Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

Liberal Professor Robert Reich Inadvertently Endorses Ted Cruz

February 22, 2016
Lori Hanes

Writer

A new two-minute video from liberal professor and political commentator Robert Reich backfired in delivering its intended message: Ted Cruz is more dangerous than Donald Trump.

Instead, Reich inadvertently made the case that Cruz is a better presidential choice for conservatives due to his "strict, originalist view" of the Constitution. Reich, who believes Bernie Sanders' economic proposals would spur growth, may have delivered the best endorsement yet for electing Cruz.

"There is a video explaining why Ted Cruz is more dangerous than Donald Trump, and I'm watching this, and I'm thinking, 'You got to be kidding me, right? I mean, did Ted Cruz write this?' It is phenomenal," Glenn said Monday on The Glenn Beck Program. "I never saw anything like it. I saw Ted last night, and I said, 'You need to run this at all of your rallies.' Here is a guy on the left making the case to his followers why anyone, but Ted Cruz should win."

Here are Reich's four reasons why Ted Cruz is more dangerous that Donald Trump:

Number One

• Cruz is more fanatical, a fierce ideologue who takes a strict, originalist view of the meaning of the Constitution. He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, believes the Second Amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns, doesn't believe in a constitutional divide between church and state, favors the death penalty, rejects immigration reform and demands the repeal of Obamacare.

• Trump is a bully, but he doesn't adhere to any sharp, ideological line.

Number Two

• Cruz is a true believer, embracing right wing economic and political views.

• Donald Trump has no firm principles, except making money, getting attention and gaining power.

Number Three

• Cruz is more disciplined and strategic, using a clear script and a carefully crafted strategy. He plays the long game, as he's shown in Iowa.

• Trump is all over the place, often winging it saying whatever pops into his mind.

Number Four

• Cruz is a loner who is willing to destroy institutions. His opposition to Obamacare led in a significant way to the shutdown of the federal government.

• Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big shots.

There's never been a more glowing endorsement for a conservative candidate. Thank you, Robert Reich.

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

GLENN: From Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the weekend of South Carolina and Nevada. Trump and Hillary both claimed victory. In a matchup between Hillary and Trump, which one does America want? Actually let me revise that. In a matchup between Hillary and a Hillary donor, which one does America want? And what do the exit polls actually say from South Carolina? Plus, an amazing video from Robert Reich, you know, the guy from the left, the big Clinton supporter. It is the most powerful campaign ad I have ever seen. The problem is: He was trying to make an anti-campaign ad for somebody. We begin there, right now.

(music)

GLENN: From Las Vegas, Nevada. So glad that you've turned in. Hello, America. Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

Yesterday, I saw an -- a saw a video on YouTube from Robert Reich. Robert Reich is -- I don't know. He's a bizarre economist with the Clinton campaign -- or, has been with the Clinton campaign for many, many years. Been with Bill Clinton and is a guy who is absolutely upside down and does not agree with the right at all. Conservatives are, you know, the Antichrist to him.

There is a video explaining why Ted Cruz is more dangerous than Donald Trump. And I'm watching this, and I'm thinking, "You got to be kidding me, right? I mean, did Ted Cruz write this?" It is phenomenal.

PAT: I thought the same.

GLENN: Right. I never saw anything like it. I saw Ted last night, and I said, "You need to run this at all of your rallies." Here is a guy on the left making the case to his followers why anyone, but Ted Cruz should win. Listen to this.

ROBERT: Four reasons Ted Cruz is even more dangerous than Donald Trump.

Number one, Cruz is more fanatical. Now, Trump is a bully, but he doesn't adhere to any sharp ideological line. Cruz is a fierce ideologue. He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

PAT: Is that a bad thing for anyone?

GLENN: Yeah. I know. He wants to abolish the IRS. No.

PAT: Oh, no. No. No. I didn't realize that about him.

ROBERT: Believes the Second Amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns.

PAT: Yes, it's the Second Amendment.

(chuckling)

GLENN: And the Supreme Court.

PAT: Yeah. Yeah.

ROBERT: He doesn't believe in a constitutional divide between church and state.

PAT: Yeah, and neither does the Constitution, by the way.

ROBERT: Favors the death penalty. Rejects immigration reform. Demands the repeal of Obamacare. And Cruz takes a strict, originalist view of the meaning of the Constitution.

(gasping)

GLENN: Okay. Stop. Stop.

PAT: No!

GLENN: So far, I'm like, "He's my guy."

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, I've never heard anything -- but it gets better. Wait. There's more.

ROBERT: Cruz is a true believer.

Donald Trump has no firm principles, except making money, getting attention, and gaining power. Cruz has much of his life embracing radical right economic and political views.

Number three --

PAT: Wow. Wow.

GLENN: Stop. Okay. So Cruz -- look, Donald Trump, he doesn't actually believe in anything, except himself and making money and everything else. But Cruz has actually spent his life really embracing these things. And they're all crazy.

PAT: Uh-huh. It's incredible. I mean, this seriously should be a campaign ad for Ted Cruz. For sure.

ROBERT: Discipline and strategic --

GLENN: Stop. Stop. Stop.

PAT: More disciplined. Strategic --

GLENN: Here's point number three: Cruz is disciplined and strategic, where Trump is just all over the place.

PAT: Yes. Uh-huh.

ROBERT: -- winging it, saying whatever pops into his mind. Cruz uses a clear script and a carefully crafted strategy. He plays the long game, as he has shown in Iowa. And fourth and finally, Cruz is a loner willing to destroy institutions. Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big HEP shots.

PAT: Can you -- he spent his career using the government.

GLENN: Okay. Here's an example of this. And this is the kind of stuff, guys, that you're going to see --

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: This is what you're going to see in the mainstream media come July if Donald Trump is the candidate.

PAT: Yep.

GLENN: Try this one on for size. Donald Trump said, you know, you remember when Donald Trump did this big deal. And this is exactly how it will be presented on NBC.

Remember when he said that -- oh, you know, how dare you say -- I had friends that died in the World Trade Center. So far -- and this is the way, again, the media will portray this. So far, NBC has reached out to the Trump campaign several times and cannot get one name of anybody that Donald Trump was friends with. We also looked at the records, and there is no record of Donald Trump attending any funerals for any individual after 9/11.

Okay. The press has already done that. But they haven't stood on it. But here comes the hammer. Donald Trump owns 40 Wall Street, a building worth $400 million. And on paper, is making $26.5 million every year. Donald Trump, after the government put together a package for small businesses to help those mom-and-pop stores in lower Manhattan that had been damaged or hurt by September 11th, Donald Trump and 40 Wall Street filed a claim to try to get money out of the small business fund.

He actually -- a business that makes $26.5 million a year. $20 million over the limit, somehow or another was able to receive a grant of $150,000, taking that $150,000 from the mom-and-pop small businesses that truly needed it. Brian, back to you.

That's exactly how it's going to happen. That's exactly what's going to happen.

Here's Donald Trump. And this is what Robert Reich was saying. He has spent his career taking money from the government. We know this because of the documentaries we have seen. And some of them are now posted. Documentaries that Donald Trump got shut down back in the '90s that are now starting to pop up on the news because he can't muscle NBC. He can't muscle ABC. The internet is there.

And now you're seeing in some of these documentaries how he built his business. He would go to the government and get subsidies for all his business. So what Robert Reich is saying here, "This isn't a guy who will shut down all the subsidies. This is a guy who uses the subsidies to get wealthy." This is exactly what America -- and I'm going to make a point today, and you're not going to like it. But I am going to make a point that there is a revolution coming in the next eight years. There is a revolution actually happening right now. But it is a velvet revolution. And if we choose wrong, it will not be a velvet revolution. If we stay the course and we continue down the road with corrupt crony capitalism and corrupt -- quite honestly, the kind of politics that the left is dealing in right now, where Hillary Clinton has all the superdelegates, so it doesn't really matter what the people say. The people are voting for -- for Bernie Sanders, and it is a virtual dead HEP heat between those two. But somehow or another, she wins six coin tosses, and here in Nevada, she wins the delegates by flipping over cards: He got a six. She got an ace. She gets the delegates. Your vote really doesn't matter with the left. It doesn't matter at all.

And those kinds of things where we're undermining democracy and we're undermining the confidence in true, decent, honest, and honorable capitalism is not going to last. And that's what's happening. And this is what Robert Reich is holding up and saying is a good thing. Why? Because de Tocqueville was right.

De Tocqueville, the guy who wrote Democracy in America back in the 1800s, a Frenchman who came over to America and said, "What is it that makes them special? Why is it that they are being able to cross all of these lines and hurdles and jump all these hurdles? Why is it this little teeny country is starting to explode?" And he said, "Because America is great because America is good." They had certain fundamental principles that they never violated. And the people were good and honorable and decent.

And we've lost that. And that's what -- that's where this anger is coming from. People are tired from saying, "Wait a minute. Hillary Clinton should be in jail. She shouldn't be on the campaign trail. She should be in jail." And I would like to say that those on the right would say the same thing if it was their candidate. But we wouldn't. Polls are now showing that we play the same game the left does. All of this bullcrap, quite frankly, that we all said to each other over the last eight years, "It's not about -- it's about principles. It's about the Constitution. It's about these principles they're taking and destroying." Now what are people saying? "My guy can play that game even better than they can. And I'm tired of playing by the rules."

You read my Facebook. I have never seen anything like what I'm reading on my Facebook page now: Story after story after story of people saying, "You know what, I'm tired of playing by the rules. I'm tired of being stepped on. I'm tired of having everybody win except for us. The ends justify the means. If they're not going to play by the rules, I'm not going to play by the rules."

And the problem with that is, America, you might win the game, but you're going to lose your soul. You're going to lose what made America great in the first place. You cannot play by that, unless you want to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

So let's finish this Robert Reich video.

PAT: Yeah.

ROBERT: Cruz. He's repeatedly led Republicans toward fiscal cliffs. In the fall of 2013, his opposition to Obamacare led in a significant way to the shutdown of the federal government.

PAT: No, it didn't.

ROBERT: Both men would be disastrous for America, but Ted Cruz would be the larger disaster.

(chuckling)

STU: Brought to you by the Ted Cruz campaign.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: Can we play one more time without interrupting it. Because it's so powerful in a minute a half.

PAT: Yeah. Yeah.

ROBERT: Four reasons Ted Cruz is even more dangerous than Donald Trump: Number one, Cruz is more fanatical. Now, Trump is a bully, but he doesn't adhere to any sharp, ideological line. Cruz is a fierce ideologue. He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, believes the Second Amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns. He doesn't believe in a constitutional divide between church and state. Favors the death penalty. Rejects immigration reform. Demands the repeal of Obamacare. And Cruz takes a strict, originalist view of the meaning of the Constitution.

Second, Cruz is a true believer. Donald Trump has no firm principles, except making money, getting attention, and gaining power. But Cruz has spent much of his life embracing radical right economic and political views.

Number three, Cruz is more disciplined and strategic. Trump is all over the place, often winging it saying whatever pops into his mind. Cruz uses a clear script and a carefully crafted strategy. He plays the long game, as he's shown in Iowa.

And fourth and finally, Cruz is a loner who is willing to destroy institutions. Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big shots. Not Cruz. He's repeatedly led Republicans toward fiscal cliffs.

In the fall of 2013, his opposition to Obamacare led in a significant way to the shutdown of the federal government. Both men would be disastrous for America, but Ted Cruz would be the larger disaster.

PAT: That is --

GLENN: I'm Ted Cruz. And I approve this message.

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: That's what super PACs should be playing right now.

PAT: Yes. Yes. Wow.

GLENN: I mean, that is the most powerful endorsement of Ted Cruz I've ever heard from Robert Reich.

Featured Image: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich (L) testifies before the Joint Economic Committee January 16, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reich joined a panel testifying on the topic of 'Income Inequality in the United States.Ó (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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.

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.