Daily Inspiration Quote by Marvin Olasky

“Games” is doing a lot of work here. Olasky isn’t merely disagreeing with “secular liberals”; he’s recasting them as strategists, players in a rigged contest where narrative replaces truth. That framing preloads the reader’s reaction: if politics is a game, then bad news about your side isn’t information to evaluate, it’s a move to counter. The quote’s real engine is psychological, not evidentiary. It offers relief from uncertainty by swapping investigation for a “rule-of-thumb” that feels like savvy media literacy while functioning as a blanket exemption from persuasion.

The clever (and corrosive) subtext is the paradox: “No matter how bad a story sounds - particularly if it sounds bad.” The worse the allegation, the more it becomes proof of conspiracy. That’s an inoculation technique: anticipate disturbing facts, label them “defamation,” and the audience is immunized against later reporting. It’s also an invitation into a moral drama where your camp is perpetually besieged, and skepticism is selectively applied only to outsiders.

Context matters because Olasky, as an educator and prominent conservative Christian intellectual, often writes within a critique of mainstream media and secular institutions as culturally hegemonic. The quote echoes late-20th-century conservative media rhetoric that treats journalism less as a flawed profession and more as an ideological enforcement arm. “Recognize the pattern” signals membership: if you see it, you’re awake; if you don’t, you’re one of the dupes. It’s a tight, portable worldview in a sentence - and that portability is the point.