Gov. Scott Walker reveals new details of his tax plan modeled after of that of Ronald Reagan

Wisconsin Governor and GOP 2016 hopeful Scott Walker joined Glenn on radio Thursday morning to share his thoughts on the prior night's debate and to dive deeper into some of the policies he has been running on.

Topics ranged from repealing Obamacare to marijuana use to taxes. When Walker expressed frustration that the debate didn't focus enough on the issues, Glenn invited him to set the record straight on radio right then and there.

"You got 10 million people across the nation that listen to this program. So let's take that opportunity right now," Glenn said.

Walker proceeded to explain how his tax plan would follow that of Ronald Reagan, which he said led to the economic boom that occurred thereafter.

"It's pretty similar to what Reagan did. He had two tax rates. Same sort of concept back in 1986. It was 15 and 28 percent. We'd adjust it for current numbers today," Walker said. "We can say to the American people, 'this has worked.' This is not in theory, this is something that has worked."

Listen to the full dialogue or read the transcript below.

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

GLENN: Governor, how are you?

SCOTT: Hey, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on.

GLENN: How did you feel last night?

SCOTT: Well, really I felt like we had scored some real points, if that's what you call it, I guess, in terms of getting the message out. If you want someone who has been tested, I'm the guy. If you want an apprentice, someone who has never been tested before, then you're likely to get someone like we have in the White House right now.

STU: The apprentice line was fantastic.

GLENN: It was.

SCOTT: And I think we used the limited time CNN gave us, even though we tried to get in there many of times, we used it to the best of our effect to get our message out.

GLENN: When you walked off the stage, did you have one opinion of what happened and then you listened to the people, the press and then saw the reviews and everything else and have another, or did they sync up for you?

SCOTT: Oh, I think I knew going in, we knew the narrative, no matter what happened, they were going to say that Carly had a big night no matter what. And obviously they said that. I think the other impression was -- the feedback I got back from folks, not just from the press but from across the country I talked to was a frustration that there wasn't more talk. I mean, I mentioned I broke in at one point and said, "That's what's wrong with this campaign. We're not actually talking about issues. We're talking about personalities." But it seemed pretty clear that CNN was trying to pit people against each other for ratings instead of talking about issues.

GLENN: I will tell you that I heard you say that and I heard a couple of candidates try to get it back. What are we doing? We're attacking each other and the real challenge here are the policies that are -- well, the policies of Donald Trump and the other side of the aisle.

And I think that actually -- at least for me because it was such a circus at times, for me, I actually found myself saying about people like you, even Chris Christie who I'm not for at all, when he was saying some things like that, "I'm like, yeah, fine. Can we just have an adult conversation here, please?"

SCOTT: Right. Because -- I mean, I mentioned briefly, I would have loved to have them question, push back, put me on the spot, I've got a plan to repeal Obamacare. Literally to repeal Obamacare and to get Congress to have to pass it by signing an executive order that requires them to live under the same rules as everybody else. Ask me about it. Probe me about it. Ask me about my tax plan. Ask about energy independence. Ask about using all of the abundance of energy that we have here in America. Ask about any of those things. But those weren't the questions they were asking. It was, "Well, hey, you said this about this person, or you said that about that person." Ironically, one of my sons pointed out something interesting. He said, "Dad, you didn't get asked any of those questions because you don't attack other Republicans. You just attack Hillary Clinton."

PAT: That's a good point.

GLENN: Let me ask you this, Scott. Let's go through some of these things. I know the tax plan of Rand Paul, which I'm in love with. I know the tax plan now -- I heard for the first time, flat tax from --

PAT: Ted Cruz.

GLENN: -- Ted Cruz, which is great. I heard somebody else say they'll abolish the IRS.

PAT: Huckabee.

GLENN: Was that Huckabee?

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: What is your tax plan?

SCOTT: You know, we're going to wrought week by week. So we'll wrought in greater detail. But for us, I mean, I wish I would have got more time. It was right in the Reagan Library. Our plan is modeled after the tax plan of '86, what Ronald Reagan did. You simplify the code. You had two rates. Brought about one of the most extended periods of economic prosperity in American history. There is a model there. It is a proven model. It has worked. A simple flat concept that we've done in the past. It didn't just apply to individuals. I think you have to do the same thing to job creators. We did that. We've actually seen more of these jobs that have parked overseas come back to America. Put more of our fellow Americans back to work. But, again, instead of spending a lot of time talking about that, we were asked about who took a jab at whom and what they thought about that. And I hope in the future we'll have more chances to talk about tax policy, true immigration policy, all sorts of other things.

GLENN: But we have one right now. Hold on just a second. We have that opportunity right now. You got 10 million people across the nation that listen to this program. So let's take that opportunity right now. And let me go back to tax policy. You know, what used to sound really good to me was the Ronald Reagan plan. That -- and if we could get that done, I'd be happy with that. However, we're in such a place now to where I think the bolder the idea, the better the chance of getting it done. Because people are tired of eating around the edges.

Why not abolish the IRS and give me a flat tax? Russia does it. It's 18, 15 percent. Whatever it is. Here's what it is. How much did you make? What's 18 percent. Put it in an envelope and send it to us.

SCOTT: Well, it's pretty similar to what Reagan did. He had two tax rates. Same sort of concept back in 1986. It was 15 and 28 percent. We'd adjust it for current numbers today. To me, it's essentially almost the same sort of thing you're talking about. But the difference being, we can say to the American people, "This has worked." This is not in theory, this is something that has worked. It brought about this extended -- people talk even last night about the 1990s and the balanced budget. The balanced budget wasn't because of Bill Clinton in Congress. The balanced budget was because we were still benefiting from the economic boom -- the residuals of Ronald Reagan's economic policies, not just with tax benefits, but reducing the size and scope of the federal government. Imagine what we could do if we had a Republican leader who was willing to push in the White House to get both the House and the Senate back on these issues, instead of having a split Congress like Reagan did. We could go even further.

GLENN: I had a hard time listening to the nonsense last night about the War on Drugs. You know, marijuana, smoke it, don't smoke it, that's really not the crux of our problems in America, especially when we're about to vote for a deal that says, "Hey, Iran, we're you're buddy and screw Israel." What do you do as president --

SCOTT: It is unbelievable. I mentioned this last night. I'd love to play cards with President Obama because the guy folds on everything. On this deal, almost all the major things he talked about that had to be in the deal are not in the deal. We have moved to Iran when Iran -- I mean, Iran didn't come to us because they wanted to be really nice people. They came because they were on their knees. They were crippled because of economic sanctions that were in place. They were ready. They were ready to give in. And instead of negotiating on our terms, the United States basically backed up and said, "Do whatever you want. Or do just about anything you want out there." We need to terminate the bad deal on day one. To me, anybody who says that they're not prepared to terminate that bad deal on day one is not ready to be president of the United States.

So I spent the time -- and I got knocked on this. President Obama came out and said that I was -- needed to bone up on foreign policy, to which I laughed saying, "This is the guy who called ISIS the JV squad and Yemen a success story." He wants to talk about boning up on foreign policy. Bottom line is it's a bad deal for America. It's a bad deal for Israel. It's a bad deal for the world.

It doesn't just open the door towards a nuclear race in the Middle East. In the short-term, the money that will be freed up from these sanctions being lifted will go, not into helping the Iranian people who really do want to be free of this oppressive government, it will go into Hamas and Hezbollah, some of the worst terrorist activities in the world that are directly aimed at Israel. And, ultimately, for Iran, who hates us just as much as they hate real Israel. This is a bad, bad deal.

GLENN: Let me ask you this, let's switch over to ISIS. I said six years ago that there would be a caliphate established. It would sweep the Middle East. And then it would begin to destabilize Europe and the western world. That is exactly what happened. We are now in the final stage of destabilizing Europe. It's amazing to me that all of the refugees. I should say the vast majority of refugees that you see that are trying to flee into Hungary and everything else all seem to be 20-something guys. You're the only ones. Really? Just these 20-something guys trying to get in everywhere. This is not the way that you save people. This is not -- you know, Saudi Arabia has room for 2 million people. They can take in all kinds of refugees. They should be taking their own kind. How do we separate the Muslims that you don't know who the good Muslims and the bad Muslims are, how do we separate those guys from the Christians who you do know who they are? And how do we do something to help the Christians who don't have a -- any kind of history of trying to behead people?

SCOTT: Well, you got a combination of things. You've got refugees. You've got people seeking asylum. I think there's a difference in asylum. You have to sort that out. And I said we should be taking in more refugees. Because right now, we've already done a lot. In the last year we've permanently settled something like 70,000 refugees in total in the United States. We spent $4 billion.

GLENN: But, Scott, we picked up whole Somali Muslim communities. We're resettling people who don't want to blend and who are Muslims. And a lot of them are Islamists. We're saving the wrong people.

SCOTT: And when you talk about refugees, that's the issue. To me, a refugee is someone who is fleeing, but who ultimately should be restored to their country, which means you have to fix the real problem as opposed to someone seeking asylum who is fleeing from political and sometimes religious persecutions just like you mentioned the Christians there. There is a distinction. But with the refugees, that's why we draw the line and say, "Until we actually deal with Assad, until we deal with ISIS within Syria, why would we be taking any more refugees when we're not fixing the fundamental problem?" We're only going to exacerbate the symptoms of those problems.

GLENN: Would you grant asylum for those who are being marked for death?

SCOTT: Christians, absolutely. The Christians, Jews, others. For people being targeted and persecuted because of their religious beliefs, particularly in that region as Christian, absolutely.

GLENN: Scott, we have -- three, four months ago, we didn't know who you were exactly. We've had great conversations with you. We knew your record. But we didn't know you. And we've been lied to so many politicians that we don't trust any politician anymore. We have grown to like you. The audience has grown to like you even more. And yet your poll numbers are slipping. What do you think this is? What's happening?

SCOTT: Oh, I think -- you know, it's interesting being in the Reagan Library, being reminded that Reagan, even in September of 1979, had some challenges. He was behind, even days before the 1980 election. He came through. And I think right now what you see amongst a lot of the mix of different conservative candidates out there is that there are so many good candidates, and then there's Trump out there who has kind of gotten all the media attention.

I think for a lot of people -- and I see it not just in the polling. We see it out on the campaign trail. Just in Iowa the other day. People routinely say to us, "I like you. I like what you did in Wisconsin. Like your ideas for America. You're one of my top two or three choices." And so they're still trying to sort out between the mix.

They also say, "You know, I'm not high on the -- I'm not excited about the guy that is the frontrunner right now. I like you." They say, "I like Cruz. I like Carson." Whoever it might be. I think in the end, for us, it's about grassroots. We have a good organization in Iowa. We're going to have to get the grassroots out. That's what will make the difference. And we win in the Iowa caucuses, that's what will take us going forward.

GLENN: I have about a minute. Tell me what you would say to somebody who is currently on the bandwagon and not a -- just somebody who is so far gone. But they're on the bandwagon of Trump. They may have been a supporter of yours or somebody else, but they like the fireworks show. Talk to them right now. Why should they come to you? We have about a minute.

SCOTT: You know, I would say, we had an apprentice. We had a novice, somebody we didn't know who they were, where they were going in the White House, someone who said many things that many Americans liked and it didn't work out very well. We don't need to do that again. If you want to take on Washington, if you really want to shake things up, the best way to do it is to get behind somebody who has actually done it. We took on the machine. We took on, not just big government union bosses, all the liberal special interest groups from Washington who tried to stop us. We didn't back down. We fought. We won. We got results. We did it without comprising our conservative principles. If that's what you want out of the next president, then I'm your guy.

GLENN: Scott, I would like to sit down with you and talk to you specifically about progressivism because you are at the belly of the beast and you have taken it on. So maybe sometime in the future we can actually sit down and have a real conversation about some -- some deep issues about what the country has to choose right now.

PAT: Meantime, where do people go if they want to help out?

SCOTT: ScottWalker.com. ScottWalker.com. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

GLENN: Thank you. God bless you. ScottWalker.com.

Featured Image: Scott Walker speaks during the Western Conservative Summit at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado on June 27, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. The Western Conservative Summit attracts thousands of conservatives and a number of prominent politicians; this year the lineup includes Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Scott Walker. (Photo by Theo Stroomer/Getty Images)

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

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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.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

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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.

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.