As founder and CEO of State Armor, I spend a lot of time in state capitals walking state officials through one basic fact: The Chinese Communist Party almost never tries to match America strength-for-strength. Their game is subversion, and they seek asymmetric opportunities to turn our own strengths against us. For more than a century, affordable, abundant energy has underwritten America’s superpower status. Cheap electricity, domestic oil and natural gas, and a reliable power grid built the modern economy and made this country a leader in innovation. Every time you flip on a light switch or fire up a server farm, you’re tapping into a strength Beijing would rather see us abandon. Beijing’s preferred path to victory over America doesn’t involve disrupting pipelines or knocking off our electricity, though they are pre-positioning to do that. They would rather convince Americans to voluntarily walk away from the energy abundance that made us prosperous. That is why State Armor has been investigating organizations like the Environmental Law Institute and the Energy Foundation China. Our recent report on the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and earlier research on Energy Foundation China describe a disturbing reality: organizations that style themselves as climate advocates are cultivating deep ties to Beijing and undermining America’s energy independence. On paper, they look like innocuous nonprofits. In practice, they benefit China by turning the screws on U.S. energy production and pushing our industries toward Chinese-controlled supply chains. Energy Foundation China, a U.S.-based grantmaking nonprofit that serves as a key vehicle for Beijing-aligned energy advocacy, has funded campaigns promoting a rapid American transition away from reliable domestic energy production toward energy supply chains controlled by the CCP. At the same time, EFC’s China operations are overseen by government agencies in Beijing and guided by officials embedded deep in the CCP’s bureaucracy. Environmental Law Institute, for its part, is intent on constraining U.S. oil and gas on the home front by promoting radical environmental theories to punish energy producers in American courts. In contrast, despite China being the world’s largest polluter, ELI takes an accommodative approach and works closely with senior CCP officials within the Chinese system. Beijing doesn’t see these U.S.-based non-profits as partners; it sees them as marks. Beijing is busy strengthening its own domestic energy infrastructure while weakening ours. While Chinese officials talk up their climate credentials, China keeps approving and building new coal plants, directly contradicting their own stated environmental goals. At the same time, China has spent years tightening its grip on the supply chains for solar panels, battery components, critical minerals, and rare earth processing, resulting in Chinese control of so-called “green” technologies. The result is a one-way trade and a national security nightmare. We are urged to shut down American oil, gas, and coal while China sells us the replacement hardware those choices require, complete with documented remote-access kill-switches. We give up energy independence and buy energy dependence on China. What’s more, China is applying this same playbook — exploiting our own system and institutions to weaken our key domestic strengths — in a fight to undermine the data centers that will power America’s AI revolution. This month, State Armor warned that Chinese-linked networks were beginning to amplify opposition to the data centers, turning local worries about electricity demand and locations into a campaign against the entire infrastructure. OpenAI soon publicly confirmed our finding, detailing how it dismantled a PRC-linked operation that used AI-generated content to stoke fears over data center buildouts, electricity prices, and environmental impacts. Chinese state-controlled outlets have since leaned into the same themes, even as Beijing rapidly subsidizes its own AI infrastructure at home. First, it was American oil and natural gas. Now it is the data centers that will support advanced AI and drive the next generation of U.S. productivity growth. Tomorrow the target will be whatever industry gives the United States its next strategic edge. None of this means every environmental group or every critic of data centers is taking cues from Beijing. But policymakers need to see the larger pattern: the CCP has become skilled at spotting legitimate domestic disputes and amplifying the arguments that slow American progress while clearing a path for its own. The CCP does not need Americans to cheer for communism or adopt its ideology. It just needs us to pass laws and regulations that sideline our own strengths and deepen our dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains. The greatest strategic gift we could hand Beijing is persuading Americans that the very things that made our nation prosperous — energy abundance, heavy industry, server farms humming with computation — are liabilities rather than assets. China has no intention of making that mistake. Neither should we. *** Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of State Armor, which he created to develop and enact state solutions to global security threats. Follow him at: @Michael7ucci

A fortress is not always conquered by an army battering down its walls. Sometimes it is lost because those entrusted with guarding the gate fail to recognize the motivation of the one asking to enter. That is the danger confronting America in 2026. Not because God’s throne is in danger. He remains sovereign over every ruler, every nation, and every election. Not because a political party can redeem America. No party died on the cross. No candidate rose from the grave. Jesus Christ alone is Savior and Lord. The importance of 2026 lies in this sobering reality: Islamist political influence is moving from agitation to organization, from protest to electoral power, and from temporary coalitions to institutional footholds. Listen carefully. The concern is not that Muslim citizens vote, organize, donate, or run for office. Those are constitutional rights, and Christians should defend them. Many Muslims came to America to escape the very Islamists about whom I am warning. The issue is not Muslims. The issue is Islamists. Biblical authority and Constitutional duty The Constitution is not supreme over the Bible. For the Christian, God’s Word is our final authority. When government commands what God forbids — or forbids what God commands — the Biblical answer is clear: “We must obey God rather than human beings!” (Acts 5:29). At the same time, the Constitution is the highest human civil charter governing the exercise of American public office. An officeholder who swears to support it is not declaring it divine. He is promising to discharge his office truthfully and not secretly substitute another legal order for the one he has sworn to uphold. Biblical Christianity therefore holds two Truths together: God is supreme over government, and God commands believers to honor lawful government. Jesus said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Caesar has real authority — but limited authority. Government may punish wrongdoing, preserve public order, and protect the innocent. It may not claim worship, command sin, or silence the Gospel. When Daniel was forbidden to pray, he did not pretend to comply while praying secretly. He opened his windows. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were commanded to worship an idol, they refused publicly. When the apostles were ordered to stop preaching Christ, they answered openly and accepted the consequences. That is Biblical civil disobedience. The Christian does not conceal his convictions. He does not infiltrate government under false pretenses. He does not lie for the Kingdom. Paul declared, “We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception” (2 Corinthians 4:2). Christ’s Kingdom advances through Truth, proclamation, prayer, service, sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit — not through forced conversion, concealed infiltration, or the sword. This is precisely where Biblical Christianity and Islamism part company. Political Islam seeks to unite religious, political, judicial, and social authority beneath Sharia. In its entryist form, it may use constitutional freedoms as temporary instruments for acquiring the power necessary to reshape the constitutional order itself. Entryism and Taqiyya Entryism is the strategy by which an ideological movement enters a larger party, coalition, school system, civic institution, or government body without fully disclosing its final objectives. The entryist adopts the language of the host institution, gains confidence, places personnel, acquires influence, and redirects the institution from within. Entryism does not begin with a candidate announcing, “I intend to replace the Constitution with Sharia.” That would expose the objective. It begins with language the secular West celebrates: inclusion, representation, social justice, civil rights, tolerance, and pluralism. These words may express legitimate concerns. But in the hands of an entryist movement, they become the key that opens the gate. Taqiyya is the doctrine of concealment, historically developed most prominently among Shiite Muslims living under persecution. Islamist movements have operationalized its logic politically: conceal or soften the ultimate objective until sufficient legitimacy, access, and power have been accumulated. Entryism is the strategy. Taqiyya is the mask. This is not conjecture. In a 1991 internal memorandum later introduced in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, Muslim Brotherhood figure Mohamed Akram described the Brotherhood’s work in North America as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” This does not mean every Muslim practices deception. It means that when an Islamist movement repeatedly uses dual messaging, concealed relationships, and strategic ambiguity, we should call the method what it is. Pattern recognition is not prejudice. Europe has already shown us the playbook Europe is not a hypothetical warning. It is the precedent. In Birmingham, England, investigators documented coordinated efforts to influence public-school governing bodies, install sympathetic leaders, marginalize resistant headteachers, alter curricula, and introduce a conservative Islamic ethos into schools that were not legally Islamic schools. The project advanced through appointments, personnel decisions, and institutional pressure — not through an openly declared Sharia platform. Tower Hamlets revealed another stage of the method. Religious sentiment, communal loyalty, political patronage, and public grants were manipulated to consolidate electoral power. A letter signed by 101 imams told voters that supporting Lutfur Rahman was their religious duty; the Election Court found undue spiritual influence. Rahman later returned to office after his disqualification ended. A court may expose the machinery without dismantling the machine. France has investigated an ecosystem of political Islam operating through mosques, schools, charities, associations, and local partnerships. Germany has banned organizations openly promoting a caliphate and rejecting its constitutional order. British elections have demonstrated how concentrated electorates mobilized around Gaza and communal identity can overturn supposedly safe political assumptions. The pattern is clear: recognition produces access; access produces influence; influence produces appointments and funding; dependency makes scrutiny politically dangerous; and when honest scrutiny becomes forbidden, freedom is already dying. The pattern at America’s gate The same mechanisms are emerging in the United States. In New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, Adam Hamawy won a crowded Democratic primary after American Priorities, a new pro-Palestinian super PAC, announced an approximately $2 million effort supporting him. Hamawy’s Muslim identity is irrelevant. His historical associations are not. As a young man, he traveled with and translated for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh,” and later testified in his defense. He also performed humanitarian work through the Benevolence International Foundation, which the U.S. Treasury later designated as a financier of terrorism. These facts do not prove that Hamawy knew of criminal activity or presently holds Islamist convictions. His later service as a U.S. Army combat surgeon is important. But unresolved associations, concentrated outside spending, and a path into Congress demand complete answers: What did he know? Did relationships continue? What are his positions on the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Sharia, apostasy, blasphemy, and freedom to convert? In Texas, the attorney general has investigated an organization calling itself the Islamic Tribunal over allegations that it represented religious decisions as final judgments carrying judicial approval. The organization says its guidance is voluntary and nonbinding. The proper question is whether its conduct matches its public description. Were participants free to refuse? Were women pressured? Were religious rulings used to discourage access to civil courts? Words must be tested by conduct. The 2026 election is the most important election of our lifetime because it may determine whether Islamist entryism is confronted before it becomes entrenched—or normalized after it acquires institutional power. For the Christian, ultimate allegiance belongs to God alone. For every officeholder, the civil test is honest constitutional fidelity: Will you protect the right to leave Islam, become a Christian, evangelize Muslims, criticize Muhammad, reject penalties for apostasy and blasphemy, and preserve equal protection under civil law? Christians must love Muslim people, defend their liberties, and proclaim to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But love is not blindness. Tolerance is not surrender. Our weapons are not hatred, slander, fear, or violence. Our weapons are Biblical Truth, prayer, lawful action, constitutional vigilance, and the Gospel. Europe has shown us the playbook. Entryism opens the institution. Taqiyya conceals the destination. The question is whether those entrusted with guarding the gate will recognize it before the gate is lost. *** Michael A. Youssef, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist, bestselling author, and internationally respected Bible teacher who brings more than 50 years of insight to the global stage. Born in Egypt under socialist and Islamist systems, Dr. Youssef witnessed firsthand the realities of spiritual and political darkness. He later lived in Lebanon and Australia before immigrating to the United States, fulfilling a childhood dream by becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1984. This unique personal history fuels his distinct perspective on Middle Eastern geopolitics and current events in the West. Entryism succeeds only when someone inside opens the gate. In my new book, An Unholy Alliance: How Progressivism Brought About an Islamist Invasion, I name who has been opening it—and why: a “Red-Green” partnership in which secular progressivism ushers political Islamism into our schools, our media, and our halls of government. I wrote this book for those entrusted with guarding the gate, and I offer a twelve-point plan for responding with Biblical Truth, courage, and the Gospel.

President Donald Trump delivered a scorched-earth warning to Tehran on Wednesday, declaring the United States will “beat the f*cking sh*t out of” Iran following a brazen overnight sneak attack targeting American troops stationed in Jordan. Speaking to Fox News, a furious Trump did not mince words about how the United States intends to handle the Islamic Republic’s latest provocation. “We’ll be hitting them hard, they’re going to get a beating,” Trump warned, promising a swift and devastating response to the surprise barrage. According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the assault began at 5:45 p.m. ET when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unleashed a salvo of ballistic missiles directly from Iranian territory aimed at U.S. bases in the Middle East. American defense systems locked on and successfully intercepted every single incoming missile in a high-stakes, real-time operation. Trump revealed he reviewed intense video footage of the shootdown, describing U.S. service members frantically calling out coordinates with just minutes to spare to ensure no enemy fire slipped through. The dramatic escalation comes despite behind-the-scenes diplomatic talks. Following a crushing 13-day U.S. bombing campaign, Iranian officials had reportedly approached the White House seeking negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz and their nuclear ambitions. However, Tehran shattered any goodwill with the surprise attack. The Iranian regime’s aggression appears to be wildly backfiring. By indiscriminately launching attacks across the Middle East, Tehran has accidentally forged a powerful, informal coalition of regional rivals now uniting to crush Iranian proxies. Overnight, U.S. forces teamed up with Saudi Arabia to launch coordinated airstrikes hitting Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militias. Trump confirmed the strikes were coordinated with Iraq’s government. He slammed the militias as “a cancer on the world” and signaled more warnings to Iranian proxies are coming. Other Gulf nations, including Kuwait and the UAE, have also taken limited military action against Iranian coastal strongholds like Bandar Abbas. The explosive developments follow Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called “positive and productive.” It signaled an ironclad, united front between Washington and Jerusalem as Operation Epic Fury heats up. While Trump noted behind-the-scenes talks will technically continue, his message to Tehran was crystal clear: an American reckoning is coming.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has criticized “greedy landlords” and proposed cracking down on corporate ownership of housing, owns three rental properties with his wife, including two overseas properties inherited through her family.   Financial disclosures show the couple’s three rental properties are valued at up to $1 million, with two located in Dubai and India and another in Ann Arbor, Michigan. El-Sayed said the Dubai and India properties were inherited from his wife’s parents and are jointly owned by family members. Together the two properties are valued at up to $500,000 and each generate up to $15,000 in annual rental income, according to his financial disclosures. The couple’s Ann Arbor rental property is also valued at up to $500,000 and generates up to $15,000 annually. When questioned about the foreign rental properties, El-Sayed suggested racism could be at play. “People that pay attention to properties that literally my wife’s family inherited and put in their and all of their kids’ names and then sold. … I wonder why they are so focused on foreign properties for somebody with a name like mine. Do you think it might fit within a well-worn trope? I don’t know,” he said.  Despite earning rental income himself, El-Sayed has criticized “greedy landlords” while campaigning on a housing platform that would crack down on corporate ownership of housing. Financial disclosures also show El-Sayed and his wife earned $686,069 in 2025, placing them among the top 1% of Michigan’s highest earners. His campaign website argues that “extreme wealth is an existential threat to our economy and our democracy and it demands a crisis-level response.”  Asked whether he considered himself a millionaire, El-Sayed responded, “Well, if you take my assets and her, my wife’s assets together, then I guess they add up to something like that,” El-Sayed said in late June. “But my career has never been about trying to maximize on money. Otherwise, I would have just gone and been a surgeon.”  Recently, he argued he had no problem with millionaires, just billionaires. “So a lot of folks are like, ‘Well, Abdul, you know, you just don’t want people to get rich.’ No! I don’t begrudge anyone their millions,” El-Sayed said at a campaign event. “But I do begrudge everyone their billions.” The campaign event was with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).  El-Sayed has spoken at multiple Democratic Socialists of America events over the years, though he denies being a member or a socialist. The group argues that workers create economic value while corporate owners capture an outsized share of the profits. The organization has backed significantly higher taxes on top earners, including a 70% marginal income tax rate on earnings above $10 million — a proposal that Ocasio-Cortez has also championed.  El-Sayed supports aggressive tax policies of his own, with his campaign website stating he supports taxing long-term capital gains over $1 million at the same rate as ordinary income. The tax code taxes all capital gains held longer than a year at a maximum of 20%. El-Sayed’s new tax rate would follow the marginal income tax rate — even rising as high as 70% if the Democratic Socialists of America succeed in changing the tax code. Capital gains taxes had the same top tax rate as ordinary income in 1988, 1989, and 2000. Supporters of lower capital gains taxes argue higher taxes disincentivize investment while lower taxes encourage investment, leading to economic growth.

On June 2, 2020, I spent my 18th birthday entirely alone. For much of the day, I sat on my front porch, answering text messages from friends, but mostly I allowed time to pass in a crawl, the way it did for much of the COVID-19 lockdown. In the evening, I went inside and turned on the nightly news out of habit. It had become addicting watching the number of COVID cases rise and hearing concerned news anchors pour over virality data and quarantine horror stories. I spent my 18th birthday alone, shut away from my friends and family, watching people post black squares on their Instagram accounts in solidarity with George Floyd.  That same day, Dr. Anthony Fauci met with President Donald Trump, during which time Trump allegedly stated, “I love you, Tony. I want to give you a big hug.” After meeting for awhile to discuss vaccines, Trump called Fauci “close” to his desk and complimented him by saying, “You are looking real good.” According to Fauci’s diary, upon leaving the White House, he bumped into a friend and bragged about his performances on recent media hits. He then excitedly anticipated his plans for a morning breakfast meeting with Michael Caputo, the former assistant secretary for Health and Human Services. The previous day, June 1, Fauci bragged in his diary about getting to do a Zoom graduation ceremony for the Regis High School’s senior class. By his own judgement, they “loved it.” While hundreds of thousands of children and young adults were blocked from having actual graduation ceremonies, or meeting with family members, or having morning breakfasts with their friends, Fauci was living a normal life. After he spent months scaring Americans and convincing local and state governments that they had to shutter their doors, he was parading around D.C., doing media hits and making notes about which celebrities offered him public praise.  For members of Gen Z, the pandemic was the first major cultural event they experienced. Many were too young to remember 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis. While some of my friends vaguely remember a few things about the Obama presidency or Trump’s first term, very few of them were mature enough to be politically engaged. The pandemic stripped away their ignorance, forcing them to deal with the tyrannical political inclinations of Fauci, state governments, and liberal elites.  At the time, very few young people saw any upside to the COVID pandemic. It led to 46% of Gen Z reporting new mental health issues, 65% reporting feeling “very lonely,” and spikes in dangerous social trends such as transgenderism. Some students never got to say goodbye to their friends before leaving for college or, upon arrival, weren’t allowed to leave their dorm rooms without a mask. Numerous colleges required students to be vaccinated if they wanted to attend classes in person, while other universities and high schools simply told people to take virtual classes without any end in sight. Many of my teenage friends suddenly found themselves smoking weed every night to pass the time, or turning to dangerous illicit drugs just to “feel something.” With bars closed and parties cancelled, many of my former classmates started drinking alone in their rooms. Meanwhile, out-of-touch celebrities posted cringey videos of themselves singing “Imagine” and hiding in their Beverly Hills mansions.  For some Zoomers, the reaction to COVID was despair. But for many others, the reaction was defiance. After months of lockdowns and mask mandates, young people realized that their likelihood of getting sick was very slim and that quarantining barely mitigated the spread. As “two weeks to slow the spread” spiraled into endless months of forced isolation, many people realized the government was being weaponized against them. Just a few of my peers’ stories back this up.  Alex, who is now 26, dropped out of Northwestern just a few months into his freshman year after realizing the school’s online classes didn’t match its pricey tuition fees. In his free time, he taught himself computer programming. After landing a job at a well-known bank, he came to the conclusion that college was a scam, COVID was a scam, and that the only people who hadn’t lied to him were conservatives. Jake, 27, had recently graduated from high school and got into the trades during the start of the pandemic. After going into several people’s houses per day, he realized the quarantines had had very little effect on peoples’ safety and Fauci’s HHS had been spreading lies. Eric, 24, was forced to spend all of his time alone in his dorm room as a college student. He began listening to podcasts, starting with Jordan Peterson, and eventually wound up listening to Michael Knowles and Charlie Kirk every day. Within the course of less than a year, he went from being apolitical to volunteering for Turning Point USA.  COVID taught young Americans that they couldn’t trust the government to make decisions for them. In the past few years, a majority of my peers have admitted a similar experience: that COVID caused them to see the tyrannical abuse of power inflicted by left-wing governments. It’s no surprise that Trump won the popular vote for Gen Z men in 2024; he represented freedom from radical leftism. I was not the only Gen Z kid who spent her birthday, or graduation, or weekends alone. I was one of many young people who realized that Fauci’s shutdowns and power grabs were nothing but narcissism. Gen Z will never forgive Fauci for lying to them, but they can be grateful that he showed them how dictatorial politicians can be. *** Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is a senior contributor at New Guard Press, a publication she joined while attending Hillsdale College. This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.