Trump’s new tech policy director doesn’t want you to 'trust the science'



American science has lost its credibility, and if it’s not swiftly restored, America will never be great again. That’s the bracing upshot of major new remarks recently delivered by Michael Kratsios, the White House’s new director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

On his second tour of duty in a Trump administration, deeply and extensively plugged in to the tech industry, Kratsios has the outsized authority and influence needed to deliver such an unflinching message, and it’s clear neither he nor the president is afraid to put it to use.

Nevertheless, Kratsios and the crisis of scientific authority he must contend with inescapably raise a deeper and more uncomfortable underlying issue: What, really, is the difference between trusting the science and trusting in science?

The goal, noted Kratsios, is the successful completion of “three interconnected tasks in pursuit of a golden age of innovation: to maintain American technological leadership; to ensure all Americans enjoy the fruit of transformative advances in science and technology; and, a mission I believe we all share, to revitalize America’s scientific enterprise.”

But for the first time in American history, these goals, which would be familiar to citizens since the dawn of the republic, require, according to Kratsios, a fundamental rejection of what the science industry and discipline have become.

“Blindly trusting in The Science, with a capital T and capital S, is inimical to free inquiry and open debate and is thus the enemy of scientific progress. The beginning of knowledge is the knowledge of ignorance. We seek to know, despite human limitations, and to move upward from mere opinion to the truth. It is convention, dogma, and intellectual fad that resist revision and correction.”

These claims are paradoxically controversial today in many corners of professional science, where many leaders and practitioners have shamelessly capitulated to performative ideological litmus tests and rituals.

But the way in which the COVID debacle radicalized many millions of Americans regardless of partisan label has made it plain that “trusting the science” is more than an ideological mistake that simply goes away if the “wrong” ideology is excised. The absurdities and injustices of the COVID regime struck a pervasive, invasive, and long-lingering blow against the very real and embodied life of vast numbers of American citizens — from tiny children to our elderly, from the healthiest to the most infirm.

So despite the controversy, Kratsios is leading on an issue where a growing majority of Americans already, regardless of ideology, increasingly find themselves.

Nevertheless, Kratsios and the crisis of scientific authority he must contend with inescapably raise a deeper and more uncomfortable underlying issue: What, really, is the difference between trusting the science and trusting in science?

Perhaps nowhere else is trying to simply walk the clock back to the relative golden age of the 1990s more conspicuous than here.

Didn’t we get into this mess of trusting “The Science” as a result of “everyone” agreeing at the turn of the century that the only inarguable source of truth was what the scientific method produced?

Doesn’t the transformation of the art of government into “political science” lead inexorably to the belief not that science must be ideologized, but that “doing science” is the only true ideology?

That the only good, consequential, meaningful, and useful thing for us to do is to “do science” to everything? To apply the scientific method to everything? For science to “eat the world”?

It’s not just a bracing set of questions, it’s a fascinating one, too — because the long-standing modern project to make everything science was rooted even more in modern philosophy than in modern practical sciences like engineering. But since the ‘90s, science driven by intellectual theory has indeed stagnated and regressed into ideological performance, while science driven by technology has gone ahead and eaten the world.

Who needs ideology when you have technology? Who needs philosophy? Tech has made itself into the thing that must be applied to everything, most conspicuously ourselves and one another; algorithms and now AI have caused human behavior within cybernetic systems to become opaque to both the scientific and the philosophic “outside observer.”

We have quickly gone from not being able to account for our technological phenomena in terms of cause and effect to not being able to account for human — or should I say cyborg? — phenomena in those terms.

Some people cheer on this development! And others don’t really care as long as it benefits them, or doesn’t seem to affect them, or simply seems the cost of doing business or the new normal one must find a way to bear.

Surely scientists should care … but can they, like the modern philosophers, actually do anything about the uncanny fact that trusting in science as mankind’s ultimate authority has led to science refuting its own claim to ultimate authority — and to technology seizing the mantle of our new ultimate authority?

What we’ve seen already is that tech occupying these grand heights is a fundamentally spiritual, not ideological, philosophical, or rational phenomenon. Therefore the only people who can assert trustworthy spiritual authority over both people and their machines are people who can do so on a religious basis!

This is very foreign territory for Americans to be in. Indeed it is terrain hard to navigate for people certain that “dogma” is axiomatically bad and that “debate” is axiomatically good. Somehow we will have to find a way to liberate science and scientists both from the constraints of ideology and the constraints of modern philosophy’s misplaced dogma that argument alone produces truth — without letting science vanish along with everything else, including our humanity itself, into a universal black box of inexplicable technology.

Viewed through a dystopian lens, this is a scary and daunting prospect. But isn’t it interesting how much our image and fear of dystopia have come to us from British writers working in the mid to late 20th century period of high modernism, high scientism, high utilitarianism, and high rationalism?

Christians have a unique opportunity at this strange time to weigh in with a powerfully anti-dystopian — yet also anti-utopian — vision of harmony between human beings and their mechanical creations. What we face on the precipice of a new American golden age is the mysterious recognition that no golden age is without its problems — problems that, if the highest focus is on the salvation of souls, we may find it easier to accept and admit of no final solution.

The hidden forces shaping society — and how to resist them



What does it mean to be an authentic individual in 21st-century America? Is such a thing even possible? As technology and the managerial grind continue their steady march forward, it seems that it is getting easier and easier to lose the trees for the forest, to lose individual human achievement for the progress of the machine. Some people, however, believe that Americans are ready to march to the beat of a different drum and to pursue possibilities for society of which our ancestors could only have dreamed.

On “Zero Hour,” Todd Rose, former Harvard professor, CEO of the think tank Populace, and author of the book "Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions," sat down with James Poulos to discuss his rags-to-riches story, collective illusions, and individuality in the modern era.

In reference to his book, Rose explained what a collective illusion is: It’s “a phenomenon where most people in a group go along with an idea that they don’t privately agree with because they incorrectly think that most other people in the group agree with it.” Of course, this has major implications for society, especially with the ability of fringe groups to amplify their ideas on social media.

However, these collective illusions can be and have been thrown off in the past. Talking about the bloodless overthrow of communist Czechoslovakia, Rose made the point that authenticity can undermine an illusion very quickly: “If a poet can overthrow communism, think about what we can do as Americans. We’ve got such a bright future if we can start living in truth again and stop being afraid to be honest with each other about what we believe.”

They also talked about the role of technology in society and stressed that technology is only good or bad depending on how it is used. “If all technology is values-neutral, we have to decide what it’s for. And if we don’t have a clear sense of our values and we make technology our master, we’re in really big trouble.”

Rose went on, “We have to know as a people, and we have to speak the truth about what we value to create the demand-side pressure for this technology [AI] to be used in service of our individuality and our humanity.”

To hear more about what Todd Rose had to say about his own story of individual achievement, technology and individuality, and the future of society, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

Can RFK Jr. make conservatives environmentalists again?



Clean energy. Al Gore. Nuclear power. Richard Nixon. The Green New Deal. Conservation. What do all of these things have in common? They are all parts of a partisan past in the vague bubble called “environmentalism.” Fortunately, not everyone sees it this way, and some even believe that the new administration holds the key to bringing in a cleaner, brighter future for America and beyond.

On “Zero Hour,” Benji Backer, founder of American Conservation Coalition and author of the new book "The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solution for a Sustainable Future," sat down with James Poulos to discuss conservation, nuclear power, and making environmentalism a bipartisan issue again.

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Many people on the right usually cringe when they hear the word "environmentalism": “The left has done such a disservice to the environment by making it so political. ... It shouldn’t be that there’s a pro-environmental side and an anti-environmental side. ... Both end up being anti-environmental sides because neither one actually has an incentive to solve a problem.”

Backer, a conservative environmentalist himself, draws inspiration from conservative leaders in the past: “Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan were the original conservationists. They were Republicans, and they proposed good conservative policy for the environment that also is good for our country, and they actually worked across party lines. It used to not be a partisan issue.”

He is optimistic that RFK Jr., Trump, and many of the figures surrounding them represent a “coalition of Americans who want to build a better country and to take this issue back.” This is a “real opportunity” for changing the way politics deals with environmental issues: “I believe the next four years provide this real opportunity for the right to take this issue and say, ‘Hey, we care about the environment, too, we just don’t want to solve it in a crazy way. We want to protect people’s livelihoods, and we want to protect our communities. We want to make America stronger, and we want to protect the environment.”

To hear more about what Benji Backer had to say about nuclear power, the history of environmental movements, and a bipartisan future, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.


Christians and Bitcoin: The new frontier of faith and technology



Enough time has elapsed since Bitcoin hit the landmark $100,000 value — and hovered around that point ever since — to make some recommendations to those who have kept their distance from the most important cryptocurrency in the world. Buckle up!

Of course, the disclaimer states that this is not financial advice. The twist is that what follows is, in a perhaps unexpected way, spiritual advice.

The most important thing to understand about Bitcoin is that it’s not just another measure or “store” of value.

But, of course, all Americans ought to see that America ceases to be America if it’s not America in cyberspace.

The entrenched financial elite want you to limit your interactions with and ideas about Bitcoin. For them, the ideal is adding Bitcoin to their pre-existing basket of financial assets and instruments — just another set of numbers on a spreadsheet that they can convince people to buy in to. Not only does this approach allow them to control your interactions with Bitcoin and your ideas about it, it also allows them to control YOU with Bitcoin.

That’s because Bitcoin truly is much more than “digital gold” — it’s a universal computational protocol that all but immutably preserves the information valued most by whoever uses it. And whoever uses it is determined not by casual choice but by “proof of work” — making the effort to expend energy on having a computer successfully compete to solve a math problem before others do.

What’s more, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Those who merely hoard Bitcoin are, in that sense, misusing it. Bitcoin permits ordinary people to create markets and exchanges for goods and services without having to use the legacy financial system that has frustrated Americans so much over the past decades and enriched itself wildly in the process. Using Bitcoin in this way epitomizes the American way of commercial and cultural life.

Christians often recall the parable of the talents as one of Jesus’ most simple and powerful teachings. God gives us spiritual treasure and expects us to use it to make a spiritual profit, not just for ourselves but especially for one another. Those who bury their spiritual treasure out of fear that the Lord will be angry if we make a bad investment might be “rational” in their application of the precautionary principle, but they are failing to understand the economics of grace and salvation in a way that will lead them not to spiritual security but to spiritual ruin.

This is the way to understand Bitcoin. There’s nothing wrong with buying Bitcoin to participate in the re-founding of American financial and economic life on a footing appropriate to our technological development. It might even get you and your friends “rich” — or at least keep you in the game.

But if you stop there, it’s like burying your spiritual treasure and deluding yourself that you’ll be saved because you watch its ticker value trend up every day. Americans can only keep themselves American with regard to Bitcoin by treating Bitcoin the way Americans have traditionally and customarily treated their technology — confidently, competently, and constructively, in ways that mix the competitive and the collaborative into a dynamic and fruitful compound. Get Bitcoin and use it! Or else people, countries, ideologies, or cults that don’t like you very much are very likely to use it to control or even punish you.

That’s true for all Americans, but it goes double for American Christians. Christians choose willingly to become the servants of God — not of the world, where the rules favor those who do whatever it takes to get ahead and stay there. Amoral or immoral power obviously gravitates toward money as a lever for increasing pleasure and control.

Christians aren’t supposed to do that. On the contrary, they’re supposed to labor spiritually in the world on behalf of God and for his sake. Christians who refuse to bring this way of life to the realm of technology will find themselves on the losing end of the great spiritual war playing out in the visible and invisible worlds, the digital world very much included.

Yes, it can be confusing and tempting to venture outside one’s comfort zone into the murky and fast-moving world of tech. But Bitcoin is special. Although it’s one of the most potent technologies in the world, it’s not very difficult to understand or use, and it can be used right now to build enterprises that can strengthen our way of life, our form of government, and our humanity itself. On that all-important basis, the benefits of AI and other cutting-edge technologies just can't compare to Bitcoin's potential.

In fact, Bitcoin is so potent that it carries inherent danger — the danger of “eating the world,” as many say software has already done, and falling into the hands of a single amoral or immoral master or masters bent on perfecting a globalist system where Christ and God himself are seemingly disappeared from our past, present, and future. All the more reason why Christians will especially want to discipline Bitcoin like a well-trained beast of burden.

But of course, all Americans ought to see that America ceases to be America if it’s not America in cyberspace. That means Bitcoin must be more than just another technology dominated by the United States government. It must be bent toward our best purposes and away from our worst temptations — not by law, but by use, in what Alexis de Tocqueville memorably described as the reciprocal action of one heart upon the other.

The spiritual riches that result from this approach to Bitcoin are even better than the material riches caused by “number go up.” They’re good for America, good for you, and good for your fellow Americans. Try this — after you buy — and watch our country soar.

Rand​ ​Paul wants to 'Make America Healthy Again,' calls for Fauci to face consequences



The last four years have seen a major shift in public opinion concerning Big Pharma and trust in the government. The lies, deception, and greed that were exposed in the wake of the COVID response permanently damaged the public’s trust in the experts. However, the fresh faces in the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, spearheaded by the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., may be exactly the rejuvenation that America needs for a healthier future. Honesty, transparency, and a simple desire to help Americans get healthy may be just the antidote we need.

On “Zero Hour,” Senator Rand Paul joined James Poulos to discuss his new book, "Deception: The Great COVID Cover-up," government accountability, and the "Make America Healthy Again" movement.

They discussed the COVID cover-up, which came to light with the release of private emails by order of a federal court: “Privately, Anthony Fauci and his colleagues were all from the very beginning alarmed that they may have funded this research and that the virus looked to be a virus that had gained in function or a virus that had been manipulated.”

Rand Paul continued to criticize the government officials behind the COVID debacle and the abhorrent state of health care in America: “This is the problem with these people. They’re now advocating for things that seem to enrich a billion-dollar company, but they don’t seem to have factual evidence that it’s beneficial to their child. So now people are distrusting them on everything.”

The "Make America Healthy Again" movement, Senator Paul suggested, is not only a major turn in the tides, but also an opportunity to increase government transparency: “The government needs to turn over a new leaf and try being honest. Because of their vast dishonesty, people are hesitant, people don’t believe the government anymore.” Honesty is the only way to truly "Make America Healthy Again" because people need to trust that some medicine is beneficial.

To hear more about what Senator Rand Paul had to say about MAHA, government accountability, free speech, and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.


How Trump’s 'golden age' rhetoric could redefine America



The golden hair. The golden penthouse. Yes, he turned down the golden toilet, but surely Donald Trump is to be believed when he offers Americans a new golden age.

Who’s on board? Not the Guardian — which recently rage-quit X — where one column warns, “Trump’s ‘golden age of America’ could be an unrestrained imperial presidency. Emboldened by a strong mandate,” the paper laments, “the Republican will bring his dark Maga vision to the US with little resistance.”

Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

But the golden age pitch is also getting more serious and perhaps unexpected blowback — from certain corners of the anti-globalist right. Elon Musk’s choice to caption his post celebrating Trump’s election win with the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum — one of the two Latin mottos on the Great Seal of the United States — has set off skeptics worried that the rise of an antichrist might be around the corner.

“This phrase resonates with the term 'Golden Age,' which has been referenced by Donald Trump and is echoed by various new age teachers and high-degree Freemasons, who at higher levels, are known to worship Lucifer,” one popular X account warns. “These expressions align with Biblical warnings of a great deception, where people are described as welcoming what is referred to as the beast system with open arms.”

It’s always alarmingly easy to see how the world’s most powerful people could give in to what must be the enormous temptation to sell their souls for control of the planet. So far, Musk’s biggest ambitions concern not Earth but Mars, population zero. And both he and Trump are assembling a governing team focused on avoiding world war and countering China’s bid for global domination. They’re also both friendly to Christians — a stark contrast to many leaders of the other political team.

Nevertheless, we’d do well to carefully discern how to avoid paving our way to hell with intentions as good as gold. Pride still comes before a fall, and as even the wisest ancient pagans remind us, the pinnacle of civilization typically tips all too fast under the weight of decadent luxury into rack and ruin.

They say there’s a tweet for everything — sorry, a post — and in this case, it’s true. In typical X dot com fashion, it’s a half-joke with a deeper meaning written by a pseud: “Golden age Hollywood actor's wikipedia biographies are like, ‘he worked as a train conductor, ranch hand, denim model, and itinerant drifter before being drafted to serve in WWII. When he came back he decided to become an actor and two weeks later was discovered by Fritz Lang.’”

Interesting, isn’t it? How radically different is that “golden age” culture from the one that scares critics of the gilded empire across the political spectrum? Doubtless, the Hollywood golden age itself was one all too festooned with excess and corruption. But the films themselves, which give the era its name, brought a refined yet accessible beauty and grace to the public — and they did it by welcoming ordinary people with real experience living in the rough-and-tumble world onto the screen.

The point isn’t that we ought to romanticize a bygone age or value the appearance of virtue over the reality of vice. It’s that when Americans circulate fruitfully with one another, that energy enlivens and elevates our institutions, setting fresh standards for our social, cultural, and economic life.

I often go back to Alexis de Tocqueville when measuring the pace and scope of change in America — sometimes what seems to be a new twist is something he saw coming long ago — and, in that spirit, here’s one of my favorite of his observations, as timely and instructive now as ever.

Men connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means, God with ends: hence this idea of greatness, as men conceive it, leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all men to follow the same course towards the same object is a human notion; — to introduce infinite variety of action, but so combined that all these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity. The human idea of unity is almost always barren; the divine idea pregnant with abundant results. Men think they manifest their greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the purpose of God which is simple — his means are infinitely varied.

Now, there’s a MAGA vision everyone should be able to get behind.

Announcing Frontier magazine



When I was asked to spin up Return a couple of years ago, I knew the media landscape had a huge hole where thoughtful, trustworthy coverage of the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and spirituality should be. Despite strong political and economic headwinds, friends, allies, fans, and readers quickly rallied to Return — not just in its online and print forms, but in person, especially in the cities where the brains, muscle, and soul of the new greatness movement were concentrated: Austin, Dallas, Miami, New York, L.A.

We knew we were on to something, propelled by the conviction that allies of tech could be more than simps, propagandists, or worshippers — more valuable, more honest, more fun, and more durable. And when Blaze Media agreed — so much so that the company acquired Return with the goal of dramatically expanding our coverage, our reach, and our pathbreaking and beautiful print quarterly — we knew that what we had achieved was just the beginning. Tech was changing fast — not just strengthening and accelerating, but moving intellectually and spiritually in our direction and away from the pink police state about which I had been warning all who would listen throughout the 2010s.

American in all its richness: sumptuous, rough and ready, resilient, and possessed of the strange and otherworldly glamor bestowed on our hard-fighting people by the great hand of Providence.

And pro-America America was changing too, driven by the fresh tastes and takes of rising digitally native generations — young men and women who knew in their hearts and in their bones that the slick, hollow mantras enforced by the overlords of HR-style modern liberalism couldn’t answer the ultimate, universal questions aroused in the human breast by the growing dominance of technology. For a while now, you’ve seen Return’s online presence deepen, expand, and grow more nimble and muscular here at Blaze Media. What you haven’t seen yet — until today — is the tireless and visionary work Matthew Peterson, Peter Gietl, Katherine Dee, Isaac Simpson, and many others have applied to the noble and thrilling task of transforming Return’s already-great print quarterly into something truly spectacular, brilliantly original, coffee-table gorgeous, and richly rewarding to read, touch, and simply behold. I am tremendously humbled and grateful to present to you, for the first time, Frontier magazine.

Ready for your preview and subscription, Frontier is the culmination of the mission and ethos of Return and Blaze Media working in synergy — bursting with sound confidence, hope, and dynamism toward the unfolding American future; intimately plugged in to the people, trends, products, and visions at the epicenter of that new future as well as its bleeding edge; and unfazed and undistracted by the hype, delusion, doomerism, and cultishness cluttering our fresh frontiers online and off. All while delivering a feast for the eyes and the heart — American in all its richness: sumptuous, rough and ready, resilient, and possessed of the strange and otherworldly glamor bestowed on our hard-fighting people by the great hand of Providence. Which is my way of saying, as Frontier’s editorial director but also as your friend and compadre, that you really, really, really want this big, beautiful beast in your home, in your hands, and in your life. Subscribe now! And thank us later. See you on the frontier. It’s a privilege to ride with you all.

How tech beat woke and elected Trump



As an orange sun rises over a deeply reddened nation, the woke left isn’t out, but it most certainly is down.

And while millions of Americans played a part, responsibility for the death of the woke regime rests in a small set of hands.

Neither conservatism, libertarianism, nor any other -ism killed the woke vibe.

Tech did.

As the woke regime intended to permanently transform America and the American people by spiritually commanding and controlling tech, this fact bears close examination.

If we’re going to move as fast as we need to to make America great again, that means looking, like all the other digital powers in the world must look, toward our deepest spiritual foundations. That’s still Christianity.

Looking for revenge, the left will be tempted to turn on tech instead of trying to take it back over. This is a deadly mistake: Neither our tools nor those who know how to make them are Americans’ enemy.

But some on the right will now be tempted to build a civil religion to the god of tech. This too is a fatal error. Our tools and tool-makers must not become worshiped idols.

Finding the harmonious middle way begins with a look at just how tech beat woke.

Consider one illuminating post-election post from venture capitalist Katherine Boyle. “Silicon Valley doesn’t trust experts,” she says, “because the game changes too fast to weight experience over other factors. In accelerating realignments, ‘the gold standard’ experts and OGs often don’t have an advantage.”

Grasp this, and the events of the past five years snap into focus.

Back when the most powerful technology was the TV, the organized left seized the commanding heights of the culture with an intellectual revolution.

It was easy to do. The academic old guard, which all but worshiped the technology of old books, couldn’t beat back the postmodern swarm that proclaimed the death of the world the printing press made. And the people, who had long since stopped kneeling at the altar of the book, were now, as David Bowie sang, “hooked to the silver screen,” seeing in televisual tech proof that other peoples’ fantasies were more true than their own reality.

Then digital seized the commanding heights of technology — disenchanting the cult of the book as well as the cult of the video.

That sea of change didn’t just put the established experts on the back foot. Instead of simply forcing them to play catch-up, it transformed the psychological and social environment that they thought they had mastered.

Suddenly, the value of intellectual expertise itself began to plummet. The awesome sweep and scope of digital returned humanity to the ultimate questions about who we are and why.

Questions that demanded a return to our deepest memories about the ultimate answers and from whence they came.

Even the heights of expert intellectual experience couldn’t speak to these matters with authority people could trust. Suddenly, people thirsted for expert spiritual experience — not the fun and fantastic simulation thereof that poured forth in gross excess from the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Walt Disney.

The civilizational game had changed.

Yet the ruling left wasn’t stupid. Already at the elite level, those on the left had had the chance to react first, and their gambit to shift the ground of the legitimacy of their power from intellectual to spiritual authority unfolded swiftly. Enter “wokeness,” which rebranded intellectual authorities as spiritual ones.

This grand switch-up responded to the thirst for spiritual authority unleashed by digital tech by enforcing a new vision where the smartest didn’t deserve to rule because of their mental merit but because of their purity of heart. The priestly caste of the woke church had a good four years to execute on this crash program.

But instead of soaring, on election night, it crashed. And while the nationwide groundswell of support for Trump obviously played a huge role, the decisive factor was the decision of a handful of technologists led by Elon Musk to bet everything they had against the woke regime. Without them, it’s all too easy to see how Trump and his supporters wouldn’t have been able to defeat the entrenched Borg using Kamala Harris as its latest skin suit.

That’s true going forward, too. The regime still has many lawfare options to derail Trump before the Inauguration, and the main obstacle to their success is Musk’s willingness to spend on flooding the zone with maximally aggressive legal defenses of the popular majority that swept Trump back to power.

That’s why so many on the right — especially given how many notional conservatives have proven so wimpy and ineffectual over the past four-plus years — will be so tempted to make tech their god-emperor in all but name (and perhaps in name, too!).

Yet that, as the neckbeards like to say, ain’t it, chief. An innovation-forward culture may feel like a huge acceleration today, but it’s actually a return to the moral norm of Americans being and feeling comfortable, competent, and confident taking charge of their tools and toolmaking. Long ago, Alexis de Tocqueville taught that the key to Americans ranging so freely and fruitfully across the frontier of human endeavor was the firm anchor of their hearts in humble devotion to God: the fixed, secure point that enabled us to survive and thrive in a world where all was in motion. That’s us today — except now more than ever, we need to restore that fixed point.

That requires spiritual authorities Americans both recognize and can trust — not false priests of an HR-hoe goddess or of some inscrutable cyber deity.

If we’re going to move as fast as we need to to make America great again, that means looking, like all the other digital powers in the world must look, toward our deepest spiritual foundations. That’s still Christianity — not for the sake of establishing an unconstitutional theocracy, but for ensuring our country keeps its head among our its achievements by doing the humble work of the heart.

Game on.

Can Jeff Bezos give conservatism a digital reboot at the Washington Post?



Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos rocked the established media world when he used the prerogatives of ownership to deny the Washington Post’s desire to publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. However, his longer-term plans to make the paper’s opinion section less liberal are even more significant.

Given today’s identity crises on the political right, the only question is what Bezos’ plans will signify.

The irony of a top neoconservative fleeing a paper that wants more conservative voices might be delicious, but it’s not very nutritious. If neocons aren’t conservative any more — and judging by the Cheneys' endorsement of Harris, that’s a betrayal they’re proud to wear — then who is?

Consider the New York Timesreport that broke the news on the upheaval: “Mr. Bezos has told others involved with The Post that he is interested in expanding The Post’s audience among conservatives, according to a person familiar with the matter. He has appointed Mr. [Will] Lewis — a chief executive who previously worked at the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal — and has informed Mr. Lewis that he wants more conservative writers on the opinion section, the person said.”

More important than the identity of that unnamed person is the “conservative” identity he or she invokes. Superficially, Bezos might simply have meant by the label “anyone to the right of Taylor Lorenz.” But anyone in politics, especially the head of the nation’s emblematic Beltway newspaper, would have to work harder than that to figure out what counts as conservative these days.

For instance, the next line in the Times report lays bare the problem: “The Post’s decision drew immediate blowback inside the paper. At least one member of the opinions department, Robert Kagan, resigned.” Kagan is one of the country’s top self-described neoconservatives, a sect that arose from reactionary liberals “mugged by reality” in the 1980s to become, in the 2000s, the fiercely dominant faction in the conservative movement and the Bush-era GOP.

The irony of a top neoconservative fleeing a paper that wants more conservative voices might be delicious, but it’s not very nutritious. If neocons aren’t conservative any more — and judging by the Cheneys’ endorsement of Harris, that’s a betrayal they’re proud to wear — then who is?

The very label “conservative” has been struggling to make ends meet for years, losing mindshare to the ever-multiplying subcultures on the right that feel “conservatism” is too vague, too broad, too dated, and just too unsuccessful a brand to capture who they really are and want to be. Consider yourself trad? Based? Red-pilled? MAGA? Frog? Groyper? Race realist? Archeofuturist? The list goes on! Odds are you never felt so comfortable with the conservative moniker, whether or not you once identified as such.

It’s not even so crystal clear at this relatively late date just what it might mean to be a “Trumpist.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Politics are about coalitions, after all, and the failure of identity politics to deliver the coalitional goods underscores how identity is ultimately a question of in whose or what image you see yourself to be.

That’s right — religion. And whatever else can be said about religion in American politics, the legacy form of big-tent, evangelical-heavy Judeo-Christian Protestantism that ruled the Republican roost for several generations has, like “conservatism” itself, begun to denature and decay.

All things in this world pass away, so there’s that excuse, but another decisive factor has had an accelerating effect: digital technology, the special sauce that took Bezos from just another nerd at a desktop to a chrome-domed, well-muscled master of the socioeconomic universe. On close inspection, it’s tough to find a more potent solvent for old-school, pre-digital conservatism than the digital tech itself precisely because of how swiftly all things digital have worked against the principles- and values-heavy rhetoric and goals of the Moral Majority era.

The overwhelming power and authority of digital tech flipped the table on the past 500 years of religious and political life in the West — roiled by the leap from the printing press to the radio to the television yet remarkably consistent in its project of swapping in modern institutions justified by interest or appetite where once medieval institutions justified by faith had thrived.

Yes, the digital superpowers of computational recordation and recall suddenly seem to dwarf human knowledge and imagination, making billions start to go crazy at the thought that maybe their interests and appetites, no matter how strong, aren’t enough to hold their identities together.

That’s a huge threat to liberalism, but it’s a dagger at the heart of mere conservatism too — in a world where all that we thought made us who we are is meaningless relative to our own machines, what the heck is worth conserving again?

As the ideological sky falls, liberals have rushed to wokeness and conservatives have scattered into the subcultures of the right. Jeff Bezos is a bright, connected guy. Surely he’s been tracking these developments (along with every boost of TRT or HGH). If mere conservatism can’t conserve itself, does he really think the ambition and resources of a tech titan like himself can bring it back — against the grain of technology?

Or does he have something else in mind? Maybe he’s one of the many leading AI figures who seem to sincerely believe that tech is on the verge of “solving politics” altogether, wiping away the need for any and all ideologies forever. As plenty of those same figures now turn toward implicitly or explicitly worshipping AI itself, perhaps Bezos has realized that, while different kinds of politics and technology come and go, as Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “religion is the only permanent state of mankind.”

Jeff Bezos might be unable to bring on Tocqueville as the Post’s next big columnist. But suppose he knew what’s good for the paper, a media relic needing a radical renaissance. In that case, he’d look past the shifting partisan labels du jour in search of writers even more experienced with the humility of communion than the audacity of communication.

Hear more on the subject from the "Blaze News Tonight" team in the video below:

Pure vibes, no substance: Kamala Harris’ campaign and media makeover



Who is running the country? What happened to President Joe Biden? Does anyone know what Kamala Harris is running her campaign on? In the hazy milieu of the mainstream media, these questions are harder to answer than anyone would think possible.

On “Zero Hour,” James Poulos sat down with Jill Savage, host of "Blaze News Tonight," to discuss the state of the presidential race, the media’s influence on public perception, and Kamala Harris’ campaign of “vibes.”

Noting the strange transition of power within the Biden-Harris administration, James Poulos pointed out the media's influence on the public perception of Harris. Jill Savage said, “Nobody actually likes Kamala, but we’re just going to pretend people like her and give her a media makeover. If they can get away with it, they absolutely will.”

They also discussed Kamala’s apparent lack of policy positions: “They know that if they put policies out there, people will attack her,” Savage said.

James Poulos observed at least one instance of fabricated photos regarding Harris’ campaign rallies, questioning whether that was a one-time occurrence: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. They’re putting out press photos of these events that seem to be overflowing with human beings, but they’re actually humanoids that have been manufactured by AI,” Savage replied, “That’s what’s passing for news these days. If there weren’t independent news sources, this is what would be on the nightly news, and nobody would know any different.”

On the media’s portrayal of Kamala’s campaign, Savage added, “If pure vibes is Pravda, then we are pure vibing it all summer long.”

To hear more of what Jill Savage had to say on media manipulation, Harris’ platform of “vibes,” and more, watch the full episode of “Zero Hour” with James Poulos.

America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.