Why Christian nationalists can still be conservatives



Editor's note: This article is part of a point-counterpoint on Christian nationalism. Read Garen Christopher Kaloustian's argument, “Why ‘Christian nationalists’ are liberals — whether they realize it or not,” here.

Garen is right about something that many self-described nationalists might rather not admit. Modern political nationalism emerged alongside liberalism, and the two were often allies.

The nationalists of 19th-century Europe were not generally fighting to restore the old order. They were often fighting against it. They wanted Italians to rule Italians, Germans to rule Germans, Hungarians to rule Hungarians. That put them at odds with the great dynastic empires and, frequently, with the Church. Metternich had good reason to regard nationalism and liberalism as related threats.

Conservatives have to conserve something that actually exists. For an American, that something is not the Habsburg Empire or Bourbon France.

Throne and altar

I should disclose my own bias here. I'm Catholic. I recognize the authority of the pope. I have no particular interest in proving that America is, or must remain, a Protestant nation, and I'm considerably more sympathetic than the average American conservative to the old Catholic critique of liberalism. In fact, I tend to see the Protestant Reformation itself as one of the great ruptures that eventually produced the liberal world. When Garen talks about throne and altar, I understand the appeal.

But I'm also an American, and this is where I think his argument goes wrong.

Garen defines nationalism as a doctrine of political legitimacy: Sovereignty belongs to the nation rather than to a king or emperor. Because this transfers legitimacy from the top down to the bottom up, he calls nationalism a species of liberalism. As he puts it, "To actually be conservative is to reject bottom-up legitimacy."

Why?

That might describe a particular kind of European reactionary thought. It does not describe American conservatism as it has existed for more than two centuries.

America's inheritance

An American conservative inherits a republic. He inherits the Constitution, representative government, the common law, federalism, Christianity, local institutions, and a political tradition in which the people are understood to possess rights that precede the state. He can argue about how well those things fit together. He can even acknowledge that some of them have roots in liberalism.

What he cannot plausibly do is declare the entire American political inheritance illegitimate. After all, what's "conservative" about asking Americans to overthrow a 250-year-old constitutional order in favor of a European political system that they never had?

The same problem arises with Garen's treatment of Christianity. He's on firmer ground in describing throne-and-altar politics as part of the historic integralist tradition within Christianity. But Christianity itself is not synonymous with monarchy.

As a Catholic, I don't need to speculate much about this. The Catechism teaches that political authority ultimately derives from God. But it also explicitly recognizes a diversity of legitimate political regimes. The Church's Compendium of Social Doctrine goes farther: “The subject of political authority is the people considered in its entirety as those who have sovereignty.” The people may entrust the exercise of that sovereignty to elected representatives and replace them when they fail.

That doesn't mean Catholicism embraces simple majoritarianism. John Paul II warned against the idea that truth is “determined by the majority,” and the Church teaches that political authority remains bound by the moral order and the common good. The people can't make something just simply by voting for it.

But that is very different from saying legitimate political authority requires a king. Catholic teaching manages to hold together two ideas Garen treats as opposites: Political authority ultimately comes from God, and the people can nevertheless possess and exercise political sovereignty.

So the choice Garen eventually gives us — Christendom on one side, a liberal empire or balkanized ethnostates on the other — is too neat.

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Sydney Morning Herald/Antonio Ribiero/Getty Images

Cherry bomb

In fact, Garen makes a distinction that helps explain where I think he goes wrong. Nations and nationalism are not the same thing. Nations are ancient. Nationalism as a political doctrine is modern.

I've been reading Christopher Hibbert's history of the French Revolution, and one little scene in the book captures the ambiguity nicely. Hibbert describes crowds wandering through the Tuileries after the royal family's flight in 1791: "A cherry hawker sat with her basket on the eiderdown quilt of the Queen’s bed. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Today, it’s the nation’s turn to be comfortable.'”

What exactly did “the nation” mean to her?

By 1791, the word had acquired a radical political meaning. The revolutionaries claimed that sovereignty belonged to the nation rather than the king. Perhaps our cherry seller had absorbed the new doctrine perfectly well.

But she was also using a word that referred to something considerably older: the people of France. The revolutionaries did not invent them.

France already possessed a people, a history, a culture, a territory, institutions, traditions, and a religious inheritance stretching back centuries. The revolutionary innovation was the claim that this pre-existing nation was now sovereign.

Americans and America

That is almost exactly the distinction Garen himself makes. And it's why I think he asks his historical argument to do too much. He is right that modern nationalism emerged from the liberal and revolutionary upheavals that challenged Europe's old dynastic order. But he has already conceded that the nation itself is much older. Establishing the liberal genealogy of nationalism therefore doesn't establish that conserving a nation, preferring one's fellow citizens, or preserving a national culture is inherently liberal.

The fact that 19th-century Italian nationalists fought against throne and altar does not tell us whether an American in 2026 should believe that America is a real nation, that its government has particular obligations to Americans, or that its inherited culture is worth preserving.

What today's Christian nationalists generally mean by "nationalism" is not that every ethnic group in America should receive its own sovereign state. They mean something closer to the opposite: They believe Americans themselves constitute a nation, with a particular history and culture rather than merely a common set of administrative boundaries. That nation can include people of different ethnic backgrounds who nevertheless understand themselves to belong to a common people.

They believe citizenship entails obligations that don't extend equally to every person on earth. They believe a government should prefer the interests of its own people. And Christian nationalists add that Christianity is part of the country's inheritance and ought to have some meaningful place in its public life.

You can disagree with any or all of that. But pointing out that 19th-century nationalism helped destroy the Habsburg order doesn't refute it.

Succession concession?

Garen argues that if nationalism is taken seriously as the principle that every distinct people deserves its own sovereign state, then the consistent American nationalist begins to look like a secessionist.

Perhaps. But why must an American nationalist accept that definition? If Americans constitute a nation, there is no nationalist principle requiring the United States to be divided into smaller ethnic republics.

A nation does require common things: a language, institutions, historical memory, loyalties, customs, and some idea of what membership means. It also requires boundaries. A nation that cannot distinguish between its members and everyone else is eventually no nation at all.

Garen's argument about empires has problems of its own. He observes that the three great powers of the present day — the United States, China, and Russia — are enormous, multi-ethnic states capable of projecting power, while many European nation-states are small, dependent, and demographically declining.

Baby bust

True enough. But size is not the same thing as political health, and empire is hardly a guarantee of permanence. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared. So did the Ottoman Empire. So did the Russian Empire, followed eventually by the Soviet Union. The British Empire once governed roughly a quarter of the world's population.

Nor is it obvious that Germany's low birth rate or Italy's aging population is the consequence of being a nation-state. Russia, one of Garen's own examples of a successful multi-ethnic empire, faces serious demographic problems of its own.

Garen points to the demographic decline of European nation-states, but he never establishes the causal connection. Why would Italians have more children if Italy were incorporated into a large Christian empire? Whatever is causing the fertility collapse across developed societies, Garen hasn't shown that the culprit is the nation-state.

But the larger problem with Garen's argument is his conception of what conservatives are supposed to conserve.

Nostalgia nation

Conservatism cannot simply mean fidelity to the political arrangements of Europe before the French Revolution. Conservatives have to conserve something that actually exists. For an American, that something is not the Habsburg Empire or Bourbon France. It is America.

Our inheritance is messy. It contains Christianity and Enlightenment liberalism, English common law and republicanism, individual rights and civic obligations. There are tensions among those things, and Garen is right to point some of them out.

But we don't get to choose our inheritance; the conservative question is what we do with it.

And if there is such a thing as an American conservative, he must presumably believe there is an America to conserve.

Why ‘Christian nationalists’ are liberals — whether they realize it or not



Doesn’t it seem like conservatives are always trying to “out-conservative” each other? If you think of yourself as a real-deal, red-blooded conservative, rest assured there’s someone out there ready to tell you you’re not conservative enough.

And more often than not, it’s the self-proclaimed “Christian nationalists” who claim the top spot on the conservative totem pole.

If you care about preserving your people, their country, and their ethnic integrity, then you should not be a nationalist.

It’s a funny phenomenon to me, because If you actually examine it, “Christian nationalism” — and much of the conservative status hierarchy built around it — turns out to be a paradox: a supposedly conservative idea that isn’t conservative at all. And that’s not hyperbole.

Bottom up

Sure, the Christian nationalist’s pitch is that he’s the purest advocate for the normalization and institutionalization of Christianity. He’s staunch on all the “radical” positions (pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, anti-immigration, pro-Jesus), and he’ll tell you the nation needs to be Christian, that the government itself needs to reflect Christian values. He believes he’s a patriot because his beliefs as a Christian reflect the best interests of his nation. It all sounds good on paper.

But let’s forget the “Christian” part for a moment and take a look at “nationalism.”

When we think of a nation, we picture a distinct people who share a history, a culture, and, yes, even a race. Peoples have always belonged to their nations; it’s an ancient biblical concept — and an immutable one.

But nationalism is not the same thing as the “nations” it claims to speak for. Nationalism is a modern political doctrine, and once you trace where it actually came from, you find something the “Christian nationalist” won’t want to hear. It isn’t a conservative idea at all. It’s a liberal one.

Historical nationalism is the doctrine that concerned itself with the feudal peasant’s liberation from his king and church. It’s the idea that a country is governed by the masses of its native people, not the throne and altar. That’s the key distinction here. Political nationalism isn’t necessarily about preserving demographic and cultural integrity, although that is a key component. It’s about the legitimacy and authority of the people of the nation. Under a nationalist framework, the citizen is the sovereign. Authority flows from the bottom up, not the top down.

Vulgar outgrowth

History confirms it. After the French Revolution and the fall of Napoleon, Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich and the Concert of Europe treated nationalism as a vulgar outgrowth of liberalism. The statesmen of the counter-revolution regarded nationalism not as a force for tradition but as one of liberalism's most dangerous offspring.

That’s because the very concept of “grassroots” legitimacy is, by definition, liberalism. The idea that the underclass of an ethnic enclave can break away from the authority of the king and bishop and carve out their own country has always been (and always will be) a liberal notion. Modern political nationalism is, in many respects, a brand of liberalism draped in a tricolor flag.

Contrast that with how people understand “nationalism” today. When people today hear the word “nationalism,” where their minds usually go to is “race and demographics.” To be a white or Christian nationalist essentially means that you want the majority of the country to be white and Christian.

So then, if we’re to perceive the spirit of the times correctly, what the conservative right really has anxieties about isn’t political nationalism as a legitimacy doctrine, but ethnic integrity. What the majority of people truly want is to preserve their people and their people’s culture, not to necessarily hold the power of kings. These two terms, nationalism and ethnic integrity, definitely overlap and intersect, but they run on separate axes.

It’s important to note this distinction, because I would argue that if you care about preserving your people, their country, and their ethnic integrity, then you should not be a nationalist.

Small and dependent

Why?

Just take a look at what political nationalism has historically accomplished (or hasn’t, for that matter). The European ethnostates of the 19th and 20th centuries were mostly the successor states of the collapsed empires of the ancien regime. Germany, Italy, the Balkan states (you can go down the list) — all these nation-states were the children of liberal nationalist movements that pried their respective populations from the grip of royal authority and carved democratic governments out of them. Freedom and independence for all, or so they say.

But what does this do in reality? It creates security problems. The glaring issue with ethnostates is that they’re no longer large land empires. They’re small and dependent. Whereas these ethnostates would have had their ethnic integrity protected were they part of a larger Christian empire, the modern ethnostate is the fragile vessel that fails to do just that. The old nation that preserved its ethnic integrity inside an empire under throne and altar is swept aside because the people pridefully believe in grassroots self-governance.

Nearly every developed nation-state today faces some combination of demographic decline, economic dependency, or strategic vulnerability. Italy, Ireland, Germany, etc., are struggling to reproduce. Japan and South Korea remain wealthy and technologically advanced, but they too are confronting demographic trajectories that, if left unchecked, will eventually carry profound economic and strategic consequences. Meanwhile, states like Israel remain heavily dependent on the protection and patronage of larger powers.

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Bettman/Getty Images

Empire state of mind

Meanwhile, who prospers and dictates terms to everybody else? It’s the large, multi-ethnic empires, which primarily consist of the big three: the U.S., Russia, and China. And yes, both Russia and China are multi-ethnic empires. They’re not on the same level of diversity as the U.S., but they sit on the empire side, not the ethnostate side. Although they’re Russo- and Sino-majoritarian in population, they collectively govern Tatars, Chechens, Uyghurs, Turkics, Tibetans, and Mongols, as well as projecting power in their respective spheres.

All three of the major powers are able to project the power that they project and are able to administer the aid that they administer simply because of how big they are and how much they don’t care about being an ethnostate. They care more about being power-projecting empires than being a state with a distinct culture and people.

So if you’re an American, and you’re opining for a more “nationalist” agenda for your country’s future, what you’re really asking for is a balkanization agenda. You want to divvy the country up into smaller countries, each one carved along the lines of a distinct people.

Because when you take it seriously and follow it all the way through, that’s what nationalism is: the principle that every nation, with its own history and blood, deserves its own sovereign state. If nationalism is taken seriously as that principle, then the consistent American nationalist begins to sound like a secessionist. And anyone who is naively tempted by the prospect of secession has no idea how much harder life gets in a much smaller country.

King me

But here’s where the “Christian” half of "Christian nationalism” comes into play. To actually be conservative is to reject bottom-up legitimacy. To the historic integralist tradition within Christianity, legitimacy flows downward from God through throne and altar rather than upward from the people.

Smuggling a liberal legitimacy doctrine under a Christian banner simply does not fly.

Monarchy, deemed legitimate by the Church, is integralism, which is the opposite of vulgar nationalism. I’m not going to argue here for why Christian monarchism is the correct choice over secular republicanism. The point here is to say that liberalism definitionally is the departure from Christian monarchism. If you disagree with that, then you’re unaware of your own nation’s ideological genealogy.

Tugged in two directions

So what’s left?

The Christian nationalist is not a conservative, because his legitimacy runs up from the people rather than down from throne and altar. He’s a liberal who is unaware of his liberalism.

He is not, in any coherent sense, a Christian nationalist, because the faith he invokes is universal monarchism, which would subject multiple ethnic nations to its governance in practice (and thereby securing the integrity of the ethnic enclaves). And he is not an American nationalist either, because political nationalism applied honestly to this country would dismantle it.

So what does the “conservative” American Christian ultimately want?

When you strip it all down, he is tugged in two different directions. The first option is that he wants a large polity united by the Christian faith, reflected in its traditions, customs, and laws from the top down. That option has a name. It’s called Christendom. It is the old Christian monarchical order that 19th-century nationalist revolutions did so much to dismantle. It’s the precise opposite of “We the People” populism.

The other option is that he wants sovereignty and independence for what he considers “his people,” and that would result in a weak, balkanized ethnostate.

Otherwise, you’re stuck with a diverse, secular, and liberal empire.

The irony is that many who call themselves nationalists are, without realizing it, defending a political doctrine born from the same liberal revolution they claim to oppose.

National Sovereignty Is At Stake In Imminent Supreme Court Ruling

SCOTUS should rule that the 14th Amendment does not grant citizenship to children of illegal aliens born within the territory of the U.S.

Canadian province makes major move for independence — and it's not Quebec



Ottawa and members of the eastern ruling class of Canada have made no secret of their contempt for Canada's resource-rich prairie provinces and their inhabitants, proving time and again their willingness to simultaneously exploit the West's wealth and hinder its progress.

'Albertans are engaged and this is an issue people want to have a say on.'

While the powers that be might not be losing sleep over alienating the residents of these provinces, they could soon lose something far more precious: a province roughly 1.56 times bigger than California that's home to over 5 million people, vast natural beauty, the fourth-largest proven oil reserves in the world, a large variety of valuable metallic and industrial minerals, and Atlanta's former NHL franchise.

How it started

Canadians — not so much those in the 18-to-34 age bracket, who largely voted Conservative, but those over the age of 55 — decided last year to award another four years to the Liberal government that in the preceding years oversaw a historic growth of the federal deficit, numerous tax hikes, an unprecedented influx of immigrants, a spike in illegal immigration, rising crime, unanswered church burnings, a worsening housing crisis, and the rise of state-facilitated suicide as a leading cause of death nationally.

Unlike certain progressive regions that got what they wanted in the form of another Liberal government, the Province of Alberta flatly rejected World Economic Forum regular and self-identified "European" Mark Carney and his woke party.

The Conservatives netted 91.9% of the vote in Alberta, the province with the youngest population. The Liberals alternatively brought in a measly 5.4%.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged her fellows' frustration at the time, stating, "A large majority of Albertans are deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government."

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Elections Canada

While there has long been chatter about Alberta possibly separating from Canada, the 2025 federal election energized the secessionist movement.

Proponents of Albertan sovereignty were further emboldened after the provincial legislature passed amendments to the Citizen Initiative Act, which make it easier to start a referendum, including one on separating from Canada.

On Jan. 2, Alberta's chief electoral officer issued the separatist group Stay Free Alberta's citizen initiative petition, kicking off a 120-day signature collection period and setting the stage for a possible referendum in the event the group could secure at least 177,732 signatures, which amounts to 10% of eligible voters.

How it's going

Stay Free Alberta petitioners, accompanied by hundreds of supporters, delivered the goods to Elections Alberta's Edmonton office on Monday.

The separatists claim to have collected 301,620 signatures, state media reported. Another 1,500 signatures were allegedly late in coming owing to problems with Canada Post, the nation's strike-happy, government-owned postal delivery service.

Stay Free Alberta leader Mitch Sylvestre told the crowd, "This process shows that Albertans are engaged and this is an issue people want to have a say on."

Elections Alberta confirmed that Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure has received the petition and signature sheets from Sylvestre.

The verification is, however, on hold until Justice Shaina Leonard — an appointee of the Trudeau Liberal government — rules on a legal challenge advanced by a pair of Indian tribes that claim the petition process threatens treaty rights. Her decision is expected later this month.

Should the Indians' legal challenge fail, the province will have 21 days to verify the petition.

If deemed successful, the petition will be submitted to provincial officials, who will then decide whether to sign off on a province-wide referendum, which could take place as soon as Oct. 19. Premier Smith previously indicated that if the requisite number of signatures were collected, she would put the question to a referendum.

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Leah Hennel/Bloomberg/Getty Images

An Abacus Data survey of 1,000 Alberta adults conducted in late February found that 26% of respondents support Alberta ceasing to be a Canadian province and becoming a sovereign country. Sixty-four percent of respondents signaled opposition, and 9% said they were undecided. The idea of regional independence was apparently most intolerable to those in the 60+ age cohort, 71% of whom signaled opposition.

A poll conducted last month by Canadian state media, whose coverage has largely been critical of the independence movement, said that 57% of United Conservative Party voters — those who back Alberta's current ruling party — would vote for separation. Supporters of the province's socialist New Democrat Party were almost unanimous in their opposition to breaking from the federation and Canada's leftist central power, with 98% saying they would vote against the initiative.

When asked on Tuesday how he would prevent Albertan separatists from succeeding in a possible referendum, Prime Minister Carney said that "there's the rule of law — there's the Clarity Act which has been opined upon by the Supreme Court," and "any referenda in any part of Canada need to be consistent with that."

The Clarity Act sets out the conditions under which the federal government would negotiate the separation of a province.

Carney, who also appears hopeful that the Indian tribes' legal challenge might prevail, added that Ottawa will in the meantime act "in the spirit of cooperative federalism, making the country work, making it work for Albertans, making it work for indigenous peoples, making it work for all Canadians."

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Red-state inaction is the soft underbelly of border politics



Fourteen months into Trump’s second term, the verdict is in. No mass deportations. No major immigration reform. And if Democrats return to power, they will rip the doors off the hinges again.

Trump did slow the flow and put a dent in some outdated visa programs. But the results remain too small relative to the scale of what came before him and what may come after him.

One day, red states will need to enact these deterrents. The only question is timing.

That leaves one durable partial solution: Use red-state supermajorities to deter illegal aliens from settling in those states when the next wave comes. States may lack the power to deport illegal aliens outright, but they can make daily life harder. They can deny jobs and benefits, impose criminal penalties, and create a lasting deterrent that survives any one presidency.

Ron DeSantis appears to understand this in Florida. Almost no other Republican governor does.

Idaho offers the clearest example of the problem. On paper, it looks like the kind of state where serious immigration enforcement should be easy. Republicans hold 61-9 and 29-6 majorities in the House and Senate. Conservatives gained ground in the House thanks to the Freedom Caucus. Yet when the time came to pass meaningful reforms, the GOP establishment folded.

The House moved several bills. The Senate is quietly killing them. Gov. Brad Little (R) remains publicly silent, apparently hoping the issue dies in committee while he cruises to re-election under Trump’s preemptive endorsement and keeps his donor class happy.

The bills now stalled in Idaho expose the fraud.

H704 would mandate E-Verify for all public and private employers and give the state attorney general real enforcement power. It passed the House 43-26 despite opposition from 17 Republicans. It now sits dead in the Senate State Affairs Committee under Chairman Jim Guthrie and Senate President Pro Tempore Kelly Anthon.

H700 would make it a misdemeanor knowingly to hire illegal aliens without using E-Verify. That bill is also dead in the Senate, and 22 House Republicans opposed it.

H659 would require all counties and cities to cooperate with ICE through 287(g) agreements. In a state with barely any elected Democrats, one might assume mandatory ICE cooperation would be the easiest of calls. Instead, the bill passed the House 41-27, with 18 lukewarm Republicans joining Democrats in opposition, and now sits dead in the Senate State Affairs Committee.

H660 would require police to inquire about immigration status after a lawful arrest and would mandate a twice-yearly report on crimes committed by illegal aliens. By definition, this involves people already suspected of some other offense. Even so, the bill passed only 40-30 and is now being blocked in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Blaze Media Illustration

H764 would create a state analogue to the federal statute that penalizes anyone who knowingly or recklessly conceals, harbors, transports, or materially assists illegal aliens. It includes misdemeanor and felony penalties, license revocations, and forfeiture provisions. In other words, it would build precisely the kind of standing deterrent red states will need when Democrats reopen the border. It has not even advanced out of committee.

S1318 would audit refugee-resettlement contractors in Idaho, including the number of refugees served, their demographic and language data, participation in language programs, housing use, geographic distribution, and relevant public-health statistics. It would also require disclosure if those entities aided illegal aliens. It remains blocked in the Senate State Affairs Committee.

H592 would require the state to track how many illegal aliens receive hospital services and how much that costs taxpayers. It would not deny care. It would merely quantify the burden. A similar law in Florida led to a drop in illegal-alien use of the health care system. Idaho’s bill has not moved.

H656 would do the same basic thing in schools by auditing the number of illegal aliens enrolled. It has gone nowhere.

How does this happen in a state so red? The answer is simple: Many Republican officials remain functionally progressive on immigration.

Little is deeply unpopular with the grassroots, but he neutralized the threat of a primary by securing Trump’s endorsement. Everyone knows he opposes these bills. He simply does not want to say so out loud. Better to let them die quietly in committee than risk angering the base or the business interests that still demand cheap labor.

Call it political Murphy’s law. DeSantis is term-limited in Florida. Brad Little gets a third term.

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DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Even Florida has not gone far enough. It already has E-Verify, but lawmakers failed to remove the 25-employee exception. Similar attempts to strengthen E-Verify have failed in West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, all solidly red states.

A few bright spots remain.

Tennessee may pass some worthwhile bills, though lawmakers gutted legislation to charge illegal aliens tuition. Arizona’s legislature is close to passing SB 1421, which would bar illegal aliens from opening bank accounts, cashing checks, or obtaining loans by prohibiting financial institutions from accepting foreign ID cards or ITINs as sole identification. It would make life in the United States much harder without legal status. The bill passed the Senate and awaits a House vote. Unfortunately, Arizona has a Democrat governor who will likely veto it.

That only raises the harder question: Why is this not already law in the 22 Republican trifecta states?

The same problem appears in commercial trucking. Amid the rash of crashes involving illegal-alien drivers, very few states have acted seriously. Oklahoma alone passed a law requiring proof of citizenship to reciprocate out-of-state commercial driver’s licenses. Florida appears to be the one state seriously enforcing the English-language requirement and checking for illegal aliens at truck stops.

Iowa let a bill die in committee that would have required driver’s license exams to be administered only in English. Indiana passed an English-only testing bill, but still failed to address out-of-state CDLs, even after two illegal aliens killed Indiana residents in separate incidents in less than two weeks in February.

One day, red states will need to enact these deterrents. The only question is timing. Will Republicans build them now, during the lull, or will they wait until hundreds of thousands of new invaders flood back in under a future President Gavin Newsom?

That choice will tell us whether Republicans ever meant a word they said about immigration.

‘Phase one’ was quality control. ‘Phase two’ needs to be quantity control.



Everyone in America has an opinion on what has gone right or wrong at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. To answer the Talking Heads lyric “Well, how did I get here?” would yield a thousand different answers. I have a pretty good sense of what happened. Even before President Trump returned to the White House, I argued that meeting his bold deportation goals would require very different enforcement tactics than the ones the administration chose.

That debate makes for great fodder for finger-pointing. But a better question is: Where do we go next?

The administration needs to move its attention from sanctuary cities to sanctuary farms, factories, and industrial hubs.

To answer it, some of the nation’s leading immigration policy and legal experts, former senior and rank-and-file law enforcement officials, and advocates are coming together to devise a way forward. Details will be announced in the days to come, but the goal is straightforward: President Trump can and will meet his core campaign promise to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported about 230,000 illegal aliens from the interior of the United States. That is a far cry from the 1 million figure some administration officials floated as a projection — and far below other totals the administration has suggested at various points. Making analysis harder, the Department of Homeland Security stopped releasing enforcement data for the first time in decades.

President Trump promised to exceed the deportation efforts of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, by the most conservative estimates, removed about one-third of the illegal population in 1954. Any way you cut the data, even using the lowest-end estimates of the total illegal population in 2025, the administration is not on pace.

One reason: In its first year, the Trump administration prioritized a particular subset of illegal aliens — criminals. People can debate whether that was the right call, but that’s what happened. Prioritizing criminals means concentrating resources on fewer targets, and it has produced high-profile standoffs in cities like Minneapolis and Los Angeles. I will refer to that 2025 effort as “worst first,” as Border Czar Tom Homan has sometimes called it — phase one.

RELATED: Federalism cannot be a shield for sanctuary defiance

Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

We can credit the Trump administration for highlighting the issue of criminal illegal aliens, removing many, and forcing the hand of radical Democrats, some of whom have taken the absurd position of rioting in defense of rapists and murderers. They are who we thought they were.

Now phase two can begin: widening the aperture of immigration enforcement and placing quantity above the perceived “quality” of deportations. The goal was mass deportations, not the “best” deportations. In short, the public wants commas in the numbers.

The Trump administration can, at minimum, quadruple last year’s totals. It can do it quickly if it shifts priorities — especially by refocusing on worksite enforcement. The administration needs to move its attention from sanctuary cities to sanctuary farms, factories, and industrial hubs.

Deportation is a contact sport — not only between ICE and illegal aliens, but between the Trump administration and special interests that value cheap labor, politicians who need cheap talking points, and activist judges and violent mobs. Those forces can be overcome, and in the coming weeks and months, we will show how.

The goal is to help President Trump deliver on what he promised — and to surpass President Eisenhower’s historic efforts. To do that, President Trump needs support from the base and the right, not a constant drumbeat of consultants, pollsters, and “moderate” Republicans trying to undermine him. Those forces are coming together, and I believe the result will be less drama and more commas.

Americans deserve a road map to move from phase one into a more successful phase two.

We escaped King George. Why do we bow to King Judge?



What do you call an official who claims the final say over the limits of his own power — and everyone else’s? Someone who can slap a “yes” on anything the elected branches do, or a “no” on anything they attempt, and treat his decree as the last word? That kind of power would have shocked America’s founders. In practice, it can exceed anything King George III exercised over the American colonies. Yet we keep granting it to federal judges by treating their overreach as binding even when Congress has said otherwise.

The founders worried most about the branches that wield force and money. The president commands the sword. Congress holds the purse. Both stand for election. Judges do not. Life tenure exists to protect judges while they decide cases, not to hand them an independent mandate to run the country. Judges possess no army and control no appropriations. Their influence depends on the political branches giving lawful effect to their rulings.

No individual right exists to use the courts as a substitute legislature to remain in the country. Judges cannot confer amnesty by injunction.

Those lawful bounds are not mysterious. Congress established the lower federal courts, and Congress defines their jurisdiction. Even the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction is subject to congressional regulation. Article III, Section 2 makes it subject to “such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Justice Clarence Thomas put it plainly in Patchak v. Zinke: “When Congress strips federal courts of jurisdiction, it exercises a valid legislative power no less than when it lays taxes, coins money, declares war, or invokes any other power that the Constitution grants it.”

Immigration offers the clearest test case because it sits at the heart of sovereignty. Over no issue do the political branches hold more constitutional authority than determining which foreigners may enter and remain.

As Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in Galvan v. Press (1954), policies on entry and removal are “peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government,” and Congress’ exclusive control over them has become “about as firmly imbedded in the legislative and judicial tissues of our body politic as any aspect of our government.”

Congress, then, holds plenary authority over immigration policy and sweeping authority over federal court jurisdiction — especially the lower courts. Yet now, every loser district judge routinely grants standing to illegal aliens to challenge detention and removal, even when Congress has restricted review.

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Take Temporary Protected Status. The Ninth Circuit ordered the Trump administration to continue TPS for Venezuelans, despite the Supreme Court staying the original injunction. Another district judge issued a similar mandate for Haitians — 16 years after Haitians received that “temporary” status under President Obama. What often goes unsaid: Congress barred judicial review over TPS determinations. Federal law states, without qualification: “No court shall have jurisdiction to review any determination” of DHS “in granting or withdrawing TPS.” Other provisions restrict review of many deportation-related challenges — limits judges often treat as suggestions.

Over the past year, judges who view themselves as latter-day Martin Luther Kings have used legal fog to hear cases Congress barred, even after signals from the Supreme Court. That brings the Trump administration to its decision point.

Administration officials argue — correctly — that courts lack authority to issue certain orders. But judges have neither force nor will beyond what the executive supplies. The executive’s job includes enforcing the jurisdictional limits Congress enacted. A court that lacks jurisdiction cannot establish it by decree.

If this judicial coup runs to its logical end, any district judge becomes the final arbiter of any political question: grant standing to any plaintiff, announce standing rules that override statutes, take jurisdiction Congress withheld, then command the elected branches to act. That is not the Supreme Court’s role, let alone a trial judge’s.

It also outstrips anything King George could do at the founding. He needed Parliament for matters like citizenship. We are now told a judge can dictate immigration policy regardless of the law.

Waiting on the Supreme Court to clean up the mess is a fool’s errand. District judges return with a slightly modified case and restart the process. During Trump’s first term, an immigration lawyer summed up the strategy: “May a thousand litigation flowers bloom.”

The numbers tell the story. In Minnesota alone, federal court sees an average of one habeas petition filed every hour. A judge even ordered a previously deported alien brought back. These petitions do not claim Immigration and Customs Enforcement mistakenly detained U.S. citizens. They aim to use courts to stall enforcement in bulk.

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Finality binds parties in cases; it does not bind the political branches into permanent policy submission. Lincoln drew that distinction in his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas. Courts may decide individual cases. But if courts try to turn those decisions into national political rules, elected officials should not treat them as binding “political rules” that forbid any measure that does not “concur” with a judicial decision.

Lincoln practiced that view as president. His attorney general, Edward Bates, explained the judiciary’s proper scope: Judicial power is ample for justice “among individual parties,” but “powerless to impose rules of action and of judgment upon the other departments.”

Applied to immigration, the point is simple: No individual right exists to use the courts as a substitute legislature to remain in the country. Judges cannot confer amnesty by injunction. Congress has not passed a legislative amnesty in four decades for a reason: It requires majorities in both houses and the president’s signature, and the politicians who vote for it must face the voters. Yet the current judicial pattern grants amnesty through procedure — without hearings, without votes, and without accountability. Life tenure was designed for the opposite purpose.

No shortcut exists. The political branches must stop treating lawless judicial opinions as if they carry the force of law — especially when those opinions ignore statutes, exceed jurisdiction, and attempt to seize control of core sovereign functions.

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Woke UK video game backfires: 'Extremist' Amelia becomes viral symbol of British pride



Hull City Council in Yorkshire, England — an area overwhelmed by third-world asylum seekers in recent years — wasted no time setting a high bar for self-owns this year.

The local authority teamed up with the East Riding of Yorkshire Council and the woke media literacy outfit Shout Out UK to create an online choose-your-own adventure video game targeting young Britons titled "Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism."

'The government is betraying white British people.'

To the chagrin of the re-education tool's makers, one of its supposed villains, a purple-haired patriotic character named Amelia, has been appropriated and used to great effect in counter-messaging campaigns by the right and other critics of the woke British establishment.

The game

Hull City Council announced last year that the game would be "made available to schools, education settings, and community and youth organizations throughout the city" and used to teach youths "about the dangers of extremism and radicalization."

One of the stated objectives of the propaganda tool was to "demonstrate the local threat picture of Extreme Right Wing activities specifically."

The game offers six scenarios in which users decide the path the protagonist, Charlie, will take.

In the third scenario, Charlie — who is referred to as "they" — watches a video that claims both that "Muslim men are stealing the places of British war veterans in emergency accommodation" and that "the government is betraying white British people."

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Screenshots from Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism.

If the player decides that "this seems unfair" and has Charlie engage with the post, Charlie ends up inadvertently sharing the content with online bad actors, sending the player's radicalization risk score through the roof.

Charlie avoids arrest long enough to attend class with Amelia in the third scenario, where she suggests that "immigrants are coming to the U.K. and taking our jobs."

Amelia features prominently in the fourth scenario, where she is introduced as a close friend of Charlie who has "made a video encouraging young people in Birdlington to join a political group that seeks to defend English rights."

After Amelia — who is depicted holding the Union Jack and a sign that says, "No entry" — asks Charlie to join a group called Action for Britain and shares a video on-theme, the player is given the option of having Charlie: ignore the video, like the video but not join the group, or share the video and join the group.

If the player chooses the third option, their radicalization risk score increases just as it will increase if they agree in the final scenario to go in Amelia's place to protest "the erosion of British values."

Screenshot from Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism.

Regardless of inputs, the game inevitably suggests that exposure to supposedly extremist views such as love for nation, concern over wage suppression by immigrants, and cultural erasure warrant Charlie's referral to an anti-terrorism expert and re-education on "how to engage positively with ideology and the difference between right and wrong in expressing political beliefs."

The Telegraph, citing official documents, revealed last year that the British government listed "cultural nationalism," defined as the belief that Western culture is "under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups," as a terrorist ideology.

The game concludes with the suggestion that only after receiving counseling on "harmful ideology" from a hijab-wearing counselor is Charlie able to "rebuild their confidence, find their identity, and continue their college course successfully."

New pathway for Amelia

Amelia has recently featured in numerous viral online videos and memes where she warns of the Islamification of Britain, champions national pride, promotes normalcy, and criticizes leftist policies.

In a popular Amelia meme shared by Elon Musk, the character underscores that the English people aren't "immigrants" and "didn't 'arrive' in England. They became England — over more than a millennium."

In another popular meme, Amelia is shown bonding with Charlie over their common love of country, getting married, then starting a family.

Amelia has also been depicted as the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian legend, handing an armored knight the sword Aerondight; in photo-realistic images mocking political figures; and in a multitude of other images making a wide range of political commentary.

British journalist Mary Harrington writing for UnHerd noted that "Amelia stands as a potent illustration of how desperately an officialdom accustomed to comparatively comprehensive public message control is struggling to adapt to the recursive online environment."

When pressed for comment, Hull City Council referred Blaze News to the U.K. Home Office, which did not respond. Shout Out UK for comment similarly did not respond.

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