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Glenn's Show Prep

Jason Chaffetz announces run for Speaker of the House

October 06, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz joined Glenn on radio Tuesday to share why he wants to run for Speaker of the House.

Glenn introduced Chaffetz as a good friend who he hasn't had a chance to catch up with for quite some time.

"I've kind of lost track of Jason and what he's been up to lately," Glenn said. "We wanted to talk to him firsthand and hear his case."

Listen to the exchange or read the transcript below.

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

GLENN: Congressman Jason Chaffetz. He's from Utah. He's a guy who actually sleeps at his office. He's been -- when he was at Fox. He was one of the refounders. He was a guy who was right there on the front lines and has been working hard to change the way things are done in America. Has been a good time -- or good time? Good time friend. A long-time friend and a good friend for quite some time. We haven't -- we haven't had a chance to catch up with each other for I don't know how long. So I've kind of lost track of Jason and what he's been up to lately. But I saw he was announcing he wanted to be Speaker of the House. And we wanted to talk to him firsthand and hear his case.

Hi, Jason, how are you, sir?

JASON: Hey, Glenn. Glad to be with you.

GLENN: Good. Tell me, you've decided to run for Speaker of the House. A, is this real? I'm not putting you in this category. I hear some people are doing it just to get their name out, et cetera. Et cetera. Is this real, and why do you want it?

JASON: You know what, it's time for a fresh start. And when John Boehner was up last time, nobody ran against him. And I thought, "Shame on us." There should be choices. You're either part of the solution, or you're part of the problem. And so I think if I got better, smarter way to do it, I should throw my name in the bucket. And, you know, guys like me who are underdogs, there's no way we're supposed to be able to do this. But, gosh, you can't win if you don't try. So I'm throwing it all out here. I don't plan to be in Congress for very long. But when I'm here, I'm going to give it everything I got.

GLENN: So, Jason, tell me what the biggest problem, and what you're going to change.

JASON: Internally, we're breaking apart. We don't have the process to allow that groundswell of expertise so that members can represent their own districts and that they can actually bring forth amendments and vote on things that they want to vote on. It's been too much of a top-down process. I'm tired of reading my phone, what the speaker is going to tell me, and then go into a meeting and the Speaker says, "This is what we're going to do."

It's supposed to happen organically from the bottom, up. I also do believe that once the conference gets behind something, we have to go fight for it. We have to take that battle to the Senate, to the White House, and to the American people. We don't -- we're not very good communicators. I actually want to be a Speaker who speaks and goes out and makes the case to the American people why the conservative viewpoint -- why what Republicans stand for is the right thing to do in this country.

GLENN: Okay. So give me a couple of -- the biggest mistakes, the things that we should have done that Boehner just didn't do.

JASON: Well, look, the debt and deficit is right near the top of my list. I was elected same time as Barack Obama. The debt has gone from 9 trillion to $20 trillion.

The president the other day said he's not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling. He's not going to negotiate on -- well, what he's saying is, he's okay with borrowing more money from China as opposed to actually fixing the underlying problem.

We were elected not to perpetuate the status quo, to actually fix the problems of this country. And we fixed some of them, but I want to start scoring some touchdowns and putting bills on the president's desk. And that, we haven't done. And I'm not here --

GLENN: Tell me about the continuing resolutions.

JASON: Well, I voted against the last one. That's a terrible way to do business. We want to have more open process so that you can actually go through what's called regular order where members are allowed, page by page, line by line, to offer amendments. And then you vote on those.

And on some of those, we did that. You know, when I was here when Nancy Pelosi was running the place, we never even did that. So we started that process. We came almost halfway. But I'd like to keep pushing that. Pushing that. Because regular order and better process yields a better product. It won't be everything I want or Glenn Beck wants or any other member wants. But it does yield a better, more respectful process. That's what we're here to do.

GLENN: Jason, I will tell you this, based on just your voting record, you're our guy.

JASON: Well, good. I better hang up now.

(laughter)

GLENN: Daniel Webster, however, was on with us, and he was quite clear on the process. Now, he wants to run for Speaker of the House too. According to his voting record, he's not the guy I want. However, when he was talking, he talked solely about the system. And he's like, "Look, the system will work itself out if the system is used." And the continuing resolution is something that is really, really boring to a lot of people.

JASON: Right.

GLENN: But it's probably the most critical thing we have in the process to stop the Republicans from this constant retreat. It's not the way our system was meant to be done. And it's why they always have a government shutdown if you say I want to change The Birdcage paper. Oh, you want to shut down the government. It's because of the continuing resolution. So how can you -- what you just said to me, I want to keep moving forward. No, I don't. I want our government to run the way it was designed. Will you as a Speaker of the House take that stand?

JASON: That's what -- that is what I'm saying. There's a lot to learn from Daniel Webster because what he did in Florida is very important. And he's very smart on these issues. He and I have very different voting records. But I'm not there as the Speaker to impress upon everybody else my political agenda.

The role of the Speaker is to make sure that the process is such that the will of the body actually surfaces. And to that extent, the process is broken. And there has to be changes on how we pick committee chairmen, on how we go through the process of the regional representatives. A lot of the internal structure stuff that no matter where you are on the political spectrum, we have a lot of people that are terribly frustrated.

And if you can get the process right, this is where I think I agree with Daniel Webster. You get that process right. I think then you're going to get a better product. And I want it to be as conservative as possible. But I recognize I'm probably much more conservative than the bulk of other members. And that's okay. But I'm not here just to dictate to them, "Oh, you have to do it my way." I've been on the receiving end of that, and I don't like it.

GLENN: According to my notes, you took Mark Meadows off his committee assignment, presumably for voting against John Boehner. Was that retaliation? What happened there?

JASON: That wasn't the only reason. It was about some other things. But, you know what, I overreached. And, you know what, we all make some mistakes. I would like to think as a leader, I was smart enough and humble enough to listen to my committee members who thought I was too harsh. And it was a good lesson for me, that you're not going to build unity and move the ball forward by breaking knuckles. I overreached. And I shouldn't have done it. And I recognized it. And we reimplemented him a few days later.

And Mark and I have a good working relationship. He has to represent his constituents from North Carolina, I have to represent mine from Utah. If we agree, we agree. But that's a valuable lesson that I learned.

GLENN: May I just delve a little further into that?

JASON: Sure.

GLENN: What -- how did you learn that lesson? Why did you learn that lesson? And when you said there were many things, it wasn't just that, why did voting --

JASON: Not many things, but yeah --

GLENN: But why did the Boehner thing even come into play? Why should anyone be punished for standing up against the leader?

JASON: First of all, I never spoke with the Speaker about this. I never spoke with his staff about it. That was my decision. But I -- I had some discussions, very candid discussions with Mark Meadows, and I think we both are in a good place now. But you learn that lesson.

And partly, it was listening to the 25 -- we have 25 members on my committee. I'm the chairman of the Oversight Committee. Most of them came in. We sat down, and we talked for an hour and 40 minutes. And it was very healthy.

And I said, "All right. Let me sleep on it. I believe in prayer." And I prayed about it. And I came back out of that and thought, "You know what, darn it. I overdid myself. And I shouldn't have done that." And I announced the next day that I would make the change back. They were right. I was wrong.

GLENN: Good for you.

PAT: But Jason you did vote for Boehner last time.

JASON: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

GLENN: Why?

JASON: Partly because he was the only nominee. We didn't have anybody else. And like I said, here we go again. And, look, I'll support the nominee. And I said I'll do that. But I put myself in the ring now. So if I think have a better way, then you better get in and run. And so I do think I got a better way. I do think I could do some of these things. A guy like me is not supposed to rise up and -- after just -- you know, in his fourth term become a Speaker. I get that. But I think I can do things a little bit better. And so you put your hat in the ring. If I lose, I lose. But now that I'm trying, I'll know that I gave it my best shot.

PAT: That's not entirely true that nobody ran against him. Because Louie Gohmert did. I know a lot of people didn't think he was a serious candidate.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: But I don't fully understand that. Because Louie a pretty strong conservative. And maybe there just aren't enough conservatives in the Republican Party anymore to elect one as Speaker. What is -- is that what it is? And if so, how does that affect your candidacy?

JASON: Well, I don't believe it should be a litmus test on how conservative or how liberal a person is. You're electing a person who is going to speak for the body, negotiate with the White House, the Senate, who is going to be a fair arbiter of the full political spectrum within the Republican conference. And so, you know, I -- I have a lot of respect for John Boehner. And I know a lot of people don't. But John Boehner was very good to me. And I didn't owe him anything. He didn't ask for anything. But of the candidates out there, yeah, I -- I -- I did vote for John Boehner.

GLENN: I will tell you this, think what you want about somebody when they say, I have a lot of respect for John Boehner, but I will tell you that coming on this program --

PAT: And telling us that.

GLENN: And telling us that and telling this audience that, it takes some real balls.

JASON: Well, yeah. Let me tell you why. I fought to get rid of earmarks. And when I first got elected in 2008, everybody else in the delegation was for them. And I went to John Boehner and I said, "Can a guy like me survive here because I'm fighting against earmarks?" And he said, "Jason, I've never asked for earmarks." And I do appreciate that John Boehner, when he actually became the Speaker, you know what he did? He got rid of earmarks. That has been the political candy that leadership uses to coerce votes and get bills passed. It made it easier. And he took it away from himself and took away power from himself. And I do admire him for that.

PAT: He also got none of the things done he said he was going to. He said they were going to get 12 things done in 12 weeks. And none of them -- I think one of them happened.

JASON: I'm telling you --

PAT: One.

JASON: There are a lot of things I like about him. And a lot of things I don't. A lot of things are frustrating. I'm not going to trample on him as he goes out the door. That's just not my style.

GLENN: Yeah, it's not necessary to do that because we're talking about the future. So what will set you apart from John Boehner?

JASON: Well, I want to be a Speaker who speaks and goes out and makes the case to the American people and takes the fight to the president and to the White House. I'm tired of just gravitating to the lowest common denominator. And if Mitch McConnell and the United States Senate can't get something done, you know, we have to figure out where we'll hold the line here.

GLENN: Would you shut down the government over Planned Parenthood?

JASON: Look, the discussion is -- it's not just Jason Chaffetz. It's the conference as a whole. So I've hold the president say things like this. I don't think having $20 trillion in debt is the right solution. I really don't. I think that question is for the president of the United States. Our job in Congress is to get that bill on his desk. And if we can't get that bill on his desk, then we can't even get to that next step. That decision on shutdown is the president's.

GLENN: Jason, we haven't talked to each other for I don't know how long.

JASON: Yeah, it's been a while.

GLENN: How is your soul?

JASON: I'm so comfortable with myself at this point. I have this amazing wonderful wife and family that I couldn't be more proud of. And I know that I'm not -- this is temporary in its time. And part of the reason I'm running, Glenn, is I'm -- I'm fine with losing. You know, I'm okay with losing. Because I'm not trying to be here forever. I'm going to give it everything I got and then go home. That's -- that's where my heart is. My heart is at home.

GLENN: So you're telling me -- are you making an announcement that you will not run for Orrin Hatch's seat when he retires?

JASON: I might make that announcement -- if I wanted to be here for a long time, I would run for the Senate, and I have not. Nor do I anticipate doing that. But I'm not making the official announcement here today.

(laughter)

STU: We're trying to bring some --

JASON: Nice try. But go ahead.

GLENN: All right, Jason. Best of luck. And the vote is on Thursday, right?

JASON: That's the first step. That's the conference vote. But the real vote on the floor, that happens at the end of October.

GLENN: And the best way for people if they choose you or somebody else, what's the best way they can support you?

JASON: Call their members. Find out who are their members voting for. I'm not -- I don't have a formal whip operation. Just call your member of Congress. Figure out who they're voting for.

GLENN: Okay. Good. Jason, thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Buh-bye.

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.