When Donald Trump and his MAGA minions won in 2024, the left melted down as if the end of the world was upon us. Now in 2026, with the results of the midterm evidencing a strong swing of the pendulum to the left, some conservatives, or simply citizens, are wondering aloud if the end is nye?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #287 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Allow me to begin with some profound quotes passed down to us by wise men of the past:
Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
Great historian Will Durant: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has [first] destroyed itself from within.”
Another great historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”
Two reminders from Ronald Reagan, whose sunny disposition we miss: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”
Finally, let’s hear from the Scripture, Ps 11:3: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
We know politics is not the end-all, be-all of life, but then again, it is important and does indeed affect our lives.
Several concerns present themselves:
• We’re now in a period—which has been percolating for about twenty years—in which it is no longer Republican vs Democrat or even Conservative vs Liberal but a party broadly committed to America’s traditional ideals—individual freedom, constitutional law, moral truth, free enterprise, personal responsibility—and an emerging movement that is anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-capitalism or free enterprise, frequently anti-law and order or at least anti-law enforcement, anti-traditional family, pro-sexual adventurism, anti-Israel and antisemitic, anti-borders, anti-citizenship, and anti-Christianity.
There was a time when Republicans and Democrats differed on what tax policy was best for the country, but most all partisans loved the country. Not so anymore. There are clearly people running for office, and amazingly, winning, who do not love the country, who publicly express disrespect for the country’s history, accomplishments, system of government, even the freedoms making possible their discordant views and lifestyle, and who allege America is not special and who trash the American Dream.
Our next challenge is not China, not Russia, not North Korea, not communism or fascism. It is the Islamification of America.
• While some are awakening, many are sleepwalking regarding the rapid expansion of Islam, often called Islamization, in American culture, which has been happening in Europe for the past thirty years. This occurs through gradualism, American governmental entities or organizations accommodating demands for cultural concessions embracing Islam’s strict, anti-individual-freedom practices, including misogyny, demands cafeterias, restaurants, or grocery stores sell only halal foods, rejection of dogs, development of parallel communities that can become “no-go” zones for first responders, and increasing numbers of elected officials, like Ilan Omar, Zohran Mamdani, and now Abdul Al-Sayed, who promote their stringent religious beliefs while rejecting the history, mores, and practices of the USA. There are now some 256 elected Muslims across 26 states. Senator-elect Al-Sayed will be the first Muslim in the US Senate.
Now, I am not anti-Muslim or against Muslim people per se. I’m talking about the religion of Islam—its drive to enact Sharia law, a comprehensive legal and cultural system incompatible with American democratic pluralism. As such, Islam is not just a personal faith but a political ideology, and it is an ideology that demands supremacy over other religions, something that does not fit with our constitutional system of government.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently tapped into this concern by sending a clear message that we are a Christian nation, stating that America was shaped more than any other country in history by the Christian command to preach the gospel to all nations and that the soul of the nation has always been rooted in that ancient faith.
In a State Department video, Rubio stated: “Our faith calls us outwards into the limitless darkness of the unknown. It tells us to go forth and preach the gospel to the world as a witness unto all nations unto the ends of the earth. From that command came America. Our nation, more than any other in history, was shaped by this Christian idea. This is who we are. And from the beginning, we have carried the belief that our country represents something new in the world. But the soul of our nation has always been rooted in an ancient faith.” Rubio also said, “Radical Islam is a clear and imminent threat to the world, especially the United States, which Islam identifies as the chief source of evil on this planet.”
A third threat continues to be the weaponization of mass migration by foreign powers:
• In the past two and one-half years we’ve made tremendous progress in sealing the leak in the southern border. Unvetted illegal immigrants are no longer entering the country from all over the world. Many who have committed crimes have been deported. Then came the midterms. What now? With a new philosophy in control of the levers of American government, our border security could be quickly changed and we’ll find ourselves back where thousands are entering every day, military age young men committed not to the American ethos but to their Third World values, not integrating or assimilating and becoming a new source of social problems. I fear for what could happen if there is a reversal of our current closed-border policy.
• Then, I keep referencing the US National Debt because it seems like no one else is doing so. Like the welfare states of Europe, the US is fast approaching a financial reckoning. The US National debt at $40 trillion and climbing by the second—it’s more than a little discouraging to contemplate, if not for us than for our children and grandchildren. If the newly elected Progressives get their way and spend like there is no tomorrow, there may not be a tomorrow, at least not a political one because they will sink the ship of state.
• Back to the political parties as they are now emerging. The common denominator on the left, which seems to affect much of the culture, is that we as Americans no longer believe in ourselves. It’s called “oikophobia,” meaning the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably ours. Chunks of the American populace, particularly among the leftist political elite and young people, dislike their own homeland—no National Anthem, no patriotism, no positive vibes, no aspirations for a better tomorrow. Just guilt, self-abnegation, and nihilism, a point at which it’s impossible to maintain aspirations. If we do not believe in ourselves, that is, we’re buying into the left’s preachments about our ostensibly horrible settler colonialist, imperialist history, then how can we defend ourselves from threats within and without? Why defend something that apparently isn’t worth defending? Perhaps we should just give in and give up—a lot like Europe is now doing—because we the West are guilty of myriad crimes against humanity and now, we just want to roll over and play dead.
This loss of confidence in ourselves and our worthy history is the most threatening thing I’ve written about in this podcast. We can survive other political ideologies like Islamism, we can survive open borders and the invasion of non-integrated masses, we can even survive an enormous debt. We cannot survive cultural self-loathing.
So, is America in trouble? Yes, sadly I think we are. A deep sense of hopelessness about the future of our civilization is more than we can bare.
But there is one great consideration I have not mentioned. Again the Scripture: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4).
America will not disappear until God says its time. And America can yet aspire and achieve if we remember we are one nation under God.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as I n Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.