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'Heaping scoop of incompetence' - Pat and Stu lament 'terrible' Democratic debate

October 15, 2015
Ted Tuttle

Editor

Pat and Stu filled in for Glenn on radio Wednesday, sharing their reactions to the gaffe-ridden Democratic presidential debate hosted by CNN Tuesday night.

"I seriously couldn't take it," Pat said. "It's probably the worst field ever gathered to run for a party's nomination, I would think."

Stu shared Pat's sentiments, comparing one of the candidates, Lincoln Chafee, to the eagle from The Muppets.

Later, the conversation turned toward Hillary Clinton's statement about "big government" Republicans trying to cut funding for Planned Parenthood.

"That remark by Hillary Clinton was the dumbest thing ever uttered by a human being. To say that a cut of $500 million is evidence of big government is quite possibly the worst point ever made by a politician," Stu said.

Listen to the segment or read the transcript below.

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

PAT: I couldn't -- I seriously couldn't take it. I couldn't take it -- it started at what, 7:30, by maybe 25 after 8:00, I'm like, okay, I can't. I just can't do it.

JEFFY: I was praying for the first commercial break.

PAT: I know. The lies. The deceit. The attacks. The deception. The communism.

(laughter)

STU: And also, let's add on a giant heaping scoop of incompetence.

PAT: Oh, man.

STU: That's a terrible field in comparison.

PAT: Wow. Oh, it's a terrible field. It's probably the worst field ever gathered to run for a party's nomination, I would think.

STU: By a major party, I think you could seriously make that argument.

PAT: If it was the Green Party or the --

STU: Or even the Libertarian Policy. I'm not talking about policy here. I'm just talking about how bad the candidates are. If you had like -- there's a party called the Peace and Freedom Party or something, that's basically a socialist party, like that's a field of candidates I could see them putting out there.

PAT: And policy-wise, they all fit in.

STU: They could all fit in and all get that nomination. It was embarrassing.

PAT: Jeez. Oh, my gosh. Lincoln Chafee is just -- I mean, what is he doing on the stage? What are you doing running for president?

STU: Well, first of all, he looks like the muppet eagle, I don't know if you noticed that.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: If you see them side by side, they're almost identical.

PAT: We have to see them side by side.

STU: I posted actually on my Facebook page. I came up with a campaign poster for them, which is Eagle Chafee 2016. And they look -- Sam the eagle and Lincoln Chafee are almost identical. That's number one.

But perhaps slightly more importantly, the man -- I've never seen anything like it. His answer as to one of his first votes.

PAT: Yeah, we have that. Let's check that out.

ANDERSON: Governor Chafee, you've attacked Secretary Clinton for being too close to Wall Street banks. In 1999, you voted for the very bill that made banks bigger.

LINCOLN: Glass-Steagall was my very first vote. I just arrived. My dad had died in office. I was appointed to the office. It was my very first vote.

ANDERSON: Are you saying you didn't know what you were voting for?

LINCOLN: I just arrived in the Senate. I think we get some takeovers, and that was one of my very first vote. And it was 95 -- 9 to 5 was the record.

ANDERSON: With all due respect, sir, what does that say about, that you were passing a vote for something you weren't really sure about?

LINCOLN: I think you're being a little rough. I just arrived at the United States Senate. I had been mayor of my city. My dad had died as I was appointed by the governor. It was the first vote. And it was 90 to 5.

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: I had hay fever that day. I put on brown and yellow. I didn't look very good.

JEFFY: I didn't even know where I was.

PAT: I think it might have even been beyond hay fever. It might have been a sinus infection.

STU: I was eating a hash brown, and some of the oil got on my shirt and it made it like clear. I was very nervous. I was self-conscious.

PAT: But there was a stain.

STU: Yeah, there was a stain there.

PAT: So I was looking at that more than I was the bill.

STU: I think you're being a little rough here, Anderson, considering that it was one of my first days. I mean, when you go in and you have a job for the first day, you walk around, you shake hands with a couple people, you have some doughnuts in the office. I wasn't expecting to vote. I just pressed a button. I didn't even know what happened.

PAT: I didn't even know there was voting going on in Congress. When did this start? Well, good follow-up would have been, well, what's going to happen on your first day of president?

STU: Look, I happened to bomb Idaho. It was my first day in office.

PAT: My wife was sick. I was worried about her. So, yeah, I sent some P52s over Idaho.

JEFFY: I think you're being a little rough.

STU: Is that one of the more unbelievable moments you've ever seen from a candidate?

PAT: Oh, it is.

STU: He was saying because it was his first day, he had no idea what he was voting for. And that was his excuse for supporting this particular bill. I mean, that's an unbelievable moment. Now, he is an absolute zero in every way, including the polls. So it's not -- he's not the guy with all the attention on him. But that field -- because it's one thing to say, okay, Hillary Clinton is a bad candidate. And she is a bad candidate. She's supporting policies -- some of the stuff she said and we'll get into it in that debate. In every other election say pre-2008 would be a complete disqualifying as a run for president -- to have any chance to win the presidency. It was that bad. But on that stage, there is no chance anyone on that stage can beat her.

They're terrible.

PAT: Although, they loved him.

STU: Bernie Sanders was laughable. They loved him in that room.

PAT: He won the debate on Drudge. And they loved him in the room.

STU: The Drudge poll is an internet poll.

PAT: And most people are saying Hillary won.

STU: Because Hillary does not have to win those debates. She just has to not be terrible.

PAT: Although she was. She was terrible.

STU: I think she was for a general election. I think she certainly was for anyone that has ever seen or heard --

PAT: She might be great for the new Democrat Party.

STU: Right.

PAT: She might be great. I mean, you've got a stage filled with people who are seriously qualified to run for the socialist or Communist Party.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: They absolutely could be running for that nomination. And the only one there who probably couldn't is Webb. And he has no place anymore. Jim Webb has no place in the Democrat Party. He's an actual Democrat like you knew them 40 years ago. Jim Webb seems to be, for the most part, a fairly reasonable Democrat. A moderate guy.

STU: Yeah, I think it was National Review who said he would have had a good chance of winning the nomination in 1948.

PAT: Exactly, yeah. Now, there's no way. He's not nearly communist enough. Not nearly. And they keep throwing out the Republicans like they're so extreme. Like they're so wild-eyed. Are you crazy? You guys are all communists. And you've got a guy who is very reasonable. He has no place in your party anymore. No place in your stinking party.

STU: Yeah. No place in your party. I mean, you have a guy here who is saying he's a socialist. And the mainstream candidate is doing everything she can to get to his left. Everything she can to get to his left.

PAT: Right. It's working out pretty well too. I mean, listen to this.

STU: Yeah, she just keeps going that way.

HILLARY: We've got to do more about the lives of these children. That's why I started off by saying, we need to be committed to making it possible for every child to live up to his or her God-given potential. That is really hard to do if you don't have early childhood education, if you don't have schools that are able to meet the needs of the people or good housing. There's a long list. We need a new New Deal for communities.

PAT: Okay. So if that doesn't send a chill down your spine. We need a new New Deal.

STU: Yeah, now, is that a newer New Deal than the new New Deal that they proposed in 1935?

PAT: Yes. We already had that new deal.

STU: Well, there was a New Deal. Then there was a new New Deal. This would be the new new New Deal?

PAT: This would be the super mega doppler New Deal.

STU: Wow.

JEFFY: And she's really concerned about childhood education. Really? How about that Planned Parenthood? At what age does child education start?

STU: She actually had, and I use this intentionally, the balls to say that she cared about the lives of children.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: Is that a serious point? You don't get to make that on the Democratic debate stage.

PAT: Not if you're as pro-abortion as she is.

STU: No.

PAT: Not if you love Planned Parenthood as much as she does. And she does.

HILLARY: It's always the Republicans or their sympathizers who say, you can't have paid leave, you can't provide health care. They don't mind having big government to interfere with a woman's right to choose and to try to take down Planned Parenthood.

PAT: Okay. Let's attack that now. They're not taking down Planned Parenthood. The government -- the big government we fight against is currently funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of $500 million a year. And they want to stop doing that.

STU: Yep.

PAT: They want the big government to stop being so big that they're funding that organization. And if they then survive, so be it. If they fail, so be it. Let them get their own private -- my guess is they get plenty of funds anyway. Because last year, what did they have? 2 billion, wasn't it?

STU: I think it was 1.5.

PAT: Yeah, it was definitely -- somewhere over one and $2 billion.

STU: Yeah. And I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but that remark by Hillary Clinton was the dumbest thing ever uttered by a human being. To say that a cut of $500 million is -- is evidence of big government is quite possibly the worst point ever -- ever made by a politician.

PAT: Stupid. And she doesn't get challenged on it.

STU: No. In fact, I was listening to CNN earlier today, and it was, this was her big moment. Where she came out and she said, the -- the Republicans love big government when it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood. Are you listening to yourself speak? Defunding. You're talking about taking government money away from an organization is big government.

PAT: Right.

STU: Every time they come out and they say, they want to cut childhood education funding. They want to cut health care spending. Is that all big government too? When they want to cut those things?

PAT: It doesn't seem like it to me. No.

STU: You're shrinking the size of government in theory. Again, the proposal doesn't even do these things. It doesn't even cut the money going to women's health organizations. It just redirects it from one that's under criminal investigation or at least very well may be soon.

But you have an issue where cutting money to an organization -- a government gives free money to somebody. That's big government. That is what conservatives fight against.

PAT: Right.

STU: Big government giving money to their friends. To other -- private organizations. That is what we fight against. When we say that we don't want that. She identifies that as big government.

PAT: Big government. Yeah. Well, she also ties in. That's where they want to tell women what to do with their body. Yeah, well, we also want government to tell people what to do with other human beings that we don't want them to kill. We do allow certain things. We allow access to the government to do certain things like prevent murder. That is a function of the government.

STU: Yes.

PAT: It's not that we want bigger government. We just want the government to do what it's supposed to do. And that's protect life.

STU: And of course, this comes from a party that is telling you the size of sodas you're allowed to ingest. They don't care about the government being involved with your body. They want the government involved with every aspect of what you do.

PAT: Yeah, it's unbelievable. And she had more.

HILLARY: They're fine with big government. I'm sick of it.

You know, we've been doing these things -- we should not be paralyzed. We should not be paralyzed by the Republicans and their constant refrain, big government this, big government that, except for what they want to impose on the American people. I know we can afford it because we're going to make the wealthy pay for it.

PAT: Oh.

STU: Of course. Of course. The wealthy.

PAT: Oh.

STU: They can pay for everything.

JEFFY: She almost did it there. She almost did it where she almost went to the Hillary screech. And she pulled it back. I know.

PAT: Very close.

STU: She got close though.

PAT: Very close.

STU: She is not good with big crowds like that. Luckily, she doesn't have to worry about that at her rallies because no one has been showing up, but she is not good.

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: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

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.