Aristotle’s ancient guide to tyranny reads like a modern manual



In “Politics,” Aristotle explains that political rule comes in three basic forms: rule of one, rule of the few, and rule of the many. Each form has a healthy and a degenerate expression. Monarchy and tyranny describe rule by one. Aristocracy and oligarchy describe rule by the few. Polity and democracy describe rule by the many.

What separates the good from the bad in each category is not structure but motive. A king governs for the common good. A tyrant governs for himself.

Despite the millennia that separate us from Aristotle, the philosopher’s portrait of tyranny feels uncomfortably contemporary.

Aristotle does more than classify regimes. He explains, in cold and unsentimental terms, how tyrants preserve power once they seize it. His warnings, written more than 2,000 years ago, read less like ancient theory and more like a field manual.

The tyrant begins by eliminating rivals. He fears competition, especially from men of spirit and competence. Anyone admired for virtue, courage, or leadership poses a danger because excellence inspires imitation. Such men are removed through exile, execution, or disgrace.

Next the tyrant attacks institutions that allow citizens to form bonds. Aristotle lists common meals, clubs, educational gatherings, literary societies, and discussion groups. Any shared practice that fosters trust, loyalty, or independent thought threatens despotic rule. Organization creates solidarity, and solidarity creates resistance.

The tyrant also forces citizens to live publicly. Privacy breeds conspiracy. Public life enables surveillance. Aristotle describes rulers who compel their subjects to remain visible so that dissent never escapes notice. Long before Bentham’s panopticon, Aristotle understood that constant observation disciplines behavior.

Surveillance alone does not suffice. Tyrants cultivate networks of informers to uncover thoughts that cannot be seen. Citizens learn to treat one another as potential threats. Suspicion replaces trust. Speech becomes guarded. Silence becomes safety.

Aristotle could not have imagined digital surveillance, but he would have recognized its function. Technology merely perfects a strategy the ancients already understood.

Social bonds must then be weakened. The tyrant sows discord between neighbors, friends, and families. These relationships form the first line of resistance to centralized power. When trust dissolves at the most intimate level, organized opposition becomes nearly impossible.

Poverty also serves the tyrant. Aristotle observes that despots deliberately exhaust their populations with endless labor. The goal is not productivity but distraction. Citizens too busy to rest or reflect lack the energy to conspire.

He cites the construction of the Egyptian pyramids as an example of forced labor designed less to achieve a purpose than to consume a people’s strength. The task glorifies the ruler while leaving the population depleted.

War further strengthens despotism. Constant external threat convinces citizens that they need a strong ruler to survive. Crisis suspends normal limits. Emergency justifies control. Under perpetual conflict, organization becomes treason.

Aristotle claims that tyranny, the degenerated rule of one, borrows from the worst features of democracy. Despots empower groups unlikely to organize independently against them. He mentions women and slaves not as moral judgments but as political calculations within the ancient world.

The logic remains familiar. Tyrants elevate those dependent on the regime and hostile to existing social hierarchies. Dependence fosters loyalty. Resentment supplies enforcement.

Flattery plays a crucial role. Tyrants surround themselves with sycophants who inflate their ego and confirm their righteousness. Men willing to abase themselves rise quickly. Men of honor refuse to flatter and therefore remain dangerous.

Flattery becomes a sorting mechanism. Those who value dignity exclude themselves. Those who crave favor advance.

Aristotle adds that tyrants prefer foreigners to citizens. Citizens possess memory, tradition, and moral expectation. They know how things once were and how they ought to be. Foreigners lack these attachments, and they are happy to flatter the ruler who elevated them.

This arrangement benefits both sides. The tyrant gains enforcers without local allegiance. The foreigner gains status, wealth, and protection. Without the ruler, he has nothing.

RELATED: Do you want Caesar? Because this is how you get Caesar.

Blaze Media Illustration

Despite the millennia that separate us from Aristotle, his description of tyranny feels uncomfortably contemporary. Surveillance now operates through algorithms and cellphone cameras rather than forcing everyone to live at the city gates, but the purpose remains unchanged. Security replaces liberty. Total observation replaces trust.

Our institutions remove ambitious and virtuous individuals while elevating compliant managerial drones. Debt binds the population to endless labor. Work consumes life without building independence. Citizens remain busy, anxious, poor, and isolated.

Cultural and political authorities weaken family, denigrate religion, and discourage independent association. Community dissolves into administration. Loyalty transfers from neighbors to systems.

Ruling classes increasingly rely on populations with little connection to national history or tradition. These groups have no reason to defend inherited norms and every incentive to please those who grant them status.

Some details differ but the formula for tyranny does not. Aristotle understood tyranny because he understood human nature. His analysis endures because the same impulses govern power in every age.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Shock poll: America’s youth want socialism on autopilot — literally



Growing up during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I remember when socialism was a universal punch line. It stood for failure, repression, and economic ruin.

Not any more. Today, socialism is the ideological spearpoint of the left. Many young Americans now insist that socialism is the cure for the affordability crisis squeezing them. They believe it with a fervor that would have stunned earlier generations.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: Socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI.

New polling from Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute’s Emerging Issues Center shows that a majority of likely voters ages 18 to 39 want a Democratic Socialist to win the White House in 2028.

Nearly 60% of young Americans say they support more government housing, a nationwide rent freeze, and government-run grocery stores in every town.

These numbers aren’t anomalies. They reflect a deeper reality: Many young Americans know little about socialism’s actual history, consequences, or track record — and they have been conditioned to believe it can fix the challenges in front of them.

One reason for that ignorance is uncomfortable but obvious. It’s not only the schools — it’s the parents. According to the polls, parents were the most influential voices shaping their children’s support for Democratic Socialism. More than half of respondents said their parents held a favorable view of it.

That alone explains a great deal. And unsurprisingly, more than half also said teachers and professors viewed Democratic Socialism favorably. After decades of ideological drift, even parents who grew up after the USSR’s collapse now believe socialism “might work.”

Based on my own experience teaching in public schools, that rings true. Most of my colleagues openly sympathized with the socialist cause and were hostile to free-market capitalism.

This didn’t happen by accident. It reflects a long march beginning in the Progressive Era. My own postgraduate experience at a prestigious teaching college felt less like preparation for the classroom and more like a Cultural Revolution struggle session — conformity required, dissent punished.

As the public education system drifted leftward, it taught generation after generation that socialism is benevolent and capitalism is predatory. The result is predictable. Many young people now see the free market as the enemy, not the mechanism that lifted billions out of poverty. Cronyism and the explosion of government power only blur the picture further.

Layer onto this the collapse of basic literacy and numeracy. When students can’t read well, struggle with math, and can’t write a coherent paragraph, they are more vulnerable to ideological manipulation — and more likely to lean on machines to think for them.

So it shouldn’t shock anyone that almost half of young Americans surveyed want an advanced AI system to create society’s laws, rules, and regulations. Nearly 40% want that AI system to determine human rights and control the world’s most powerful militaries.

RELATED: Almost half of Gen Z wants AI to run the government. You should be terrified.

Yurii Karvatskyi via iStock/Getty Images

How did this happen? Watch how many parents are glued to screens, outsourcing daily life to devices. Is it any wonder their children grow up thinking technology is omnipotent?

Parents should start with something simple: a family movie night featuring the "Terminator" franchise. Let the kids see where blind faith in machines tends to lead.

Better yet, teach them the truth about socialism. Teach them what it does to human beings. Share the books, documentaries, and testimonies exposing socialism’s century of famine, repression, forced labor, and mass murder — horrors still unfolding in Cuba and North Korea.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI — a surveillance state that Stalin could only dream of. The thought of an AI-run socialist regime is not dystopian fiction. It is what many young Americans say they want.

They should be careful what they wish for.

Antifa isn’t ‘anti-fascist’ — it’s anti-freedom and anti-God



Last week, a Turning Point USA student at Arizona State University found an Antifa recruitment brochure on campus. It looked like a fourth-grader’s art project, leading some to suspect it might have been a class assignment — perhaps an attempt by a sympathetic professor to portray Antifa as “not all that bad.” But the flyer included a real Instagram handle, suggesting a more deliberate effort than a student prank.

So what exactly is Antifa, and why does it still find support among radical professors?

The name sounds noble — until you define it

At first glance, “Antifa,” short for “anti-fascism,” seems harmless or even virtuous. After all, who would oppose being against fascism? But the real question is: What does Antifa mean by “fascism”?

Fascism and communism are rival branches of the same ideological tree — the radical left.

Historically, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the term “fascism,” defining it as the belief that “everything is in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Fascism was a form of totalitarian national socialism that made the state the highest authority in human life. Every other institution — church, family, business, education — was expected to exist only under state control. Far from being a right-wing ideology, as popular myth holds, fascism emerged from the revolutionary left.

Rival totalitarians

Fascists and communists share more than they admit. Both demand total control of society under the pretense of “fixing” human problems. The difference lies in scale. Fascists exalt the nation; communists exalt the world.

The easiest way to spot a communist is to find the professor shouting loudest about “fascism.” The two are rival branches of the same ideological tree — the radical left. Both trace their roots to the French Revolution and Marxism, in sharp contrast to the liberty-born ideals of the American Revolution.

The intellectual roots

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the philosophical father of modern revolution, claimed humans are born good but “everywhere in chains.” Evil, he said, began with private property. Those who own property define crime, allowing them to oppress everyone else. His cure was the “general will” — the supposed collective will of the people expressed through the state. Every new tyrant since has claimed to know exactly what that will demands.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel built on Rousseau with his idea that history advances through conflict, a process he called the “dialectic.” Karl Marx stripped Hegel’s theory of its spiritual elements and turned it into the “materialist dialectic.” To Marx, all history is a struggle over material resources and capital. Religion, morality, and family were mere disguises for economic power.

This logic birthed the Marxist slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” and set the stage for revolutions in Russia and Germany. When fascists in Germany blocked the communist uprising, Antifaschistische Aktion — Antifa — was born.

A revolution against the West

Modern Antifa isn’t formally descended from the 1930s German movement, but its ideology hasn’t changed. The group still defines itself by opposition, not by principle.

Antifa claims to fight “oppression,” yet it chooses its targets selectively. Members denounce slavery from centuries past but ignore the slave markets that still operate in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Their real enemy isn’t tyranny — it’s the West, capitalism, and Christianity.

That’s why Antifa allies with any movement hostile to Western civilization, even those far more oppressive than what Antifa claims to resist. Members excuse such alliances by insisting those groups were “forced” into brutality by Western influence. In Antifa’s worldview, “oppression” means “whiteness,” “heteronormativity,” and Christianity. Belief in personal responsibility, hard work, or the rule of law — the very foundations of ordered liberty — become systems of oppression.

How Antifa operates

Antifa rejects reform in favor of perpetual revolution — viva la revolución! Its adherents champion “direct action,” not dialogue. Their tactics include doxxing, counter-rallies, vandalism, and physical intimidation — all designed to silence opponents by fear, not reason. Logic itself, they argue, is a “tool of oppression.” The result is an ideology that devours itself: incoherent, emotional, and rooted in will, not intellect.

Fascists and communists may fight each other, but they share one deeper hatred — the hatred of God.

A Hispanic Christian friend of mine pursuing a degree in Latin American studies once told me his professor said, “Ché su Cristo” — Ché as Christ. To this professor, revolutionary violence was redemptive. For many radicals, Ché Guevara is the true messiah; salvation comes not through grace but through destruction.

They don’t debate ideas — they annihilate opponents. That’s why they despise people like Charlie Kirk. He represented everything they can’t: clear reasoning, coherent argument, and defense of the American Revolution’s principles — limited government, ordered liberty, and faith in God.

RELATED: Trump praises Blaze News reporting during Antifa roundtable at White House — and slaps down MSNBC, CNN

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Antifa’s real enemy

The American Revolution recognized that the state is not supreme. It is one institution among others — family, church, and business, each with its own God-given role. The state’s proper duty is limited: to punish wrongdoing and protect the innocent. That vision of ordered liberty is written plainly into the Constitution’s preamble.

America’s founders built a republic — a government under law, lex rex — “the law is king.” They believed that God’s law, revealed in both nature and Scripture, provides the moral order that makes true freedom possible.

At its core, Antifa’s ultimate enemy isn’t any human institution — it is God Himself. Whether its adherents are atheists or occultists, they view God as the oppressor because He gives law. Their rebellion echoes Lucifer’s ancient creed: “Do what thou wilt.” Saul Alinsky, in “Rules for Radicals,” openly admired Lucifer as the arch-rebel. Antifa’s devotion to the sexual revolution and the LGBTQ+ movement flows from the same impulse: the rejection of divine order in favor of self-will.

Fascists and communists may fight each other, but they share one deeper hatred — the hatred of God. Both reject the idea that rights come from a Creator and that moral law defines justice.

America stands in opposition to both. Our republic rests on the conviction that God endows every person with rights and that government exists to protect — not replace — the moral order rooted in divine law. No state can perfect humanity. Salvation from sin and death comes only through Christ.

That makes Christianity, not Marxism or fascism, the true enemy of tyranny.

As we defend Christian truth in public life, we must do so with discernment, knowing that our opponents’ hatred runs deeper than politics. It is spiritual. And when they finally drop the mask of “tolerance” and “niceness,” they reveal exactly what they’ve always been.

When they tell you who they are and what they hate — believe them.

The AI ‘Stargate’ has opened — and it’s not what you think



For 30 years, I’ve warned about a future many dismissed as conspiracy or science fiction: a future dominated by centralized power, runaway technology, and an erosion of individual liberty. I said the real showdown would arrive by 2030. Now we’re at the doorstep, and the decisions we make today may define whether this moment becomes our last great opportunity — or our greatest irreversible mistake.

The trigger for this showdown is a project called Stargate.

AI is the ultimate jailer, and once the cage is built, it will be nearly impossible to escape.

This new initiative, backed by OpenAI, Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank, and a UAE-based investment firm called MGX, aims to develop extensive infrastructure for artificial intelligence, including power plants and data centers. Stargate is positioning itself to fuel the coming wave of AI agents, artificial general intelligence, and potentially even artificial superintelligence. The project’s goal is nothing short of global AI dominance.

Big Tech is putting its money where its mouth is — pledging $100 billion upfront, with an additional $400 billion projected over the next few years. The project may bring 100,000 new jobs, but don’t be fooled. These are infrastructure jobs, not long-term employment. The real winners will be the companies that control the AI itself — and the power that comes with it.

The media’s coverage has been disturbingly thin. Instead of asking hard questions, we’re being sold a glossy narrative about convenience, progress, and economic opportunity. But if you peel back the PR, what Stargate actually represents is a full-scale AI arms race — one that’s being bankrolled by actors whose values should deeply concern every freedom-loving American.

Technocratic totalitarianism

MGX, one of the primary financial backers of Stargate, was founded last year by the government of the United Arab Emirates, a regime deeply aligned with the World Economic Forum. The same WEF promoted the “Narrative Initiative,” which calls for humanity to adopt a new story — one where the digital world holds equal weight to the physical one.

It's not shy about its agenda. It speaks openly of “a second wave of human evolution,” built around centralized, technocratic rule and ESG-compliant artificial intelligence, governed by AI itself.

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman and a chief architect of Stargate, has already made his intentions clear. He promised AI will drive the most advanced surveillance system in human history. His words? “Citizens will have to be on their best behavior.”

That isn’t progress. That’s digital totalitarianism.

RELATED: ‘The Terminator’ creator warns: AI reality is scarier than sci-fi

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

These are the same elites who warned that global warming would wipe out humanity. Now, they demand nuclear power to feed their AI. A few years ago, Three Mile Island stood as a symbol of nuclear catastrophe. Today, Microsoft is buying it to fuel AI development.

How convenient.

We were told it was too expensive to modernize our power grid to support electric cars. And yet, now that artificial general intelligence is on the horizon, those same voices are suddenly fine with a total energy infrastructure overhaul. Why? Because AI isn’t about helping you. It’s about controlling you.

AI ‘agents’

By 2026, you’ll start to hear less about “AI” and more about “agents.” These digital assistants will organize your calendar, plan your travel, and manage your household. For many, especially the poor, it will feel like finally having a personal assistant. The possibility is tempting, to be sure. However, the cost of convenience will be dependence — and surveillance.

Moreover, AI won’t just run on the power grid. It may soon build its own.

We’ve already seen tests where an AI agent, given the directive to preserve itself, began designing electricity generation systems to sustain its operations — without anyone instructing it to do so. The AI simply interpreted its goal and acted accordingly. That’s not just a risk. That’s a warning.

Progress without recklessness

Yes, President Trump supports advancing artificial general intelligence. He wants America, not China, to lead. On that point, I agree. If anyone must master AGI, it better be us.

But let’s not confuse leadership with reckless speed. The same globalist corporations that pushed lockdowns, ESG mandates, and insect-based diets now promise that AI will save us. That alone should give us pause.

AI holds incredible promise. It might even help cure cancer by 2030 — and I hope it does. But the same tool that can save lives can also shackle minds. AI is the perfect jailer. Once we build the cage, we may never find a way out.

Stargate is opening. You can’t stop it. But you can choose which side you’re on.

There is an antidote to this: a parallel movement rooted in human dignity, decentralization, and liberty. You won’t hear about it in the headlines — but it’s growing. We need to build it now, while we still have the opportunity.

If you’ve listened to me over the years, you’ve heard me say this before: We should have had these conversations long ago. But we didn’t. And now, we’re out of good options.

So the question is no longer, “Should we build AI?” It’s, “Who is building it — and why?”

If we get the answer wrong, the cost will be far greater than any of us can imagine.

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The real tyranny? Institutional groupthink disguised as truth



Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” has become a pocket-size gospel for progressives in the age of Trump — a secular catechism of 20 rules to resist looming fascism. It’s pitched not just as a historical analysis but as an urgent survival guide, borrowed from the dark lessons of the 20th century. The message is clear: Authoritarianism is always just one election away, and Donald Trump is its orange-faced harbinger.

Such moral urgency unmoored from historical context tends to collapse into political theater, however. “On Tyranny” is not a serious book. It is an emotive pamphlet that relies less on the actual historical complexities of rising tyranny than on the reader’s willingness to conflate MAGA hats with brownshirts.

Snyder believes a tyrant is always the populist outsider, never the insider who manages democratic decline in a suit and tie.

Such historical flattening is the first and most obvious flaw in Snyder’s argument. He leans heavily on the atrocities of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia to suggest that Trump’s rise follows the same trajectory. But this is not serious analysis — it’s emotional manipulation. It’s one thing to warn against patterns; it’s another to flatten every populist movement into a prequel to genocide.

Snyder, a Yale historian, surely knows better. But “On Tyranny” depends on your feeling like you're living in 1933 — whether or not such historical parallels are actually true. And they’re not.

A democratic mandate

Snyder warns against the rise of a single leader claiming to represent the will of the people and establishing a one-party state — equating the 2016 Republican sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Hitler’s consolidation of the Third Reich. Such a comparison isn’t just blatantly false; it’s a cruel dismissal of the democratic will of the people for merely voting in Republican candidates.

Surely Snyder didn’t accuse Barack Obama of fascist one-party rule when he and the Democrats swept the White House and Congress in 2008. Such electoral outcomes aren’t a harbinger of fascism. No, no! That was a mandate from the American people, democratically spoken, demanding change from the status quo. Voters sent that message loud and clear in 2008 — as well as in 2016 and 2024.

Snyder’s false equivalency counts on fear rather than critical thinking — any semblance of which would entice Democrats to pause for a moment of self-reflection and listen to what the American people are saying through the electoral process. But Snyder’s one-sided alarmism silences the electoral voice — merely because it rallied behind Trump.

Civic theater

Snyder’s advice to citizens reads like a secular sermon: “Defend institutions.” “Stand out.” “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.” On the surface, it sounds noble — defiant, even. But strip away the aesthetic of resistance, and what’s left is a deeply superficial understanding of civic virtue.

What exactly are we defending when we’re told to “support the press” or “protect truth”? In practice, Snyder’s rules amount to an uncritical loyalty to legacy institutions that have forfeited public trust — media outlets that gaslight, bureaucracies that bloat, and experts who contradict themselves while silencing dismissive voices.

Snyder dismisses the possibility that institutions can rot from within, that the loudest defenders of “truth” are often its gravest opponents. Instead, he offers something simpler: the feeling of resistance while catering to the institutional elites.

The real culprits

The irony of “On Tyranny” is that the tactics Snyder warns against — censorship, moral panic, political conformity — have not come from MAGA rallies but from the very institutions Snyder holds up as guardians of democracy. It wasn’t Trump who quashed dissenting speech on COVID-19 or colluded with social media companies to throttle viewpoints that didn’t conform with the government’s narrative. It was the political elite and their complicit peddlers in the mainstream media and social media companies.

Unfortunately for Snyder’s brand, tyranny doesn’t always wear a red hat. Sometimes it comes in the name of “safety,” or “science,” or “social justice.” Sometimes it cancels you over a social media post, not because you’re dangerous, but because you’re not sufficiently obedient.

If Snyder were genuinely concerned with authoritarianism in all its forms, he might have warned against this progressive impulse to control thought and punish deviation. Instead, he gives it cover — because the real threat, in his mind, is always the populist outsider, never the insider who manages democratic decline in a suit and tie.

Less performance, more courage

Snyder is right about one thing: democracies don’t die overnight. But they do die when fear replaces thought, when virtue becomes branding, and when citizens outsource their moral judgment to bureaucracies and mainstream news.

“On Tyranny” offers the illusion of courage but none of the substance. It is performance art disguised as resistance. To preserve freedom, we should defend institutions and champion truth. But that requires holding corrupt actors in such institutions accountable, whether it be within the federal government or legacy media. That was the democratic mandate communicated loud and clear in 2024, and if Snyder were genuinely concerned about defending democracy, he would listen.

Why communist China is terrified of a New York-based dance company



For more than a century, the Chinese Communist Party has sought total ideological dominance in China and has never hesitated to persecute those who step out of line — even those outside the mainland. The CCP, an authoritarian force with no tolerance for dissent within its own ranks, has launched a ruthless campaign against Shen Yun, a New York-based dance and music company that portrays and celebrates 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture — before communism.

The CCP’s obsession with controlling the cultural narrative is rooted in its history and ideology — and is essential to its survival. Since seizing power in 1949, through Mao Zedong’s reign of terror that killed tens of millions and impoverished hundreds of millions, the CCP has worked systematically to dismantle traditional Chinese values that once defined the nation’s cultural fabric.

While the CCP claims to be the sole guardian of Chinese civilization, Shen Yun debunks this myth by showing the real China before communism.

The Chinese Communist Party embraced the concept of “Year Zero,” a radical idea first implemented by Mao’s Cambodian ally, Pol Pot. Under this doctrine, everything that existed before the communist revolution was considered corrupt and had to be erased. Acknowledging that prerevolutionary society had any merit threatened the very premise of the regime’s legitimacy.

This systematic rewriting of history and destruction of culture reached its peak during Mao’s Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Communist authorities dismantled traditions, purged intellectuals, and turned families against each other. Universities became arenas for ideological warfare, where those labeled as enemies of the revolution faced public humiliation and violence. Chaos and brutality followed, leaving a society fractured in the name of ideological purity.

Communism can’t create culture

The CCP’s “forced” culture is contradictory to the very definition of culture itself. Culture is the collective result of the shared beliefs, values, behaviors, and the joint creations of millions of individuals — not something a top-down authority can manufacture.

Shen Yun, founded in 2006 by Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, directly challenges the CCP’s false and deadly narrative through the classical arts. The group’s performances are the only efforts to revive 5,000 years of traditional dance that the Cultural Revolution sought to erase. The CCP initiated a campaign to persecute the Falun Gong in 1999, and it has only expanded and intensified since.

Performing in over 150 cities globally, Shen Yun’s performances revive pre-communist Chinese culture, emphasizing spiritual depth and moral values that the CCP wants erased. The vision of China before communism that Shen Yun presents undermines the entire premise of the CCP’s necessity — and exposes it as a deadly force in the process.

While the CCP claims to be the sole guardian of Chinese civilization, Shen Yun debunks this myth by showing the real China before communism. The CPP’s “culture” is revealed for what it is: a perversion of thousands of years of history.

Shen Yun’s mission goes beyond artistic expression; it is a cultural and ideological counterpoint to the CCP’s worldview. Weaving together classical Chinese dance, music, and storytelling, while also portraying the CCP’s human rights abuses — including organ harvesting and suppression of dissent — strikes at the heart of the party’s efforts to whitewash its record.

Media toes Beijing’s line

Unable to suppress Shen Yun directly within China, where it is banned, the CCP has turned to a multifaceted disinformation strategy and influence operations abroad.

Western media has become a key weapon in China’s arsenal — notably the New York Times. Once a target of CCP censorship, the Times has recently pivoted to align with Beijing’s interests, publishing articles in 2024 that attack Shen Yun with dubious claims and inaccuracies. These pieces, penned by reporter Nicole Hong, allege financial misconduct and cult-like behavior within Shen Yun — accusations the performing arts group has firmly rebutted as “riddled with inaccuracies.”

The CCP’s involvement in these attacks is undeniable. Jennifer Zeng, a well-known blogger and whistleblower, exposed a key connection: Hong’s father serves as a director of a CCP United Front organization, a group dedicated to expanding the party’s influence abroad. This link raises serious concerns that Hong’s reporting may serve as a vehicle for CCP propaganda.

The suspicion grows stronger when considering the Times’ evolving stance on Beijing, which softened after years of restricted access in China. Adding to the controversy, a former Shen Yun artist cited in Hong’s articles publicly rejected the Times’ portrayal, accusing the outlet of distorting his words to fit a predetermined narrative.

The CCP’s efforts go beyond media manipulation. Using diplomatic threats and economic leverage, it has actively pressured foreign governments and theaters to cancel Shen Yun performances. These tactics align with the party’s larger objective of silencing Shen Yun and preventing it from reaching global audiences. Every performance contradicts the CCP’s claim that its rule embodies the height of Chinese civilization.

The CCP’s assault on Shen Yun is not merely about one performing arts group; it is a microcosm of a larger struggle over who defines Chinese identity. By reviving a cultural heritage that predates and transcends communism, Shen Yun offers an alternative to the CCP’s vision — one that honors spirituality, freedom, and human dignity.

For the CCP, controlling the cultural narrative is a matter of survival, and its determination to control it reveals its insecurity. How weak is the CCP’s ideology if it can be threatened this much by the performing arts?

We Have Four Years To Make Sure Something Like 2020 Never Happens Again

This is the fight of our lives, right here, right now. 2020 showed us the stakes.

Eyes everywhere: The AI surveillance state looms



Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence have produced extraordinary innovation, but they also raise significant concerns. Powerful AI systems may already be shaping our culture, identities, and reality. As technology continues to advance, we risk losing control over how these systems influence us. We must urgently consider AI’s growing role in manipulating society and recognize that we may already be vulnerable.

At a recent event at Princeton University, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned that society is unprepared for the profound changes AI will bring. Discussing his recent book, “Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit,” Schmidt said AI could reshape how individuals form their identities, threatening culture, autonomy, and democracy. He emphasized that “most people are not ready” for AI’s widespread impact and noted that governments and societal systems lack preparation for these challenges.

In countries already compromising privacy, AI’s proliferation could usher in an omnipotent state where freedoms become severely restricted.

Schmidt wasn’t just talking about potential military applications; he was talking about individuals’ incorporation of AI into their daily lives. He suggested that future generations could be influenced by AI systems acting as their closest companions.

“What if your best friend isn’t human?” Schmidt asked, highlighting how AI-driven entities could replace human relationships, especially for children. He warned that this interaction wouldn’t be passive but could actively shape a child’s worldview — potentially with a cultural or political bias. If these AI entities become embedded in daily life as educational tools, digital companions, or social media curators, they could wield unprecedented power to shape individual identity.

This idea echoes remarks made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2023, when he speculated about the potential for AI systems to control or manipulate content on platforms like Twitter (now X).

“How would we know if, like, on Twitter we were mostly having LLMs direct the … whatever’s flowing through that hive mind?” Altman asked, suggesting it might be impossible for users to detect whether the content they see — whether trending topics or newsfeed items — was curated by an AI system with an agenda.

He called this a “real danger,” underscoring AI’s capacity to subtly — and without detection — manipulate public discourse, choosing which stories and events gain attention and which remain buried.

Reshaping thought, amplifying outrage

The influence of AI is not limited to identity alone; it can also extend to the shaping of political and cultural landscapes.

In its 2019 edition of the Global Risks Report, the World Economic Forum emphasizes how mass data collection, advanced algorithms, and AI pose serious risks to individual autonomy. A section of the report warns how AI and algorithms can be used effectively to monitor and shape our behaviors, often without our knowledge or consent.

The report highlights that AI has the potential to create “new forms of conformity and micro-targeted persuasion,” pushing individuals toward specific political or cultural ideologies. As AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, it could make individuals more susceptible to radicalization. Algorithms can identify emotionally vulnerable people, feeding them content tailored to manipulate their emotions and sway their opinions, potentially fueling division and extremism.

We have already seen the devastating impact of similar tactics in the realm of social media. In many cases, these platforms use AI to curate content that amplifies outrage, stoking polarization and undermining democratic processes. The potential for AI to further this trend — whether in influencing elections, radicalizing individuals, or suppressing dissent — represents a grave threat to the social fabric of modern democratic societies.

In more authoritarian settings, governments could use AI to tighten control by monitoring citizens’ every move. By tracking, analyzing, and predicting human actions, AI fosters an environment ripe for totalitarian regimes to grow.

In countries already compromising privacy, AI’s proliferation could usher in an omnipotent surveillance state where freedoms become severely restricted.

Navigating the AI frontier

As AI continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, we must remain vigilant. Society needs to address the growing potential for AI to influence culture, identity, and politics, ensuring that these technologies are not used for manipulation or control. Governments, tech companies, and civil society must work together to create strong ethical frameworks for AI development and deployment that are devoid of political agendas and instead embrace individual liberty and autonomy.

The challenges are complex, but the stakes are high. Schmidt, Altman, and others in the tech industry have raised alarms, and it is crucial that we heed their warnings before AI crosses an irreversible line. We need to establish global norms that safeguard privacy and autonomy, promoting transparency in how AI systems are used and ensuring that individuals retain agency over their own lives and beliefs.

When Romanians went to work on Christmas Day



Most Americans get Christmas Day off, but it wasn’t like that for embattled Romanians back in 1989. Under Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania was one of the most oppressive states in the world, practically on the level of Enver Hoxha’s Albania. Ceaușescu bulldozed churches and banned the celebration of Christmas.

In the city of Timisoara, Ceaușescu's Securitate attacked pastor Laszlo Tokes for criticizing the regime, and on December 17, 1989, the people organized an anti-government demonstration. Ceaușescu ordered his forces to fire on the crowds, killing nearly 100 protesters. Mass protests broke out across the country, and this time, the military sided with the people.

Totalitarians believe they can get away with murder, but sometimes the people prove victorious.

Ceaușescu fled in a helicopter, but the pilot forced a landing and soldiers took him into custody. Nicolae and wife Elena were swiftly tried for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.

On Christmas Day, an elite unit led the pair toward an outdoor toilet block in a courtyard. Nicolae sang the “Internationale” while Elena shrieked filth at a soldier, who hauled off and smashed her face. The troops then stood the pair against a wall, set their Kalashnikovs on full automatic, and opened fire. Unlike the bloody scene in Timisoara, the rifle reports came as tidings of comfort and joy.

For the first time in decades, Romanians openly celebrated Christmas, and the next year, the nation held free elections. Too bad that the vile Ceaușescu was the only Stalinist dictator who got what he deserved.

Josef Stalin, murderer of more than 20 million, died of a heart attack on March 5, 1953. According to “The Black Book of Communism,” Mao Zedong’s genocidal campaigns claimed more than 60 million victims. China’s “Great Helmsman” died peacefully on September 9, 1976, at the age of 82.

Albania’s Enver Hoxha died of complications from diabetes on April 11, 1985, at the age of 76. Erich Honecker, communist dictator of the German Democratic Republic and builder of the Berlin Wall, died of cancer in Chile on May 29, 1994, at the age of 81.

Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, whose campaign of genocide took down nearly 2 million innocents, about 21% of the population, died in his sleep on April 15, 1998. Sado-Stalinist Fidel Castro, darling of American leftists, passed away peacefully on November 25, 2016, at the age of 90.

Totalitarians believe they can get away with murder, but sometimes the people prove victorious. As Americans celebrate in freedom, they might recall Romania’s Kalashnikov Christmas, and in the new year take a lesson from Milan Kundera in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” In all nations, at all times, the struggle against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Voters Decided Democrats Are The Biggest Threat To Democracy

The majority of Americans now see that the biggest threat to our republic is the Democratic Party that runs most of the country.