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Glenn's Show Prep

Brad Thor Announces Candidacy for President as Third Party Option

June 23, 2016
Ted Tuttle

Editor

New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor dropped a major bomb-shell on Glenn's radio program Thursday, saying he's committed to running for president of the United States.

Glenn introduced his friend by reminding listeners about the author's courage in the face of controversy.

"I believe Brad is one of the most courageous people out there. Because --- he is in business. You're selling a book. And what you said --- I shouldn't say what you said --- because what you said was not controversial," Glenn said.

RELATED: Brad Thor: Trump Is a Potentially Extinction-level Event for Our Republic

Some may recall the flak Glenn received following Thor's fiery remarks about Donald Trump in his previous interview on The Glenn Beck Program.

This time, Thor took his challenge to the next level.

"I announced to Reince Priebus on Twitter, I said, 'If it takes announcing my candidacy to get onto the stage to debate Donald Trump, I said I would do it.' So I announced," Thor said.

Here's the Tweet:

Co-host Stu Burguiere pointed out Thor might just get the debate he asked for.

"You've got Trump and Clinton against Brad Thor," Stu said. "Imagine Brad Thor going up against Trump and Clinton on the same stage."

#Thor2016

Listen to Thor's full interview with Glenn or read the transcript below.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: Do you think the government gets to a point where they do try to take our guns or start to limit people's rights by saying, "Okay. All these people are on the No Fly List. All these people now, including soldiers are on the mentally disabled list?"

BRAD: PTSD. They want to take guns away from Marines. That's insane. I think they continue to nudge. I don't know that they make a huge step over the line. I really don't think -- they tried with Sandy Hook. You know, this is why it's so important that even if you are not a Trump supporter, don't -- don't vote for Trump. If you hate Hillary and you hate Trump, you still need to get out and vote down the ticket. Because the Republicans right now are holding the line for the most part against Democrats trying to institute more gun control.

STU: Yeah. I will say there's a million problems -- yeah. There's a million problems that we can point out here, of course. However, they did -- they have held the line generally speaking on the gun issue.

GLENN: Yes.

PAT: They have.

STU: But they did also propose two gun control amendments that Democrats voted against out of that four. But, still, generally speaking, they have done a pretty good job on this issue. It's just, you know, you never know when they're going to fold. But, I mean, when you have Sandy Hook and you have Orlando and you have some of these tragedies, the emotion of the moment pushes most of these guys over the --

BRAD: And that's the -- that's the problem with the left. Their answer is: We have to do something.

GLENN: Japanese internment camps. Japanese internment camps. They wanted the -- the government tried to do it the year before. They tried to put the internment camps in the year before. Nobody wanted to hear it. Pearl Harbor happens. Done.

STU: Well, that's getting into the war too, right?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

STU: People didn't want to get into the war.

BRAD: Let's be clear, Americans have to stand up. They can't expect their leaders to read their minds. You need to be vocal because they will roll over. I mean, I was reading something this morning about Hillary's emails and how they had to deactivate at the State Department, a bunch of protections against phishing scams so she could use the private server. Nobody at the State Department stood up to her and said, "Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton, you cannot use a private server."

They rolled over. This is my consistent fear with DC, that here's Hillary Clinton, a powerful woman. They exposed the State Department to all sorts of stuff because it was Hillary Clinton. Nobody will take a principled stand in Washington. Very few people will. So if we won't as citizens -- these people work for us. We are stewards of this republic. We must hand a freer, more successful, more prosperous, safer nation to the next generation. That is our number one duty as Americans. We need to stand up.

STU: Hmm. That was an impressive little -- I wouldn't call it a speech. I guess I would call it a --

GLENN: It could be a speech. It could always be a campaign speech.

STU: Because I know --

GLENN: Like a stump speech.

STU: Yes, yes. I know there's been people who are talking about a viable third party candidate who maybe knows a lot about the issues --

GLENN: But, Stu, you need somebody who is articulate. You need somebody who has television and radio experience.

PAT: But you also need somebody who is known.

STU: Yeah, who has notoriety already.

GLENN: Who is really intelligent. You'd need him to be able to appeal to a lot of people.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: You know, have a big fan base.

PAT: Hardly anybody like that.

JEFFY: Comfortable with --

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. What about Brad Thor?

STU: What?

PAT: What?

GLENN: What about Brad Thor?

STU: Not to mention, President Thor. We are the biggest badasses ever.

GLENN: I'm in love with it.

BRAD: I can hear my wife hitting the radio with a hammer in Nashville right now. Bringing a sledgehammer --

GLENN: You live in Nashville?

BRAD: Thor's hammer. Wow, I walked right into that one.

GLENN: Yeah, my gosh.

BRAD: I walked right into that one.

GLENN: Yeah, she's trying to, but she can't pick it up.

BRAD: And instead of the olive branch, the eagle could hold a hammer in one hand -- in one claw and the arrow is in the other.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think?

STU: What do you think? We are David Frenching it.

BRAD: You are David Frenching it.

JEFFY: You're the man of the house, Brad.

BRAD: Well, I'll tell you, I'm just sitting back with a bag of popcorn, watching it burn. I'm looking forward to Kanye 2020. You know, and the Democrat primary with George Clooney going against Kanye West. I think that's going to be an exciting, exciting thing.

STU: I don't even want to ask who the Republican is there.

JEFFY: Yeah, no kidding.

STU: Because at that point, that might be the most conservative we have, is George Clooney.

BRAD: It could be the way we're going.

STU: You already challenged Donald Trump to a debate.

BRAD: I did actually months ago in the primary process. And I was originally --

GLENN: No, I don't care about any of this. That's the past. 2020. Or even 2016.

PAT: 2016.

STU: Because this is how you get the debate you've asked for. All you have to do is get to 15 percent in the polls, and then --

JEFFY: We can do that.

BRAD: With the radio show, you can get me to 15 percent? If you can get me to 15 percent, I'll run.

STU: We got Cruz to like 20 percent.

JEFFY: Wait.

GLENN: Right. You could get to 15 percent easy. You could.

BRAD: Just to get on the debate stage.

STU: Because then you've got Trump and Clinton against Brad Thor. Imagine Brad Thor going up against Trump and Clinton on the same stage.

GLENN: What do you think? What do you think? I'm being serious. I'm being serious.

STU: I'm being serious. There has to be somebody that does this. And why not you? Why not you?

BRAD: Why not me?

GLENN: If not you, then who?

PAT: If not now, when?

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

JEFFY: That can be your slogan.

BRAD: You need a really catchy slogan. You know, Thor, something. Who would my running mate be?

GLENN: Thor will bring the hammer down. Right?

STU: You need somebody with a last name "Hammer" is what we need. Thor/Hammer 2016.

BRAD: M.K. Hammer. Mary Katharine. Mary Katharine Ham.

STU: Yes, bring her in.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm serious. What about you doing this?

BRAD: I'm somebody who believes you actually should have some experience to run for this --

GLENN: Oh. Oh.

JEFFY: Oh.

GLENN: Well, we're not. So what about you?

(laughter)

BRAD: I announced to Reince Priebus on Twitter, I said, "If it takes announcing my candidacy to get onto the stage to debate Donald Trump, I said I would do it." So I announced.

STU: Look, Trump didn't think -- he wasn't getting in this to win. You can start it with that. And then when you get to 20, 30 percent and dominate them in the debates, then you can be like, "Wait a minute. I could really be president." And then you roll with it.

BRAD: And then I roll with it. Then I roll with it. Well, I definitely -- can I take the weekend to think about it?

GLENN: No. How about you, right now.

BRAD: Jeez.

GLENN: Okay. So let me tell you this -- let me ask you this.

BRAD: Yes.

GLENN: What happens at the Republican convention?

BRAD: That's the big question right now. We actually have extremely concerned Republican delegates that don't want Donald Trump, that see this guy as the -- what is it? The cyanide capsule that spies used to carry behind a tooth. And that we're going to pop that, and that's going to be the end of the Republican Party.

GLENN: Which I would celebrate, by the way.

BRAD: So would I.

GLENN: Not the death of the conservative movement.

BRAD: No, we definitely need a new party. And I think the Republicans are going to go the way of the Whigs.

GLENN: I do too.

BRAD: People say, this never happened before. Well, look at Zachary Taylor. I mean, this was a guy that hadn't voted in four years. Politico did a great article on it. Look it up. About that election with Zachary Taylor. But I really hope something is done. Donald Trump will not be a good leader. He lacks the temperament. He lacks the skills for the most important --

PAT: He lacks the knowledge --

GLENN: Got it. Got it. Got it. What I'm asking you is, what is going to happen at the convention just before you announce? What is going to happen at the convention?

BRAD: Well, I think I'm going to huddle with delegates.

GLENN: Do you think they're going to -- are they going to walk out, or are they going to give him the 1237?

BRAD: Boy, that's -- I actually think you're going to see some sort of a protest. I think you will see people walk out. I do think you'll see that. I think there are men and women with principles who are delegates. The party matters to them. The country matters to them. This is not going to be everybody folds for Donald Trump. I think we're sick of this being a reality show. There are actually serious, intelligent, well informed delegates that don't want Trump. And I agree with them. I don't want Trump. I don't want Hillary. And that's this country's last hope.

PAT: He still gets there, though, right? In the end --

GLENN: In the end, he's the nominee.

PAT: It's still Trump.

STU: I think he is.

GLENN: I think he is too. You don't think so, Brad?

BRAD: I don't know. What I think and what I want to have happen.

GLENN: If not him, then whom do they pick?

BRAD: Well, you've got to pick somebody. Anything can happen. I mean, this has happened in contested conventions before, but he's walking in with the 1237. But if they get enough people to change the Rules Committee -- get enough members of the Rules Committee that they can change things if they go with the -- I don't know. It's just -- and they are talking themselves into the fact that it's going to freak out the entire party. It's not going to. Trump has a plurality. He does not even have close to a majority of the Republican Party. This is not the will of the people. Sixty percent of the Republican primary voters voted for somebody other than Trump.

JEFFY: He's got the microphone though.

BRAD: Yeah, he's got a big mouth. He's got a lot of money. What has he done for America and liberty up to this point? There's a guy that could have been a huge force for liberty, and I don't think he has been. This is a guy who is a lifelong progressive, whose answer to every single problem has always been more government. This is not the kind of guy we need in the Oval Office.

GLENN: Hang on. Hang on.

JEFFY: That's the kind of talk that's going to get you elected.

BRAD: It's that kind of talk?

GLENN: Hang on. Hang on. I want Pat to go the audio vault. I'm going to do a quick commercial. We're going to come back. And I'm going to play the person that is running against him, and have you heard her lately? Did you hear her speech yesterday? Oh, my gosh. It isn't America that she's even discussing. We'll go to that here in just a second.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

GLENN: This is big. He has just committed he's in.

BRAD: Absolutely.

GLENN: He wanted to know -- we came up with a slogan. Drop the hammer of Thor.

PAT: Of Thor.

GLENN: Drop the hammer of Thor.

BRAD: Hashtag.

STU: I will also point out, Brad, as you're doing this other job that you do, Dreams From My Father came out in the mid-'90s and sold no copies. All of a sudden, Barack Obama starts running for president, making big presidential speeches, millions and millions sold. Foreign Agent will be one of the biggest books of all time.

GLENN: Foreign Agent will be huge.

STU: You're already starting at the top of the New York Times, by the way.

GLENN: Hey, hey, Dreams of My Father: Foreign Agent. All right?

STU: Now we can really --

GLENN: By the way, #Thor2016. #Thor2016.

STU: We're accepting Thor 2016 campaign art @worldofStu on Twitter.

GLENN: Right. Yes.

BRAD: @worldofStu. Now, what you're suggesting, and this is interesting because I do not think it's been done in American political history, is that I embark on this as a way to improve my brand. As a way to kind of make it more valuable.

GLENN: That's never been done before. That's crazy.

BRAD: So crazy, it just might work.

GLENN: It just might work. It just might work. You go in and you just say crazy things.

BRAD: Wow. This is an idea factory, this race.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

#Thor2016.

Okay. Play a little bit of what Hillary said yesterday.

BRAD: I'm going to be up against her, so I want to hear it.

GLENN: Yeah. This is remarkable.

HILLARY: I believe the federal government should adopt five ambitious goals.

PAT: Okay.

HILLARY: First, let's break through the dysfunction in Washington.

GLENN: Yeah. With a hammer. With Thor's hammer.

HILLARY: To make the biggest investment in new good-paying jobs since World War II.

GLENN: We already did that. Yes.

HILLARY: Second, let's make college debt free for all.

PAT: Free for everybody. Yay!

GLENN: Yay! Dropping the hammer. Dropping that Thor hammer.

PAT: Yay!

(applauding)

HILLARY: And transform the way we prepare Americans for the jobs of the future.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: That's right.

HILLARY: Third, let's rewrite the rules so more companies share profits with their employees and fewer ship profits and jobs overseas.

GLENN: Okay. Stop. I don't have time -- I've only got about five seconds. But if that isn't Marxism, I don't know what is.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: And what does this call for? Thor's hammer.

BRAD: Thor's hammer. Let's hit it with a hammer.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

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This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.