Category: Blaze Media
The crisis of ‘trembling pastors’: Why church leaders are ignoring core theology because it’s ‘political’
At Turning Point USA’s annual AmFest, BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey and Senior Director of TPUSA Faith Lucas Miles dove into one the most pressing spiritual issues facing our nation right now: weak pastors.
Miles calls them “trembling pastors.” They aren’t necessarily “traitorous” in that they’re deliberately spreading ideas antithetical to Scripture, but they also aren’t “true pastors” willing to boldly speak truth no matter the cost.
These men, fearful of dividing their congregations or financial loss, steer clear of politically charged subjects.
But the problem with that approach is that so many political issues today are theological at their core. Abortion, marriage, gender, race, and justice have deep spiritual implications, but because these issues appear on the ballot, many pastors turn a blind eye to them and fail to lead their congregations.
But Allie and Miles argue that truth only prevails when pastors courageously lead in all areas.
“I remember one of the things that Charlie [Kirk] said to me is that courage is easy. All you have to do is say yes. You don’t have to have a degree on the wall; you don’t have to have a bunch of money; you don’t have to have good looks. You just have to be willing to say, like, ‘Here I am, Lord. Send me,”’ says Miles.
“I think we need more pastors to do that. … What we’re trying to do at TPUSA Faith is be that voice coming alongside of them and saying, ‘Rise up, you mighty valiant warrior. It’s time to get in the fight here.”’
One type of weak pastor Allie says she sees a lot of are those unwilling to touch anything related to race. They’ve “got it on abortion; they’ve got it on marriage and gender,” she says, but “the racial social justice stuff” is where they “totally fumble the ball.”
This was especially apparent during 2020, when the death of George Floyd set off a social justice movement that razed entire cities to the ground. During that time, there were so many pastors who “sounded so much like BLM or the world when it came to race and justice,” she tells Miles.
Miles says that while he has grace for the pastors who posted black BLM squares before it came out that it was “Marxist, anti-family, anti-God organization,” his sympathy ends with those who never repented.
“I’ve not seen one of these guys go back and repent of that and actually acknowledge this,” he says.
While it’s easy to write this off as pride, part of the problem is lack of education.
Many of these pastors simply “don’t know the history of liberation theology. They don’t know that it’s a hybrid between Marxism and Christianity. They don’t know about James Cone. They don’t know about this idea of crucifying the white Jesus,” says Miles.
To learn more about how TPUSA Faith is walking alongside pastors, educating and encouraging them to boldly proclaim truth and, as Charlie Kirk is famous for saying, “make heaven crowded,” watch the full interview above.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
The Obamacare subsidy fight exposes who Washington really serves
The failure of both Democrat and Republican plans to extend or partially replace enhanced Obamacare subsidies offers a clear lesson: Escaping an entitlement trap almost never happens.
Yes, the House of Representatives on Thursday voted to extend the COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies that expired at the end of 2025. Seventeen Republicans even joined a unanimous Democratic Caucus in voting for the extension. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Republicans have “no appetite” for an extension — at least not without reforms.
Republicans remain an impediment to the necessary reforms and are working hand in hand with Democrats to bring on economic collapse. Time is not on our side.
The reality is, once government creates a welfare entitlement, logic and sustainability exit the conversation. Politicians do not debate whether to grow the program. They argue only over how much to increase spending and how to disguise the costs. That pattern now governs the fight over enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Why the premise never gets challenged
When the Senate rejected a nearly identical bill in December, the Wall Street Journal reported that Congress faces “no clear path for aiding millions of Americans facing soaring Affordable Care Act insurance costs next year.”
The Journal’s framing accepts the entitlement premise without question. It treats “aiding millions” as morally self-evident while ignoring the coercion necessary to fund that aid. Government assistance does not materialize from thin air. It transfers responsibility, money, and risk from one group of Americans to another.
Once imposed, that transfer only grows.
Both rejected plans would have sent more taxpayer money to insurers than the ACA already guarantees. With no deal in sight, the Journal observed last month that hope for extending the subsidies is fading. That assessment may be accurate politically, but an extension does not deserve hope. It deserves scrutiny.
How entitlement politics works
Democrats want Republicans to extend an expansion they never voted for of a program they never supported. Republicans respond by proposing modest adjustments to reduce political damage without challenging the underlying structure.
Rep. Max L. Miller (R-Ohio), who voted for the bill, summarized the dilemma perfectly. “I just want to make this abundantly clear: This is a Democratic piece of legislation. It is absolutely horrific. Now, it is the best alternative to what we have at the moment.”
That is how entitlement traps operate.
For decades, big-government advocates have followed a reliable strategy. They create a benefit for a defined group, allow costs to spiral, then dare the opposition to take something away from a newly entrenched constituency. When the moment arrives, those who claim to favor limited government retreat or propose cosmetic reforms that leave the core system untouched.
That dynamic explains why the country remains locked into the socialist ratchet, the uniparty routine, and a political class that acts as tax collector for an ever-expanding welfare state.
RELATED: Democrat senator makes stunning admission about Obamacare failures
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Trapped voters, trapped taxpayers
Entitlements squeeze the nation from both sides. They trap recipients by discouraging work and mobility, and they trap taxpayers by locking future governments into permanent obligations.
The Affordable Care Act stands as one of the most powerful modern examples of this system. The law forced millions into government-regulated insurance markets while guaranteeing insurers a growing pool of subsidized customers. The result was predictable: higher costs, deeper dependency, and a massive political constituency invested in permanent expansion.
Not a single Republican voted for the ACA. They understood what the law would do. Democrats passed it anyway, and it worked exactly as designed.
Who Obamacare was really built to serve
As Connor O’Keeffe has argued at Mises Wire, federal health care policy has long served industry interests. Government interventions channel money toward providers, pharmaceutical companies, and insurers under the guise of helping patients.
Obamacare accelerated that process by mandating coverage and expanding what insurers must provide, driving demand and cost growth in tandem. Once people rely on government assistance to afford insurance, any reduction becomes politically unthinkable.
Republicans now scramble to avoid electoral consequences. House Speaker Mike Johnson says the GOP will advance health care proposals without extending subsidies, yet many lawmakers privately admit that only an extension prevents immediate pain ahead of the 2026 midterms.
That admission exposes the trap. Spending limits become cruel. Taxpayer costs disappear from the conversation. Only the next premium increase matters.
Why conservatives keep losing
History explains where this leads. Entitlement debates almost always end with higher spending. Political power depends on payments to voters. Reducing benefits means losing elections.
Progressives act decisively when in power. Conservatives obsess over procedure and restraint, even as the administrative state grows unchecked.
Last week alone offered two examples. The House overturned President Trump’s March 2025 executive order blocking collective bargaining for over a million federal employees, with 20 Republicans joining Democrats. Even Franklin Roosevelt opposed public-sector unions. Modern conservatives could not summon the resolve to block them.
On the same day, Indiana Republicans declined to redraw their congressional map despite the risk of losing the House and triggering impeachment proceedings against Trump. They clung to unwritten norms while their opponents prepared to exploit the outcome.
RELATED: If conservatives will not defend capitalism, who will?
Leontura via iStock/Getty Images
This pattern defines conservative failure. Republicans manage decline. They preserve a decaying system rather than reverse it.
Donald Trump broke from that habit. A former Democrat, he understands power. Win elections, then act. Trump restored a political energy absent on the right for decades.
His approach to entitlements focuses on restraining growth outside Social Security while expanding private-sector freedom to increase economic output. The goal is not austerity. It is to shrink government’s share of the economy by growing everything else faster.
Reform or collapse
That strategy may succeed or fail. It remains the only alternative to collapse. Without reform, federal spending and debt will overwhelm the system within a decade, possibly sooner. Borrowing costs will explode. Inflation will surge. Control will vanish.
The United States approached that danger under unified Democrat control and Joe Biden’s autopen in 2021 and 2022. Voters halted the slide by electing Republican majorities and returning Trump to the White House.
Trump failed to drain the swamp in his first term, largely because congressional Republicans refused to legislate when they had the chance. In his second term, he has advanced reforms through executive action. Congress has responded with delay and timidity.
The country will escape the entitlement trap one way or another. Reform can arrive through disciplined growth and economic expansion, or through collapse driven by massive overspending.
With their conservative approach to governance, Republicans remain an impediment to the necessary reforms and are working hand in hand with Democrats to bring on that collapse. Time is not on our side.
‘They Don’t Work With Us’: Tom Homan Defends Feds, And Not ‘Sanctuary’ Minnesota, Probing ICE Shooting
‘Now all of a sudden, they got an opinion’
How Leland Vittert went from social outcast to network TV
When NewsNation reporter Leland Vittert was diagnosed with autism as a child, his father did not treat it as a disability but rather a tool to be sharpened — and Vittert believes this was a huge factor when it came to finding success as an adult.
And while Vittert credits his upbringing for his ability to overcome adversity, it was his college experience that led him to realize he needed to change, not the world.
“I think college was the first time I started realizing that I needed to change, right? Because my dad spent, you know, all those nights that I was so upset saying, ‘Look, when you get older, the same qualities that are making you ostracized and bullied and having all these issues are the qualities that’s going to make you successful later in life,’” Vittert tells Stuckey.
“He was correct in many ways. He did not tell me in eighth grade that an eighth grade middle school classroom is great training for a Washington newsroom, which would later turn out to be very true. Still is,” he continues.
His dad often told him a story about being blackballed from all the fraternities while he was in college.
“He never got a bid at any one of the fraternities that was on campus. And it was a way of sort of explaining to me, right, that he understood the isolation. He understood what I was going through. And the same thing happened to me,” Vittert tells Stuckey.
Vittert was told that he wasn’t getting a bid and called his dad that night.
“It’s snowing at Northwestern, bitterly cold. Tears are freezing on my face. And I called my dad. I said, ‘I’m just like you.’ And then I said to dad, I said, ‘I need to understand that it may not just be everybody else. I’m going to have to change.’ And that really became the college experience,” he explains.
“To me, going to college wasn’t really about learning economics, which I majored in, or journalism, which journalism school is pretty useless. But it was about learning as a person and trying to put all of those lessons that my dad taught me into effect,” he continues.
Vittert found that with hard work, he was able to channel who he was into what he wanted to be — and he found that journalism was one of those industries “that just yield to hard work.”
“If you just work hard and outwork everybody, that is of enormous value in journalism,” he says.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
‘A giant step back’: Liberals rage against red meat after new food pyramid guidelines release
Eating real food is not quite that simple, and might even constitute “bowing to Big Meat,” depending on who you ask.
After Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his department dropped the new federal dietary guidelines — which have been historically referred to as the food pyramid — the recommendation of eating “real food,” including red meat and full-fat dairy, was seen as an attack by many in the dietary sphere.
‘Beef is responsible for 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein than beans.’
The new guidelines emphasized protein (from meat and vegetables), dairy, fruit, and some grains as part of a healthy diet. While some cleverly accused HHS of copying a popular “South Park” scene where scientists simply “flip the pyramid” to solve America’s health crisis, others decided to criticize the guidelines for promoting animal meat intake.
Meat puppets
MS Now, formerly MSNBC, argued that Americans already eat too much meat and claimed that most meat consumed in the country “is already fake.” This was argued by citing an article that claimed selective breeding of cows and chickens constitutes altering “genetic makeup.”
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine spoke out against the new federal guidelines too. The group reportedly criticized the promotion of meat and dairy products, labeling the foods as “principal drivers of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity.”
Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images
I scream
Food Navigator USA took a slightly different approach and claimed the shift in dietary advice was the HHS “bowing to Big Meat” and the dairy industry.
The outlet cited the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Neal Barnard, who said the guidelines “unjustly condemned processed foods.”
An article from Truthout cited vegan dietitian Ashley Kitchens who unironically claimed the food pyramid was being flipped upside down, calling it “complete ignorance” to encourage more meat and dairy consumption.
“It’s a giant step back from decades of evidence-based nutrition research and science,” Kitchens said.
Butter face
The Center for Science in the Public Interest echoed similar sentiments and said the dietary advice from Kennedy’s HHS is “harmful” for emphasizing “animal protein, butter, and full-fat dairy.”
It is “guidance that undermines both the saturated fat limit” and previous dietary advice to emphasize “plant-based proteins.”
RELATED: RFK Jr. steals the show after hilarious quacking ringtone interrupts White House briefing
Photo by Martin Pope/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Furthermore, Vox called the apparent attitude of the HHS toward vegan diets “hostile and stigmatizing,” while Stanford nutrition expert Christopher Gardner said the promotion of red meat goes against “decades and decades of evidence and research.”
Climate kooks
Lastly, a perhaps predictable approach was taken by Bloomberg, who criticized the guidelines for prioritizing animal products because of how their production affects climate.
“Beef is responsible for 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein than beans, peas and lentils,” the outlet wrote.
This consensus against animal protein from dietary conglomerates in coalition with left-wing news outlets is sure to fuel the widespread belief that the powers that be are pushing toward a world without the luxury of beef.
This is typically argued from an ideological and political standpoint by groups like the World Economic Forum, for example, in articles like “Why eating less meat is the best way to tackle climate change,” “Why you should be eating less meat,” and “You will be eating replacement meats within 20 years. Here’s why.”
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Caregiving decisions begin in the bathroom
The holidays have a way of forcing conversations many families would rather postpone.
Every year, as adult children come home and aging parents gather around the table, familiar signs emerge. Someone struggles with stairs. Someone tires more easily. Someone forgets what was once routine. And with those observations come discussions caregivers know well.
The promise.
“I’ll never put Mom or Dad in a nursing home.”
It is often spoken years earlier, in healthier days, and always with sincerity. At the time, it feels like a declaration of love and loyalty. Assisted living seems distant, unnecessary, and meant for other families, not ours.
The problem is not the promise. The problem is that life keeps changing.
Circumstances change. Strength ebbs. What once worked may no longer work safely or wisely.
Over time, what began as devotion can quietly become more than one person can manage alone. Needs grow. Safety becomes a concern. Medical issues multiply. Caregivers often find themselves trying to do, by themselves, what normally requires trained professionals, proper equipment, and constant oversight.
At that point, the issue is no longer love or loyalty. It’s capacity.
That reality came into focus during a recent conversation with a friend. He had offered a small cottage on his property to help a friend relocate aging parents closer to family. The mother now uses a walker. The father has been her caregiver for years, but serious heart problems have begun to limit what he can safely do.
Still the conversation kept circling back to the same refrain: Neither would ever go into assisted living or a nursing home.
Their adult son is caught in the middle, trying desperately to make everyone happy. That is a fool’s task. In my work with fellow caregivers, I call this the caregiver FOG — fear, obligation, and guilt — because it blurs perspective, narrows options, and makes even familiar paths hard to see. No one wins.
It is like driving into actual fog. Visibility drops. Muscles tense. Judgment narrows. We try to peer miles ahead when we can barely see the hood of the car.
Every highway safety officer gives the same advice: Slow down, turn on the low beams, and stop trying to see five miles down the road.
Caregiving requires the same discipline.
My friend asked what I thought.
I suggested we lower the emotional temperature and start with one concrete issue.
Not the promise. Not the arguments. Not the guilt.
Start with the toilet.
Laugh if you like. It sounds abrupt. But it has a way of clarifying reality quickly.
RELATED: When the soul flatlines, call a ‘Code Grace’
PeopleImages via iStock/Getty Images
The bathroom is often ground zero for caregiving challenges. If the toilet is not safe and accessible, the demands on the caregiver escalate immediately. Transfers become harder. Fatigue compounds. Falls become more likely.
Once the toilet is addressed, you move outward.
The shower. The bedroom. Doorways, lighting, entrances.
Sometimes modest changes are enough — grab bars, a raised toilet seat, a walk-in shower. None of these are exotic ideas. But determining needs honestly requires facing the limits of strength, balance, and endurance as they exist today, not as we wish they were.
While politicians and toilets often deal with similar subject matter, toilets remain refreshingly honest. They simply reveal what actually works.
When families do this, reality follows. Cost. Time. Budgets weighed against needs. Timelines measured against declining strength. What once felt like a moral standoff becomes a practical evaluation.
Fear, obligation, and guilt begin to loosen their grip. In their place come planning, stewardship, and direction.
This matters because emotional decisions often rush families into choices that create larger — and sometimes far more expensive — problems later. We see this dynamic everywhere, including politics. While politicians and toilets often deal with similar subject matter, toilets remain refreshingly honest. They do not respond to intentions, promises, or speeches. They simply reveal what actually works.
Families do not choose assisted living or nursing homes in the abstract. Toilets always have a seat at the decision table.
RELATED: Christian, what do you believe when faith stops being theoretical?
fotojog via iStock/Getty Images
Surveys consistently show that most older Americans want to remain in their own homes as they age. That desire is sincere and understandable. But staying home without meaningful accommodations transfers an enormous burden onto the caregiver. The home may remain familiar, but the cost — physical, emotional, and relational — often rises exponentially.
Most promises are made sincerely. They are also made without a full understanding of how disease progresses, how bodies change, or how deeply caregiving reshapes everyone involved. Honoring a promise does not mean freezing it in time. It means continually asking how we can care well, given today’s realities.
Assisted living is not a surrender of care. In many cases, it is an extension of it. It allows families to return to being sons, daughters, and spouses, rather than exhausted amateur medical staff running on guilt and fumes.
We are not obligated to preserve every arrangement exactly as it once was. We are called to steward what has been entrusted to us — finances, time, energy, relationships, and the caregiver as well.
Circumstances change. Strength ebbs. What once worked may no longer work safely or wisely.
Important decisions are best made with clear heads, honest assessments, and wise counsel — not under the duress and resentment that so often accompany them. The days after the holidays are not a verdict. They are an invitation to slow down, think clearly, seek experienced guidance, and choose what is best not just for one individual but for the whole family.
The path forward is rarely determined by emotion, decades-old promises, or guilt.
More often, it is clarified by something far more unassuming — and far more truthful.
The appliance in the nearest bathroom.
How do you solve a problem like Wikipedia?
Wikipedia has recently come under the microscope. I take some credit for this, as a co-founder of Wikipedia and a longtime vocal critic of the knowledge platform.
In September, I nailed (virtually) “Nine Theses About Wikipedia” to the digital door of Wikipedia and started a round of interviews about it, beginning with Tucker Carlson. This prompted Elon Musk to announce Grokipedia’s impending launch the very next day. And a national conversation evolved from there, with left- and right-leaning voices complaining about the platform’s direction or my critique of it.
As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.
As its 25th anniversary approaches, Wikipedia clearly needs reform. Not only does the platform have a long history of left-wing bias, but the purveyors of that bias — administrators, everyday editors, and others — stubbornly cling to their warped worldview and vilify those who dare to contest it.
The “Nine Theses” are the project’s first-ever thoroughgoing reform proposal. Among the ideas:
- Allow multiple, competing articles per topic.
- Stop ideological blacklisting of sources.
- Restore the original neutrality policy.
- Reveal the identities of the most powerful managers.
- End unfair, indefinite blocking.
- Adopt a formal legislative process.
Such ideas were bound to be a hard sell on Wikipedia. It has become institutionally ossified.
Nevertheless, I was delighted that the discussion of the theses has been robust, without much further prodding from me. Following the launch, Jimmy Wales actually stepped into the fray on the so-called talk page of an article called “Gaza genocide,” chiding the participants for violating Wikipedia’s neutrality policy. I chimed in as well. But the criticism was thrown back in our faces.
This brings me to the deeper problem: Wikipedia is stuck in its ways. How can it possibly be reformed when so many of its contributors like the bias, the anonymous leadership, the ease of blocking ideological foes, and other aspects of dysfunction? Reform seems impossible.
Yet there is one realistic way that we can make progress toward reform.
Above all else, those who care should get involved in Wikipedia. The total number of people who are really active on Wikipedia is surprisingly small. The number editing 100 times in any given month is in the low thousands, and this does not amount to that much time — perhaps one or two hours per week. Those who treat it as a part-time or full-time job — and so have real day-to-day influence — number in the hundreds.
In interviews, I have been urging the outcasts to converge on Wikipedia. You might think this is code for saying that conservatives and libertarians should try to stage a coup, but that is not so. Hindus and Israelis, among others, have also complained of being left out in recent years. The problem is an entrenched ruling class. As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.
RELATED: Wikipedia editors are trying to scrub the record clean of Iryna Zarutska’s slaughter by violent thug
Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images
If you are a conservative or libertarian who is concerned about the slanted framing of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, get involved. If you are a classical liberal who is alarmed by the anti-Semitism within Wikipedia — like Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz — it is time to make your presence felt. Wherever you may fall on the ideological spectrum, I call on good-faith citizens to become engaged editors who take productive discourse seriously, rather than scapegoating “the other side.”
Even a dozen new editors could make a difference, let alone hundreds or thousands who might be reading this column. Given that Wikipedia attracts billions of readers, in addition to featuring prominently in Google Search, Google Gemini, and elsewhere, improving the platform will strengthen our collective access to high-quality information across the board. It will bring us closer to truth.
So how do we solve the Wikipedia problem? With you, me, and all of us — individual action at scale.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
The ticking clock no conservative wants to admit about 2026 midterms
Conservatives across the nation are already fretting over 2026’s midterm elections, convinced that a Democrat wave would tie the Trump administration’s hands for the president’s final two years.
But BlazeTV hosts Steve Deace and Daniel Horowitz argue that’s the wrong mindset entirely. Rather than obsessing over winning elections they argue Democrats will almost certainly take, Republicans instead must be laser-focused on enacting permanent, fortress-like reforms right now — while they still hold power — before the window slams shut.
“Will we jam through what it is we came to achieve — enduring victories — and meet the moment before that door slams?” asks Horowitz.
On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace and Horowitz lay out a stark warning: Republicans have a narrow window to enact bold, lasting reforms before the inevitable Democratic wave hits in 2026.
A Democrat wave, argues Horowitz, is almost inevitable given that the economy “is really bad” and “going to get worse.”
“I don’t want to hear about the 2026 midterms. I don’t want to hear about the presidential,” he says.
“It’s not a question of how many seats will the Democrats win in a Congress that doesn’t do anything anyway. The question is: Will you use the power you currently have at the federal and state level to cement enduring change, open an economic path, alleviate the demographic time bomb, and build fortresses around policies?”
If the Trump administration fails to make deep, structural reforms that are difficult to reverse before the inevitable swing back at midterms, Horowitz warns that come 2029, we’ll be right back in the same boat we were in in 2021, when the Biden regime ushered in the unholy trinity: “January 6 persecution,” the reign of BLM, and “COVID fascism.”
“In 2021, we had no benefits of the Trump presidency left. We cannot be in that position in January 2029,” he stresses. “So now is the time to sow in tears so we reap in joy.”
Deace agrees and imagines a “doomsday scenario” where the Trump administration fails to make permanent changes and the Democrats win big in the midterms, taking control of both the House and the Senate.
“Not only is President Trump under a constant threat of impeachment, so is Pete Hegseth. So is RFK Jr. So is Marco Rubio. … I have no idea if you can impeach a senior adviser to the president like Stephen Miller. I’m sure they will figure out a way,” he says.
“But on top of that, we then watch them repeal the filibuster in the Senate at the exact same time … so then they can do whatever they want. That outcome cannot be permitted to happen,” he adds.
Horowitz says there are two things that must happen before midterm elections.
“Number one, at the federal level, you have to think of systemic reforms that Trump will go to the mat with Congress” over — full immigration/foreign worker moratorium, repealing Obamacare outright, and capping/devolving welfare programs to the states — so Democrats can’t just flip them back easily when they return to power.
Number two: “Jazz up your base and entice them to actually vote for something in a general [election],” while also focusing on primaries to elect strong, fighter-type leaders who will actually stand firm and build “fortresses” when Democrats come back swinging.
If these two things don’t happen, he warns “we’re going to face the Fourth Reich with nothing but a feather in our hands as a weapon.”
To hear more of the conversation, watch the full interview above.
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Chuck Colson: Nixon loyalist who found hope in true obedience
Long before he turned his life over to God, Chuck Colson burned with faith.
While working as an assistant to Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R), he met Richard Nixon — then vice president — and, by his own later admission, instantly became “a Nixon fanatic.” That loyalty, unwavering and severe, would become the defining feature of his life. It was also what made him so effective — and so dangerous.
For the first time in his adult life, Colson was forced to confront who he was without title, access, or leverage.
Hopelessly devoted
Colson’s devotion was not opportunistic. It was total. He believed loyalty was a virtue, even when it demanded cruelty. Years later, he would boast that he would “walk over my own grandmother” to re-elect Nixon. The line was meant to shock, but it also clarified something essential: Colson understood obedience as a moral good, independent of mercy or restraint. Colson was not a cynic pretending to believe. He was a believer who believed too much.
In Washington, that made him useful. He became the administration’s enforcer — a man willing to apply pressure, intimidate enemies, and blur lines. Politics, as Colson practiced it, was not persuasion. It was war. And war required soldiers willing to do what polite men would not.
Hatchet man
When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, the government moved to prosecute him under the Espionage Act of 1917. For Colson, however, the embarrassment Ellsberg caused his mentor merited more than official retribution — it called for something more underhanded.
Colson’s instinct was not rebuttal but destruction: He supported efforts to smear Ellsberg as unstable and dangerous, a campaign that helped create the climate in which Nixon operatives burglarized Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.
When Watergate collapsed the Nixon presidency, Colson collapsed with it. As legal consequences closed in, a friend pressed a copy of “Mere Christianity” into his hands and forced him to confront what power had allowed him to evade.
He pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and became the first Nixon aide to get jail time. By then, the obedience he had given so freely had nowhere left to land.
Accustomed to command
Colson entered federal prison as a man accustomed to command. Early on, he braced himself for contempt from guards who knew who he was. Instead, one offered something worse: indifference — the unmistakable message that he was not special here and should act accordingly.
It was a small moment, but a decisive one. For the first time in his adult life, Colson was forced to confront who he was without title, access, or leverage. He was not feared or in control. He wasn’t even useful.
And so he began to learn a fundamental lesson of Christianity, one that power obscures: We are not self-sustaining. The first step toward obedience, Colson would later say, is realizing who you are when everything else is stripped away — and how dependent you are on grace you did not earn.
Scott Adams in 2002. Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Surprised by truth
After his release, Colson avoided the obvious paths. He did not rehabilitate his reputation through commentary. He did not return to politics as a chastened insider. Instead, he committed the remainder of his life to prisoners — men for whom dependence was not temporary.
“Christianity is not about becoming respectable,” Colson later said. “It is about becoming obedient.” Colson’s instinct for loyalty made him a quick study. But his newfound faith didn’t soften his nature as much as it reordered it toward something worthier.
To the end, Colson remained intense, structured, demanding, and — as those who doggedly proclaim the truth tend to be — dangerous.
