GLENN: I am honored to bring on the chairman of CPAC. Matt Schlapp. Matt is a guy who I think I told you a year or two ago, I had a kind of falling out with CPAC because it'll they were welcoming in a lot of people that were not necessarily good for the Constitution and didn't really like to have voices that pointed out that progressives can be Republicans as well.
Matt took over, I don't know, a couple of years ago and has really done a great job with CPAC. He invited me to speak last year. And they invited me to speak again this year. This year, I can't make it because of a prior commitment. We're on our way to Bangkok, the night that CPAC starts. Otherwise, I would be there. Because this is a really important CPAC.
The conservative movement has to really come together and decide who they are, what are the principles. What are our founding principles? And do they still mean anything?
Ted Cruz is going to be there. Sheriff David Clarke is going to be there. Matt Bevin. Oh, man. Jim DeMint. Mike Pence. Don't know if President Trump is going to be there yet. Matt Schlapp is joining us now. Hello, Matt, how are you?
MATT: Glenn, great to be with you?
GLENN: Good to be with you. Is President Trump coming?
MATT: You know, I'm hopeful that he'll come, but I can't say that we have confirmation yet.
GLENN: Okay. The theme -- you and I talked about a few weeks ago about the theme. Explain the theme of this year's CPAC.
MATT: We, the people, reclaiming America's promise. We feel like two things, number one, like you throughout the last decade, we've lost so much of what we want America to be and what America is supposed to be. And number two, we think that activists need to be reminded of the principles of our founding. And our executive director Dave Schneider makes every intern memorize the definition of what conservatism is from -- from a wide variety of viewpoints. And that definition, he believes is best said that conservatism is the philosophy that sovereignty resides in the individual.
It's amazing, such a basic term -- or basic concept, how far our government gets from that.
And so I know CPAC is fun. And I know people come to hear from great leaders like yourself, Glenn. And we were so pleased you could be there last year. And, you know, we were disappointed that the scheduling doesn't allow you to be here this year, but we want you to know we want you back. We want you back as often as you can. Because you have an important voice. People want to listen to those voices. But they also need to learn, and they also need to be sometimes reeducated, re-indoctrinated about why we were founded because so many of our institutions and, you know, mainstream leaders don't do that well.
GLENN: So, Matt, there is a -- there is a disturbing trend around the world towards nationalism. Can you explain the difference between nationalism and conservatism?
MATT: Yeah. Yeah. You know, conservative -- one of the things I thought you said great leading up to CPAC last year and in your remarks is, you know, you talked about this idea that there had been a pledge amongst the different Republican candidates. And you'll say it more eloquently than I will, Glenn, but you talked about the fact that we still pledge ourselves to a party, right? We pledge ourselves to our ideals. We make a commitment to our ideals.
And I think conservatism obviously is something innate in the human being. And so if sovereignty resides in the individual, I think it's important for people to understand who gave us that sovereignty, and that's our creator, obviously.
And so when people get pumped up on Americanism or nationalism -- I'm okay with those terms, as long as it means sovereignty and the understanding that we did come together to create a government and allow the government to have authority over us in certain areas because we've given it to them. I'm great with that concept of sovereignty.
GLENN: Yeah, if America doesn't mean the place -- you know, being pro-American doesn't mean the place. You know, I love the American flag.
Well, you know, I think it's nice. But I love what the flag stands for. I mean, America is an idea. And it's the idea that we should be holding high, not the things that represent the idea, but the actual idea.
MATT: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And, look, and I think we are trying to reacquaint ourselves politically with what these terms mean. Because I feel like there are so many Americans that feel abandoned. And that can lead to good things and bad things.
When you feel abandoned, it can have you reevaluate what you think and strengthen you and those things that are important. And it can also lead you to bad places. And, you know, our country is searching. And I'm confident that we're going to end up in the right place.
GLENN: So the Obamacare repeal. The -- I had a senator write me yesterday and say -- and he sent me a Politico article, and he said, "My gosh, this is frightening." And it was how the G.O.P. is turning on itself. And starting to eat its -- you know, eat its own. But there are real issues that are at stake here. You know, what -- are we playing -- are we playing games?
For instance, the G.O.P. that is turning against, you know, building the wall saying, "Look, we'll build the wall, but you got to pay for it first." How do you see this coming together, Matt?
MATT: Well, the legislative. Standing for borders, standing for Obamacare repeal, standing for free market health care in a rhetorical sense is the easy part, Glenn. You know that, right?
GLENN: Yeah.
MATT: The hard part is: How do you bring this together practically?
GLENN: And doing it constitutionally.
MATT: Right. Right. Whatever that means anymore.
GLENN: Right.
MATT: When the Constitution can mean almost anything. You know, it's almost like a throwaway line, when people say "constitutionally." But I know you don't mean that. But, I mean, in our society today, it's like we literally have to go back and read it to people and say, "And here's what those words mean." Right?
As you did last year in your speech at CPAC which was great. Because we have to make the old fresh again by reminding folks that all of these controversies actually surround the concepts that we're the reason that we disagreed to a Constitution. And so when you look at the practical nature of all of the things Donald Trump and the Republican candidates who ran for president and all those senators and congressmen ran on, now they're demonstrating, yes, we know as conservatives that they were right in what they said in eliminating -- in repealing Obamacare. Cutting taxes and getting rid of the regulatory state and appointing constitutionalists to the bench. But now we have to be practical and actually do it in a way that works.
We're not good at that, Glenn. So I don't want to be -- tell you that I think we have it licked and it's going to be easy. I think it's going to be really tough. And you get down to the point where, do you get 100 percent of what you want? Do you get 91 percent of what you want? Does the practical get you too far away from the principles that you are trying to uphold?
GLENN: Talking to Matt Schlapp. He's the head of CPAC. Which CPAC happens -- it's starting next Thursday, right?
MATT: Yeah, it's actually a week from today. Which, for those of us organizing, it is always a little scary, as you can imagine.
A week from today, Wednesday -- next Wednesday, we start with our boot camp, which is training for our activists. We always have about over 1,000 activists that come together on the first day of CPAC, that just simply learn to be better activists.
But you're right, the main program starts a week from tomorrow, the 23rd, and runs through Saturday, the 25th.
GLENN: Okay. So, Matt, have you noticed -- I've really tried to take a page from Milton Friedman who did this so well, where he would sit down and talk to anyone. I mean, he was a regular guest on The Phil Donahue Show for a while.
MATT: He was.
GLENN: And he could talk to anybody. And he was just this reasonable guy who stood by what he believed. I think there's a real opportunity now for conservatives to take this approach and ratchet things down because I'm shocked at the number of people on the left that are suddenly finding federalism as a really good idea.
(laughter)
MATT: You're right because they're seeing so much failure around them. Epic failure. And even they might be saying, "Hey, you know, maybe -- you know, most mayors in this country are Democrats now." You know, that's a real shift over the last 20 years. So maybe they like the idea that some of these mayors get to make some of these decisions.
Now, maybe that's not the way you or I or your listeners would view federalism. But anything we can do to get power and influence and money out of DC is a good thing. That being said, there's a lot of bad things that happen at state capitols.
GLENN: Yeah. What I'm looking at is this weird opportunity that I've never seen coming, where we have a lot in common with some not necessarily leftists, but Democrats, to where -- and, again, not the party. But people in the middle of the country are starting to say, look, I don't want to be afraid of the president. Right. Right. We should rebalance back to the Constitution.
MATT: That's right. Yeah, and separation of powers is the first doctrine, which talks more about the federal government.
GLENN: Right.
MATT: But also the concept of the Tenth Amendment, where so many of these authorities don't even belong here. How did they even get here? How did they get to DC? They don't belong here. And one of the things we're working on at ACU, is we love our conference, CPAC, but we're operational 365 days a year, and we have this great project called the Family Prosperity Index, which is run out of our C3. It's completely nonpartisan. And we're looking at the health of families in all 50 states. We rank all 50 states on the health of families.
And you know what we do, Glenn? We don't moralize or try to implement sermons into the public policy? We simply look at all the government data that comes out -- by the way, the government tracks us, as you know, in every conceivable way.
And we take in all that data and put it into an index so we can actually tell states, you know, if they're doing a good job with their families or not doing a good job with their families when it comes to public policy. And we've actually went to Rhode Island and talked to liberals who showed up. And they were shocked to know in Rhode Island, they spend about the most on their safety net programs, and the health of their families is about at the bottom of the pack. And even they were like, "Well, this is not what we want. We don't want unhealthy families in Rhode Island."
GLENN: Uh-huh.
MATT: So you're right. There's a huge opportunity to kind of break down these barriers.
GLENN: Matt Schlapp. CPAC, which begins next week, February 22nd through the 25th in Washington, DC.
MATT: That's right.
GLENN: You can get tickets at CPAC.org. I urge you to go. They have a great lineup this year. And I so appreciate, Matt, the invitation to join next year. If you have the dates, I'll put it on my calendar for next year.
MATT: Really -- we really want you there. We're sorry you can't be there this year, but you're a busy guy. We're all busy. You can't be at something every year. But we want you back next year.
GLENN: You got it.
MATT: We appreciate your voice. It's an important voice for the movement.
GLENN: Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate it.
MATT: Thank you, Glenn.
GLENN: Grab your tickets at CPAC.org. And we'll be telling you beginning next week why we're going to Bangkok. But I'm going to Bangkok and the whole show is going. And we have something pretty aggressive that we want to announce. And we would ask for your help with. And we'll tell you more about that beginning next week. And then we leave for Bangkok -- is it Thursday we leave? I think we leave for Bangkok Thursday and we arrive maybe Tuesday. I mean, it's --
STU: It's actually --
GLENN: I've never gone to the other side of the earth.
STU: Yeah, that's really far. Really far.
JEFFY: Really far.
GLENN: Yeah, it's a long -- satellite is a lot easier.
STU: I was looking at one of the flights. I sorted for shortest time on Orbitz just to see what it was. It was 14 hours to Tokyo, then another seven hours to Bangkok.
PAT: That's only 21 hours.
STU: That's long.
PAT: It's not even a full day when you think about it.
GLENN: Right! Oh -- oh, cry me a river. You don't want to sit in the chair and watch TV for 21 hours. Actually, no, I don't.
PAT: No. But...
GLENN: No, I don't.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.
We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.
A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.
That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.
Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.
Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.
But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.
Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.
When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.
Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images
So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.
Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.
The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.
Will you join it, or will you stand against it?
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
