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Glenn's Show Prep

"He's a good friend and a good guy": Glenn talks to congressional candidate Dan Bongino

October 27, 2014
Wilson

Writer

On radio today, Glenn introduced listeners to several candidates who have expressed support for constitutional values through their words and values. One person Glenn has had onto the show several times is former Secret Service Dan Bongino.

Bongino is running for U.S. Representative of Maryland's 6th Congressional District.

Watch the interview below:

GLENN: We have Dan Bongino. Dan is a former Secret Service guy. A really fine upstanding guy. Really gives me hope that there are good people that are in Washington who wake up. He was standing listening to some meetings after watching my program on Fox and at one point it was like I don't think these guys make any sense at all. What am I doing. And got out and decided that he was going to run and has put his whole family at risk quite honestly, put his family in financial risk. Walked away from everything to be able to run. And doesn't -- doesn't find anything but honor in running for the office. I don't think Maryland could have a better Congressman. Dan Bongino, welcome to the program.

BONGINO: Hey, thanks, Glenn, I appreciate all those kind words that. Means a lot, thank you.

PAT: Dan, there's no real polling on this race, there seems like. Where do you stand? What kind of sense do you have? Do you have any kind of internal polling over when are are you right now.

BONGINO: We did, I'm almost afraid to tell you, because we had $6,000 worth of our signs stolen last weekend and my opponent dumped about a quarter-million negative ads in my head. One poll had us up by six. So why no one is paying attention to this case except for TheBlaze family and a couple of other talk radio hosts out there with an audience is beyond me. It's not even that far of a democrat-leaning district. It's just a slight tilt.

GLENN: Who else is paying attention to it? What other hosts?

BONGINO: Well, Sean, who's obviously a friend of yours. Mark Levin has been good to me as well.

PAT: Good.

BONGINO: Rush gave us a shout-out about a year ago when I spoke out about Benghazi. But outside of that, Glenn, I mean, listen, I'm known you for a long time before I decided to run for office. I'm probably here because of passion and appeal you gave on your old Fox News program one time that made me go look at "Road To Serfdom" and read through it. It's probably the reason I would say I'm doing this.

GLENN: Tell me the -- tell the audience the pivot point. What was it.

BONGINO: Well, were you given this argument and the gist of it was that this is going to require some sacrifice. Obviously I'm not quoting you directly. I have it on T i V o upstairs, the actual episode, so I'm hoping I can take the actual box with me when I leave. But it's an older one and the division is the what did you think this was, goes to be ease?

Listen, the folks, the fights we're undergoing now are not the fights we were -- you know, having even a hundred years ago. These are now fights against people who are saying things like, businesses don't create jobs. You know, you didn't build that. I mean, this is a far different fight than arguing over a 19 or 20% tax rate. But the sacrifice theme you had made me ask myself, what in hades am I doing here. I'm just throwing the Nerf football at the screen collecting a government paycheck as a Secret Service agent. There's tons to do and not talk.

GLENN: So you're a fair tax guy. Can you tell me why -- I'm a flat tax guy. I don't understand the fair tax thing.

BONGINO: You know, I've got issues with both. The fair tax had some issues as well. It's a consumption tax. The reason I like it is because of the incentives or disincentives. The fair tax tax is consumption, it's a sales tax. Whatever you earn you take home. There are no federal sales tax at all. It doesn't disincentivize this thing we called work that conservatives really like. We should work. We work, we produce. We produce, we're wealthy. People's prosperity is measured by what they have. You know, their food, their cars, things like that. So it doesn't disincentivize work. The flat tax I like the idea as well, but the flat tax is still an income-based tax. But both of them have issues. I'm thinking we may be able to move towards more of a hybrid scaled program, flat tax to fair tax later, but they both have pluses and minuses.

PAT: The thing that scares me about tear fax and we're going to get a billion calls, so please don't.

PAT: The fair tax requires that you get rid of the IRS, which is just a monumental undertaking.

GLENN: I'd love to do it, though.

PAT: I'd love to do it, I just don't know how you do it.

GLENN: Needs to be done.

PAT: Do you think it's possible, Dan?

BONGINO: I hope it's possible, because as we've seen, whether it be Nixon who tried it or this administration that successfully implemented, you know, using the IRS as a -- you know, political attack dog program as their own 501( c )(3), something has to be done with our tax enforcement. One of the issues of the fair tax as well, is I think as -- I had a conversation about it this weekend with someone. They may be underselling the evasion rate. And you do need some semblance of revenue neutrality to sell it to people. You're going to have to get some people on the other side to go along or else you're never going to get it passed. So there are definitely issues with both. And I agree. I know when you mention that word, I'm totally with you guys. My Twitter feed will go crazy, too. But we have to be realistic and we can't pretend that there's some kind of -- panacea out there to solve all our tax problems. There's not.

GLENN: So the president printing up nine million green cards. They won't -- they won't verify. They won't talk about something as meaningless as what color the paper is that they're printing in Washington. That's almost a quote. What do you think it means and what do you do?

BONGINO: Well, I think we all know what it means. We're all terrified to say it because we're afraid we almost might incentivize him to do it. Do you know what's amazing about this administration, Glenn? They always pick the issue that really annoys Americans the most and then they poke and prod. Even when it comes to judicial nominees, it's like when they have this -- this portfolio of people and they're like, okay, let's rate them 1 to 100. A hundred meaning the most vile that conservatives will go crazy about. That's my guy. So with this thing I always fear the worst, because with this administration the worst always comes true. This is going to be a massive, lawless, completely lawless amnesty where people who just walked into the country -- by the way, my wife is an immigrant. We did it the right way. I always ask, do I --

GLENN: Why do you hate immigrants.

BONGINO: We paid to be legal immigrants. Do we get refund physical they're going to declare amnesty of of course they're going to do it after the election, which is amazing.

GLENN: Why do you hate Mexicans?

BONGINO: Of course, that's got -- you know, it's funny you say that, because my opponent ad doesn't like -- he eats them after he doesn't like them. So -- did you see that clip with the female candidate running for office who goes off the war on women and the audience starts cracking up like they can't control themselves anymore?

PAT: Yeah.

BONGINO: It's gotten so absurd on the left.

PAT: It's you can blink.

GLENN: It really has. Dan, five years ago when you were first listening to me and I said things are going to be upside down. You won't recognize your country. And up will be down, down will be up. What was liquid will be solid. You never really thought we'd actually get there, did you? Because I only halfway did. And I was the one saying it.

BONGINO: I remember reading on my time when I had a personal Facebook feed all of the -- the left wing Bloggers who would say, this guy is crazy. But you notice none of them are saying that now, because they're afraid to reprint and link to the old articles where the stuff actually happened. The dark money you were always talking about between tithes and Soros, funding these campaigns. And they do the little -- dipsydoo fliparoo, the left. Dark money, the Koch brothers. The Koch problems 15th in the country in donations behind all these left wing people who are out there pumping money with the campaign. All the stuff you talked about undo influence of our government and total evaporation like an Alka Seltzer tablet of liberty is now sadly coming true and Americans need to wake up and the independents among us and the moderate Democrats need to wake up too, that don't think they won't come after you next. Remember, there are Democrats who have been targeted too by this administration. Just ask people at the chase bank and other folks who have been -- and the guy in the -- HHS and the IRS who were Democrats who were gone after the administration after they spoke out.

PAT: Dan, what's going on -- you're for -- I think most people in our audience understand this and know this, but you're a former Secret Service agent. What has happened? I mean, as we watch the meltdown of the Secret Service agency, how -- what is going on with them? Do you have any sense of what's happened there?

BONGINO: I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. When we transferred from Treasury to Homeland, it became just a bureaucratic mess, just about like everything else in the government does. When you expand and grow bigger. The layers of management grew and they became insulated. In my opinion, there was a small group, not all, there are a lot of good managers there, but a small group of innings whose incentives then became to look for security jobs after their retirement with these Homeland Security personnel. They were now almost in bed with now that we from in the department of homeland security. That wasn't the case with treasury. The Secret Service wasn't going to leave with Tim Geithner to evaluate black shows derivatives. That's not the way it works. So the over bureaucratization of the agency created a perverse incentive to abandon the rank and file Secret Service agents for management. It really all comes down to that. And someone said to me you can't blame poor management for the fence jumper. No, you can't. I'm not absolving them of this catastrophic failure of course, but there were people there on the front lawn of the White House that had six months on the job because the uniform division can't retain anyone because they're led by really terrible managers. That does have something to do with it. You can't view in it a vacuum.

PAT: Where were the dogs that night? Because --

(overlapping speakers).

PAT: Well, the Secret Service did. The second time. But the first time, no one let the dogs out. Do you know what happened there?

BONGINO: Well, from what I'm hearing, I saw it in a couple media reports and a couple of my friends give me an inside scoop on it. That the handler was apparently afraid that a couple of the folks that were chasing them, that they would be the ones targeted by the dog. I don't know about that. These dogs are pretty well trained. I was in our train center, I was an instructor there and these dogs are pretty well trained to discriminate amongst targets. I don't know. I don't know if he just dropped the ball. There's no question it was a catastrophic mistake.

PAT: Bizarre.

BONGINO: You had some asking why didn't we shoot the guy, which I find absurd. You -- this is the United States. We don't shoot trespassers. It just doesn't happen. Then they --

PAT: Even when they're trespassing on the White House lawn? I would think you would. When they're trespassing on the White House lawn --

GLENN: Or --

PAT: Or inside the house. He took down one of the agents.

GLENN: We paint the front door because it's been stained a little bit.

(laughing).

BONGINO: I don't agree. No, here's the thing. If he had a weapon in his hand, if he vocalized the threat, you would be absolutely correct.

GLENN: Dan, Dan --

BONGINO: But remember the south grounds incident with Miriam Carey when the woman with the car went on the --

GLENN: They shot her in the head, right.

BONGINO: Right.

PAT: That we didn't agree with it.

GLENN: But she wasn't inside the White House. We shot somebody outside of the White House gates.

PAT: In a car.

GLENN: In a car. And we just let somebody run into the White House. I mean, it's insane. Just -- here's the thing, Dan. On this, because you and I agree on everything. Just remind me if I ever become president, you're not the head of treasury.

(laughing).

BONGINO: All right, I'll remind you.

GLENN: Or as long as you just say, yes, sir, Mr. President, when I say, I don't mind repainting the front door. Keep my family safe.

PAT: Don't worry, Dan, that's smog you'll ever have to worry about.

GLENN: You'll never have to worry about.

PAT: You don't have to consider it ever.

GLENN: Dan, best of luck to you. And we're really counting on you to do great things when you get to Washington. We're just really excited for you. And I just -- I can't endorse you any higher than I have. In fact, I never endorse candidates. What the hell, I just did.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: He's a good friend and a good guy. And I wish you all -- I wish you all the best.

PAT: How do you help if somebody wants to jump in and help out?

BONGINO: Thanks. Bongino.com. And I really, really appreciate that, Glenn. I hope you can hear the emotion in my voice. I mean it. You've been a good friend to me and I really appreciate that. Good to know there are people out there willing to take a chance.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

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.