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Glenn's Show Prep

We Must Not Allow Pundits and Partisans to Simplify Great Issues Into Irreconcilable Extremes

February 28, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Krista Tippett, host NPR's On Being and author of Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, joined The Glenn Beck Program on Tuesday.

"I normally wouldn't have somebody on from NPR because of some of the experiences I've had recently . . . but we've had a conversation, and she is really a remarkable human being who sees, perhaps, I don't even know, perhaps not the policies of the world, but the problems and some of the solutions of the world, the same as I do," Glenn said.

On the current so-called war between the White House and the media, Tippett had this to say:

"I'm not fighting it," she said. "I'm choosing to get out of reactive mode and into building mode and healing mode. And I think that's a choice everybody can make."

In 2014, Tippett was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: I want to introduce you to somebody who -- who I've just -- who I've just met. I read her book on the plane back from Bangkok yesterday, and a way to introduce her is just in the opening pages: I was born in the wee hours of the night of the 1960 election returns that came in with John F. Kennedy. I grew up in Shawnee, Oklahoma. A small town in a young state in the middle of Middle America where people had come to forget their past and leave their ancestral demons behind. My mother's ancestors drove their covered wagons into the former Indian territory to create their lives from scratch in the unforgiving Oklahoma dust. My father had been adopted by the people I knew as my grandparents at the age of three.

Her name is Krista Tippett. She is the author of a book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living. And she is also with NPR.

And I normally wouldn't have somebody on from NPR because of some of the experiences I've had recently with NPR. But we've had a conversation, and she is really a remarkable human being who sees -- perhaps, I don't even know. Perhaps not the policies of the world, but the problems and some of the solutions of the world, the same as I do.

Welcome to the program, Krista, how are you?

KRISTA: Hello, Glenn. I'm good. And I've so enjoyed getting to know you these last months as well.

GLENN: I want to talk to you first about the press. Bill O'Reilly said we're at war. The White House is at war with the press, and the press is at war with the White House.

How does that end?

KRISTA: Well, I think we don't all have to become foot soldiers in that war, right? I don't know how that war will end, but it's a very small slice of what's happening in the world and what matters for how we create the world for how we want our children to inhabit.

And I'm not fighting it. In fact, we're so focused right now -- I think so many of us, so captured. And the media war is kind of doing this, to what we resist and what we're reacting to. And I'm choosing to get out of reactive mode and into building mode and healing mode. And I think that's a choice everybody can make.

GLENN: I happen to agree with you. And I'm in that same place too.

KRISTA: Yeah.

GLENN: I'm wondering -- I was in Bangkok over the weekend doing some work with Operation Underground Railroad, which is trying to break up slavery. And I saw some -- I was in the jungle this weekend. I saw some just horrific things.

I get home and, you know, my kids are on the iPad. And it was hard to readjust. Then I get in this morning, and I see all the news where we're yelling at each other for ridiculous things.

KRISTA: Right.

GLENN: How do we change that?

KRISTA: Well, I -- you know, I interview a lot of scientists along the way. And, you know, I'm attentive to how -- there are really understandable reasons that our brains actually get riveted by that kind of fight and by a sense of threat.

And, you know, I think everybody I feel on all -- all around on all sides of our political system, you know, our brains are on high alert. So part of it is finding ways to calm ourselves, to calm the people around us.

You know, that sounds maybe like a not very powerful thing to do. But we don't -- just as biological creatures, we don't think clearly, and we don't rise to our best selves when we're afraid.

So, you know, I think there's these really basic things -- I feel like there are different callings in this moment for each of us as human beings, as citizens, as political people. And that's one of them.

And also that we have to accompany each other in that, and we have to get to know our neighbors who have become strangers.

I was watching the election all last year and seeing that whoever had won in November, the real work ahead of us is to reweave our life together.

GLENN: Not to make everybody else feel like a loser.

KRISTA: Yeah.

GLENN: You write: The 21st century globe resembles the understanding we now have of a teenage brain.

KRISTA: Right. Right.

GLENN: We reduce great questions of meaning and morality to issues and simplify them to two sides, allowing pundits and partisans to frame them in irreconcilable extremes. But most of us don't see the world this way, and it's not the way the world actually works. I'm not sure there is even such a thing as a cultural center.

What do you mean by that?

KRISTA: Oh, well, I guess, you know, when somebody like me starts talking this way, I think the suspicion is, she's talking about the center or talking about moderates. I don't even know if that's interesting, you know, if there's a center. But what I do know, what I do believe is that right of center and left of center, even if we have very deep differences and convictions that are different to us, we don't want to give up or negotiate away, we also have big questions in common. And we share really important things like our love for our children.

You know, I loved -- I was in Iowa right after the election. And a mom telling me that she's part of a group of neighbors and school parents. About half of them voted for Donald Trump. About half of them voted for Hillary Clinton. But every single one of them was concerned about the effect that the election had on their kids, what they were watching, the kind of discourse they were hearing, the level of discourse.

And so they had rallied together to be in solidarity and actually be working together around that shared challenge. And I think that is a model for how, not that we all have to be in the center or all be moderates, but how we can really be building things together across differences.

GLENN: I will tell you, you were -- we're talking to Krista Tippett. She is the author of Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living.

You know, not to stick him out, but it was one of the most stunning things I had ever heard: George Stephanopoulos said that his 12-year-old daughter, for two weeks after the election, was sleeping in mom and dad's bed because she was afraid of what Donald Trump would do.

KRISTA: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, I have been called every name in the book, beginning at fearmonger. My children are not afraid of Democrats. They're not afraid of President Obama. That's not happening.

What is happening in the world of somebody like George Stephanopoulos, where their child has to sleep in bed at night because they're afraid of Donald Trump?

KRISTA: Well, I mean, I think there are some simple answers and some more complex answers. I mean, we have kind of all resorted to this level of making fun, which I think also is really destructive. And catastrophizing. Catastrophizing about the other side.

You know, catastrophizing, it's not good for us. And it almost never comes true. You know, the things that go terribly wrong are not the things that we are looking for or expect. That's just kind of a life truth.

On a deeper level, you know, to me this political moment is really about this human drama that's going on. I think all of the politics, I think Donald Trump -- I think it's all -- it's all a symptom of this human drama of how -- and how I see that -- you know, over the last few years -- you know, we need to sometimes just like stop, be quiet, take a breath. I just wish we could all take a breath together and say, you know, what an astonishing moment we are living in, in history, where we are redefining basic definitions, even that the 20th century thought it had gotten -- when does life begin? When does death begin? What is family? What is marriage? What is gender?

Our institutions don't make sense all of a sudden. Right? Like workplaces don't make sense. Schools don't make sense. Politics doesn't make sense.

So this is very, very unsettling. And, again, to go back to what the science is telling us, like physiologically, this sends us to really primal parts in ourself, where we just go into two modes, fight or flight. And, I mean, I think that's big. And it's complicated, but to me it's a way to relax and just say, "I'm going to stand on the ground of reality and have a really clear view of what we're up against."

And, again, I think even though it's huge, it comes back to, can we get grounded in ourselves? Can we get clear about what we care about and who we love? Yeah, go on.

GLENN: You say there are five things in your book that we have to pay attention to that will ground us. Can you give them to me?

KRISTA: Yeah. Yeah, there's kind of these basic elements of life. I wrote this book about wisdom, and I thought it was going to be about big extract, but lofty concepts. And I realized in the wisest lives, it's the raw materials, it's the words we use, you know, moment to moment.

GLENN: You write -- I love -- I circled this: Words make worlds. I love that.

KRISTA: Yeah.

GLENN: We choose too small a world in the decade of my birth. Tolerance to make the world we want to live in now. We open the radical difference that it had been there all along, separate, but equal to a new infusion of religions, ethnicities, and values. But tolerance doesn't welcome. It allows, endures, indulges.

KRISTA: Yeah. Tolerance has taught us to be with otherness and be with difference, whether it's racial or political and say, "I'm going to let you be in the room with me." But it doesn't -- has not taught us to be curious about each other, to be open to being surprised by each other.

These are small steps. This is not about saying, I want you to bring me around to your side, or I want to bring you around to my side, just to meet each other as human beings.

GLENN: But doesn't that -- but, Krista, I was -- I was with some people that -- we were talking about this, this weekend. We are not allowed to be surprised by each other.

KRISTA: No, that's right.

GLENN: Not because of tolerance, but because of political correctness.

KRISTA: Yeah.

GLENN: We're afraid to be surprised -- to ask questions that are surprising of the other.

KRISTA: That's right. So we -- part of the task -- it's not going to happen in our -- in our -- most of our media spaces. It's not going to happen in our political spaces. You know, this is the problem right now too. Those are the places we've been trained to look, to see the way forward. And it's hard to say, they're not going to save us. And they're not modeling how we want to be, how we want to live. So we -- yeah, we have to -- we have to create places. And I think we can do that very close to home, right? In our neighborhoods. In our parent and teacher meetings. In our families. And in local politics.

GLENN: How does -- how do we -- you know, I've been trying to find -- I would call them strange bedfellows. But I think people who are willing to be friends with people who are different and then risk everything by showing that friendship, how do we -- how do we get there when everything is set to destroy anyone who disagrees?

KRISTA: Yeah. No. You're so right. We don't -- what we also don't reward or honor in public is apology, or -- right? When somebody says, "I've changed, or I'm reflecting critically on some of the things I've done" -- and you're one of those brave people -- we don't reward that.

GLENN: I don't think we reward courage in any way.

KRISTA: We don't reward courage, that's right. Again, we don't reward it in our lives. In our real lives. But it's not -- it's not reflected. We've really got to turn away from -- you know that phrase above the radar, right? You know, I think one of the other things that's broken now -- the radar is broken.

But, again, we are -- the places we're captivated to look, to see, this is what matters, you know. This is how it works. These are our leaders.

We -- we have to force ourselves -- and I think help each other to move away. And I think the answer to that question of looking for friends, stepping a little bit outside of your comfort zone.

You know, Rilke. The poet Rilke is a great hero to me, and he talked about holding questions. There's a kind of pathology in America, that a question has to have an immediate answer. And any good question actually -- when you and I deal in questions -- ask questions for an answer -- questions also are -- a lot of questions we need to just put out there, and I think holding the question until we find the answer. And everybody can do this in their sphere, you know.

Who is that person? Who is that friend of a friend? Who is that brother-in-law, that I always get into a fight with at Thanksgiving. How can I very gently, in a spirit of generosity, with a willingness to be surprised, create a new entry point. And therefore create a new possibility for how we look forward differently.

GLENN: Krista Tippett, author of the book Becoming Wise. Thanks for being brave and reaching out and accepting a reach-out yourself. Thank you so much.

KRISTA: Thank you, Glenn.

GLENN: Appreciate it. Krista Tippett.

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.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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.