Earlier this month, wildfires raged across Canada, especially in Ontario and British Columbia. The resulting smoke plumes drifted south into the U.S., causing hazardous air quality conditions across the Midwest and Northeast. At its peak, more than 100 million Americans were under air quality alerts, with cities like Detroit and Minneapolis recording some of the worst air pollution in the world.

On July 17, President Trump posted the following response on Truth Social:

Naturally, many were upset with President Trump for threatening to bill Canada for its wildfire smoke, but they’re missing the genius of what he’s really doing, says Glenn Beck.

On July 1, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) reached its six-year review point. The United States announced it would not renew the deal in its current form, triggering a formal review and renegotiation process between the three countries.

“On the Canadian side of the table, the asks are already on the record. Ottawa wants relief on sectoral tariffs covering steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber,” says Glenn.

But Trump, of course, has his own list of demands — and his billing Canada for its smoke threat? It’s “just that” — “smoke,” says Glenn.

“It’s part of the negotiation. The smoke is the opening position — an unanswerable grievance dropped on the table two weeks before we get serious at the negotiating table,” he explains.

Trump is doing what any good negotiator does at the beginning of talks: He leads with an outrageous ask so that his opponent is more likely to concede to the rest of his demands.

Ben Franklin did this during Revolutionary War negotiations, Glenn recounts.

“Franklin asked for Canada. Franklin got everything except Canada. That’s not a coincidence. That’s called a technique in negotiation,” he explains.

Trump, he reiterates, “is not putting a tariff on the smoke. He’s two weeks away from sitting down negotiating with Canada. He wants a great deal with Canada.”

In other words, he’s intentionally throwing out something outrageous — much like a real estate agent making a laughably low first offer — so that by the end of negotiations, the “crazy” demands have been negotiated away, leaving the real objectives largely fulfilled.

“For 40 years, American trade agreements were negotiated by people who opened at ‘reasonable’ because they wanted the applause to come from the other side of the table,” says Glenn.

But Trump isn’t after empty applause; he’s after American interests.

“We have lost our furniture plants and our steel towns and the tool and die shops. We were told that’s the price of being a grown-up nation. No, we finally have a president who opens up where Ben Franklin opened up: loud, maximum, occasionally absolutely ridiculous, but deliberate,” says Glenn.

“And how many Americans are now saying, ‘I’m embarrassed by that’? Embarrassed by whom exactly? By the only man in generations who has walked into a room and asked for too much on your behalf?” he continues.

When negotiations are finally over, Glenn hopes these naysayers will see all the good that came from Trump’s little bargaining tactic.

“When the paper is finally signed, check the fisheries, check the steel, check the lumber, check the dairy. Ask the dairy workers, ‘Did we get a good deal?’ Ask the American worker who kept losing his job elsewhere if now things are changing here and getting better for them,” he says.

“That’s the only column that ever matters — you.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Glenn beck, Donald trump, Canada, Usmca, Wildfires, The glenn beck program 

I was having lunch in a local tavern the other day, when Randy Travis’ 1987 country hit “Forever and Ever, Amen” came on the jukebox.

Wow! That song sounds as good as it did 40 years ago! Maybe better!

Why is it that some things have a timeless quality and other things don’t?

My friends and I often argue about if a song, or a book, or a TV show “holds up”? Does it still retain that original freshness and quality it seemed to have when it first appeared?

Of course, when you’re young, you’re not the best judge of artistic quality. You absorb whatever you see or hear around you. You like this song or that TV show, but it’s not based on anything substantial. When you get older, you notice that some of the stuff you liked as a kid was not very good.

Think of all the bad music you listened to in your parents’ car growing up. Or the terrible TV shows you watched when you were 10. Nobody’s watching reruns of “The Six Million Dollar Man” or “Kung Fu” nowadays, two TV shows I loved as a kid.

Poser punks

A couple of years ago, I spent an evening at a college friend’s house where we went through his extensive collection of old punk records.

It was many decades past the prime of punk rock, and a lot of the more outrageous punk music sounded pretty stupid. It didn’t “hold up.” We liked it at the time. But we would never listen to it now.

In some cases, you could tell the musicians were just playing at being punk. They had the goofy sunglasses, spiky hair, simplistic music. They were imitating more than creating.

They didn’t actually address what the real punk kids were feeling. There was an authenticity problem. You can’t be great if you’re just following the latest trend.

RELATED: I was a ‘problem student’ — until all-male Catholic school let me be a boy

Alex_Bond/Bettman/Getty Images

‘Hey, I used to like that song!’

My college friend and I unearthed a 7” single by a local new wave band we had liked when we lived in Boston. These guys had good songs. A good sound. A good stage presence. Their single was genuinely catchy and played regularly on our college radio station.

But when we put that same single on years later, it wasn’t good. It sounded cheesy and embarrassing. It was dated.

It sounded a lot like another Boston band, The Cars, who were also very popular around the same time. The Cars songs are also dated and a little bit cheesy, but they still sound great on the radio. They sound classic.

So what did The Cars have that the other band lacked? Talent? Presence? Craftsmanship? Why is it that some things have a timeless quality and other things don’t?

Scantily clad

I think about current pop music. There seems to be a new “pop star” every week. These are mostly singers and mostly young women. People like Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sabrina Carpenter. They come and go so fast, you can barely remember their names.

Most of their music is made by highly paid music producers. These people know how to make hit records. All the girls have to do is sing and look cute.

Even country music, which tends to reward quality over slickness, has become so popular that there is a certain disposability there as well. There are a lot of “one-hit wonders,” just like in the pop world.

Morgan Wallen is one country star who seems to have staying power. He sounds fresh and original, but you can hear the echoes of classic country in his songs. Also, his attempted cancellation, back in 2021, has given him an underdog status among fans.

Talent on loan from God

But beyond politics, beyond competing styles and industry trends, there is GOD-GIVEN TALENT. Which is where legendary singers like Randy Travis come in.

Of course, Travis fans know about his struggles outside of music. They understand the pressures and temptations of being so good at something that you become world-famous. Travis has definitely had his ups and downs.

But oh, if you could have heard “Forever and Ever, Amen” coming out of that jukebox! Here was a song that was once a No. 1 radio hit, but now sounds like a timeless American classic.

Randy Travis, we salute you, brother! Especially on a hot summer day, in the cool darkness of a half-empty tavern. YOU HOLD UP. And we appreciate it!

​Morgan wallen, Randy travis, Music, Entertainment, Culture, Blake’s progress 

One of the biggest selling factors of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign was his promise to conduct mass deportations, sending millions of illegal aliens the Biden administration had imported back home.

According to recent figures provided by the administration, nearly 1 million people have been deported since January 2025.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace is pleased with this number.

“That’s excellent progress given where we were starting from and all the court challenges and everything else, right? Not to mention how squishy Republicans are,” he says.

However, many conservatives disagree.

“There are plenty of my friends and contacts who are like, ‘This dog ain’t going to hunt,’ ‘This ain’t going to cut it,’ and ‘Mass deportations is what we voted for, it’s what we expect, and these aren’t massive enough,’” he notes.

“One man’s mass is another man’s meh, right?” he quips.

Deace asks co-host Todd Erzen and producer Aaron McIntire to weigh in. “Which of these two camps in my friend group right now would you guys come down in?”

Erzen is less optimistic than Deace.

“I’m way more in ‘this dog ain’t gonna hunt’ ultimately,” he says, noting that he’s nonetheless “grateful for everything that’s being done.”

“Right now, Dearborn, Michigan, should be a ghost town. Pockets of Minneapolis, wherever all those Somalis live, ghost town. Take care of that. … That should be a bat signal to everybody else: Here we come,” he adds.

Aaron, however, is more concerned with finding “the real story.”

“It’s really difficult, especially when we’ve had as many government shutdowns or partial shutdowns as we’ve had in the last 18 months … to actually get a bead on what the real data is,” he says.

Regardless, no matter what the actual number is, he argues, deportations are “nowhere near the pace that [they need] to be.”

“So, what I hear you guys saying, therefore, is that in typical Republican fashion, what we are doing is stopping the left from doing any new bad things, but we’re not going back and really undoing the old system,” Deace summarizes.

“Trump will push and stretch that paradigm as much as any previous Republican of our lifetimes has or was probably willing to, right? But … it still doesn’t inspire the level of paradigm shift that is really required here. Is that what I hear you saying?” he asks.

“Exactly,” Erzen says.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace, Mass deportations, Immigration and customs enforcement, Department of homeland security, Donald trump, Steve deace show 

Police in Madison, Wisconsin, fatally shot a male who a pulled knife and injured an officer amid an arrest Wednesday afternoon, the police chief said — and the incident has sparked protests.

Social media video of the shooting went viral, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, adding that some Wisconsin politicians have criticized police. ABC News said the fatally shot male was black.

‘It’s an absolute tragedy when a member of our community is killed by anyone, but especially by the police.’

Madison Police Chief John Patterson said there is no bodycam video of the shooting since no frontline officers have body cameras, the paper reported.

The fatally shot male was suspected of stealing bicycles and attempting to enter unlocked cars, the paper said, adding that when police located him, he fled on a bicycle.

Multiple officers tried to restrain and arrest the male, and a struggle occurred at the intersection of Williamson and South Baldwin Streets around 1:35 p.m., the paper said.

Chief Patterson at a Wednesday news conference said the male drew a knife and injured one officer during the arrest attempt, and the officer then shot and killed the male, the paper reported.

Officials have not publicly identified the fatally shot male, the paper added, only saying that he was in his 30s.

RELATED: ‘Eye for an eye’: Support soars for father charged with murdering deputy just 1 day after different cop shot his son dead

More from the Journal Sentinel:

Videos of the attempted arrest and shooting, reviewed and verified by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, showed three officers struggling with the man. Officers can be heard yelling “he’s got a knife.” Another officer approaches and shouts “Taser” and attempts to use a stun gun on the man, who appears to fall over or is pulled down by an officer.

As the man is on the ground, one of the officers shoots the man three times and another officer briefly covers her mouth with her hand. Officers subsequently can be seen attempting to tend to the man.

The paper said state Rep. Francesca Hong — a lifelong Madison resident and leading candidate in the Democratic primary field for governor — criticized the shooting and stood with others at the shooting scene Wednesday evening.

“I am horrified and devastated,” she said in a statement posted to social media, the Journal Sentinel said. “This was an execution, and it never should have happened.”

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, also a Democrat running for governor, said in a statement he was horrified by the shooting and likened it to prior police shootings in Kenosha and Minneapolis, the paper said.

“Each incident reopens deep wounds, raises difficult questions, and reminds us of the urgent work that remains to build trust, transparency, and accountability in our systems,” Crowley said, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Democrat Gov. Tony Evers — who endorsed Crowley days ago — asked protesters to remain peaceful and respectful, the paper said.

RELATED: Ferguson cop attacked at Michael Brown protest, suffers ‘severe brain injury’ and is ‘fighting for his life,’ police say

“There must be transparency and accountability in any investigation moving forward,” Evers said in an X post, the paper said. “We will continue to keep the loved ones and family of the individual who was killed in our hearts and prayers. His life mattered.”

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, also a Democrat, said in a statement she was angered and saddened by the shooting, the Journal Sentinel reported.

“There is real pain in our city right now,” the mayor said, according to the paper. “It’s an absolute tragedy when a member of our community is killed by anyone, but especially by the police.”

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​Police involved shooting, Fatal shooting, Madison, Wisconsin, Protests, Knife, Officer injured, Crime 

If you’ve spent any time on YouTube, you’ve probably seen videos of Chinese electric vehicles loaded with giant touchscreens, premium interiors, advanced driver-assistance systems, and impressive range — all selling overseas for the price of an entry-level compact car.

This week, Washington made sure they’re likely to stay that way.

History suggests consumers usually benefit when new competitors arrive.

The official explanation is national security. But that’s only part of the story.

Unacceptable risks?

On July 15, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, bipartisan legislation introduced by Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno and Michigan Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin. The bill would permanently codify and strengthen Commerce Department restrictions on connected vehicles, software, and hardware from China and other designated foreign adversaries. It doesn’t just target cars wearing Chinese badges; it targets the telematics units, cellular modems, GPS modules, and other connected technology that allows modern vehicles to constantly send and receive data.

Supporters argue that’s necessary because today’s vehicles collect enormous amounts of information, including location data, driving behavior, camera feeds, microphones, and wireless communications. Given China’s national security laws, which require companies to cooperate with government intelligence requests, lawmakers say allowing Chinese-connected vehicles onto American roads creates unacceptable risks.

Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

But the legislation also blocks what could become the biggest source of price competition the American auto industry has faced in decades.

RELATED: This used-car odometer scam is everywhere — and impossible to detect

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Good for the goose …

The average new vehicle now sells for close to record prices. Even compact crossovers routinely exceed $35,000, electric vehicles often cost much more before incentives, financing has become more expensive, insurance premiums continue climbing, and used-car prices remain stubbornly high. Americans can watch BYD, Geely, MG, Chery, XPeng, and other Chinese brands selling well-equipped vehicles overseas for thousands less than comparable models available here — sometimes for nearly half the price — and naturally wonder why they can’t buy them.

Washington’s answer is national security.

Fair enough — but if protecting Americans’ data is the goal, why does the conversation stop with China?

Modern vehicles already collect extraordinary amounts of information about their owners. Domestic automakers know where many vehicles travel, how they’re driven, and when they’re serviced, while connected-car data has already found its way to insurers and third-party data brokers. Congress appears highly motivated to prevent China from collecting that information, but it has shown far less urgency about limiting who else can.

Competition wanted

There’s also an economic reality. Keeping Chinese competitors out protects existing manufacturers from the kind of price competition they’ve largely avoided. Over the past decade, automakers have steadily abandoned affordable entry-level cars in favor of SUVs and pickups with much higher profit margins. Introducing dozens of lower-priced competitors would put pressure on those margins — which is exactly what competition is supposed to do.

History suggests consumers usually benefit when new competitors arrive. Japanese automakers forced Detroit to improve in the 1970s and 1980s, while Korean manufacturers evolved from budget brands into respected global competitors. Better quality, stronger reliability, and lower prices followed. Whether Chinese manufacturers would have had the same effect is now a question Americans may never get to answer.

Even if finished Chinese vehicles never reach U.S. dealerships, much of the global battery supply chain still runs through China. The country dominates battery mineral processing and many of the components used in electric vehicles assembled around the world, including those built in North America. America is trying to reduce its dependence on China while remaining heavily dependent on Chinese manufacturing for some of the industry’s most important technologies — a contradiction that won’t disappear simply because imported vehicles are banned.

The Connected Vehicle Security Act may ultimately prove to be good national-security policy. But Americans deserve an honest conversation about its economic cost as well.

Restricting Chinese vehicles limits competition, reduces consumer choice, and almost certainly helps keep vehicle prices higher than they otherwise might be. If lawmakers believe those trade-offs are necessary, they should make that case openly, because the people paying the price won’t be members of Congress or auto executives.

They’ll be the families walking into dealerships wondering why their next vehicle costs thousands more than they expected.

National security matters. Consumers deserve the full picture, including what those protections may cost them every time they shop for a new car.

​China, National security, Toyota, Electric vehicles, Batteries, Automotive 

Undercover reporter James O’Keefe has struck again.

The U.S. Navy has placed a senior Pentagon official on administrative leave after a hidden camera from a “gay” date with O’Keefe on July 6 appeared to catch the official criticizing President Donald Trump and vowing to reverse the administration’s policy changes.

‘Why do the gays in DC spill all the beans to me each and every single time?’

In footage shared to social media by O’Keefe on Wednesday, a disguised O’Keefe is out with an individual he identified as the director of business operations in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, Brandon Newsom. On the video, Newsom claims to “oversee all corporate ops, so like HR, IT, security.”

Newsom tells O’Keefe that while the Trump administration policies challenge his morals, “I want to stay and stick it out, so that way, when the time comes, I can undo whatever’s been done [by the Trump administration],” video appears to show.

The alternative, he suggests in the video, is risking having someone who supports the administration take over his responsibilities.

When asked what specific policies he would seek to undo, Newsom appears to tell O’Keefe, whose disguise consisted of a blonde dye-job and a “Freddie Mercury” mustache, “I don’t think there should be one specific prayer service.”

The Pentagon’s monthly voluntary worship services have ruffled feathers besides Newsom’s in recent months.

Rachel Laser, the CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, complained in March, “Even if these prayer services are presented as voluntary, there is pressure on federal employees to attend in order to appease their bosses — especially since these services occur amidst the Trump administration’s campaign to punish anyone who doesn’t comply with its Christian Nationalist agenda.”

Newsom, who expressed an openness to holding a prayer service where “all religions are recognized,” is apparently keen also on doing away with the administration’s schedule policy/career reform, which he told O’Keefe directly impacted him.

RELATED: Democrats go into FULL PANIC MODE after Trump exposes election interference from China and the deep state

“I was converted to schedule policy, which means all of my protections as an employee have been stripped away,” Newsom appears to say in the video. “Hopefully that’s the first thing that gets undone.”

Although he acknowledged that he lacked the authority to change policy, Newsom appears to tell the undercover reporter that he has “the influence.”

In addition to apparently divulging his desire to see multiple MAGA policies reversed, Newsom appears to tell O’Keefe that rogue elements have already done their best to hinder implementation.

“There’s a lot of things that they [the Trump administration] tried to do at the very beginning … they’ve still not rolled out because you have certain folks in certain positions who can slow-roll things,” Newsom appears to say in the footage.

Later in the video, O’Keefe’s date appears not only to call Trump a “textbook narcissist” but claims that the Iran war is “completely stupid” and “based on one man’s ego.”

O’Keefe later tweeted, “Why do the gays in DC spill all the beans to me each and every single time?”

When asked for comment, the Pentagon referred Blaze News to the Navy, which did not immediately respond.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao did, however, address the undercover report on Wednesday evening, stating, “The Department of the Navy takes the conduct shown in this video extremely seriously.”

“Such statements and apparent intent to leverage a position to undermine the policies and direction set by our elected leaders are inappropriate and incompatible with the standards expected of Department personnel,” continued Cao. “Effective immediately, this individual has been placed on administrative leave while we determine next steps to ensure accountability and protect the integrity of our mission.”

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​James o’keefe, Pentagon, Deep state, Hung cao, Politics 

The American EV company Lucid Motors recently brought in restructuring experts AlixPartners to figure out how to stop burning through hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. Corporate spokespeople immediately sprinted to the microphone to label bankruptcy speculation as completely false. Investors watched the stock price slide anyway, because nobody looking at the sales ledgers can claim business is booming. Deliveries remain a microscopic blip compared to the mountains of cash going out the door.

Lucid is not alone.

The market has spoken, with crystal-clear honesty.

A massive freeze has settled over the entire domestic EV market.

Last month, the number-crunchers at BloombergNEF took a giant eraser to their 2030 U.S. electric vehicle sales forecast. They slashed the expected market share from an absurdly optimistic 48% to a far less revolutionary 17%. That massive drop accounts for millions of battery-powered cars that regular Americans simply refuse to buy. Car lots across the country now look like metallic graveyards for unwanted golf carts. Ford put the brakes on its F-150 Lightning production. General Motors hit pause on major factory lines. An increasing number of hyped-up EV startups are suddenly staring directly into the financial abyss.

Green tears

The New York Times is far from happy. One of its contributors, Matthew Shaer, recently published a stern lamentation about American automakers backing away from EVs. He pointed out that global adoption is expanding in places like China, arguing that Detroit’s retreat will come back to haunt the nation.

That overly emotional column completely ignores the basic mechanics of a free-market economy. American automakers build what pays the bills today. When showroom floors begin filling with unsold battery-powered cars, executives eventually stop pouring billions into a financial black hole simply to satisfy coastal columnists and climate activists. Yet Shaer appears convinced that he knows more than the people who have spent decades designing, building, and selling automobiles. The sheer hubris is breathtaking.

Market demand drives every industry, including the auto industry. Everyday consumers have weighed the real-world utility of electric commuting and decided they much prefer internal combustion. Range anxiety, broken charging stations, and sky-high sticker prices turned off millions of working families. When federal cash subsidies began to dry up, natural consumer sentiment exposed the total lack of organic demand under the entire enterprise.

And the lack of genuine demand makes complete sense.

Driving in Europe operates on an entirely different geographical planet than life in North America. European commuters navigate tight medieval streets and short distances between nation-states. A tiny battery-powered hatchback works fine for a five-mile trip across a compact French city to buy some overpriced organic cheese.

America is a different beast entirely. It was built on endless interstate highways, vast open deserts, and heavy towing needs. Drivers routinely haul boats, livestock, and heavy camper rigs across hundreds of miles of open road in a single afternoon. A delicate electric jelly bean designed for zipping past European coffee shops will curl up into a fetal position the second you hitch it to a cattle trailer in Oklahoma.

A way of life

America’s automotive taste has always leaned toward mechanical presence and raw horsepower. Decades of American car culture were forged on the rumble of Ford V8 engines, trail-ready Jeep Wranglers, and heavy-duty Ram pickups. Drivers want machines that roar when they step on the gas pedal, not a glorified rolling iPhone that needs a software update just to back out of the driveway. They want to possess something that possesses them, a vehicle that sparks genuine pride and makes them actively look for reasons to hit the open road.

This has been the case for decades.

RELATED: You can finally buy Palmer Luckey’s favorite ‘flying car’ — there’s just one catch

Jetson ONE

The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo brought America to its knees. Gas stations ran dry. Lines stretched for blocks. Drivers waited for hours to fill their tanks. The country was reminded, in the most humiliating way possible, that its entire way of life depended on fuel flowing freely from somewhere else.

The lesson seemed obvious: America needed smaller cars, greater efficiency, and less dependence on foreign oil. And for a while, Americans adjusted.

Then the fuel started flowing again. The giant engines returned. The SUVs grew larger. The pickup trucks became rolling monuments to torque and the uniquely American belief that a vehicle should be able to transport a family, a boat, a couple of horses, and half a hardware store at the same time.

The EV backlash reflects something too deeply embedded in American culture to be dislodged by an ideological movement. Americans don’t merely want transportation. They want a more profound experience: freedom of movement, the ability to point a vehicle this way or that and drive until the landscape changes. They want to cross 2,000 miles of the country without planning their entire journey around whether the next charging station exists or is occupied by someone whose vehicle has already been sitting there for close to an hour.

The market has spoken, with crystal-clear honesty. American drivers value reliability, independence, and real utility over state-directed tech experiments. Detroit car companies are returning to gas-powered trucks, hybrids, and high-horsepower muscle cars because those vehicles actually clear the lot. The free market dictates the winner every single time. The internal combustion engine, it seems, is here to stay.

​Tech 

Americans are looking for safety in an increasingly chaotic country. Mass immigration, collapsing social trust, and weakening civic bonds have transformed many communities from places where neighbors knew one another into anonymous zones governed by suspicion.

Technology promises an escape from the consequences of those political and cultural failures. Flock Safety cameras appear to offer law and order at the push of a button. In the hands of the ruling class that manufactured the crisis, however, they are more likely to produce tyranny for citizens.

Today’s stolen-car database can become tomorrow’s political enforcement system.

Municipalities are buying Flock’s automated license plate readers. The company did not invent plate cameras, but its artificial intelligence radically expands their reach.

Flock cameras photograph passing vehicles and record license plates, makes, colors, damage, bumper stickers, and identifiers. A single camera means little. A citywide network collecting thousands of images every day creates something powerful.

The cameras send their information to an AI database in real time. Police and other municipal employees can search for vehicles nearby. They can place cars on “hot lists” and receive alerts whenever those vehicles appear.

The system effectively places a GPS tracker on every moving car. Police ordinarily need a warrant to attach a tracker to your vehicle. Flock can reproduce the same surveillance through a network of cameras, often without probable cause, due process, or meaningful legal restraint.

The benefits are obvious. Perfect information about every vehicle makes suspects easier to find. Police can recover stolen cars, locate fleeing murderers, and respond faster to crimes.

In a high-trust town, every grandmother on the porch once knew which cars belonged and which did not. Flock offers a technological imitation of that lost social awareness.

But imitation carries a price. Grandma knew her neighbors and exercised human judgment. The database knows everyone and answers to government employees.

Flock is not alone in selling technological substitutes for social order. Cities have used gunshot-detection systems. Networks of acoustic sensors identify gunfire and triangulate its location, allowing police to respond faster.

The engineering may be impressive. The governing theory is primitive: If authorities watch and listen to everyone constantly, they can prevent more crimes and solve more cases.

RELATED: We’re winning the fight against Flock — but the surveillance isn’t going away that easily

Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty Images

A surveillance panopticon may work. People who know they are always being watched behave differently. Americans have resisted that bargain for good reason.

The Fourth Amendment exists because efficient policing is not the highest political good. Government must possess evidence and follow procedures before invading the privacy of citizens. New technology should not erase old constitutional limits.

Britain offers a warning. Closed-circuit television cameras have become ubiquitous across the United Kingdom. Some estimates suggest that the average British resident appears on camera dozens of times each day.

Britain has no written equivalent of the Fourth Amendment, and its political culture places fewer obstacles before constant public surveillance. Yet cameras did not prevent the Rotherham grooming-gang scandal or protect thousands of vulnerable girls from organized abuse.

Officials ignored or concealed the crimes for years because confronting them threatened the ruling class’s multicultural ideology. When public anger finally erupted, the surveillance state proved far more competent at identifying and punishing citizens who protested the cover-up.

That is the anarcho-tyranny trap.

Conservative thinker Samuel Francis used the term to describe a regime that tolerates disorder while imposing suffocating control on peaceful citizens. Authorities fail to punish criminals, then use the chaos created by that failure to justify new powers over everyone else.

Americans have already seen the pattern.

The government possessed enormous amounts of video from the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020. Businesses burned, neighborhoods were looted, and citizens were assaulted. The system showed little appetite for using every available image to identify and prosecute everyone involved.

After January 6, the same government used surveillance footage, facial recognition, financial records, and digital communications to pursue participants with extraordinary intensity. Officials punished many who entered the Capitol and investigated people who merely stood nearby.

RELATED: Flock Safety CEO: It’s ‘terroristic’ to want to know where we put our spy cameras

Antranik Tavitian/Bloomberg/Getty Images

During the pandemic, technology companies yielded to government pressure, censored disfavored speech, and turned over user information. Neither the administrative state nor its corporate partners have earned the benefit of the doubt. They have repeatedly demonstrated that enforcement depends on the target.

I am less hostile to state power than many conservatives. A government that cannot control its borders, remove violent criminals, or maintain public order is not a serious government.

But power must be directed toward the common good. The officials asking for universal surveillance are the same officials who refuse to use ordinary authority against illegal immigration, organized crime, urban disorder, and politically favored mobs.

Giving them a database that tracks every American driver will not correct their priorities. It will magnify them.

Supporters will insist that only criminals need to worry. That argument assumes surveillance will remain limited to serious crime and that government will apply its powers impartially. Recent history destroys both assumptions.

Today’s stolen-car database can become tomorrow’s political enforcement system. A hot list can identify a murder suspect, an immigration protester, a gun owner, a church attendee, or anyone traveling to a disfavored rally.

The danger does not require a secret conspiracy. Bureaucracies naturally expand their missions. Politicians redefine threats. Private vendors seek new contracts. Once the infrastructure exists, every crisis supplies another justification for using it.

America’s disorder has obvious political causes. Elites imported cheap labor, weakened borders, excused criminality, and dissolved the social bonds that once allowed communities to police themselves informally. Citizens now feel like strangers in their own homeland.

Technology cannot repair that betrayal.

The difficult answers remain immigration restriction, deportation, competent policing, equal enforcement, and the restoration of families, neighborhoods, and civic trust. Cameras may assist legitimate police work, but they cannot substitute for political courage.

Flock promises safety without social repair. The bargain is tempting because rebuilding order is difficult.

Americans should refuse it.

Rewarding the people who created the crisis with the power to monitor every movement will not restore a high-trust society. It will lock law-abiding citizens inside an open-air prison while the disorder continues beyond the cameras’ reach.

​Anarcho-tyranny, Artificial intelligence, Due process, Flock cameras, Fourth amendment, Gps monitoring, Law and order, License plates, Opinion & analysis, Police, Safety, Surveillance, Technology