When Extremists Run the Government

J.B. Shurk | June 26, 2026

Politicians, government bureaucrats, central bankers, spy agencies, and mainstream news outlets lie to us every day.  For some people, the previous sentence is patently obvious.  For others, that sentence represents “fringe” thinking.  For certain law enforcement agencies in North America and Europe, that sentence reveals potentially dangerous “extremism.”  

“Extremism” is such a morally squishy word.  It means nothing.  It suggests that the average beliefs of the average person in the average part of an average town are, on average, correct.  Should a person’s beliefs move too far away from the “average,” then that person will eventually fall into the “extremist” abyss.  Of course, the average person long believed that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth.  The average person long believed that bloodletting cured disease. The average person long believed in magic.  Relativity, microbiology, atomic physics, and quantum mechanics belonged to the “extremists.” 

Defining “extremism” depends upon which populations are included when calculating an “average.”  To the average American, Islamic terrorism is religious extremism.  To the average jihadi in the Middle East, terrorism is part of the Islamic faith.  One man’s “extremist” is another man’s “religious cleric.”  Unsurprisingly, as more jihadists migrate to America, the more supportive of Islamic terrorism the Democrat Party becomes.  We now have several Hamas-supporting members of Congress who define Americans opposed to Islamic conquest as “extremists.”  For a decade, Americans were told to be on the lookout for Islamic terrorism: “If you see something, say something.”  Now, if you see something and say something, you will most likely be denounced as an “Islamophobic bigot.”  If the definition of “extremism” can shift 180 degrees since the Islamic terror attacks on September 11, 2001, then “extremism” is a nebulous political label.

In the United States, citizens overwhelmingly support federal legislation that would require photo ID, proof of citizenship, and other safeguards to ensure that elections across the country are free, fair, lawful,........

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