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Glenn's Show Prep

The true history of the Republican Party

April 28, 2015
Radio Clips

The Glenn Beck Program

As promised, this morning on radio, Glenn revealed the true history of the Republican party in relation to the Civil Rights Movement. Glenn used an article from Gateway Pundit entitled "ON MLK Jr Day-Here's the realy history of the US Civil Rights Movement You Won't Read About" by Jim Hoft as one of his main sources doing his on-air history lesson.

During the program, Glenn pointed out that he is not a member of the Republican party, saying "I'm not here as a Republican shill...They've lost their way. But let's get history right."

Why is the history of a political party so important? Who cares if someone labels themself a Democrat or a Republican, right? As Glenn said, "Why are we having to explain ourselves?" Because, it was the Republican party that fought for the Civil Rights movement and the right to vote. As Glenn said: "we have to stand up for ourselves...enough is enough...Here's who we are! Here's who you are. Why are we defending our record? Our record is fine...We should be putting them [Democrats] on the offense and asking them to explain their record...in every city that they have destroyed."

Watch some of the facts and Glenn's powerful argument below. A full transcript has been provided so you can have all the facts, as well as, the link to the original article at Gateway Pundit.

Rough Transcript Below:

GLENN: The left is rejecting Bruce Jenner because he has said he is a Republican. And the Republicans are the ones that have always been the sticks in the mud. The Republicans are the ones that have the problems. They're the racists. They're the haters. I just want to go through history. And I want to take you -- I want to take you from 18 -- 1862 to 1870. 1871.

And I just want to -- I want to show you the roots of the Republican Party. What was -- why -- who was the first Republican president?

Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party started in the 1850s. It gathered steam because there was enough -- listen to this. There were enough Whigs and enough Democrats that afternoon that what was happening with slaves was wrong. And they knew the Whigs and the Democrats wouldn't do anything. Congress was just stalled on it and wouldn't do anything. Does this sound familiar? Finally on both sides, they said enough is enough. And within a decade, they had nominated and elected the first Republican president of the United States. Abraham Lincoln. And had you seen him? Not an easy election.

January 1st, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued in 1862. January 1, 1863, it starts. And they begin to implement the Republicans Confiscation Act of 1862. The Democratic party continues to support slavery. February 9th, 1864, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton deliver over 100,000 signatures to US Senate supporting -- when you think -- when you hear those two names. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton, which party do you think of? It's women's rights. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton deliver over 100,000 signatures to the U.S. Senate supporting the Republican plan for the constitutional amendment to ban slavery.

June 15, 1864, Republican Congress votes for equal pay for African-American troops serving in the U.S. Army. June 28, 1864, Republican majority in Congress repeals the Fugitive Slave Act. October 29, 1864, African-Americans abolitionist, Sojourner HEP Truth says to President Lincoln, I was never treated by anyone with more kindness than he has shown me. January 31st, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery passed the US House with unanimous Republican support and intense Democratic opposition.

The Republican support, 100 percent. The Democratic party support, 23 percent.

That's to ban slavery.

March 3rd, 1865, Republican Congress establish Free Men's Bureau to provide healthcare, education, and technical assistance to emancipated slaves. That's the Republican Congress.

April 8th, 1865, Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery passed by the US Senate. Republican support, 100 percent. Democrat support, 37 percent.

June 19th -- on June Teenth, US troops land in Galveston, Texas, to enforce a ban on slavery that has been declared for more than two years by the Emancipation Proclamation.

November 22nd, 1865, Republicans denounce Democratic legislature of Mississippi for enacting black codes, which institutionalized racial discrimination. 1866, Republican Party passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to protect the rights -- did you even know there was one?

The Republican Party passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to protect the rights of newly freed slaves.

December 6th, 1865, the Republican party's Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery is ratified.

1865, the KKK launches as a, quote, terrorist arm, end quote, of the Democratic party.

PAT: Of the what party?

GLENN: The Democratic party. The Klan.

PAT: Wait. The KKK.

STU: You mean the Tea Party? You said Democratic party. I think you meant Tea Party.

GLENN: Democratic party.

February 5th, 1866, US representative Thaddeus HEP Stevens, Republican from Pennsylvania, introduces legislation successfully opposed by Democratic President Andrew Johnson to implement forty acres at a mule relief by distributing land to former slaves. Stopped by the Democrats.

April 9th, 1866, Republican Congress overrides Democratic President Johnson's veto, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, conferring rights of citizenship on African-Americans, and it becomes law. The Democratic president vetoed the Civil Rights Act. The Republicans stood when they knew what they were all about.

April 19th, 1866, thousands assembled in Washington, DC, to celebrate Republican party's abolition of slavery. May 10th, 1866, US House passes Republican's Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteed due process and equal protection of the laws to all citizens. 100 percent of the Democrats vote no.

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: I am not a fan of the Republican Party. I'm not here as a Republican shill. I don't like them. I'm not a member of the Republican Party. They've lost their way. But let's get history right.

June 8th -- sorry, July 16th, 1866. Republican Congress overrides Democratic President Andrew Johnson's veto of the Free Men's Bureau Act, which protects former slaves from black codes denying their rights.

July 28th, 1866, Republican Congress authorized formation of the buffalo soldiers. Yes, the buffalo soldiers, two regiments of African-American's calvary men.

July 30th, 1866, Democratic controlled city of New Orleans orders police to storm racially integrated Republican meetings. The raid kills 40. Wounds more than 150.

January 8th, 1867, Republicans override Democratic President Johnson's veto of a law granting voting rights to African-Americans in D.C.

July 19th, 1867, Republican Congress overrides the veto of legislation protecting the voting rights of all African-Americans.

March 30th, 1868, Republicans being impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson who declared, this country is for white men. And by God as long as I'm president, it shall be a government of white men.

You never learn that. When we had the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, they always talked about Johnson, but they never taught us this part of history, did they? Ever heard that quote?

PAT: No.

GLENN: You know why? He was a Democrat. May 20th, 1868, Republican National Convention marks the debut of an African-American politician. In fact, many. Two of them, Pinckney Pinchback and James Harris attended as delegates and several serve as presidential electors.

1868, July 9, Fourteenth Amendment passes and recognizes newly freed slaves as US citizens. The Republican Party support, 94 percent. Democratic support, zero.

September 3rd, 1868, twenty-five African-Americans in Georgia legislature, all Republicans expelled by Democratic majority. Later reinstated by Republican Congress.

September 12th, 1868, civil rights activist, Tunist Cambell HEP and all other African-Americans in the Georgia Senate, every one a Republican, expelled by a Democratic majority. They were later reinstated by a Republican Congress.

September 28th, 1868, Democrats in Louisiana murder nearly 300 African-Americans who tried to prevent an assault against a Republican newspaper editor. We're coming back to this one.

October 7, 1868, Republicans denounce Democratic Party's national campaign theme. The Democratic Party's national campaign theme in 1868. Do you know what it was?

This is a white man's country, let white men rule. We're the Democratic Party.

PAT: Jeez. Wow.

GLENN: October 22, 1868, while campaigning for reelection, Republican James Hines HEP is assassinated by Democratic terrorists who were organized as the KKK.

November 3rd, 1868, Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeats Democratic Seymour HEP in a presidential election. Seymour HEP has denounced the Emancipation Proclamation.

December 10th, '69, Republican governor, John Campbell of Wyoming territory. Republican governor of Wyoming. Signs the first in-nation law granting the right to women to vote and to hold Republican -- sorry, to hold office. A Republican.

February 3rd, 1870. US House ratifies the Fifteenth Amendment. Democratic support, 3 percent. Republican support, 97.

February 25, 1870, Hiram HEP Rhodes becomes the first black seated in the U.S. Senate. Becoming the first black in Congress and the first black senator.

PAT: It was the next year when the Republican War on Women began, right, 1871?

STU: We're about to get to that.

PAT: There we go.

GLENN: I'm going to skip a whole 'nother page of these. Because I want to get to something here at the end.

February 28th, 1871, Republican Congress enforces -- passes the Enforcement Act, providing federal protection for African-American voters. March 22nd, 1871, Spartanberg HEP Republican newspaper denounces Klan. The Klan campaigned to eradicate the Republican Party in South Carolina.

That brings us to this. Remember I said, September 28th, 1868, a mob of Democrats massacred nearly 300 African-American Republicans in Louisiana. It began when racist Democrats attacked a newspaper editor, a white Republican and a school teacher for X slaves. Several African-Americans rushed to the assistance of their friends. And in response, Democrats, quote, went on a Negro hunt killing every African-American. All of whom were Republicans. As all African-Americans at the time were.

April 28th, 1871, the Republican Congress enacts the anti-Ku Klux Klan act, outlawing the Democratic Party terrorist group. Which oppressed African-Americans.

That's who these people were.

PAT: You didn't even get to the 1960s. 1950s. 1960s.

GLENN: No. I didn't even get to the 1930s. The 1930s are pretty --

PAT: But as late as the '60s, it was Republicans passing civil rights. Republicans pushing for it. Republicans voting for it. Democrats fighting against it. People like Al Gore Sr. fighting against it. People like Lyndon Baines Johnson, HEP the hero of the left, fighting against it at first.

GLENN: People saw some of that if they saw Selma. They saw how racist this guy was. And I contend they're still this racist. Look at what they've done to the great city of Detroit. Look what those policies have done. Look what it's brought on to the African-American. Look at what the great Democratic policies have done to the city of Washington, DC. To the city of Philadelphia.

Name any city --

PAT: Cleveland.

GLENN: Where the Democrats have ruled since the 1960s. At some point, you say, this doesn't make any sense. At some point you say, I'm not getting any better. This is not helping me.

They are -- they are playing this card again. And this time, we have to stand up for ourselves. This time we have to stand up and say, enough is enough. I know your record. I know who you are. See, I have in the vaults, here at the Mercury Studios. I have the anti-Democratic and anti-Republican literature that went back and forth. The Republicans used to defend themselves.

They used to say, I've had enough! Here's the record! Here's who we are! Here who you are. Why are we defending our record? Our record is fine. Why are we defending our record? We should be putting them on the offense and asking them to explain their record, in Detroit, in Cleveland, in Philadelphia, in Washington. In every city that they have destroyed.

Why are we having to explain ourselves?

Now they're doing it with another class of people. Gays. Women.

Remember, it was the Republicans that gave you the right to vote in the first place. The first time, they had to drag the progressives, kicking and screaming.

Let's stop taking it and being quiet. With love and peace and armed with the facts. It's time to go to battle.

Because it's only going to get harder from here. When Hillary Clinton says what she said over the weekend, play it, Pat. This is so critical for you to hear. This is a -- this is possibly what the press will tell you is the next president of the United States. Hillary Clinton. In a speech just this weekend said this.

HILLARY: Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases, have to be changed.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Your deep-seated religious belief has got to change. Game on, gang. It is here.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.