How Transparent Can Propaganda Get and Succeed?

CBS’s Stephen Colbert’s habit of inviting guests to The Late Show to tell him what he wants to hear continued apace on Thursday as he welcomed author, former Biden speechwriter, and frequent cable news talking head Jon Meacham to the show to promote his new book and do his usual shtick where he attempts to wax poetic about the dire state of Trump’s America. According to Meacham, the country is at risk of losing “the ethos that sent men to Omaha Beach” and other places that Americans associate with the fight for freedom. Hyping Meacham’s new book that comes out next month, Colbert wondered, “Well, in this book, as I said, this is a collection of many Americans from many points of view addressing their moment in the American story. Are there one or two in here that especially feel instructive for today?”     Trying to tie himself to Frederick Douglass, Meacham began, “See, Frederick Douglass is always instructive. I think the most important American of the 19th century in many ways. Imagine what it takes for a person born into enslavement in 1852 to stand up and say ‘I, for one, do not despair of this republic. The fiat of the Almighty, 'Let there be light,' has not yet spent its force.’" He also recalled how “he called the Constitution a glorious liberty document because he saw that it was the user’s guide, if you will, for that mission statement. The Declaration of Independence is our mission statement. The Constitution is our user's guide. And one thing we have to remember, all of us, is that there is nothing guaranteed about America making it to tomorrow. This is a fragile experiment because it's human. It's not clinical.” Meacham then alleged that Trump is a threat to all these good things, “And what I want everybody to try to do at this point is think about, what do you want the future to say about us? We're at risk of being a generation that loses the ethos that sent men to Omaha Beach, that sent people into Gettysburg, who sent people to Selma, Alabama, to broaden the definition and understanding of what the country can be. And it's not easy. But it's also vitally -- was never supposed to be about the whims and the ego of a single person.” No, but as we have seen in recent days, it was never supposed to be about mob rule in the streets that hinders the federal government’s ability to enforce the law either. The men at Gettysburg could relate to that as well. Here is a transcript for the January 15-taped show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 1/16/2026 12:31 AM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: Well, in this book, as I said, this is a collection of many Americans from many points of view addressing their moment in the American story. Are there one or two in here that especially feel instructive for today? JON MEACHAM: See, Frederick Douglass is always instructive. I think the most important American of the 19th century in many ways. Imagine what it takes for a person born into enslavement in 1852 to stand up and say "I, for one, do not despair of this republic. The fiat of the Almighty: ‘Let there be light,’ has not yet spent its force." And he called the Constitution a glorious liberty document because he saw that it was the user’s guide, if you will, for that mission statement. The Declaration of Independence is our mission statement. The Constitution is our user's guide. And one thing we have to remember, all of us, is that there is nothing guaranteed about America making it to tomorrow. This is a fragile experiment because it's human. It's not clinical. And what I want everybody to try to do at this point is think about, what do you want the future to say about us? We're at risk of being a generation that loses the ethos that sent men to Omaha Beach, that sent people into Gettysburg, who sent people to Selma, Alabama, to broaden the definition and understanding of what the country can be. And it's not easy. But it's also vitally -- was never supposed to be about the whims and the ego of a single person. 

Several leftist movie stars lectured about the allegedly villainous law-enforcement activities of ICE on the red carpet at the Golden Globe Awards. They wore "Be Good" pins to mourn Renee Good and mourned of "terrorized" immigrants. Why should we care what they think? MRCTV managing editor Brittany Hughes and NewsBusters contributor Steve Malzberg chimed in on the ICE frenzy. Brittany made a video about actor Mark Ruffalo, who was mysteriously cast at the Incredible Hulk, was claimed he was one of many Americans who are "terrorized and scared" by ICE, and what they're doing to enforce the law is "not American." She made the point that these celebrity humanitarians didn't wear a pin for women like Maryland's Dacara Thompson, who was raped and murdered at 19 by an illegal immigrant. Not even the local news cared. The Washington Post could only do two perfunctory stories.  Steve wrote on Fox's The Five, liberal Jessica Tarlov argued that thousands of anti-ICE protesters being painted “as all blue haired wine-mom kooks is completely misguided and makes you look a little bit blind.” Gutfeld told her that protest groups “desire chaos,” and Watters knocked women who end up protecting criminal migrants. Who is disparaging "blue-haired wine mom kooks"? And why do all of them watch Nicolle Wallace and The View? Speaking of The View, they were acting shocked that the president "flipped the bird" at an autoworker in Detroit who called him a pedophile protector. It's not "presidential." Historically, people expect a president to act dignified, but everyone who voted to put Trump in the White House knew what they were getting. He likes sparring, trolling, and mocking people. Flipping the bird at Trump also makes you a hero. During the first term, Juli Briskman flipped the bird at Trump's motorcade while she was bicycling. Her employer fired her after she celebrated her actions on social media. Stephen Colbert drew whoops from his crowd for claiming "No one has summed up the mood of the country better, long may she wave! Giving people the finger? "That’s how we say ‘hello’ in New York."  Juli Briskman used that fame to get elected in Virginia to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, where she's now vice chair.  Enjoy the podcast below. The audio is here. 

Are American women experiencing a deeper spiritual crisis beneath today’s political chaos?BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey believes so, arguing that the most extreme strains of progressive activism are not driven by the majority of women — who largely identify as conservative or moderate — but by a smaller, highly intense subset channeling their natural nurturing instincts into politics.And the liberal media’s new darling — the perceived victim of the recent ICE shooting in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good — is an example of the stereotypical woman who could be identified as having had a spiritual crisis.“She’s kind of the stereotype of this liberal, white woman. Is this characterization of older, white women as unstable social justice activists accurate? I would argue yes and no. So if we look at the political demographics of the white woman in America, 36% of white women identify as conservative,” she says.“Most white women don’t actually identify as liberal: 33% is moderate, 28% as liberal. That is still a large percentage, but that is a lower percentage of progressives in our demographic than any other demographic of women in America. So white women are actually the most conservative female demographic in America,” she continues.However, as Stuckey points out, the women who identify as liberal are “extremely intense.”“I think it has to do with this idea of misplaced mothering. And this is not just for white women. This is just for women in general,” she explains.Misplaced mothering is when women — who have a natural biological instinct to nurture children — instead put that instinct into pets, plants, politics, or their profession."This kind of disordered channeling of the nurturing, beautifying, cultivating, mothering instinct creates a kind of inner discord and disorder that lends itself to bitterness and can lend itself to instability and lends itself to outsized passion when it comes to social justice projects and social justice causes,” Stuckey explains.“The illegal alien becomes your child, or the gangbanger becomes your child, or this man who thinks that he’s caught in the wrong body and just wants to go into the girls' locker room becomes your child. These causes become your children, the perceived victim in these causes become your children,” she continues.“And this is all triggered by what I call toxic empathy,” she says, pointing out that the more empathetic a person is, the more likely they are to be radicalized.“The more highly empathetic someone is, actually, the meaner they can be to those that they don’t perceive as the victim. If you perceive this one person as the oppressed ... you’re putting all your feelings in how they feel. Everyone that you see as oppressing that victim becomes your enemy, and you become absolutely ruthless to them,” she explains.This is why so many highly empathetic women are going to bat for Renee Nicole Good, when if you scroll through their social media history, they’re dancing on the grave of Charlie Kirk.“She feels like she is like a mother and protector of all of these supposedly marginalized groups,” Stuckey says, “Everyone that she sees as the oppressor becomes the enemy, and she is cruel towards them, and she will fight them tooth and nail.”Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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