened. There is also a focus on SSRIs and other medications as an explanation that effectively transfers responsibility away from Clancy.
I understand why these theories have found such a receptive audience among women, particularly mothers. This crime is so horrific that wanting another explanation is an entirely human response.
It is almost impossible to comprehend that a fellow mother could take the lives of the children she carried, delivered, fed, bathed, comforted, and tucked into bed. Motherhood is so fundamentally associated with protecting our children that when we are confronted with something this horrific, the mind searches for an explanation that makes it easier to understand.
There must be something else we don’t know. There must be some missing piece that will make this make sense.
I don’t think the majority of women drawn into these theories are stupid or gullible. I think many are confronting a truth so unbearable that they desperately want something else to be true.
And that very human impulse is exactly where social media can become dangerous.
I have spent my career in public relations and new media watching how stories take hold, narratives spread, and repetition shapes public perception. Social media has transformed that process. Algorithms are constantly learning which stories, emotions, and arguments hold our attention and serve us more of them.
TikTok’s algorithm does not know why you stopped scrolling. It does not know that a video suggesting an alternative explanation gave you a moment of relief from something you could barely comprehend. It only knows that you watched.
Pause on another video questioning the timeline, watch one about SSRIs, or spend time reading comments insisting there is more to the story, and TikTok learns what holds your attention. Then, it gives you more.
What begins as an attempt to understand an incomprehensible crime can become an hours-long journey through content reinforcing the explanation you most want to believe. The algorithm doesn’t have to convince you that any particular conspiracy theory is true. It only has to make the truth feel uncertain.
And in the Clancy case, we are seeing that online obsession spill into the real world.
For six weeks, supporters have gathered outside the courthouse, filling parking lots, wearing pink and, in some cases, traveling from as far away as the United Kingdom. A trial about the deaths of three young children has become something that can feel disturbingly like a cause, or even fandom. And in at least one case, that fervor appears to have crossed a serious line. A 56-year-old woman was arrested for alleged jury intimidation after authorities say she filmed and photographed jurors from the restricted parking lot following their dismissal.
As someone who works in media, I find that progression so alarming. A narrative becomes content. Content becomes community. Community becomes identity. And once a belief becomes part of someone’s identity, contradicting evidence can begin to feel less like information and more like an attack.
Another important distinction is being lost. We can have tremendous compassion for someone suffering from severe mental illness while still acknowledging what she did. We can have serious conversations about postpartum mental health and psychiatric medication without treating viral claims as established medical fact. And we can consider whether mental illness affected Clancy’s criminal responsibility without inventing an entirely different perpetrator.
The accusations against Patrick Clancy are one particularly cruel consequence. A father who lost all three of his children has been turned into a character in strangers’ online theories.
But this is bigger than one criminal trial. The same machinery operates across politics, health, parenting and virtually every major cultural debate. An algorithm discovers which emotion keeps us watching and surrounds us with content that reinforces it until repetition feels like corroboration and agreement feels like evidence.
That is why mocking women who have fallen into this rabbit hole misses the point. Their initial reaction is understandable. The danger is what happens when empathy becomes identification, curiosity becomes obsession and an algorithm continually reinforces what we already want to believe.
I understand the instinct to look at this case and think there has to be something else.
But sometimes there isn’t.
Misinformation doesn’t always begin with a ridiculous lie. Sometimes, it begins with a terrible truth we desperately wish were not true. Social media finds that wish, feeds it, and, if we aren’t careful, can turn it into something we believe.
***
Vanessa Santos is a political communications specialist and the president and CEO of Renegade D.C.

Hundreds of pink-clad supporters gather at courthouse ahead of Lindsay Clancy trial

Lindsay Clancy TikTok Is Melting Women’s Brains

misinformation

tiktok

true crime

History is one big struggle of various groups fighting against the big, bad white man.
Here’s the harsh truth of it: We, the Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials, thought we were doing good by teaching our children about the world through this lens. Some of us felt guilty about being white and privileged, so this was a correction for it.
We Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials sent our children to school without really looking into what was being taught. We had a profound lack of interest in the moral values our children failed to learn. After all, our parents were hands-off, and we turned out alright. But our parents weren’t parenting in the 21st century. It’s an entirely different playing field. We didn’t have teachers who spewed terrible ideas or social media that echoed them.
And now we see that because we were hands-off, because we were passive and blindly trusted the school system, young people are lost and confused and have backward ideas about the world. They are leading the charge when it comes to the deterioration of the West.
Who can blame them? How can young people feel good about the West when they learn that it’s just an evil oppressor? This is reinforced when they log onto TikTok, where victimhood saturates every single video. Heck, young people were sympathizing with Osama bin Laden in November of 2023, when his “Letter to America” — which demonized the U.S. for funding and carrying out military operations in the Middle East — went viral. Things have become so bad that Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer who killed thousands of innocent Americans, is now seen as a victim by some young people.
We need to admit it: This is our fault. We didn’t teach young people the full history or give them real knowledge. We focused on the oppressor vs. oppressed and let social media handle the rest. Now, we cannot pretend to care about the West unless we start by caring about what is being taught in the classroom.
Over the past few years, there has been endless talk about progressive ideologies infecting college campuses.
Students at Columbia held an anti-Veterans Day protest called “Martyrs Day” to honor Middle Eastern martyrs; several professors have been fired or faced other forms of retaliation for going against progressive talking points; and only about 1 to 3% of professors at Harvard identify as conservative, with the rest of the staff being liberal to outright leftist.
While what’s happening on college campuses is shocking, the truth is that the problem with our education in the West starts much, much earlier. It begins as soon as children enter the school system.
From an early age, they learn everything through the lens of the oppressor and the oppressed.
The early U.S. settlers were bad white male colonizers who did horrible things to the native population.
Women were oppressed, and through the suffrage movement, they defeated the patriarchy and gained the right to vote.
The white man has repeatedly and exclusively enslaved Black people.
The good news? There is still time to turn it around for the younger generations.
Parents: Now that you know the dangers of being passive, be proactive about your children’s education. See what they are learning in school. Don’t be afraid to question it. Switch schools or homeschool if you have to. And for goodness’ sake, monitor what they are looking at on their phones. Or give them a dumbphone so you don’t have to worry.
If you are considering a new school, look at their curriculum and how the children behave in that school. Are they respectful towards their teachers — and each other — in the classroom? Do they go from class to class quietly? Do they stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and know it by heart?
Teach your children the “small c” conservative values your grandparents taught you: Personal responsibility. Duty to others. Loyalty to country. Respecting elders and authority. Being a good citizen.
Do not teach the world through the oppressor/oppressed lens. Teach your children not to emphasize victimhood. Show your children they are responsible beings with agency, no matter their race or religion.
This is a civilization failure that belongs to us. We did this to our children.
But it isn’t too late. Instill in them knowledge, truth, and values, and care about what goes on in the classroom. Then, we won’t have such troubles by the time they hit college and then go out into the real world.
If we save our children, it’s clear: we’ll save the West, too.
***
Katharine Birbalsingh is headmistress and co-founder of Michaela Community School. She is known as Britain’s Strictest Headmistress and hosts the podcast &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@StrictlyEdPod">Strictly Education</a>.&#8221;

Anti-ICE rally outside Columbia University in New York

Why The Next Generation Sees The West As The Enemy

education

parenting

progressivism

western civilization

Technology is scary.
Sometimes it&#8217;s scary for a very good reason — and sometimes it&#8217;s scary just because it&#8217;s scary.
But we have to tell the difference between the two, because if we don&#8217;t, we&#8217;ll either destroy our own brains or we will destroy our entire economy.
New technology is always scary because we&#8217;re not sure exactly what to do with it. The temptation is always to kill it — to burn it with fire. Sometimes I&#8217;m sympathetic to this particular temptation.
The World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing look creepy and weird. There were gigantic lines of robots dancing and walking in unison, with varying levels of competence.
One robot fought another robot and then broke out into a victory dance. One of the robots fell down and broke, which, I have to admit, made me laugh.
But the robots will get better — and creepier.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2494?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
On Wednesday, Facebook signed a gigantic settlement with 29 states to put some new restrictions on the use of its technology for children.
Let&#8217;s be clear. Social media is disastrous for kids’ brains. It acts like a drug; it addicts them.
That&#8217;s what it&#8217;s designed to do, in much the same way that nicotine is addictive. Social media is addictive. It has hacked our brains and found dopamine-release features with access to dopamine with a few easy hand motions.
Kids pick up on this stuff quite rapidly. If you ever leave a two-year-old child in proximity to an iPad, the kid will find it, start manipulating it, and become addicted to it. Their eyes glaze over. They turn into little zombies.
It&#8217;s a real issue. Many brain studies document this.
You know this yourself if you have ever doom-scrolled X. It was literally training you to get that small dopamine release so that you&#8217;d want to do it again and again.
But all of this is making you stupid. It was designed to make you stupid because it was designed to be addictive and make you want to watch more.
The algorithmic feed is dangerous; it feeds you what you want to see. It&#8217;s one of the reasons why if you click on a particular video on YouTube, you get fed a bunch of similar content. It&#8217;s how you end up down crazy rabbit holes in the online space.
It&#8217;s why young people seem so siloed in their information, everything from news to entertainment.
I think there should be heavy-handed regulation on social media; you should be banned from social media completely until you are of age. I do not think minors need or have the right to social media.
Social media is a disaster area. It&#8217;s terrible for kids in every way. It&#8217;s up to the parent to make sure our kids don&#8217;t engage in it.
My 12-year-old constantly says she wants nothing to do with it. As she gets older, I hope that remains. But lots of other parents just aren&#8217;t as involved.
A weird residue of how people currently perceive technology is that they&#8217;re actually warmer toward Facebook and Instagram than toward technologies that will transform the American economy.
There&#8217;s an overall unease about AI. Even though artificial intelligence could save the American economy. AI boosts productivity. 
You know this yourself if you use ChatGPT or other AI avenues. The time it would take me to research particular data questions through things like Google is so much longer than simply using ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity.
It boggles the mind. It is significantly more efficient to synthesize information using AI. This is true in a wide variety of arenas. The uses for AI are legion and often excellent.
According to the Dallas Federal Reserve, quoting Goldman Sachs, you could see a massive boost in American productivity somewhere between 0.3 and 3.0 percentage points a year over the next decade, with a median estimate of 1.5 percentage points.
Yet, at the same time, you have a lot of people who are catastrophists about technology and often favor centralized control. Bill Gates is ripping AI and suggesting that mass numbers of jobs will be wiped out.
We have not seen mass numbers of jobs wiped out, and my suspicion is that you will see jobs lost, but you will also see an enormous number of jobs gained. Jobs will change.
I think that this technology will bleed into the public gradually, a little bit slower than people think. Gates said in an interview, “The technology has crossed dangerous thresholds in biology, cybersecurity, white-collar work, and human relationships.”
Three years ago, he said that the coming bumpy AI job disruption would lead to a manageable transition in technology and would help people work efficiently. Now he says it will wreak economic catastrophe with far fewer jobs than exist today.
He says that if AI continues unchecked, society will turn against it entirely. But Gates has spent his career since founding Microsoft dooming and gloom-mongering. It took him years to acknowledge that his doomsday view of global warming was unrealistic.
He was wrong about the climate accords. He was wrong about the widespread Covid vaccine. He was wrong about a bunch of things. But now people are jumping on the bandwagon with him.
We should acknowledge that a bunch of people in the AI space want the government to step in and heavily regulate AI so they can capture the market.
The effect of all this is that people get freaked out because you have the heads of these AI companies telling you to be doomers, and you have a bunch of politicians who are going around catering to the freaked-out rather than trying to explain what exactly is happening.
You end up in politics with this bizarre increase in hatred for data centers, which are simply places that process an enormous amount of data. Because people are afraid of AI, they are afraid of the data centers, and because politicians are afraid of the people, they respond by cracking down on the data centers.
There is good tech, and there&#8217;s bad tech. Not all tech is created the same.
The promises of social media were basically a giant lie. They promised more friendship. They delivered far more antipathy. They promised more information, and they delivered a bunch of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and slop. They promised connection. Instead they often delivered addiction.
Kids have been feeling the consequences of this for a decade and a half, and it&#8217;s been a disaster.
But I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s true of AI. If we would like to destroy ourselves, what we should do is free up social media and restrict AI. We should be cracking down on social media for the sake of particularly young people who are vulnerable to the addictive qualities.
We should ensure the worst excesses of AI are avoided, but we should not try to hamstring AI so we lose to the Chinese. They are not stopping for a moment.
AI can work for us in ways that help all of us.

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