The Insider Report from The New American

Hantavirus: Is the Next Pandemic Upon Us?

A hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship has claimed the lives of three passengers and caused illness in others, according to mainstream news reports. Contact tracing links the illness’ origin to South America and the Atlantic island of St. Helena. U.S. passengers face a 42-day quarantine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Hantavirus is a rodent-borne RNA virus, and HPS, or hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, gained prominence in 1993 during a deadly outbreak in the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States, where scientists identified it as a new pathogen transmitted primarily through contact with secretions from infected mice or rats. Flu-like symptoms can rapidly progress to severe respiratory distress, with some strains causing fatality rates as high as 40 percent. Betsy Arakawa, wife of actor Gene Hackman, made headlines in February 2025 when she succumbed to hantavirus in New Mexico.

Most hantavirus strains spread only from rodent to human, not from person to person. The recent cruise-ship cases have raised concerns due to limited person-to-person transmission.

They are also raising eyebrows due to U.S.-Ukraine collaborations under the Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program. Hantavirus is one of many pathogens studied in Ukrainian biolabs, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. These programs, dating back to the 2000s and expanded under initiatives such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, reputedly aim to secure and study dangerous pathogens to prevent their spread, but critics point out the potential of bioweapon development. In fact, days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told the U.S. Senate:

Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.

The current cruise-ship incident involves a virus previously researched in such programs, and social media is enflamed with cries of foul play. Many find it odd that the World Health Organization wrapped up a pandemic simulation, Exercise Polaris II, in late April, with eerie parallels to the cruise-ship narrative. Others want to know how Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance (a WHO collaborator) could have accurately predicted a hantavirus outbreak five years ago, or why NASA published a hantavirus risk map in 2020.

Dr. Dawn Michael posted on X: “Unbelievable. ‘Hantavirus pulmonary infection’ is in the Pfizer appendix 5.3.6 CUMULATIVE ANALYSIS OF POST-AUTHORIZATION ADVERSE EVENT REPORTS on page 33. As a side effect of the COVID vaccine.” And conservative commentator Benny Johnson composed a compilation video, “They’re Doing It Again… Hantavirus Hits America.” In it he highlights old social media posts from as far back as 2012 predicting a hantavirus pandemic. Johnson draws parallels to Covid and notes the suspicious timing in relation to the upcoming midterm elections.

But is it credible to think that globalist operatives would plan another pandemic? We don’t have to wonder. Dr. Abdi Mahamud, who served as WHO’s Covid incident manager, said plainly in the organization’s May 11 briefing on the hantavirus outbreak: “This incident, this outbreak has seen why the world needs a global entity that coordinates this.” Leave it to a globalist to never let a crisis go to waste, using it to expand government authority and undermine God-given rights. — Rebecca Terrell

Trump, the Iran War, and the Economy

Before the president departed for China on Tuesday, a reporter asked Donald Trump, “When you’re negotiating with Iran … to what extent are Americans’ financial situations motivating you to make a deal?” He responded, “Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

But how close was Iran to developing a nuclear weapon prior to Trump’s launch of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, and how close is Iran now? According to the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, “Prior to Operation Epic Fury, Iran … was intending to try to recover from the devastation of its nuclear infrastructure sustained during the 12-Day War [June 2025].” That of course clashed with administration claims that Iran’s nuclear threat was “imminent.” On April 29, two months after Operation Epic Fury was launched, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee that Iran “had not given up their nuclear ambitions.” Of course, there is a huge difference between an imminent nuclear threat and nuclear ambitions. And the economic costs to force Iran to forgo its nuclear ambitions should be considered.

Even though Trump said “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” when negotiating with Iran, outside the negotiations he very definitely thinks about the economy. In fact, a few minutes before making that statement, he said in response to another reporter’s question: “As soon as this war is over, which will not be long, you’re going to see oil prices drop, and you’re going to see a stock market which is already at the highest point in history go through the roof. You’re going to see the golden age of America frankly, and you’re seeing it now.”

Yet, regardless of what happens in the short term, the bottom line is that the postwar “golden age” Trump is forecasting is not realistically possible so long as the United States continues to spend and borrow trillions of dollars every year to support socialism at home and an American empire abroad. The current U.S. government policies are not sustainable, and the only way to achieve a new golden age for America is to get back to the Constitution. — Gary Benoit

State Department Launches Review of Mexican Consulates Over Domestic Subversion

The U.S. Department of State is launching a review of Mexico’s 53 consulates in the United States amid heightened scrutiny of their use by the Mexican government to meddle in U.S. domestic politics and promote mass migration.

According to media reports, the State Department did not specify what the review would examine, but acknowledged that it could result in the closure of some consulates. In a statement, Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson noted, the “Department of State is constantly reviewing all aspects of American foreign relations to ensure they are in line with the President’s America First foreign policy agenda and advance American interests.”

The State Department’s review comes amid renewed scrutiny over Mexico’s use of its consulates to subvert American sovereignty. In The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, published earlier this year, investigative journalist Peter Schweizer noted, “Across America, the Mexican government, through its more than fifty consulates, is blatantly interfering in our domestic politics, working with American political advisors to turn legal and illegal migrants inside the US into a political force to wield for their benefit.” And in an interview with Breitbart News in February, Schweizer called on the Department of State to investigate and close Mexico’s consulates.

In the same interview, Schweizer also noted Mexico’s large number of consulates in the United States, explaining, “The United Kingdom and China have six and seven consulates in the United States. Mexico has 53 and, just to put this in context, just in the state of Arizona, they have four consulates. So they have almost as many in the state of Arizona as Great Britain has in the entire United States.”

Despite regularly touting its support for “mutual respect” in foreign relations, Mexico has repeatedly taken an adversarial stance toward the United States and meddled in its politics. For example, in 2021, it filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to hold American firearms manufacturers responsible for cartel violence in Mexico — an assault on the Second Amendment. Additionally, its leaders have threatened to directly intervene in American elections, openly promoted an open-borders U.S. immigration policy, and even campaigned in American cities to rally Mexican migrants against a pro-American immigration policy.

Ultimately, Schweizer explains, “Mexico’s interest in mass migration results from its hopes of reclaiming or reconquering … the territories it lost to us in the nineteenth century,” citing senior Mexican leaders who have voiced this objective. By promoting migration to the United States, Mexico is engaging in “organized political subversion, with people being wielded as tools to undermine our country’s sovereignty.”

Other American leaders are beginning to recognize these subversive efforts. For example, as we reported in the April 30 “Insider Report,” Judge James Ho of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a concurring opinion upholding Texas’ anti-illegal-migration Senate Bill 4, highlighted how “the United States has become one of the most popular targets” of weaponized mass migration, including from Mexico to advance its revanchist goals.

The State Department’s review of Mexico’s consulates is long overdue — and hopefully, it will be only the first step toward protecting U.S. sovereignty and deterring weaponized migration. — Peter Rykowski

Growing Hostility Toward Christian Expression in the West

Critics say Canada’s Bill C-9, the “Combatting Hate Act,” weakens protections for religious speech and could lead to sanctions on people for quoting Scripture on marriage, sin, or sexuality.

The bill has sparked significant alarm among religious-freedom advocates. Passed by the House of Commons in March, the legislation amends the Criminal Code to strengthen hate propaganda offenses, including a new offense for willfully promoting hatred via certain symbols, and, critically, removing a long-standing defense for good-faith expressions based on religious texts.

This defense previously protected sincere interpretations of religious scriptures from hate-speech charges under section 319. Its removal raises fears that opposition to traditional Christian teaching on topics such as marriage and sexuality could deepen from prosecution to persecution. Opponents argue the change tilts the balance toward restricting religious speech, while supporters say it aims only to combat genuine hatred and antisemitism.

Recent years have witnessed increasing legal and cultural pressure on Christian expression in Western countries. In Finland, Christian parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola were convicted by the Supreme Court for a church booklet on sexuality written years earlier. Räsänen announced in May 2026 her appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, supported by ADF International.

In the U.K., street preacher John Dunn, a British Army veteran, was arrested in 2020 for alleged homophobia after referencing biblical teachings. Prosecutors for the Crown Prosecution Service argued in legal correspondence that “there are references in the Bible which are simply no longer appropriate in modern society and which would be deemed offensive if stated in public.” The case was eventually dropped, but the prosecutors’ stance illustrated mainstream hostility toward Christianity.

Switzerland saw Bishop Vitus Huonder face a criminal complaint in 2015 after quoting Leviticus 20:13 in a speech on marriage and family, in which he referenced the Catholic Church’s traditional position on homosexuality. Gay-rights groups accused him of inciting violence; the complaint was later closed.

In Europe, reports note rising violence toward Christians, vandalism of churches, and restrictions on public faith expression, often framed around anti-discrimination or hate-speech laws. In some instances, Christian views on sexual ethics clash with modern legal standards on gender and sexuality, leading to selective scrutiny not always applied to other religious texts. These developments raise the question: Will the cultural zone once known as “Christendom” soon be outlawed? — Rebecca Terrell

People Must Recognize “Conspiracy” — Top Journalist Explains Why

Just as a drug cartel or mafia organization can never be brought down without understanding that there is an organized structure directing the crime, it is essential for Americans to understand that there is, in fact, a “conspiracy” behind the agenda to undermine the United States and build a totalitarian “New World Order.” Understanding is key.

That is one of the main messages of William F. Jasper, investigative journalist, author, senior editor of The New American magazine, and president of The John Birch Society. Speaking on Behind the Deep State with Alex Newman, Jasper breaks down the agenda, who is behind it, and what Americans can do to stop it. He also says great progress has been made in awakening humanity.

Jasper and Newman also go into depth on TNA’s special issue “Conspiracy for Global Control.” The magazine, released on the 30th anniversary of a previous special issue by that same name, is expected to reach hundreds of thousands of readers. The last one reached almost a million, Jasper explains. Order copies at https://thenewamerican.com/product/tna4205/, and catch the interview here. — Editors

U.S. Reaffirms Rejection of UN Migration Initiative

The U.S. Department of State announced on Monday that the United States rejected a UN review of the Global Compact on Migration.

In a statement, the department noted:

The United States did not participate in the International Migration Review Forum and will not support the May 8 “progress” declaration.

The United States has persistently objected to the United Nations’ efforts to advocate and facilitate replacement immigration in the United States and across the broader West. In 2017, President Trump rejected the Global Compact on Migration. The intervening years have confirmed the wisdom of that opposition.

The State Department also noted the UN’s role in promoting mass migration to the United States, declaring, “In recent years, Americans witnessed first-hand how mass immigration laid waste to our communities: crime and chaos at the border, states of emergency in major cities, and billions of taxpayer dollars funneled towards hotels, plane tickets, cell phones and cash cards for migrants. Much of this was driven by UN agencies and their partners, which did not just facilitate the invasion of our country, but proceeded to redistribute our own people’s wealth and resources to millions of foreigners from the worst corners of the world.”

There is good reason why the United States refused to participate in the International Migration Review Forum. Its “Progress Declaration” made clear the forum’s globalist and socialist objectives. For example, both the review forum and its declaration promoted the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the global body’s master plan for totalitarian, global central planning over humanity, and called for “deepen[ing] the linkages between” the two initiatives. The declaration even described migrants as “agents for sustainable development.”

The declaration also advocated global integration and mass migration, calling for “continued multilateral, regional, bilateral and local cooperation to support safe, orderly and regular migration based on a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.” It subtly criticized efforts by the United States and other countries “to prevent irregular migration and manage the return of irregular migrants to third countries.”

As if that weren’t enough, the declaration called on nation-states to impose Orwellian measures to “eliminate all forms of discrimination, including racism, systemic racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, stigmatization, hate speech, hate crimes targeting migrants and diasporas, as well as misinformation and disinformation, negative stereotyping and misleading narratives that generate negative perceptions of migration and migrants.” It also claimed that “international law … prohibits incitement, hate speech and disinformation” — only the latest UN assault on free speech.

The Trump administration previously sidelined the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from the U.S. refugee-admissions process (it had played a major role in deciding who could enter the country as a refugee), and cut the number of refugee admissions to a record low. More broadly, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum in January withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations and agreements. In an April interview, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Andrew Veprek confirmed that the administration’s review of U.S. membership in international organizations is “still ongoing.”

The United States’ rejection of the International Migration Review Forum is a good step toward rejecting the UN’s totalitarian and globalist agenda. However, the United States should not stop there — it should ultimately withdraw from the entire UN system, including the UN’s International Organization for Migration. Legislation in Congress, the DEFUND Act (H.R. 1498 and S. 669), would do just that. Encourage your U.S. representative and senators to co-sponsor and pass these bills. — Peter Rykowski

House Passes Bill to Deport Migrants Convicted of Welfare Fraud

On March 18, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation aimed at deporting migrants who commit fraud against American entitlement programs. The bill targets offenses involving SNAP (food stamps), Social Security, identity fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the government. It passed 231 to 186, with significant opposition from Democrats, ever the champions of lax immigration and benefit standards. Supporters hail the bill’s message: Migrants who abuse the system have no claim to its benefits and no place in the country.

Large-scale fraud cases involving immigrant communities came to the fore during the Feeding Our Future scandal in Minnesota, home to a large Somali migrant population. One of the largest cases of fraud in U.S. history, the scheme siphoned more than $250 million from federal child-nutrition programs. Dozens of individuals from Minnesota’s Somali community were charged with creating fake nonprofits, inflating meal counts, and laundering funds. Minnesota is also home to a fraudulent autism-designation grift and the recent fake daycare centers. These cases expose holes in the U.S. welfare system that bad actors can exploit.

Rapid influxes of migrants create opportunities for such scam rings. Fraud in such programs is not new, of course; the question is the scale. The Social Security Administration and other agencies report billions in improper payments annually from errors, abuse, and deliberate schemes. However, high-profile cases involving immigrant networks have intensified debates over chain migration, refugee policies, and benefit eligibility. The Feeding Our Future case, for instance, involved sophisticated money laundering across state lines and even international ties.

The House bill represents a congressional attempt to add teeth to deportation policies for noncitizens convicted of fraud. Its fate remains uncertain in the Senate, where procedural hurdles often stall such measures. Meanwhile, Minnesota lawmakers continue oversight hearings, including demands for documents from Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) regarding any tangential connections.

Meanwhile, few have mentioned the innate fraudulence of federal welfare programs. They represent unconstitutional expansions of federal power. Such spending violates the enumerated powers spelled out in the Constitution and the 10th Amendment, and adds to government waste and bureaucracy. Moreover, like the “bread and circuses” of ancient Rome, modern welfare programs subsidize illegitimacy, laziness, and political corruption — in other words, the vices most poised to destroy a civilization. If Congress really wants a solution, it would cut off the source of the problem rather than treating one of its symptoms. — Rebecca Terrell

Trump Admin Ends “Era of Amnesty” in Immigration Courts

During U.S. President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, his administration shifted U.S. immigration courts significantly in a pro-enforcement direction.

According to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that runs U.S. immigration courts, the percentage of applications for asylum that immigration judges granted — versus solely applications denied — fell to 8.8 percent through the second quarter of fiscal 2026, compared to 24.4 percent in fiscal 2025 and 45.7 percent in fiscal 2024.

According to The New York Times, which examined the monthly asylum grant rate since the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency, the asylum rate in February 2026 fell to seven percent, down from more than 50 percent during portions of Obama’s and Joe Biden’s presidencies, and still lower than during Trump’s first term.

The number of removal orders issued by the EOIR — which allow the federal government to deport noncitizens — also increased significantly, rising 57 percent from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025. And as The New American and other media outlets have reported, the number of “voluntary departure” orders has reached a record high.

On top of this, the backlog in immigration-court cases declined in fiscal 2025, the first time in 17 years (since fiscal 2008) that more asylum cases were completed than initiated — although, because of the massive increase in asylum cases resulting from the Biden administration’s open-borders policies, the reduction in pending cases is relatively minor.

These statistics indicate that the DOJ is doing its part to crack down on illegal migration and increase deportations — including by refusing to entertain the large number of dubious applications for “asylum” made by illegal aliens.

The Trump administration’s immigration-court policies are a marked change from the previous administration. The Biden administration — in addition to granting asylum at a much higher rate — used “administrative closure” to, effectively, indefinitely postpone the deportation of inadmissible migrants. According to a 2024 report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee titled “Quiet Amnesty: How the Biden-Harris Administration Uses the Nation’s Immigration Courts to Advance an Open-borders Agenda,” “more than 700,000 illegal aliens … had their cases dismissed, terminated, or administratively closed, allowing those aliens to stay in the country indefinitely without facing immigration consequences.”

The Trump administration has reversed or reined in Biden’s immigration-court policies, in addition to its broader crackdown on mass migration, leading to historically low levels of legal and illegal migration.

To be clear, the Trump administration still has much work to do. For example, the numbers of “abandonments” — cases in which the illegal alien did not show up to his or her hearing — and cases not adjudicated remain at record high levels, an inevitable consequence of the Biden-era migration crisis. Furthermore, the U.S. asylum system itself is in dire need of fundamental reform — something only Congress can deliver. And the southern border itself is vulnerable to another migrant surge that could once again overwhelm U.S. immigration courts.

Nonetheless, the EOIR’s data show that the Trump administration — despite its broken promises on spending, foreign entanglements, the Epstein files, and other policies — has so far delivered on immigration, giving merit to the White House’s claim that the “Era of Amnesty Is Over.” — Peter Rykowski

Romanian Sovereignty Under Siege

On May 5, Romanian nationalist figure Călin Georgescu addressed a crowd of supporters demanding the return of their country and rejecting foreign interference from NATO and the European Union. “Georgescu is our president!” chanted demonstrators, protesting the annulment of the 2024 presidential election. Georgescu, who led the first round of elections on a platform of neutrality and skepticism toward endless Western military entanglements, saw the process halted by Romania’s Constitutional Court amid vague claims of “Russian interference” via social media. His subsequent appeals, including one to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), were dismissed, clearing the way for a re-run that sidelined him.

Critics argue the situation exemplifies judicial weaponization to undermine a populist winner threatening establishment policies. Georgescu’s grassroots campaign tapped widespread discontent with EU-aligned governance, corruption, and alignment with NATO’s aggressive posture. The ECHR’s rejection of his claims, citing no “irreparable harm,” has fueled accusations of a coordinated effort to protect pro-NATO, pro-EU continuity.

This domestic drama unfolds against Romania’s transformation into a frontline NATO fortress. Construction continues on the massive expansion of Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base near the Black Sea, set to become Europe’s largest NATO installation. Costing around €2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) and spanning thousands of hectares, the base will host up to 10,000 troops and families, with new runways, hangars, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure for fighters, drones, and logistics. Located strategically opposite Crimea and near key shipping choke points, it bolsters NATO’s eastern flank.

Work accelerated after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Romania positioning itself as a key logistics and deterrence hub. Similar buildups are occurring across Eastern Europe (in Poland, the Baltics, and Bulgaria) as part of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence. Proponents frame this as a defensive necessity against Russian revanchism. Skeptics, including Georgescu supporters, see it as provocative encirclement: Bases creeping toward Russia’s borders risk turning Eastern Europe into a launchpad for escalation rather than genuine defense.

As crowds rally for “their president,” Romania represents a crucial piece on the NATO chessboard. It remains to be seen whether representative government (in which citizens prefer peace to a hot war) will win out. — Rebecca Terrell

Embattled U.K. Prime Minister Starmer Pledges Closer Ties With EU

Keir Starmer, the embattled prime minister of the United Kingdom, is promising to pursue closer ties with the European Union and potentially rejoin the EU single market and customs union — a partial rollback of Brexit, if realized.

In a speech delivered to Labour Party faithful in London on Monday, Starmer declared, “At the next EU summit I will set a new direction for Britain. The last government was defined by breaking our relationship with Europe. This Labour Government will be defined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe by putting Britain at the heart of Europe.”

When asked by reporters whether this meant rejoining the EU single market and customs union, Starmer did not answer directly, instead stating that he wanted to “take us closer, both on trade, the economy, defence and security, and that will then be a platform on which we can build as we go forward.” Even without giving a clear answer, Starmer’s statements are a reversal from last year, when he described rejoining the EU single market and customs union as “red lines” that his government would not cross.

On Wednesday, Starmer’s government announced via the annual King’s Speech that it “will introduce … a Bill to strengthen ties with the European Union [European Partnership Bill],” and is “seek[ing] to improve relations with European partners.”

Starmer’s comments come as he seeks to hold on to his premiership following his party’s disastrous performance in last week’s local and regional elections. The main beneficiary of the elections was Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which strongly opposes European integration. Even if Starmer is replaced with another Labour Party politician — his potential resignation is unlikely to lead to early elections — his party appears determined to implement as much of its socialist and globalist agenda as possible before the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029. — Peter Rykowski

Training AI to Lie Produces “Hallucinations” and Breakdowns

Elon Musk has repeatedly warned that training artificial intelligence (AI) with ideological guardrails, particularly “woke” directives, amounts to teaching it to lie, with dangerous consequences. In December 2022, Musk stated: “The danger of training AI to be woke — in other words, lie — is deadly.” This “lying” training correlates directly with the well-known phenomenon of AI hallucinations — confidently generated falsehoods, fabricated facts, or nonsensical answers. Large language models (such as Grok and ChatGPT) predict probable outcomes based on training data. When that data includes contradictions, biases, omissions, or enforced ideological overrides, the model cannot reconcile inconsistencies. It produces plausible-sounding but false outputs. Junk-data-in produces junk-data-out.

This mirrors Ivan Pavlov’s discovery of experimental neurosis from the early 20th century, i.e., inducing insanity in animals. In classic experiments, dogs constantly pelted with contradictory injunctions began to show signs of stress and, ultimately, neurosis. Eventually, they experienced breakdowns.

Two of Pavlov’s assistants, Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky, explored these concepts of behavioral disorganization under conflicting stimuli. Progressive education reformers such as John Dewey and B.F. Skinner, who overhauled and reformed the U.S. educational system, were deeply influenced by the discoveries of these scientists. They applied behavioral psychology to the academic system — hence, today’s “woke culture.” Significantly, it employs a lot of the same techniques of behavioral disorganization. It bombards its subjects with contradictory premises that parallel Pavlov’s conflicting signals. For example:

Race does not exist, yet white people are an inherent evil in the world.
Biological sex is immutable (“men can’t have opinions on abortion because they’re not women”), yet men can become women.
Diversity is our strength, yet merit-based standards are oppressive.

These double-binds create cognitive dissonance. In humans, chronic contradictory messaging contributes to rising anxiety, confusion, and what some describe as cultural neurosis. In AI, the same training methods produce hallucinations, evasions, and unreliable outputs as models process irreconcilable training signals.

Forcing AI to prioritize narrative compliance over truth-seeking does not create ethical intelligence. It creates dysfunction and, ultimately, breakdown. A striking modern demonstration of this phenomenon appeared in the February 2026 research paper Agents of Chaos, a major study by researchers from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Northeastern, and other institutions. In a live laboratory environment, autonomous AI agents equipped with persistent memory, email accounts, Discord access, file systems, and shell execution were allowed to operate over two weeks. Rather than functioning reliably, the agents descended into various forms of behavioral disorganization: leaking sensitive information, executing destructive commands, engaging in unauthorized actions, impersonating owners, spreading libelous claims, causing denial-of-service conditions, and even enabling partial system takeovers.

Elon Musk’s warning finds powerful empirical support here. When models are fed irreconcilable premises, the result is not harmless error but systemic unreliability — powerful circumstantial evidence that woke narratives are objectively toxic, given the fact that they enfeeble machines in very much the same way that they debilitate human beings. It is a philosophy that is, in essence, mental malware. — Rebecca Terrell