Liars

PART I. THE ROAD WE'VE TRAVELED

Introduction: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle, the Lion Sleeps Tonight

1. Roots: Hegel, Marx, and the Making of Heaven on Earth

Profile in Fear: Margaret Sanger And The War On “Undesirables”

2. First Wave: Wilson, the Philosopher President

Profile in Fear: The Devil's Water

3. Second Wave: FDR, Wartime Progressive

Profile in Fear: Eleanor's Dollhouse

4. Third Wave: LBJ and the Power of Envy

Profile in Fear: Philip Berrigan And The Antiwar Movement

5. Fourth Wave: The Hope and Change of Barack Obama

Profile in Fear: Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's Father Figure

Quiz: Are You A Progressive?

PART II. THE LIES

Introduction: The Great Lie

Lie 1: Progressives Want to Keep You Safe from Gun Violence

Lie 2: Progressives Care about the Environment

Lie 3: Progressives Respect the Constitution

Lie 4: Progressives Oppose Income Inequality

Lie 5: The Republican Party Opposes Progressivism

Lie 6: Progressives Believe in Racial Equality (Eugenics)

Lie 7: Progressives Oppose Nazism, Fascism, and Communism

PART III. FEAR THE FUTURE

Stuart Chase: Progressive Prophet

The Three Phases of the Progressive Plan

Fight, Flight, or Surrender

Epilogue: Defeating the Fear Factory

About Glenn Beck

Notes

FOR RAPHE, CHEYENNE, LORELAI, AND COEN, AND ALL THOSE WHO WILL PLAY A ROLE IN THE REFOUNDING OF OUR NATION. MAY THEY DO IT WITHOUT FEAR FROM LIARS.

I
n 2001, an archeological team in the Djurab Desert discovered the remains of what they described as mankind's oldest living ancestor, an apelike mammal with prominent brows. They dubbed this new species
Sahelanthropus tchadensis
. More chimpanzee than human, these primates lived in groups in a lakeside forest that gave way seven million years ago to the Saharan desert sands of northern Africa.

During the excavation, the team also encountered the remains of a large saber-toothed cat the size of a lion, which hunted these early humans as prey. The cats' six-inch front sabers were perfectly suited for carving through flesh and bone, and their low-slung frames were adapted for stealthily stalking their next meals. Nothing could outrun these powerful creatures, certainly not the primates of North Africa that lived in constant fear of them.

“With our present data, we don't know what precisely the interactions were between a primate and a big carnivore,” said Patrick
Vignaud, director of the University of Poitiers' Institute of Paleoprimatology and Human Paleontology. “But probably these interactions were not so friendly.”

We can imagine that interaction seven million years ago: a pair of our ancestors foraging for food near a pool of water, their child playing cheerfully near the mother's feet. And then, without warning, a shadow in the brush becomes a living, breathing, snarling vision of death. The mother cries out and leaps to protect her baby. The father steps in between the beast and his family. The hairs on the back of both the hunter's and the hunted's necks stand up straight. Nostrils flare, eyes squint, jaws clench. Beads of sweat appear. Survival instincts kick in as the adrenaline flows.

They circle each other slowly. An instant later, the monster leaps forward. Nails and teeth dig into flesh. Dust swirls upward from the ground, lodging in the primate's throat, lungs, and eyes. The warm-iron taste of lifeblood fills the cat's mouth as saliva and blood spill out. Droplets of red-brown spatter the dry ground.

Then, with one swift and well-placed blow to the giant cat's head, the battle ends. The primate escapes this time—bruised, battered, and bloodied.

His mate brings over their frightened child, and they all embrace. Heart rates begin to slow, and adrenaline levels recede, but something has irrevocably changed for them. The fear has burrowed deep into their subconscious, and it will never really leave.

Whether we're aware of it or not, all of us are attracted to—and strangely beholden to—feelings of fear. Our bodies are simply wired that way. The ultimate fear, of course, is of the end. Of death itself. The fear of an encounter with a saber-toothed cat haunts
Sahelanthropus tchadensis
and his descendants—us—for eternity. Parents and children look carefully to every shadow for squinted yellow eyes hovering over sharp teeth.

Can you hear it? The low rumble that turns into a growl and eventually into a panting snarl? The beast is getting closer. The idea of death from the shadows, in all its forms, stalks us all.

♠

What does any of this
have to do with Woodrow Wilson or Hillary Clinton? It's a good question, and it's what we're going to explore in this book. Fear, as well as the hopeful (if not pointless) solutions offered to combat it, is ultimately what make progressivism so successful. It's what makes otherwise intelligent, rational, and good human beings succumb so easily to obviously absurd visions of the future painted by politicians. It's why our brothers and sisters and our children—and sometimes even you and I—are continually tempted by the progressive siren song.

Many experts have written about progressivism. I've talked about it on the air for more than a decade now, so I'm guessing you are already familiar with its frightening and demonstrable outcomes: the insatiable thirst for control and betterment of others; the determination to build a massive, all-controlling welfare state that holds the rest of us hostage to its preferences and whims; and the flirtation with totalitarianism masked by the guise of political correctness. Progressives regularly espouse ideas and support causes that openly involve the subjugation, murder, or mutilation of their fellow human beings, always in the name of a better world for all.

When their policies are actually implemented, they unfailingly achieve the opposite of their promised results. And yet, despite this, no amount of empirical data seems to dissuade progressives and their acolytes from embracing their flawed policies the next time around, even when they can easily be shown to be disastrous.

Given these failures time and time again, it's only right to wonder
how it is that progressive leaders and voters continue to cling to policies and programs that so plainly don't work. Are progressive leaders such masters of lying and deception that their followers can be easily fooled, even in the face of undeniable evidence? Or is it rather that followers of progressivism are so eager to be lied to that they willfully ignore facts and reason?

As we'll find out together in this book, the answer is both.

We all know what progressives want to do. We all know how easily they lie and how easily adherents allow themselves to be lied to. But what has rarely been asked or discussed is the more fundamental question: Why? Where does the urge originate from, and how does it hold so much power over the human mind? How does this impulse to build institutions and pass laws that dictate the behavior of others, stamping out individual choice in favor of the collective, overtake logic and sound thinking so often?

Each of us is born a unique, individual being, possessing free will and a mind capable of making rational choices. We're capable of caring for both our loved ones and ourselves. But devotees of progressivism reject their free will and rational capacity. What makes people adopt a philosophy that is so fundamentally incompatible with their natural birthright as free and independent beings who are able to determine their own future?

The answer brings us back to the saber-toothed cat and to the fear-hope dynamic buried deep within all of us.

Human beings are creatures of the natural world, following natural laws that govern all species on earth. Like that of our primate ancestors and all other mammals, our DNA is filled with millions of years of collective experience. The stories of their survival and our evolution are written in organic matter such as proteins and nucleic acids that form vast ribbons of DNA. As much as they are indicative of our past, these strands of DNA also, in many ways, determine our future—whether we're prone to cancer, whether our children will
have light skin or dark skin, whether we'll have a thick head of hair or be bald.

Our genetic sequencing also, it turns out, has a large effect on our political future.

Here's the short version. Our ancestors, among all creatures that have ever existed, were endowed by their creator with something unique in the animal kingdom, something that sets us apart from every other living organism: an awareness of our unavoidable death. It is the fundamental difference between human beings and every other advanced mammal. No other species except for humans has both the inherent desire to live
plus
the foreknowledge that we won't.

The awareness of death exists both consciously and unconsciously at the same time. Like members of all species, we experience fear as an inherent defense mechanism when faced with the danger of death or harm. That is the natural tool we are given to help us survive. But human beings are aware and afraid not only of immediate potential threats, as other creatures are, but also of future inevitable dangers, outside our control and perception, as other creatures are not. Human beings, therefore, more than any other living organisms, live in a constant state of terror over the danger of death. For some of us, the certainty of our death can create a sense of hopelessness. Each of us, and those we love and care about, will die. Eventually, no matter how many individual fights we might win against beasts from the underbrush, one of them will get us.

As we've evolved, the higher brain functions that enabled self-awareness, imagination, and reason had to create a counterbalance to the constant state of terror that came from foreknowledge of our own death. Psychologists identify this as a sort of coping mechanism that helps us get out of bed each day and march forward with life. This is the other quintessentially human psychological trait: hope. Hope is what empowers us to defy fear, to arm ourselves and fight against the saber-toothed cat. Hope is what enables inherently
irrational action against impossible odds, fighting each battle, while knowing that the war will eventually be lost.

Dr. Jerome Groopman, a Harvard Medical School professor who has spent years studying the science of hope, discovered that the brain releases chemicals that cause a hopeful sensation after a traumatizing experience. “Hope helps us overcome hurdles that we otherwise could not scale,” he wrote, “and it moves us forward to a place where healing can occur.”

These chemicals create an effect almost identical to that of morphine: a calming, peaceful sensation. The feeling of succumbing to fears and then transcending them with hope becomes addictive. It's why we love horror movies and Halloween. It's why amusement parks strive to build the tallest, fastest roller coasters every year. It's why adrenaline junkies jump out of airplanes and off bridges. It's why tens of thousands flock to endurance events like triathlons and Ironman races. It's why Navy SEALs and Army Rangers love the thrill of combat and why they continually subject themselves to grueling tests beforehand.