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Doc Thompson Questions Activist's Promise of Non-violence at Trump Inauguration

January 18, 2017
Staff

WRITER

One of the hallmarks of American democracy is the peaceful transition of power every four to eight years. However, liberal activists unhappy with the election results seem bent on disrupting Inauguration Day with protests and civil disobedience.

Doc Thompson from The Morning Blaze With Doc Thompson, joined Glenn's radio program to report his encounter with Lacey MacAuley, a leader of activist group Disrupt J20.

According to its website, Disrupt J20 is a "collective of experienced local activists" who are "planning a series of massive direct actions that will shut down the Inauguration ceremonies and any related celebrations --- the Inaugural parade, the Inaugural balls," paralyzing the city.

While MacAuley assured Doc of the group's dedication to non-violent civil disobedience, Doc uncovered additional information that directly contradicted MacAuley's claim.

"James O'Keefe and Project Veritas released their first video that seems to show they want something a little more than just civil disobedience, possibly some things that are pretty dangerous," Doc said.

In a second Project Veritas video, activists called for illegally shutting down the metro and punching people in the throat.

MacAuley brushed off these statements, saying it was a ruse for the interview.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: We have Doc Thompson with us. He does mornings on TheBlaze Radio Network. And you have been kind of taking my approach of, hey, let's listen to people.

DOC: Right. Right.

GLENN: And it has paid off in a big way. Tell us how.

DOC: I was following your other approaches in life, and those weren't working out so well for me.

GLENN: Right. Yeah, I know.

DOC: So this one -- so a couple weeks ago, we found about this J20. This is the Disrupt J20, where they're organizing all of the different little factions. Anybody who is opposed to some of our ideals, for whatever the little issue, abortion, gun control, whatever, to bring them all together in DC and do whatever they can to actually disrupt the inauguration.

On some level, to stop him from becoming president, which is a little nutty to me. We found out about it. My producer Chris Cruz said, "Okay. Let me try to get them on." And he amazingly got a lady by the name of Lacey MacAuley to come on. Apparently, she doesn't have access to the Internet to find out about me. So she actually agreed to the interview.

GLENN: But you were honest with her.

DOC: I was. I was. A lot of people think that by asking tough questions or that I'm satirical, over the top at times, that I'm going to treat them that way. And we didn't. We heard her out. She said some things that the audience objected to. Some things I did as well. I didn't debate every issue, but we talked about the Disrupt J20. And she said it's non-violent. They just want to disrupt. Civil disobedience. She used phrases like that.

And I said, "Listen, I will stand with you for your right to express your First Amendment rights. I will stand with you. But not for violence, not for breaking the law, anything like this."

So then James O'Keefe and Project Veritas released their first video that seems to show they want something a little more than just civil disobedience, possibly some things that are pretty dangerous.

GLENN: Is she in the video?

DOC: She is not in the first one. But they mention her in the second one, which was released late yesterday. So after the first one was released, the day before yesterday, we interviewed her yesterday morning, and she said basically that the people in the video that were calling for stink bomb, acid -- I can't remember the type of acid it's called -- to be put in the ventilation or the sprinklers off, that they knew -- and I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially they knew that the person that was talking to them was not one of them. And she said, we knew it was some sort of scam. We didn't know who. It could have been police.

GLENN: So you make it worse?

DOC: That was my question. I said, "Why would you incriminate yourself? They can use this as evidence." And she really didn't have a great answer for that. But she stuck to, this was all just a big ruse that they were putting on for whoever was interviewing them essentially.

GLENN: Right.

Uh-huh.

DOC: And then the video came out yesterday that seems to show a little bit more. So I have a clip if you want to hear it, of yesterday's interview with her, where she mentions a couple of things like that and then also talks about James O'Keefe.

GLENN: Okay. Here it is.

DOC: Once again, I'm going to offer you the opportunity to condemn any acts of violence or anything that would get anybody hurt this week in DC.

LACEY: Well, thanks very much, Doc. This is absolutely something that we articulate and reaffirm at every single one of the meetings of Disrupt J20. And, you know, this is a commitment to harming no one.

DOC: You believe James O'Keefe is working on behalf of Nazis, or he's doing the work of Nazis, white nationalists?

LACEY: Well, he basically is attacking our group, the DC anti-fascist coalition, and our targets are the people who are modern day Nazis.

DOC: They voted for Trump, they're looking for something different. But they don't necessarily stand with the Nazis. I mean, you understand the difference.

LACEY: Well, I think it's pretty clear to me that he's attacking a group that protests Nazis. So that puts him on that side.

GLENN: President-elect Trump until Friday. You don't think that he supports Nazi issues, do you?

LACEY: Well, I think there's basically a reason that these groups have been so celebratory of his policies.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

LACEY: Glenn Beck, your thoughts on that?

GLENN: Quite clearly misguided. I mean, I stand against fascism.

LACEY: Yeah.

GLENN: I stand against Nazis.

To tie Donald Trump -- actually tie him to Nazis is ridiculous. To tie Steve Bannon to the Nazi movement is not. But there is nothing in Donald Trump's history that shows that he is racist. Maybe the thing, Stu, that he went for the casino thing. That's probably the biggest mark of racist. But other than that, in his history, is he -- does he have that tendency that would show that he was a Nazi?

STU: Nazi, no. God, no. You know, even -- you talk about Steve Bannon, I mean, he -- there are obviously a lot of people in the alt-right that embrace those values and send people pictures of them in gas chambers and such.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: But most people --

GLENN: They've sent them to us.

STU: Even Ben Shapiro, who is an ardent critic of Steve Bannon's, has said he doesn't think he believes those things. He's using them for --

GLENN: Oh, I don't think so either. He's using them.

And I think that there is a case to be made that Steve Bannon is connected and using them. And Donald Trump was taking advice from Steve Bannon, but I don't think he's a Nazi.

DOC: It's funny though. There are so many subtle levels of this. Yes, clearly there are people in America that identify with Nazis. These people are crazy, right?

GLENN: But literally --

DOC: But there's many -- it's not everybody automatically in the alt-right, the right or whatever, is a Nazi just because we disagree. There's many, many levels that gets you closer and closer to that.

STU: Even a lot of the Nazis weren't Nazis as we think of them today.

DOC: Right. They were just, I got to do this, right?

STU: Again, that's horrible, but I'm not even talking about -- there were people in the party who didn't do all those things. Even back then, to assign -- it's true. It's true.

GLENN: No, I know it's true. You and I are both -- we're more well read on the Nazi movement than 99 percent of the Nazis.

STU: Right. And there's no reason to draw gray areas about the Nazis.

GLENN: Yes, right.

STU: They're all obviously horrible. My point though is even people who would today identify themselves that way weren't people who have killed 6 million Jews. This is why everyone gets so frustrated with Nazi comparisons. We all know how that ended up, so therefore everyone jumps to the end point of that. However, there was a lot of stuff early on, it wasn't so clear they were going to wind up killing 6 million Jews, even though Hitler very -- was very clear about his intentions.

GLENN: Again, people not taking him literally, but taking him seriously.

STU: Yeah, point is though, you can't compare -- I mean, obviously a comparison like that, where you're just throwing everyone -- half of this freaking country in the boat of Nazis is completely absurd.

GLENN: And to disrupt the inauguration destroys the main thing about America. And that is, we have a peaceful transfer of power.

That is one of the most stabilizing points that we can make to the rest of the world. Look, we strongly disagree. But we always have a -- a peaceful transfer of power. Even though -- I mean, we can compare this -- you know, the -- the Secret Service was not in effect with Abraham Lincoln. We didn't have a Secret Service.

Abraham Lincoln did not understand how divided this country was, until he made it to Baltimore. Most people don't know this, but there was a plot against his life, coming in for his first inauguration from Illinois. And he took the train to Philadelphia. And he was supposed to then take the train to Baltimore the next morning.

What people didn't know is he actually took a train -- he got into Philadelphia, and instead of saying, he went out the back door. And in the cover of darkness, went to -- I want to say like Hershey or someplace in that area. And then took another train in the middle of the night to Washington. And completely bypassed -- actually, no, it wasn't Philadelphia. It was Baltimore. He made it all the way to Baltimore. And it was the next morning they were going to kill him at the train station. So he took another train out and then rerouted to Washington. But it was in him walking, down the street to get out, where he heard all of the anti-Lincoln and anti-North sentiment on the streets. And he couldn't believe it.

He said later, "I didn't understand how divided we were as a country, that there were people willing to kill the people in the North. It wasn't just me."

I think we're close to that point again, to where we are so divided and the extremes on both sides have been so wound up by politicians, that they think now is their moment.

DOC: Imagine if they get what they want on Friday. It's like the dog that catches the car. What are you going to do now? What do you think is going to happen? We disrupted it. He didn't get inaugurated. Everyone is just going to go back to their life. Obama stays president. All hell breaks loose if they disrupt that.

PAT: And he's inaugurated anyway. They'll just go inside and inaugurate him. I mean...

DOC: And he gets inaugurated anyway.

GLENN: That's right. But that's what happens -- that's what people want. There are a great number of people now that want a crackdown. They want the chaos because they want the crackdown.

PAT: And we were such --

GLENN: She says she's anti-fascist. Well, what do you think -- how are fascistic states created? They're created by crackdowns because crackpots went and burned down the Reichstag.

DOC: I thought it was with marshmallows and rainbows. I thought that's how it was created. Wasn't it? Something like that?

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. It's really frightening to see the left -- and, again, the media has called a whole group of people Nazis. Not -- not what I said.

DOC: Right.

GLENN: These are Brownshirt tactics. And there's a difference between Brownshirt tactics and Nazis. While they were both Nazis, one is describing a person and a group of people. The other is saying, "You're using the same tactics here."

DOC: Did you see the second James O'Keefe video? The Project Veritas one? In it, at one point, one of the guys talking, he's like, oh -- this is one of the Disrupt J20 people. Let me call my comrade and see if he can blah, blah, blah.

GLENN: Comrade.

DOC: So you anti-fascist people are communist.

GLENN: Are communist. They're communist.

DOC: You think that's better?

GLENN: Right.

DOC: These are the people that believe that they are opposite sides of the spectrum. I do not believe that.

GLENN: No, they're not. That's total government. Doc, thanks so much for bringing that in.

DOC: Thanks.

GLENN: You know, your mom can fix those pants.

DOC: Okay. I'm flying immediately after this segment to DC. These are my TSA pants. Because, yes, it makes me uncomfortable when TSA touches me. But with these -- because I make them pat me down as part of my civil disobedience.

GLENN: Are they ripped in the butt or something?

DOC: Yes, they are. Right here. See right here. It's definitely going to make them uncomfortable.

PAT: Thank you for sharing that with me by the way. Thank you. That's okay.

DOC: That's for you, Pat. Rump shaker. Rump shaker.

GLENN: All right. Thank you. You've got to go off the set now. We're never going to get --

PAT: Don't you need to hit a flight?

DOC: I do. I got to go. I'm glad you said that.

GLENN: There are some things you can't unsee. And that's one of them.

PAT: I know. Yikes.

GLENN: But Tania and I were in Vegas this weekend, somebody would walk by, and I would be like, "You can't unsee that one." And she's like --

JEFFY: That's what makes Vegas great.

GLENN: -- "But you can replace it. Replace it with that one." And these people were -- oh, there was a woman that I saw at a really nice restaurant, dressed as a very nice hooker, I think. And Tania pointed out, "She might be." And I'm like, "Okay. Yes. I did see Pretty Woman. Maybe she is. But I don't think she was." You know how women go to Vegas and they dress like hookers?

STU: It's actually their city slogan.

GLENN: This woman was -- yeah, this woman was plump. And she honestly had a dress on. And she was probably 40. And she had a dress on where I could see the -- the cheek come down. Okay. I could see the cheek meet the leg.

PAT: Uh-huh. That's great.

GLENN: Now, she was standing with her butt toward me. And I said to Tania, "I'm torn. Because I want her to turn around to see how this works on the front." Because I said, "Just draw a mental line around." So I want to see how this works in the front, and yet I really don't want to --

STU: Especially in a food environment.

JEFFY: You have to see that.

GLENN: No, no.

JEFFY: You can't go to Vegas not to see --

GLENN: Again, there are things you cannot unsee.

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.

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.