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Glenn's Show Prep

The Inconvenient Sequel to Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' Debunked

July 31, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Monday on radio, Glenn talked with Cato Institute expert Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, about Al Gore's latest movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.

"This is probably going to surprise you, but his central claim is that he was even more right than he thought," Epstein said.

In the film, Gore points to the success of the 100 percent renewable city of Georgetown, Texas --- but 100 percent isn't entirely accurate.

"Imagine that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, wants to cross the ocean without using fossil fuels. He doesn't want to just have a sailboat, right? Well, what does he need? He needs fuel, diesel or some form of oil fuel. So how is he going to be 100 percent solar and wind?" Epstein asked, hypothetically.

Al Gore to the rescue.

"In addition to the engine that's really doing the work, let's put a sail on top of the yacht so that, you know, it gets a little bit of power from the wind. And then [Gore] said, well, Tim Cook, we'll pay the other passenger so they say they got the energy from the engine and you got the energy from the sail," Epstein explained.

Glenn and his co-hosts reacted strongly to the explanation.

"That is awesome," Stu said.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"That is awesome," Pat said.

"Oh, my gosh," Glenn said.

"You have to admire it at some level. At some devious level, you have to admire it," Stu said.

"Oh, my gosh," Pat said.

Listen to the full interview for Epstein's recommended approach to debunking climate propaganda --- and why he says there's hope for the future.

GLENN: Welcome to the program, Alex. I am happy to say, I did not go to the -- to the opening weekend of Al Gore's new movie. I'm sure people were beating a path to its door to see all of the truth.

Did he address in the movie, Alex, at all the -- the idea that almost everything he said in the last movie was wrong?

ALEX: This is probably going to surprise you, but his central claim is that he was even more right than he thought.

STU: Wow! What a surprise.

PAT: I love that.

GLENN: Really? Really?

How -- how exactly was he right?

ALEX: Well, one thing that he does is with some of the specific predictions, such as the 20-foot rise in sea levels, he acknowledges them at the beginning and then makes some other points and then pretends that they've been acknowledged and that he's been vindicated. So one of them is I guess clever for that reason, to acknowledge and then to act like you've dealt with them. Which is more powerful than I guess not dealing with them -- or, not acknowledging them.

But I think it's important that the central narrative of the movie is that, A -- you indicated this before -- the Georgetown renewables are taking over the energy world, so fossil fuels are no longer necessary. And, B, climate is more dangerous than ever. Those are the two threads. And he says rightly that those were the two threads of the first movie. So a lot of it hinges on, are those two claims true? And they're not.

GLENN: Okay. Well, take me to the 100 percent renewable city like Georgetown, Texas.

ALEX: So you see a really interesting image because you see this very self-satisfied mayor. And Gore is very happy because this is allegedly the reddest county and the reddest city and the reddest state and the reddest country. Blah, blah, blah. Right? And they're using 100 percent renewable.

Now, the first thing you see if you're a serious viewer is just a lot full of gasoline costs. So this should -- and renewable energy, not renewable electricity.

So this should be a giveaway. And then more broadly, I think if you think about it, you should know that, well, solar and wind are unreliable sources. The proper name for them is not renewables. It's unreliables. So how -- how is the whole town going to be powered at night and in different weather conditions? That should be suspicious, and they should at least give you an explanation if such a magical feat is to be pulled off.

That doesn't happen at all. So if you look into it, this is actually a pretty standard dishonest practice. What happens is there's a grid that has a bunch of reliable sources and then a little bit of unreliable energy. And then people who want to look really good, they pay the grid to say, "Hey, we want credit for all the unreliable energy." So in this case, there's something like 14 percent renewable, which includes hydro, which is reliable. But there's a solar wind portion.

So Georgetown makes a contract with the grid that says, hey, we want you to label all of our grid electricity solar and wind and everybody else as dirty, and we'll pay for that. And that's what Apple and Facebook and Google do. So it's just a pure accounting fraud.

PAT: Wow. That's amazing.

GLENN: Wait. How do you do that? How do you -- they -- if I have -- if I have a -- if I'm connected to the grid and I am using let's say solar. I can only use so much solar for so long during the day. If I'm not using all that solar, I put it back into the grid and then I can claim that I am completely clean, even though at night I may not be using batteries? I may be using the grid?

ALEX: Right. This is -- this is a much worse version of that because it's just -- the percentages are so vastly different. I mean, I've thought about it this way. Imagine that -- you know, with Apple. Imagine that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, wants to cross the ocean without using fossil fuels. He doesn't want to just have a sailboat, right? Well, what does he need? He needs fuel, diesel, or some form of oil fuel. So how is he going to be 100 percent solar and wind?

And so that's Al Gore's basic solution as well. In addition to the engine that's really doing the work, let's put a sail on top of the yacht so that, you know, it gets a little bit of power from the wind. And then he said, well, Tim Cook, we'll pay the other passenger so they say they got the energy from the engine and you got the energy from the sail.

(laughter)

STU: That is awesome.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: That is awesome.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

STU: You have to admire --

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

STU: You have to admire it at some level. At some devious level, you have to admire it.

GLENN: So he says the -- catastrophic temperature rise. Sea level rises. Flooding, drought, storms and disease. All of that has come true. Can you take those apart, one by one?

ALEX: Well, can I take them apart all at once and then we can do one by one?

GLENN: Oh, sure. Yeah.

ALEX: Because I think as a viewer of this movie, we have a responsibility, which is to demand that people who document important issues give us the whole picture about those issues. So one thing we should ask ourselves is, what would the whole picture look like? What kind of evidence would we need? And in terms of a climate catastrophe, climate getting catastrophic dangerous, the number one thing we would need to know is what is the trend? What is the global trend? Not just one example, but what is the global trend of climate-related deaths? People dying from storms and floods. Because this is what Gloria is claiming is worse.

Now, anyone watching this movie would infer -- because Gore doesn't give this data, but they would infer that millions of people a year are dying from climate and this is worse than ever. But, in fact, if you look back, millions of people used to die from climate before we were industrialized fully. So in the '30s, you had millions of people who died from climate.

But last year, I don't think anyone could imagine this. They tallied all climate-related deaths from international disaster database from stores -- international disaster database from storms and floods and heat and cold everything that is supposedly getting worse. And last year, the worst year ever -- it's always the worst year ever, there were 6,114 climate-related deaths, globally

GLENN: Wow.

STU: That's a huge drop. It's over 90 percent from not too long ago, less than 100 years ago.

PAT: Hmm.

ALEX: Right. And it's because nature doesn't give us a safe climate that we make dangerous. It gives us a dangerous climate that we make safe.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Have you seen -- I saw an article this weekend about the permafrost melting. And they were talking about how in Siberia, these giant holes are opening up. And in the article -- I mean, the headline was something like, climate change, you know, disaster. Permanent frost melting. And I click on it.

And in the article, it quotes scientists as saying, this has nothing to do with climate change. This has something to do with the -- I don't even know. The axis, or the tilt of the earth has changed -- something has changed. But it has nothing to do with climate.

Have you read about this at all?

ALEX: Well, I don't know if it has nothing to do with climate. I think that the spreading of the term "climate change," as an allegedly coherent term, is very destructive to thinking because it's not a coherent term. So I think it's just easier to talk about CO2 levels. So if we think, okay. Do higher CO2 levels cause this? The truth is no. But what I'm concerned about is, is there change? But how is human flourishing going? And what human flourishing needs to go, into advance, is lots and lots of energy for everything in life, including protecting ourselves from the climate.

So I would go so far as to say that even if we want to do it, at this point in technological history, we do not have the ability to make climate significantly more dangerous by emissions, but we can make it far, far safer by our energy.

GLENN: We have Alex Epstein in. He's the author of the book Moral Case For Fossil Fuels. He's also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and heads up the Center for Industrial Progress.

You know, the -- the -- the current thinking is, just let this -- you know, the old generation like me, die. Because everybody, you know, under 40 believes this to be true. And so now they're just saying, just let it play out. We'll get what we want, you know, from the younger generation once the younger generation sees its power. Do you see that as viable, any way to combat that?

ALEX: Well, I've managed to escape. I'm going to be 37 tomorrow. So I don't know if they want me to die. They probably do.

GLENN: Right. Oh, I do think they want you to die.

STU: They definitely want you to die, Alex. There's no doubt about that.

GLENN: Yeah.

ALEX: So I think that -- I'll tell you, my experience is actually very positive on this. Which is that if these issues are explained a certain way, you can win a lot of people over.

In San Francisco right now, I spoke at Google last week on this, and I had a lot of success.

The key is this: We have to -- the way to do it is to not focus on, is there climate change or not? Which is a very vague kind of thing anyway. Climate non-change. It's just this thing where -- that's not the issue.

The issue is, what is the best policy if we look at the positives and negatives for human flourishing? So I don't have to prove that fossil fuels have no impact on climate. I have no desire to prove that. I just have to show that overall, this is -- it's a really, really good thing that we keep using fossil fuels and, in fact, use more than fossil fuels. And that if we don't, it will be really bad for a lot of people.

And, in fact, Glenn, I don't remember if you remember this, I remember this very well, we talked a couple of years ago. And I had told you that by using energy, we basically multiple our power by 96, by using machines and fuel. And you said, "Hey, could you teach 96 people to do that?" And since then -- to do what you do in terms of persuasion, since then, we have a couple of programs. So if you want to do this, if you 96 listeners, we can just send them 96 programs. And we can see how effective they are in persuading their peers.

GLENN: Hmm.

STU: Hmm. It would be an interesting thing to watch.

GLENN: I'd love that. All right. So let's get some information on that. I'd like to also ask you, Alex, if you would like to come down and hold our hand through the -- the -- you know, The Inconvenient Sequel. Because I'd like to take a group of people who really want to know this, want to know the facts. Want to listen to both sides. And then can go in and decide for themselves with the facts and then go do something about it. I'm really interested in finding people from university camps that would like to discover the real truth and then -- and go out and be able to combat this.

Would you be willing to come down, and we'll take a group of listeners and you can talk to us afterwards and prepare us to go out. And we'll run it on TV and everything else.

ALEX: Yeah. I'd love to do that.

GLENN: Okay. Well, don't -- you're so verbose sometimes.

STU: What time is it right now? It's very early in the morning, I suppose.

ALEX: No, no, no. I have a lot -- I have too many ideas about it.

GLENN: Yeah.

ALEX: So I'll tell you one, but I just want to enthusiastically accept the invitation as the main thing. But one thing that I would consider, because I'm really interested in this, is just giving people before they watch the movie, not any facts, but a few questions or guidelines about it.

GLENN: I'd love that. So give those to us now, if we happen to have somebody in our life who is going to it, that we can say, "Hey, we want you to watch with these questions in mind." What are they?

ALEX: Okay. So one is, what does this movie want us to do? I think that's very important to know. What action does it want us to take?

GLENN: Okay.

ALEX: And then two would be, is it giving us the whole picture that we would need to take that action? Is it giving us the whole picture?

And one thing would be, is it giving us both the positives and negatives of what it tells us to do, or is it just giving one side?

And even with that, you would disqualify 90 percent of documentaries as worthless.

GLENN: Hmm. Alex, thank you so much. Love to have you on again. We'll talk to you off the air. He is the author of the book, moral case for fossil fuels.

STU: Great book you have to read. The central argument it seems Gore makes in all of his previews is, the single most common criticism from skeptics when the film came out focused on the animation showing the ocean water flowing into the World Trade Center memorial site. Skeptics called that demagogic and also absurd and irresponsible. It happened on October 29th, years ahead of schedule.

PAT: So ridiculous.

STU: So he's saying I called a flood of New York, and a flood of New York happened.

GLENN: Sandy.

STU: Now, of course, you're right. Sandy is what he's talking about.

GLENN: But he was talking about sea levels.

STU: Permanent sea level rises of 20 feet.

PAT: Why?

STU: That would displace 100 million people.

PAT: Greenland melted. That's why.

STU: Because Greenland melted. And the amazing part about it, he has such big balls that in that section of -- there's a 70-second section about that claim. In the section, he tells you all of the things that would prove his current claim wrong. It's right -- it's legitimately like the next sentence after the one he features in the movie tells you that the prediction had nothing to do with a hurricane or a storm.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parallel societies do not end well

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

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

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

A crisis of confidence

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

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

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

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservatism as stewardship

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

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

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

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

Rebuilding what is broken

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

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

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

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

A creed for the rising generation

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.