This interview will leave you speechless: The Lost Boys of Sudan

Glenn had the opportunity to interview Ger Duany and Emmanuel Jal on radio today, two of the stars (and real life lost boys of Sudan) featured in ‘The Good Lie’ from Warner Bros. The movie is getting rave reviews and Glenn calls it a ‘perspective game changer’ that every American needs to see. Ger and Emmanuel tell Glenn of the horrors they escaped as child soldiers in the Sudanese civil war. Unbelievable stuff.

Watch a trailer for the film below:

GLENN: About a week and a half ago, I saw a movie I've been telling you to see. It opens up Friday. And I've been telling you you need to bring everybody you know. You need to bring your family, your friends, your kids. I'm coming back to my house in Dallas in weekend assuming we're not under some Ebola quarantine. I'm bringing my family to the movie theater on Friday night to see this movie. It is tremendous. And probably I think the most important movie at the right time for America.

You will be amazed at this story, uplifted by the story. Horrified by the story, but I think most importantly at least I was shamed by this story. Because it puts our American problems into perspective and it puts our Christianity into perspective. Really. What are we doing with our life? And you see us with the eyes of an outsider. It's called The Good Lie. Stars Reese Witherspoon, but quite honestly when I left the theater a couple of weeks ago, I said to the guys from Warner Brothers, as much as I like to talk to Reese, we can talk to her any time. I want to talk to the Lost Boys. I want to talk to the guys who were in it, especially if they had led a life similar to that. They have, and they're here with us.

Ger Duany is here. He plays Jeremiah in the movie, and Emmanuel Jal, he plays Paul. You guys both, first of all. Hello, welcome, and how are you.

VOICE: Hi, thank you.

GER: Thanks for having us.

GLENN: You guys both grew up kind of similar to the movie. You were in the Sudan, and you were taken and forced to fight as child soldiers. Right?

GER: Yes.

GLENN: What is that like?

GER: Thanks for having us, first of all.

And this film is set in the backdrop of the civil war between the north and south Sudan. In the center of it is our life experiences as a Lost Boy of Sudan who escaped the war in 1987 by foot to Ethiopia. When we reach Ethiopia and the refugee camp which was controlled by the military, we were trained instantly at the age of eight and then stayed in Ethiopia for four, five years. And not only that, in 1991, we encountered the Ethiopian civil war that make us scared everywhere again in Africa. Many of us ran to Kenya and any country that surrounded our country. So I went back to South Sedan and Emanuel the same goes for him. And now we here, we talking about the movie.

GLENN: Did you guys lose all your family as the characters in the movie did?

EMMANUEL: When -- we all have experienced differently because the war reached my family. All my aunts died in the war, including my mom and later to learn my uncles only two that I know that are alive, and so the way you look at it, it's like Hell. So we have experienced Hell on Earth. Sometimes you ask yourself questions if, when we're kids, if this is not Hell, where is the other Hell? Because my mother would tell me that one day the world would end and bad people are going to go to Hell. And so when the bombs dropped -- rained in my village and seeing everything being taken away from me, and I thought that was Hell. And all through our lives, you see six, seven years old, burying their own dead.

GLENN: I saw the scenes in the movie, you know, where I want to live, and so you're drinking your own urine, and a leader is I don't even know, what, eight or ten years old, of this small little group that goes out. He's now the chief.

And the things that these kids are having to deal with. Nobody in America thinks of things like this.

GER: Yeah, our war was very brutal. Especially the previous one was very brutal. Not as much as the current one that's going on now. And you're watching that movie, you see those kids drinking their own urine, it's real. Because in our area, it's dry. To find water, you just have to bet your entire life. Those kind of events they really happen, in this movie, because we're just in a surviving mode.

GLENN: Okay. I want to make sure that you as a listener, please don't think this is a depressing movie. Because I hear this stuff, and I say I don't want to see a movie about the Sudan and the civil war because that sounds depressing. It's really shocking.

EMMANUEL: It's a testimony.

GLENN: I don't know how you guys did it, but it's so uplifting.

EMMANUEL: It's a testimonial movie. Anyone who come there will see how life is. And also for people who have faith, you will see what faith can do. Because faith is the substance of the things hoped for and evidence of the unseen.

Myself, I would put an experience at one point. When you talk about the urine place, we all have an experience. But one of the lowest point I ever had was when I was tempted to eat my friend when we ran out of food. So my friend was dying. And I told him, 'I'm going to eat you tomorrow.' But I remember what my mother used to do. So she come from the church. So she used to pray. So I prayed to my mother's God, and I say, God, if you can give me something to eat today, one day when I survive, I'm going to give the testimony and give the credit to you.

So if you look at the movie, the Bible is a star in its own right.

GLENN: It is. And yet it's not jammed down anybody's throat. I mean, it's very subtly done and beautifully done, but it is the rock that you tie yourself to. Can I ask what happened, you found food the next day?

EMMANUEL: What happened is when I prayed -- because cannibalism started. We're eating snails, vultures. We ran out of food, and we're a group of 2- to 400 young people. We plan an escape. In the end, only 16 people survived in the end.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

EMMANUEL: And a crow was the one that answered my prayer that became the block to prevent me from eating my friend.

GER: You know, to add something to that, you know it's true. We have experienced a lot of famine in our area during the civil war, especially 1991 famines has killed thousands of us, let alone the disease. You know, like, we're sitting here. I know like what it is like to be hungry while you're healthy and you really needed it and you can't find it. It's crazy. If you attempted to eat your comrade, that's something -- I'm scared of this guy now.

EMMANUEL: I mean, I've never been in a situation like that where your senses change. My senses changed where, because we haven't showered for days. We haven't eaten, and then my fellow human being smell like dry meat. That's how people smell, those that die. They don't smell rotten. They smell like dry meat. And one time I went under the tree hoping I could find any pieces to eat when nobody is able to see me.

GER: That's like the dry season. I remember like '92 probably like it was a rainy season. There's nothing because nobody cultivated nothing. So how we used to just eat grass and leaves? Then when you go and take a load, and then it come out as greenness. It went through your mouth.

GLENN: So when you guys got here after everything that you saw, this is the part of the movie that really was exceptionally hard for me because you love your characters by the time you get to America. You just love all of you. You're just really -- you two in particular are just exceptional on screen. And then you come here, and Reese Witherspoon shows up and you immediately dislike her because she has no concept and she doesn't care.

No one can relate in our arrogance. No one in our arrogance can relate. So what -- when you really came over as Lost Boys, did you -- what was your experience like?

Jeremiah, the character Jeremiah you played, when he's out in the back of the store and he's like, wait a minute. All this food and you want to help that homeless person. Did you have those kinds of experiences?

GER: We have. Yes, I have those kinds of experiences, but not exactly as Jeremiah encountered those. But to talk about his character, I think he found himself captivated in a society where it's not moving a lot. And you see him in a grocery store where there's so much food, but it has to be thrown away. So things was not adding up to him.

GLENN: You're thinking about I'm going to eat my dude over here. You got to throw away all this perfectly good food. This is nuts.

GER: Yeah. I viewed the boss as a lion. So lion when they speak, metaphorically, it doesn't really mean a lion that ate Paul. This really is a lion in terms of human being that is smart to you and being cruel at the same time. I think that's what Isaiah was referring to.

So in my personal life, when I came here in 1994, we came here to the Lutheran church. And we were like the first group of guys before everybody knew about the Lost Boys of Sudan. They just knew we were a refugee who came to this part of the world. So we didn't know anything. Everything was learning from the very beginning. And that's when I can admit that we are really a lost generation from war.

And later on, we decided to turn to each other and find a strength for what this guy did in the movie. And things came in society where we were welcomed.

GLENN: You guys are both highly successful now. You've done very famous modeling. You've done albums or CDs, and all kinds of stuff, the two of you. Successful.

How have you not lost -- or have you -- how have you not lost that -- how have you not become part of the problem? How do you not become part of yeah, I got all this and it's disposable it's great. It's never going to end.

EMMANUEL: I think that's not the case.

GLENN: The one you play, your character, he does lose his way.

EMMANUEL: He lost his way in so many way because he wasn't focused, and he had so many hopes and dreams, and it wasn't the life that he was hoping.

But in terms of where you're asking about experiences when you come into a new world. If I try to compare the experiences in the movie and actually what I experienced, because in the movie, it's Paul, just to try to see how this shock and how Jeremiah's situation was. The first time I was brought into an organized place, a complex society, where there's toilet in a room, you know, what fascinated me was a toilet. You know, when you go to that toilet. I was wondering when somebody download a file, how that machine takes everything away in front of you. And then clean water comes, and then what I used to do. It's imagination.

So I used to think probably a snake would come out. So when I'm using it. I have to stand hoping when I download the file, probably a snake wouldn't bite me. I just hold it. And so that's one experience.

And if I try to connect it back to Ger's experience coming here, I was in Kenya. I see the TV. I watch the movies about aliens, and I'm reading the Bible. And when I was shock about the cathedrals, the big buildings, the bridges, the train system, and everything, and in my head, I kind of like concluded and said, probably white people are the fallen angels or maybe they're aliens. It took me a while to actually know that these people are normal human beings.

So, I mean, I could go on and on. The life we are living now we've been transformed. I mean, we come from a situation where we're starving at one point. Now, we have plenty to eat. At one time, I was trying to tell kids that I am in a place where I choose to eat one meal a day. And the kids what do you mean, we eat one meal a day? I told them, in this place, people die of fatness. And one kid said, wow, that's the coolest death ever.

And so -- and now you see me like I have music out there. So the truth is this movie we just did, I happened to an album called the Keys. There were two songs are now in the movie. One song is featuring Nelly Furtado.

And so the transformation of our life, we're in a dream. We can't actually believe it. We don't even know how to thank God. Because we've been transformed. The way you look at it, we came from the bottom like lobsters, and now we're rolling at the top like rock stars, you know.

GLENN: It is a pleasure to have you two, and I can't thank you enough for your work and please let everybody know in the movie just how grateful I am that you made it and you made it with such care and such heart. It is truly a masterpiece. Just fantastic movie.

GER: Thank you so much. The sad thing, the thing is we're promoting -- I just came from refugee camp like three weeks ago and the same people we doing the movie about them they are in the refugee camp right now because no country to stand as new state plunged back into civil war. We have dictators. We have a lot of corruption in the country and a lot of famine is killing a lot of children. So this movie right here, not that it's a lost boy story it's a story for humanity and our message to the world is that come support the children of Sudan. Help us find the help that we need that we got from you guys which is American. Because our country --

GLENN: Are you guy on TV with me tomorrow? Do you know?

GER: I'm not sure.

GLENN: I would like to pursue that with you and talk about that.

GER: Please. We enjoy your moment now, though.

GLENN: Thank you so much. The name of the movie is The Good Lie. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Please go see this movie. It opens this weekend in theaters everywhere. It's from the same people that brought us The Blind Side. It's really, really high quality. Really well-done and one of the best stories I've seen in a long time. The Good Lie in movie theaters beginning Friday.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

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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

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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.

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.