For years, saying that men and women, and that boys and girls are different, has been viewed as an act of aggression in many of America’s most elite sectors.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court treated it as what it is: the truth.
In upholding West Virginia’s and Idaho’s laws barring males from female sports, the Court held that a state “may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females.” The reasoning was almost startling in its obviousness — and a fact of nature and commonsense that would have been unquestioned even two decades ago. Given the inherent physical differences between the sexes, separate teams reduce injury and secure fair competition. This is not bigotry. It is biology, and it is, at its heart, justice.
Justice Thomas, concurring, went to the root of the issue that the majority only gestured toward, and he did so contra the prevailing legal methods so fashionable today. The official positivist story is that judges exclude moral considerations from their rulings. The reality is that all judges operate from moral premises — inevitably so, often quietly, and in the background — and getting the morality right is no small matter. And Justice Thomas got it right. Sex, he wrote, is immutable and binary; men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women and girls, however sincerely they believe otherwise. That is as clear a declaration of human ontology and teleology as you will ever see in a Supreme Court ruling. That is the deeper victory here — a victory tethered to natural law. The Court did not merely side with the girls who watched a male claim their state shot put title. It sided, however modestly, with reality itself. When reason, nature, the common good, and the law converge, truth wins. That is moral sanity, and it has been in short supply.
But a ruling that vindicates the meaning and reality of sex is also a fitting occasion to warn my own side against abusing it. For even as conservatives rightly celebrate the Court’s recognition that sex is real and weighty, a faction on the right has spent recent months committing the mirror-image error — treating sex as though it settles questions it has no business settling.
The target has been Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and yesterday’s ruling on birthright citizenship is putting her gender in the crosshairs once again. Disagree with her jurisprudence on immigration and birthright citizenship all you want; that’s your prerogative. But discrediting her reasoning by appeal to her sex, or to her status as an adoptive mother — as some now do — is a category error. It is also textbook Bulverism, C.S. Lewis’s name for the trick of explaining why someone is wrong without first bothering to show that she is wrong: “you only think that because you’re a woman.”
A legal argument is sound or unsound on its own terms. The sex of the one making it has no bearing on whether it tracks with the truth. The intellect’s apprehension of reality is not indexed by sex; the human mind, male or female, is equally capable of grasping what is. Truth answers to human nature’s fittedness to reality as such — not to truth qua sex. That sex carries real teleological weight for vocation and embodiment is entirely true, and entirely beside the point here.
The adoptive-mother line some use to discredit her is even worse, because it isn’t even about her reasoning. It infers bias from biography. A judge’s conclusions stand or fall on her construction of the law — for good or for ill — not on the shape of her family. Attack the argument, or concede you haven’t got one. I’m no expert on the Constitution and immigration, and Justice Barrett may well be wrong. If she is, make the case from text and history — not from sex.
And here is the irony the moment lays bare. The progressive who insists a male can be a female denies that sex means anything fixed at all. The populist who insists Barrett rules as she does because she is a woman insists that sex means everything — that it skews the very operations of the intellect. Both are failures of the same faulty anthropology. Both refuse to see the human person as he and she actually are: embodied, sexed, and therefore genuinely different in vocation and form; yet equally rational, equally answerable to reality, equally made in the image of the God who is Truth. To suggest otherwise is to deny the ontological and epistemological equality of men and women as image-bearers of God.
The Court got the first half right today. Sex is real. It is given. It is not ours to redefine. The task now falling to conservatives is to hold the second half with the same conviction: that honoring the difference between men and women never requires pretending a woman cannot think or that her status as an adoptive mother necessarily colors her rulings. A movement that learns to say sex is real will have won an argument. A movement that also learns when sex is beside the point will have learned wisdom.
***
Andrew T. Walker is associate professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and managing editor of WORLD Opinions. He is a fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Senators Meet With Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett

The Court Got Sex Right. Now The Right Must Not Get It Wrong.

Amy Coney Barrett

Conservatism

DW Opinion

gender ideology

Supreme Court

Transgender

Tucker Carlson announced this week that he’s leaving the Republican Party. And while many conservatives reacted with shock, <a href="https://x.com/GatesGarciaFL/status/2069500906471879012?s=20">I took to X to frame it in a different light. </a>
While I disagree with his decision, it didn&#8217;t catch me off guard. This has been building for years.
Many see the Nick Fuentes interview as the moment everything changed. I see it as one breadcrumb in a trail that had been leading here all along. His criticism of Republican politicians gradually became criticism of the Republican Party itself. After the Iran conflict, Carlson said he regretted supporting Trump and apologized for misleading people. That’s a major shift from criticizing a decision to questioning his support for the central figure of the movement. What once sounded like a call for reform increasingly sounded like preparation for an exit.
Carlson joins a long line of media figures — and even politicians themselves — to reach that conclusion, and he won’t be the last. But his announcement raises a more important question that all politically engaged Americans eventually face: What do you do when your party disappoints you?
America, for better or worse, is a two-party system. Since the Republican Party emerged as the nation’s second major party in the 1850s and elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860, no third-party candidate has won the presidency, and this is not for lack of trying. Some efforts have influenced the national conversation, no doubt. Some have even temporarily disrupted the political landscape (e.g., Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party, Ross Perot, and others). But all have failed to replace the reality that American politics is ultimately a contest between two major movements.
Once we accept this reality, another one becomes obvious. Neither party will ever perfectly represent your beliefs. I’ve personally criticized Republicans for abandoning the fiscal discipline they all champion on the campaign trail.
But political parties are coalitions, not churches. They are alliances of people who agree on enough major issues to work together while disagreeing on countless others. It’s no different from a corporate board, where rarely does everyone sit around a table agreeing on every issue. There are disagreements over priorities, strategy, and spending. But so long as the company is still moving forward and adhering to its mission statement, you stay, persuade, and build consensus. In other words, you work to move the organization in a better direction.
Rational citizens understand this. When voting, they ask: Which party advances my principles more often than not? The irrational citizen asks: Which party never disappoints me? The catch is, only one of those questions has an answer.
For me — especially as a father — the calculation isn’t particularly difficult. When I canvass the major cultural and political battles of our time, I know which side I’m on.
I believe unborn children deserve protection. I believe parents, not the government, should raise their kids. I believe women and girls deserve fairness in sports and privacy in bathrooms. I believe religious liberty is worth defending. I believe the Second Amendment matters. I believe in strong borders. I believe strong families matter. I believe government functions best when it’s limited and accountable. I believe America, despite its flaws, remains a force for tremendous good in the world and should be celebrated rather than apologized for.
Does the Republican Party bat a thousand on these issues? Of course not. Often, the party compromises when it shouldn’t and fails to deliver on promises. But if you’re looking for a party that perfectly executes on its foundational principles, you’ll be looking forever. But if the question is which political coalition advances those principles more consistently, the answer is incontestable.
And that’s where Carlson makes a mistake. He confuses disappointment with abandonment. Because the party falls short of perfection, it is no longer worthy of his support.
Carlson claims that many people will follow him. And while I doubt this, it introduces a problem. When you withdraw support from a political party closest to your beliefs, you don’t create a vacuum. You strengthen the coalition furthest from them.
Nonetheless, it is undeniable that Carlson has a meaningful following. And thus, we must acknowledge that every political decision carries consequences beyond oneself. One approach says, “My party isn’t perfect, so I’m leaving.” The other says, “My party isn’t perfect, so I’m staying and fighting to improve it.” One caters to personal satisfaction while the other strives to achieve outcomes. One protects your purity. The other protects your principles. One is selfish. One is selfless. The former feels better. The latter accomplishes more.
None of this implies blind loyalty. Parties should be criticized — your own, perhaps more. Politicians should be challenged and held accountable. Bad ideas should be rejected. In fact, healthy political movements depend on internal debate. This is the beauty of elections and is a defining characteristic of our American political system, which our Founders put in place 250 years ago.
But there is a profound difference between reforming a coalition and abandoning it. One strengthens the movement. The other weakens it. The American tradition has never been built by people waiting for perfect institutions. It has been built by citizens willing to work within imperfect systems.
That is how abolitionists transformed the Republican Party. That is how Reagan conservatives transformed the Republican Party.
They didn’t leave. They stayed, persuaded, organized, fought… and won.
So, Tucker Carlson is free to leave the Republican Party. That is his inherent American right. But for those who still believe in protecting children, defending families, securing borders, preserving religious liberty, protecting constitutional freedoms, and limiting government power, join me.
Because I’m staying, fighting, building, and will continue working to leave the party better than I found it.
***
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast &#8220;We The People.&#8221; Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.

happy family with the flag of america USA at sunset outdoors

Political And Cultural Battles Are Wars For The Soul. Choose Wisely.

Political Ideology

Republican Party

Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson says he no longer supports the Republican Party.
That’s the same as Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
For a long time, I&#8217;ve been talking about ideological borders for conservatives, because words have meanings and political movements must have borders. It turns out these “Republicans” are self-deporting, which is a good thing, because what we don&#8217;t need in the party are people who won&#8217;t assimilate to our culture or our values and who would like our enemies to win.
Good riddance.
Vice President JD Vance was recently on Megyn Kelly&#8217;s show in order to trot out his defense of the Iran deal, and he said something interesting: that even if you disagree with the administration, you should vote Republican, because the alternative is to put Democrats in power. That makes sense.
Let’s put aside all of the nonsense that the vice president was peddling about how we really need a bunch of people who love the Iran deal to stay in, because otherwise the neocons are going to win, etc., etc.
The whole point of what people on the horseshoe Right, or the woke Right, are doing is to destroy the Republican Party from within, to throw their support to someone else in order to get the Republican Party to run after them.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/the-ben-shapiro-show-episode-2451?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
I&#8217;m okay with people who are rabidly anti-American leaving the party. I don&#8217;t think we need them here. I think that if you came into the Republican Party because you were a refugee from your home party or from your home ideology, and we brought you in here as a kindness, and then you proceeded to take advantage of our system and proceeded to believe that we were going to change all of our principles for you, it&#8217;s time for you to self-deport.
Now, Tucker Carlson is self-deporting from the Republican Party. He&#8217;s very upset with the administration because the administration is not pro-Russia or pro-Iran enough for him.
Yesterday, he announced on the “Can&#8217;t Be Censored” podcast — I have to admit, I find it somewhat hilarious that there are podcasts with sizable audiences that claim that they&#8217;re being “censored” — that he no longer supports the Republican Party; he can&#8217;t because it&#8217;s just too immoral. A moral Republican Party would have sided with Hezbollah, Iran, and the Russians.
Don&#8217;t let the door hit you on the way out.
He said:
<blockquote>How could I or any American voters support a political party that&#8217;s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens &#8230; 
I voted Republican my entire life. &#8230; I&#8217;ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party. &#8230; But there&#8217;s no defending this because it&#8217;s immoral. And it&#8217;s exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing, which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation. And they&#8217;re not doing that. So no, I&#8217;m out.</blockquote>
Tucker acts like he&#8217;s been a Republican for 35 years. That&#8217;s weird, because he was a registered Democrat from 2006 to 2020. He said he did that so he could vote for the Democrats in primaries and manipulate the system — except that Washington, D.C., where he was living, has a closed primary system.
I have some questions.
If the Republican Party will not support Vladimir Putin&#8217;s aspirations in Ukraine, if the Republican Party will not sing the glories of Russian bread and Russian subways and Russian hamburgers, if the Republican Party will not bend over for Qatar completely, if the Republican Party refuses to just cheer on the Iranians as they foster terrorism throughout the region, my goodness, what are we even doing here?
Marjorie Taylor Greene echoed, “There is [sic] a lot of us that are absolutely fed up and will not support a party that betrays its voters and country. That does not mean we are turning into Democrats either. But we are done with the America Last Republican Party.”
Megyn Kelly told JD Vance that she never believed she should simply leave because she&#8217;s upset over what the Republicans are doing. But two weeks ago, she was with Sean Ryan talking about forming a horseshoe coalition with Ana Kasparian, who has tweeted support for terrorism.
The important point is that the Republican Party has certain principles. If you do not accord with those centralizing principles, e.g., peace through strength, then probably you shouldn&#8217;t be here. That&#8217;s okay. You can leave.
But you should not be the lodestar of a new Republican Party.
Self-deportation is a good policy for people who joined up for the wrong reasons in the first place.

tucker_divorce_padded_left (1)

The Political Divorce Everyone Saw Coming

Ben Shapiro

Candace Owens

JD Vance

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Megyn Kelly

Nick Fuentes

Opinion

Republicans

Woke Right

Twenty-five years ago, it didn&#8217;t matter if you were red, white, blue, black, gold, or purple. On July Fourth, our nation&#8217;s birthday, Republicans and Democrats both showed up for the party.
Not anymore.
In 2026, we can&#8217;t agree on the color orange, whether water is wet, or what the American flag even stands for. And the polling proves it. Sixty-four percent of Republicans will display the American flag on July Fourth. Democrats? Twenty-seven percent.
Back in 2001 — before the towers fell, before the culture war went nuclear — Democrats and Republicans were nearly identical in how proud they were to call themselves Americans. Eighty-seven percent of the country, unified, coast to coast. Then came the decades of left-wing institutional rot, and here we are: 90% of Republicans say they are proud to be American. Democrats? 29%. That is a 61-point gap between two halves of a country that used to grill out together.
Absolutely pathetic.
The Left has always been a little less enthusiastic about American symbols, but this is more than dyspepsia; this is pure contempt. More Gen Z Democrats say they have little or no pride in being an American than say they are extremely or very proud. Think about that. The party of &#8220;our democracy&#8221; has produced a generation that actively dislikes the country more than they love it.
Instead of parties this July Fourth? They&#8217;ll be hosting off-key sing-alongs, mourning deported illegal aliens, and papering their doors with rainbow stickers. Old Glory won&#8217;t make an appearance.
Here&#8217;s why that matters.
That flag proudly wears thirteen stripes for the colonies that told a king to pound sand in 1776. Fifty stars for the states bound together under a Constitution that declared rights come from the Creator — not from government. It flew over Washington, crossing the Delaware in the snow. It inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem while British rockets lit up the night over Fort McHenry. It led the charge at Normandy and planted itself on the moon.
The stars and stripes don’t represent perfection. They represent the longest-running experiment in ordered liberty the world has ever seen.
The modern Left cannot rally around any of that. Their entire worldview requires them to see America as an original sin that can never be forgiven. Slavery existed here — just as it existed on every continent for thousands of years. The difference is that the principles in that flag gave Americans the moral and legal tools to end it. The Left&#8217;s preferred history — the 1619 Project revision pushed in classrooms and newsrooms — pretends those principles never existed. It teaches children that the country was founded on oppression rather than on the radical idea that all men are created equal.
The feature, ladies and gentlemen, never the bug.
The New Left that took over universities in the 1960s and 1970s did not want to reform America. It wanted to delegitimize it. Herbert Marcuse and the critical theory crowd taught a generation that Western civilization, and America in particular, was the source of all repression. Repressive tolerance became the rule: shut down any defense of the country as “hate,” while every grievance gets a platform. Decades later, the results are in the polling.
Democrats who went through that education system now look at the flag the way a vampire looks at garlic.
They&#8217;ve been trained to see every American success as stolen and every American failure as proof the whole thing is rotten, all while living in the country with the highest living standards, the strongest military, the freest speech, and the most opportunity any large nation has ever produced. The hypocrisy writes itself.
So let them sulk. Let them treat July Fourth like a national day of mourning.
The rest of us still believe in the country that produced the Wright brothers, the polio vaccine, the internet, and the men and women who stormed beaches to liberate continents. Republicans aren’t just holding the line. We are still building. Entrepreneurs are creating jobs instead of burning buildings. Mothers are raising children instead of raising fists at the system. Young men are enlisting or starting businesses instead of majoring in resentment.
The revolutionary spirit that won independence never left the Right. It just got busy winning in the real world.
The numbers keep dividing because one side loves what America is, and the other resents what it has achieved. That isn&#8217;t a disagreement over policy. That is a fundamental rejection of the country itself.
Democrats hate the flag. We don’t.
This July Fourth, fly it anyway. Fly it high. Fly it for the people who built this place and for the ones still trying to keep it worth defending. 
The Left can keep their grievance parade. The rest of us have a country to celebrate.

Medium size flags line a white fence

Democrats Hate The Flag That Leads The World. We Celebrate It.

All American Patriotism

America 250

Fourth of July

Leftists

Patriotism

Americans are <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/05/01/the-woman-question/">increasingly</a> divided on family life. Republicans marry earlier, have more kids, and embrace more traditional values. Republican elected officials are <a href="https://americanmind.org/salvo/toward-a-sexual-counter-revolution/">often shy</a> about this reality, opting to emphasize policies of “choice” rather than make an intentional effort to promote family life through policies.
In reality, conservative politics requires reversing the trends away from marriage and motherhood, already experienced in East Asia, and increasingly afoot in America and the West, generally. For conservatives, family policy must be resolved in favor of family life — a work-family balance that puts family first.
Career-oriented women cannot exercise a veto over conservative family policy, messaging, or the underlying sexual constitution conservatives seek to preserve. Just the opposite, in fact.
The evidence is unambiguous. As the Heritage <a href="https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/saving-america-saving-the-family-foundation-the-next-250-years">Report</a> “Save America by Saving the Family” shows, without better family policy the country is in a world of trouble. Attempts to “revive” marriage through greater sexual egalitarianism and liberation have failed everywhere they have been tried.
State-subsidized childcare, mandatory parental leave parity, and other technocratic fixes have done nothing to restore fertility or marital stability. State-sponsored dating in South Korea and elsewhere reminds us of the expensive farces that come with poor policymaking. The only societies that have sustained or modestly revived family formation are those that preserve variations of traditional practice — among churchgoing American Christians, and in places with strong religious worship and homogeneity like Israel, Mongolia, and Georgia.
The confines of today’s feminism, the no-fault divorce regime, and the sexual liberation movement put too low a ceiling on family life. If all current policies are kept, little advance can be expected. We need a sexual counterrevolution. There are good reasons to worry about the electoral viability of a sexual counterrevolution.
Concern about family policy disappears as families disappear. As fewer people marry, fewer care about the health of families. As fewer people have children, fewer care about children.
The Democrat Party benefits from, and increasingly celebrates, the low ceiling on family life. It profits politically from cultivating a sense of female grievances. Over the last generation, they have successfully convinced many women that American society in 2026 is <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/the-despair-of-young-liberal-women/">less satisfying</a> and more oppressive than it was in 2001 or even 1970. And aggrieved women vote at pretty high rates.
Men, meanwhile, vote at lower rates, in part because they do not believe governing majorities in the West care about their interests.
The electoral math is straightforward. The ballyhooed “gender gap” is <a href="https://www.tribdem.com/news/editorials/columns/inez-stepman-gender-crisis-is-really-a-marriage-crisis/article_be84edde-14e1-11ee-8a77-bfb4dd702153.html">in reality</a> a marriage gap — and Republicans should seek to widen it. Republicans win national elections by maximizing support among married men and women, increasing turnout and margins among single men, and tolerating (if not conceding) continued losses of progressive single women to Democrats.
Politicizing men, even at risk of sharpening existing tensions between the sexes, is part of a sound and necessary electoral strategy for Republicans. Republicans should let the erring, single, college-educated women go. They need to focus on aligned voters — and create more of them.
Family and cultural issues that reject the family seem, for now, to be much more salient to single women than to other sectors of the electorate. Reformist Democrats like <a href="https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-long-goodbye-to-the">Ruy Teixeira</a>, <a href="https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/08/the-feminist-revolution-and-the-democratic-party/">John Judis</a>, and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/steve-kornacki-white-men-white-women-gap-gender-gap-rcna196791">others</a> recognize that Democrats increasingly <a href="https://www.aei.org/articles/the-rise-of-the-single-woke-and-young-democratic-female/">rely</a> on single women for fund-raising, votes, and rhetorical strategies — Democrats can do little against the will of woke women. Republicans should make the Democrats’ dependency on single liberal women costly in elections.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1099285" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share.png" alt="" width="2000" height="1159" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share.png 2000w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share-300x174.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share-994x576.png 994w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share-768x445.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/voting-share-1536x890.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" />
A rhetorical and policy agenda that elevates family formation and thriving would benefit Republicans. Republicans are the party of the married. Mitt Romney carried married men in 2012 by about the same percentage (60%) that Donald Trump won them in 2024. Republicans have not exceeded 40% among single women in any election since 2014. Married women and single men, however, are the swing voters, as they hover around 50% for Republicans.
Running up the score among aligned voters, however, is complicated by the electorate&#8217;s proportions. Married men were 30% of the electorate in 2012, but only 28% in 2024. Married women resemble married men, though with more variability. In 2012, married women were 30% of the electorate, but in 2024, they were only  26% of the electorate. Single women, by contrast, increased from 23% of the electorate when 31% favored Romney to 26% in 2024, when 38% supported Trump. Single men also increased as a share of the electorate, rising from 17% in 2022 to 19% in 2024, while their Republican vote share climbed from 44% to 48%. Young men have only once broken 20% of the electorate in this era.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1099287" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage.png" alt="" width="2000" height="1161" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage.png 2000w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage-300x174.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage-992x576.png 992w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage-768x446.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/vote-percentage-1536x892.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" /></div>
The opportunity is even more obvious when you look at the 2024 presidential election results. A Republican coalition that prioritizes married men, married women, and single men would have won nearly every decisive swing state without winning any unmarried women — provided turnout among married voters and unmarried men at least remained the same.
Republicans win North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin when Republicans carry married men and women and avoid losses among single men. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan, the margin of defeat under this framework is small — often one or two points. Slightly higher turnout among married voters or marginal gains among single men are enough to flip these states even if single women tilt a bit further in the Democratic direction. The task, then, is to organize and strengthen the Republican electorate.
Admittedly, single voters will generally be more important to election outcomes as marriage recedes and single women become a <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/women-continued-outvote-men-2024-despite-overall-drop-turnout">growing</a> <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-presidential-election-voting-registration-tables.html">part</a> of the electorate. Emphasizing marriage will make it more difficult to court them (politically). As a result, political strategists and the consultant class continue to think that Republicans must cater to the growing single-woman and the diversity vote. Their solution is accommodation: avoid criticizing feminism, adopt its premises while trimming its excesses, and present a softened <a href="https://americanmind.org/salvo/toward-a-sexual-counter-revolution/">family message</a> consistent with “conservative girlboss” and “choice.”
This approach fails on both moral and political grounds. It abandons the project of reconstructing a nation built upon the most fundamental building block of a healthy society. It performs poorly electorally as it abets apathy among men, both married and single, who voted for Trump because of his masculine edge. Younger single women are trending progressive and Democratic and anti-family, so catering to them is a suicide pact for the traditional family. And the 70% or so who oppose Republicans represent mostly a ceiling, not a floor, for Democratic candidates.
Republicans should seek to run up the score among married voters and single men. Single men are especially an underdeveloped growth constituency. Nothing in the nature of things suggests single men must continue to vote in lower numbers if governments are willing to take their legitimate grievances seriously. Many other countries do not have turnout gaps between men and women.
Through effective appeals and policies, Republicans can move single men&#8217;s vote share from 19% in 2024 to 23% of the electorate and improve their share from 48% to 52% or higher in the short- and medium-term.
The key lies in consistently appealing to these demographics to reverse trends away from marriage among young women. Democrats understand this threat, which is why they are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/06/13/nx-s1-5415878/democrats-young-men-trump">pouring</a> money into male outreach. Republicans should make themselves the tribunes of legitimate <a href="https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/">grievances</a> for men, especially single men, and adopt rhetoric and pursue policies that call men to responsibility, purpose, and character.
Republican voters <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/the-new-gop-survey-analysis-of-americans-overall-todays-republican-coalition-and-the-minorities-of-maga">already</a> believe society has become “too feminine” and needs “masculine voices.” The party should lean into this sentiment rather than apologize for it. Elevating credible, manly politicians helps. So does acknowledging legitimate grievances: institutional hostility toward men, especially white men; educational and labor-market failures; the plagues of drugs, marijuana, porn, and gambling; policies that discourage marriage and divide the sexes.
In some cases, enforcement matters. High-profile prosecutions of universities and media companies for hiring practices hostile to white males would signal seriousness and should be undertaken. Stories of men frozen out of professions should be highlighted. Attacks on universities should intensify, as should complaints about how modern, woke public education neuters boys.
Married women are also a growth area, as they could more closely resemble their husbands if Republicans adopt concrete, family-centered kitchen-table issues like increased government support for families. Under favorable conditions, Republican support among married men could one day exceed 62% and consistently reach 55% among women.
Shifting electoral coalitions involves much more than family policy, of course. The issues that alienate progressive single women are often Republican priorities. Marrieds and single men want secure borders and remigration and an end to affirmative action. Men want purposeful jobs and attainable homes for families. Men hunger for friendship and fraternity and tend to be more passionate about national belonging and patriotism. They respond to calls to virtue. They can be shamed into leaving their parent’s basements or into better risk-taking than sports gambling. Republicans should endorse men as providers for, and leaders of, thriving families. A Republican statesman should be <a href="https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/reject-vice">comfortable</a> with messages like “No porn. No pot. No gambling. No dating apps” for men, while suggesting instead “Read Rome. Take protein. Play sport. Talk to women.”
A non-feminist, pro-marriage agenda is central to this effort. Restoring the sexual dance requires improving the quality and marriageability of men and women and removing the institutional pressures that undermine marital commitment. Changing it would address real pathologies and unmet longings for love, meaning, and purpose. Republicans might even gain some single-women voters in the process by offering a serious alternative to the ideology that is making those women feel lonelier and more miserable than ever.
In short, the demands of electoral success and the good of the country can be made to coincide if it is unashamedly pursued. A rhetoric that emphasizes marriage as part of a life well lived is essential. None of this matters if Republicans mess up foreign and broader macro-economic policy; bringing peace and prosperity is job number one. Family policy can and should be a crucial supplement while keeping first things first.
***
Scott Yenor is director of the Kenneth B. Simon Center at the Heritage Foundation.

Helms Family Dinner, Coffee County, Alabama, USA, Marion Post Wolcott, U.S. Farm Security Administration, March 1939

The Electoral Math For The Sexual Counter-Revolution

American family

Family first policy

Traditional family

The President has had enough. Many of us have had enough. Enough of the fake MAGA grifters who absurdly sought to hijack the political movement he created and, having failed miserably, now plot to destroy it. I don&#8217;t call them Woke Right because they are not Right, if by that we mean conservative. Indeed, their rantings and ravings, written screeds (to the extent they write), and platforming of preposterous and vile guests — when they&#8217;re not interviewing each other to reinforce their cackle-laced bigoted theories and crackpot conspiracies — are every bit as repulsive and foul as the racist and antisemitic poison spewed by the Klan and neo-Nazis. Hence, it&#8217;s more accurate to label them Woke Reich. Indeed, they have more in common with newly arrived Islamist insurgents, Trotskyite and Maoist college faculty, and present-day Democrat Party officialdom than anything akin to MAGA patriots.
We are familiar with some of these individuals from their past broadcasting careers, which typically ended in public humiliation and abrupt firings. Others were largely unknown comics, backbencher politicians, or basement-dwelling recluses. Most have no real accomplishments or proficiencies, shallow experiences, and depthless knowledge. There is simply nothing profound or compelling about the Woke Reich, especially the biggest, loudest, and nastiest among them. In fact, the most memorable part of their daily diatribes is the many applications of their favorite word: f*ck. They use it so often that it&#8217;s as if they have a medical condition, like an uncontrollable tic or disorder.  They use it as a noun, pronoun, verb, and adverb, all in one spittle-fuming daily rant.
Of course, there are those who try to deliver their sordid dingbat and Jewish conspiracy theories with high-toned, pseudo-sophistication, which can be extremely difficult when plagiarizing thoughts and ideas from Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And still others seek to present themselves as Socrates, always inquisitive and asking questions in the supposed pursuit of truth and facts when they are nothing more than thuggish, incoherent buffoons rewriting history and babbling incoherencies about the news, politics, or the culture, as if unwittingly imitating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_Corey">Professor Irwin Corey</a>.  From time to time, they lurch into unhinged invectives about President Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Erika Kirk, or more rational and unneurotic broadcasters and podcasters.
You wouldn&#8217;t think that this cabal could draw a crowd, other than curious rubberneckers. Yet, they do, albeit inclusive of foreign government-generated bots and assorted overseas American-hating audiences. But there are also those who are attracted to the cult of personality created by some of these grifters. Indeed, a word has been invented to describe them: “influencers.” Who do they influence? Poll after poll suggests they don&#8217;t actually influence anybody. It appears to be a word generated by the liberal media to exploit and promote the worst of them as foils against the president, MAGA, and the GOP, intended to create the false impression that these reprobates and miscreants hold enormous power over all of them. They don&#8217;t.
For example, the Woke Reich podcasters almost uniformly oppose the president’s decision to preemptively attack the Iranian terrorist regime and eliminate its nuclear capabilities and 47-year history of murder and terrorism against our country. They are zealously opposed to virtually any American military action, stridently insisting on an unwavering adherence to an absolute pacifism and, hence, rote isolationism. America, they chant, is colonialist, imperialist, the geniture of immoral forever wars, and so forth, as if they are mouthpieces for Vladimir Putin or some other anti-American fascist or Marxist despot. They insist the president campaigned on that platform, ignoring his repeatedly stated &#8220;Peace Through Strength&#8221; foreign policy doctrine and first-term actions. Today, several of them have joined numerous congressional Democrats, leftist manipulators, and Islamist agitators in openly rooting for the genocidal Iranian regime against our own armed forces, despite the fact that it has killed and maimed thousands of Americans. And, of course, the Israelis — that is, the Jews — dragged us into this war, as they have manipulated all of our foreign policy decisions.
The internet junkies and podcast fanatics who do swallow this up, as opposed to the mere onlookers and oddly entertained, seem to think these are the only forms of communication worth digesting. For many, this is their entire communications diet. It&#8217;s not part of their world but all of it. They live in this bubble. All day long. Every day. It’s not a way to get information, communicate, and socialize. It’s a myopic existence. Cult followings develop. Many business models are developed around it. Many of the most successful are essentially grifters who are the best at manipulation — not persuasion — through communication techniques developed and honed by past propagandists. This is one reason foreign governments, particularly the most heinous governments, spend time and resources on the internet. There are no limits to what they can do. One of the best ways to demonstrate this is to look at the comments certain posts and posters attract. It doesn&#8217;t tell you everything, but it tells you a lot.
It also explains how some of the biggest podcasters are among the least accomplished outside the internet environment, and even more succeed in preaching like old-time bigots, antisemites, and demagogues. Draw a crowd by any means, grow it, and maintain it. For too many, the more repulsive and cancerous, the more successful.
The Woke Reich are the useful idiots of the Left, the Democrat Party, and even foreign adversaries. They have nothing in common with MAGA, the GOP, or conservatives.
***
Mark Levin is a legal and constitutional scholar, host of The Mark Levin Show on the radio and Life, Liberty &amp; Levin on the Fox News Channel, and the author of 10 New York Times bestselling books.

American Media Control

Mark Levin: Woke Right ‘Influencers’ Are Poisoning The Country With Anti-American Rhetoric

Influencers

Social Media

A book questioning the benefits of mass immigration is shooting to the top of the Amazon bestseller list after going viral when it was yanked from the site April 17.
All the leftists who shriek about book bans were notably silent when “The Camp of the Saints,” a 1973 dystopian novel written by French author Jean Raspail, became unavailable at the largest bookseller in the world. 
The work of fiction depicts the collapse of Western civilization after a horde of third-world migrants overtakes the country. The book’s publisher, Vauban Books, released a statement following the book being removed from Amazon on April 17.
An X post from Vauban Books on April 20 said, “On Friday, April 17th, Amazon US removed the paperback listing for our edition of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints (at this writing, the book remains available for purchase in Kindle and audiobook formats).” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Our statement on Amazon&#8217;s suppression of The Camp of the Saints in the United States: <a href="https://t.co/JDTE5i4XbH">pic.twitter.com/JDTE5i4XbH</a>
— Vauban Books (@VaubanBooks) <a href="https://twitter.com/VaubanBooks/status/2046262858904641889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We have since been informed by Amazon that the book is in violation of the company’s ‘offensive content’ policy,” the statement continued. “Amazon has supplied no information as to which portions of the book are offensive nor to whom.”
Vauban Books also noted that the book had been selling well after first being listed on Amazon in July 2025. “In the eight months since, Amazon has sold roughly 20,000 paperback copies of it.”
“The Camp of the Saints” was also said to have been “extensively reviewed in the American and international press” and found that its reviewers &#8220;have been unanimous in their assessment of its abiding importance and relevance to contemporary debates.”
“While we cannot say for certain has taken this extraordinary step, it may be no coincidence that the listing was removed one day after New York Magazine published a critical article on Vice President Vance that referenced the book.”
Following public outcry, Amazon reportedly <a href="https://x.com/VaubanBooks/status/2046621879574688215">shared a response</a> with Vauban Books courtesy of their media contact, stating, “We’ve resolved an error that briefly affected the availability of a paperback listing of The Camp of the Saints, and the title is now restored.'&#8221; 
The publisher said that Amazon &#8220;appears to be in damage control mode,&#8221; and again confirmed that the book was originally taken off the website due to their &#8220;offensive content policy.&#8221;

Amazon

Amazon Yanks Anti-Immigration Novel, Accidentally Sends It Rocketing Up The Charts

anti-immigration

Books

Censorship

Entertainment

Fiction

On Friday, Allie Beth Stuckey’s “Relatable” podcast featured a <a href="https://youtu.be/KYPlrX8qfHE?si=DsY47h65mwqjhMyC">debate</a> between her and New York Times columnist David French. What was significant about the debate was French’s willingness to confront one of his sharpest critics head-on. What is doubly significant is why they were even debating to begin with: Over the last several years, French, who bills himself as an evangelical Christian and conservative, has staked out positions at serious odds with the constituency he purports to represent.
The pair debated a number of topics, among them “toxic empathy,” gender ideology and pronouns, why David French voted for Kamala Harris, and his praise of progressive Christian James Talarico.
While I cannot rehearse every facet of the debate in a single essay, the main takeaway was that all the topics centered on what I will call a “truth-emotion continuum.” By that, I mean Stuckey and French seemed to emphasize different priorities in how they communicate and what they communicate. On virtually every topic, French kept returning to the need to show compassion and kindness and to extend empathy to those across the political aisle. Those are all valuable, noble, and necessary. The question is whether, on their own, they are sufficient to advance Christian witness in the public square. Stuckey, in contrast, questioned French about whether the emphasis on kindness and empathy can lead persons to adopt a posture of inoffensiveness and non-judgmentalism to the point that biblical clarity is forfeited.
Stuckey came out ahead in the debate for one main reason that colored every issue: She grounds her understanding of emotion and empathy in a biblical axis, whereas French elevates emotion and empathy to a disproportionate degree, subordinating biblical clarity to assuage the offended. The consequence of this approach leads, in the long run, to untethering emotions from truth. But here’s what needs to be said: Emotions need to be regulated by truth. Emotions are not self-regulating, nor should they be embraced without questioning their veracity.
Also clear were the rhetorical differences in their respective approaches to the truth-emotion continuum. In rhetoric, speakers tend to focus on either logos (reason) or pathos (emotion) to make their case. In the debate, Stuckey focuses more on logos; French, on pathos.
Stuckey succeeded by bringing in the missing element in rhetorical theory: ethos, the idea of the speaker’s credibility. Credibility refers to the ability to speak with authority on a given subject. In my view, Stuckey offers a more credible witness because her approach is more biblical and just as compassionate, whereas French’s view is all compassion but little clarity.
In debates over “toxic empathy,” truth gets pitted against compassion. But Stuckey demonstrated ethos by refusing to play the game of pitting love against truth (1 Cor. 13:6; Eph. 4:15). She’s obviously no less interested in kindness or empathy than French, but she is properly grounded in Scripture.
French’s focus on catering to emotional equilibria (and thus hewing to progressive niceties) results in him blurring biblical categories. We saw this, for example, in his unwillingness to call James Talarico a non-Christian despite Talarico abandoning core Christian doctrines. It’s ironic that outspoken atheists who at least know what Christianity teaches (but reject it) are better at assessing whether someone is a Christian than some Christians are. The avowed atheist Friedrich Nietzsche would have no problem calling Talarico a non-Christian because of the orthodox doctrines that Talarico rejects. Why can’t David French?
In truth, biblical cultural engagement requires both logos and pathos undergirded by ethos, but our engagement must be ordered and governed with a proper foundation in Scripture. And notably, French’s outsized empathy leads him to extend that empathy more typically in one direction, toward those to his left. While French emphasizes the need for all sides to listen to one another, it struck me how much more empathy was extended to the Left. They deserve the benefit of the doubt, while “MAGA Christianity” deserves only generalization and ridicule. As I scored the debate, Stuckey focused on objectivity, reason, and right and wrong as the grounds of what constitutes love and kindness, whereas French’s instinct was to defer to emotion and the unpleasant aesthetics of culture war.
But another element of the debate requires attention, namely, French’s somewhat dismissive relegation of Stuckey’s concerns to matters of triviality. In offering his own commentary on the debate, Baylor sociologist George Yancey (who sided more with French) argued that Stuckey seems unhelpfully preoccupied with topics like homosexuality and transgender issues, whereas French focused on issues of greater global significance, such as foreign policy. He writes that “it became clear to me that these issues are deeply linked to her theological framework and this makes them priority issues.”
While I generally appreciate Yancey’s work and perspective, I think he fails to understand what motivates Stuckey and the significance of these issues. There was one key phrase she used in her discussion that demonstrates why she is so concerned about issues of life, gender, and sexuality. She named these “creation order” issues. “Creation order” is Christian parlance for “natural law.” In particular, it speaks to the foundational principles necessary to ground society’s coherence, stability, and flourishing. What Stuckey is concerned about is not only one’s eternal state and biblical fidelity, but also what is true about human nature being reflected in law and upheld by broader society. In her thinking (and mine), if civilization fails to respect human beings at all stages of life, it undermines society as a whole. Human dignity, in principle, is jeopardized. If human civilization cannot lay out definitions and expectations for what it means to be male and female, it robs society of the most basic facet of our existence. And if civilization fails to uphold the sexual arrangements and familial arrangements that optimize human flourishing, we are sawing off the branch that makes society possible.
Far from abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism being niche culture war topics, they are building blocks that speak to the most essential foundations of human civilization.
Regardless of how one scores this debate, the fact that figures like Allie Beth Stuckey and David French had this important conversation in person rather than online underscores the importance of individuals in different silos speaking to one another. While French’s and Stuckey’s disagreements remain stark, it was also apparent that they had much in common as they sought mutual understanding and clarity over one another’s views. And in this perpetually online age, we’re all better off for seeing an intense debate modeled with civility and charity.
***
Andrew T. Walker is associate professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and managing editor of WORLD Opinions. He is a fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Bible On Top Of Rainbow Flag

Allie Beth Stuckey-David French Debate Is A Study In Biblical Truth Against Toxic Empathy

Christianity

Toxic Empathy

Woke Culture

About a year ago, I stumbled across this Theo Von character — a seemingly young podcaster, recovered addict, and chill comedian who blew up after interviewing <a href="https://www.theovon.com/tpw/episodes">regular people</a> and, eventually, not-so-regular people like JD Vance and President Donald Trump. My Theo phase lasted a few weeks until I discovered that the funny man in colorful sunglasses, who speaks like a surfer dude for a living, was 46 years old. 46 years old? Why the hell am I listening to an unmarried, silly, slightly stupid 46-year-old? That realization sent me straight to the unsubscribe button. I have nothing against unmarried, silly, slightly stupid podcasters — I just think that particular combination only flies in your 20s or early 30s.
I digress. 
The real problem with one Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III isn&#8217;t his age or his mental acumen. It&#8217;s that he is confidently broadcasting half-baked ideas to millions of listeners every single day — and our vice president <a href="https://x.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/2044182073477361828">just encouraged</a> young conservatives to tune in. I don&#8217;t buy it. Young people should not be taking Von at his word. It&#8217;s time we take stock of who we actually spend our attention on, weigh the pros and cons, and direct our energy toward voices that sharpen our thinking, inspire us to build something, and don&#8217;t leave us spiritually hollow.
First, the genocide thing. We shouldn’t take seriously those who casually misuse one of the most legally and morally weighted words in the English language. Von has repeatedly described Israel&#8217;s military campaign in Gaza as a &#8220;genocide&#8221; — a favorite progressive talking point deployed to muddy a complicated war. It is not a genocide, and the word has a definition. The 1948 UN Genocide Convention requires specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such — not high civilian casualties in wartime. The systematic slaughter of 800,000 to 1 million Tutsi men, women, and children by Hutu extremist forces in Rwanda is genocide. Targeting Hamas militants in direct response to the massacre of 1,200+ Israelis, while achieving one of the lowest civilian-to-combatant death ratios in modern warfare is <a href="https://www.ajc.org/news/5-reasons-why-the-events-in-gaza-are-not-genocide">not genocide</a>.
Von bought into Hamas’s debunked propaganda war faster than he could pop a Zyn.
Then there&#8217;s the money. Von emotionally lambasts Israel for stealing &#8220;all of our money.&#8221; Sigh. This is a crowd favorite among the perpetually aggrieved — and it has never made any sense. There is a 10-year, $38 billion agreement committing roughly $3.8 billion per year to Israel — signed by President Barack Obama, for the record. Total aid this year will come in just north of $4 billion, funding U.S. weapons purchases, joint missile defense development, military training, and shared programs that benefit us too. That sounds enormous in a vacuum — until you remember that the federal government spends $7.1 trillion annually. Israel&#8217;s aid represents roughly 0.05% of the federal budget. Foreign aid as a whole is about 1% of the budget. Israel is a slice of that slice.
Stop ignoring basic math, Voners. Read a book.
Then there&#8217;s the increasingly anti-Trump drift. Von has called bombing Iran a &#8220;horrible idea,&#8221; aligns himself with Senator Bernie Sanders regarding elites and class grievances, and regularly performs his working-class-versus-the-rich routine for an audience that eats it up. The truth is that bombing Iran was a last resort — they were months away from possessing 11 nuclear warheads and left us no other option. Bernie Sanders is a man who has never produced a single thing of value in his life, yet somehow owns three luxurious homes — the world&#8217;s most on-the-nose argument against his own ideology. And the class grievance act? If Von&#8217;s crowd truly despises a two-tiered society, they should stop cheering for policies that manufacture one. America has the most productive economy in human history, among the highest class mobility in the developed world, and every income bracket is doing better than it ever has. That&#8217;s not a system to resent — it&#8217;s one to defend.
It would also behoove Von to acknowledge what this administration has actually accomplished, rather than reflexively griping from the sidelines. Net migration is negative for the first time in 50 years. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act permanently extended the 2017 tax cuts. The federal workforce has been cut by hundreds of thousands. We&#8217;re seeing record energy production and the largest single-year decline in homicides in U.S. history. Von’s preferred alternative would have delivered DEI mandates, inflationary spending, a nuclear-armed Iran, an emboldened China, and more tax dollars funneled toward the surgical mutilation of children. The contrast isn&#8217;t subtle.
Theo Von isn’t just complain-maxxing to the void, his pessimism is doing measurable damage. Only 13% of Americans aged <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/51st-edition-fall-2025">18–29</a> say the country is &#8220;generally headed in the right direction,&#8221; with over half saying it&#8217;s on the wrong track. That is Theo&#8217;s primary audience. Young men — and increasingly young women — are feeling hopeless about their futures, and it makes sense that they&#8217;d seek out a sympathetic ear in the chaos. But solidarity in despair is still despair. Wallowing in the system&#8217;s failures has never once fixed a problem.
We deserve better. I want voices that level with us and hold us accountable. They should come from people who acknowledge the struggle and then tell us to stop whining and get to work. Ben Shapiro, Nick Freitas, Matt Fradd: in. Political Theo Von, Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate: out. The latter group has left us weaker in our convictions, mush-brained, and spiritually absent. 
Sorry, Theo. Stick to comedy.

Monster Energy Supercross Nashville VIP Event

No, Theo Von is Not The Voice Of Young Conservatives

influencer

Theo Von

When Donald Trump first ran for president, many of us on the Right reveled in the thrill of the brazen businessman swinging a chainsaw at the bureaucratic beast that had spent years grinding down conservatives, families, and young men.
In the years that followed, we often felt vindicated. The Left had lied for years. Institutions failed us. COVID “experts” betrayed the public, Russiagate was a horrific hoax, and 2020’s summer of riots confirmed that rules only applied to the non-woke. Distrust was earned.
But recently, young conservatives — especially men — have traded righteous anger at the Left for a toxic victimhood that mirrors everything we once fought against. They parrot conspiracies and insist that everything — America, young men, the world — is doomed and the cards are stacked against them, no matter what.
This isn’t anti-establishment courage. It’s the same grievance politics the Left perfected, now wearing a red hat. As Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro warned during his recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-shapiro-talks-truth-problem-solving-and-true-conservatism-on-uncommon-knowledge?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=Analysis&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Ben+Shapiro+Talks+Truth%2C+Problem-Solving%2C+And+True+Conservatism+On+%E2%80%98Uncommon+Knowledge%E2%80%99">appearance</a> on the Hoover Institution’s “Uncommon Knowledge” podcast, this internal rot — conspiracy culture, corrosive cynicism, and a Marxist-style obsession with exploding “the system” instead of fixing our own lives — is how conservatism loses its soul.
Shapiro warns that the Right’s biggest threat isn’t the Left anymore. It’s us falling into the same victimhood trap.
“You don’t want to solve your problems,” he told host Peter Robinson, “because you say, they’re not my problems, they’re society’s problems and I can’t solve those problems unless society is exploded. It’s almost a Marxist vision of history.”
This turns the Right away from traditional American ideals of individual agency and toward emotional, anti-institutional rage. I see this with my friends: it’s hurting relationships, crushing success, and handicapping personal ambition.
Young men specifically are suffering, and the Left bears real blame. Male <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html#:~:text=6.5-,Download%20Data%20(CSV),data%20for%20the%20chart%20figure.">suicide</a> rates remain four times higher than women’s. For men ages 15-24, rates jumped 26% between 2010 and 2023. Millions of young men are falling behind in education, struggling to launch careers, and checking out of relationships. The Left’s oppressor-oppressed matrix, its war on masculinity, its celebration of broken families, and its assault on merit have left a generation of boys, and more and more females, feeling like the villain in their own country. That pain is legitimate.
But wallowing in it, embracing black-and-white “they all lie” thinking, and letting resentment replace agency, is surrender. 
Shapiro calls this “depixelation” — the collapse of nuance after three trust-shattering blows happened near-simultaneously: the media’s Russiagate lies, COVID’s contradictory mandates, and the Black Lives Matter double standard that let cities burn while the rest of us were locked down. Suddenly, everything became binary. No evidence needed; just rage. That’s dangerous.
Shapiro illustrates this perfectly using an episode of  Joe Rogan’s podcast. In it, Michael Shellenberger debunked Jeffrey Epstein blackmail claims against Trump. Rogan’s response? “Just because there’s no evidence doesn’t mean they won’t find it later.”
Ben Shapiro’s apt reply: “The moon is made of cheese? Well, have you been to the moon? Do you trust the people who went?”
Herein lies the danger. Once you are in that logical framework, accepting unfalsifiable logic — the same kind <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/criterion-of-falsifiability">Karl Popper</a> warned destroys real inquiry — you can be sold anything. Conspiracy theorizing without evidence isn’t just wrong; it’s a grift that turns people into marks for clicks, bile, and personalities over principles.
Ask yourself if these voices have strengthened the conservative movement or improved society. The answer is no. Instead, they’ve left a trail of anger, resentment, bitterness, and hopelessness. They raise questions but never offer answers. They push dark narratives instead of teaching what actually works. The end result is paralysis — a generation left stagnant and vulnerable.  
This is the horseshoe theory in action: The far Left and the grievance Right meet in the same dead end of inertia and despair. It’s why so many young men I know are single and sluggish. Ambition is crushed. Relationships die. Society gets weaker. The evidence is all around us; dating apps are flooded with it.
The problem with today’s populace is that too many of us no longer know how to defend an idea. We follow personalities — blindly, willingly — because we like the way they speak and the anger they validate. But when asked why we believe what we believe, or the logic behind it, we fall silent. This is the trap of following people instead of ideas.
Shapiro’s solution — and what I’ve been echoing — is a return to true conservatism: personal responsibility, evidence-based thinking, and relentless problem-solving. We must return to our foundational principles and place reason over raw emotion. We need to read, learn, and embrace a coherent set of values rather than a rotating cast of influencers.
But none of that yearning for knowledge and truth can happen until we first reclaim autonomy over our own lives. As Shapiro puts it, “Individual responsibility is the lodestar of a successful society.”
He’s right. Yes, institutions have failed many people — especially young men. But the answer is not to burn everything down or retreat into conspiracy. The answer is to rebuild on principle, agency, and honest analysis. Pure anti-Left reactionism or personality cults will never save conservatism.
We won’t save conservatism by worshiping personalities or “owning the libs.” We can defend it by knowing why it’s right — by reading the Founders, studying evidence, and choosing reason over emotion.
Institutions failed us, yes. But the solution isn’t burning them down. It’s rebuilding.

Man reading fake news on cell phone

The Grievance Party is Killing Conservatism — And We Need Our Men Back

Masculinity

Victimhood

In politics, it&#8217;s never too early to start looking ahead. For Republicans today, that means thinking about who will lead their party after Trump leaves the scene.
Legal and political analyst Frank DeVito believes Vice President JD Vance is the man for the job, a case he lays out in the new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GHF4L24Y?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_JPP9MYR69NK8ZJSEVTPT&amp;ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_JPP9MYR69NK8ZJSEVTPT&amp;social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_JPP9MYR69NK8ZJSEVTPT&amp;bestFormat=true">JD Vance and the Future of the Republican Party</a>.” 
“I think there&#8217;s a pretty good argument that [Trump] chose somebody who has the potential to be a post-Trump leader of the Republican Party and the MAGA movement,” DeVito told The Daily Wire. 
To say not every Republican agrees with that assessment is an understatement. While Vance has become a central figure in the Trump coalition, critics on both the populist right and the GOP&#8217;s more traditional conservative wing question whether his relatively short tenure in national office and shifting political positions make him the natural heir to the movement.
DeVito makes the case that Vance isn’t simply riding the Trump wave, but represents a deeper shift inside the GOP. He says Vance’s focus on family, faith, practicality, and a willingness to confront institutions that have clearly stopped working for normal people are a huge part of the appeal. 
“One of the priorities that he is clearly focused on,&#8221; DeVito says, &#8220;is how do we provide a world where as many people as possible can get married, have stable marriages, and raise children.&#8221;
That emphasis has landed Vance in hot water before, especially when he criticized the Left’s open hostility toward the family. But DeVito said he agrees with Vance’s stance.
“How does any civilization function?” he asked. “You have parents who have children, they raise those children as best they can … You can’t really have civilization without that.”
He points out how normalized it’s become to dismiss those foundations entirely, which leads to civilizational collapse. “If kids are being raised by institutions instead of stable parents … who exactly do we think is going to be running the country in 30 years?” he asked. 
That’s also the context behind one of Vance’s most controversial remarks about how world leaders without children may lack the long-term perspective required to govern well. The backlash was extreme, but DeVito claims the point Vance was making is just obvious. “I would hope leaders are thinking not just about the next election or their stock portfolio, but about what kind of country their grandchildren are going to inherit,” he said.
The comments were criticized not only by Democrats but by some Republicans, who warned that this kind of rhetoric could be politically damaging in a general election.
But it does help to explain Vance’s political evolution, especially his highly scrutinized shift from Trump skeptic to Trump’s running mate. While some conservatives rightly question this about face, DeVito argues it wasn’t opportunism, but a reflection of Vance reassessing Trump’s role in confronting institutional power. 
“If you think American institutions are basically healthy and just need minor corrections, then of course Trump looks insane,” he said. “But what Vance came to believe is that he was wrong about how broken those institutions really are.”
Once Vance figured out the depth of the rot, he pivoted. “They’re actually so co-opted that it might take dropping some dynamite into the system to recover a sane America,” DeVito explained. In that light, Trump isn’t wrecking things for fun, he’s doing what needs to be done to reshape the culture.
What gives Vance credibility here, DeVito insists, is his unique experience going from a broken home to running in elite circles. “How do we create an America where normal people can get married, raise kids, and have meaningful work?” DeVito said. “That question animates everything Vance does.”
Vance grew up amid addiction and instability, then passed through Yale Law and into the upper echelons of society. What he found, DeVito said, was a stunning disconnect. “The elites think things are great and getting better,” he said. “Meanwhile, in the communities Vance came from, it’s addiction, joblessness, broken families, and despair.” 
Faith, again, plays a role here. DeVito argues that Vance’s Catholicism isn’t political branding, but is just more proof that the politician is willing to embrace a truth even when it could hurt his popularity. “There&#8217;s really nothing advantageous to your political career about becoming a Catholic in 2026 or when he converted … So I don&#8217;t think he would do it unless it was genuine,” the author said.
DeVito said in the book that Vance is uniquely positioned to unify the Republican Party.
“The Republican Party in 2015 when Trump went down the escalator was something very different than it is now,” he said, noting how that change hinged on the charisma and force of one person over the last decade. 
Whether that unity is achievable remains an open question, particularly as factions within the party continue to debate the future of MAGA itself.
DeVito also mentioned that the person on deck doesn’t have an easy job. “It&#8217;s a hard dance,&#8221; he observed. &#8220;Nobody&#8217;s going to be Donald Trump.&#8221;

Is JD Vance The GOP’s Post-Trump Future? One Author Makes The Case.

Is JD Vance the GOP’s Post-Trump Future? One Author Makes The Case

Politics

Charlie Kirk was an alt-right extremist.
Certainly, that’s what many in the so-called mainstream conclude from the collection of carefully culled remarks we are being fed by algorithms designed to maximally outrage us. These preternaturally powerful algos are fueled by bot armies, bad faith domestic players, sociopathic social media business practices, and hostile foreign regimes that seek to divide America.
How many hours of original Charlie Kirk footage do the algos have from which to select? An AI breakdown of Mr. Kirk’s content between podcasts, radio shows, YouTube videos, speeches, debates, and interviews estimates the total time somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 hours.
If we put this in the context of a job, assuming an eight-hour workday with no breaks, that translates to 625 to 1,000 consecutive work days.
At the upper end, that is two years and nine months of talking.
How many moments of this man’s life have people watched before making up their minds that his assassination must be qualified or even celebrated?
Suppose deep machine learning cast its all-powerful eye on the last 8,000 hours that any of us spoke to find out-of-context moments to maximally denigrate, vilify, and dehumanize us. Do we really believe our character couldn’t be assassinated just as readily?
Do we really believe anyone’s reputation could survive that level of scrutiny and cherry picking?
Yours? Mine? Our family members? Classmates and colleagues? The leaders we support? The athletes and musicians we admire?
Of course not.
But this is the world that we’ve built and allowed. And now it is clearer than ever: Ours is a radicalized culture.
A culture that reduces people to their mistakes, jokes, stupid remarks, contradictions, hypocrisies, blind spots, and contentious assertions is a culture that allows zero tolerance for being human.
A culture that views legitimate political disagreement as an us-versus-them battle with existential stakes, that demonizes the opposition and views them not as factions and individuals but as a monolith.
Why is it radical? Because it remains ossified and immovable, allowing neither nuance nor learning.
A quick online spin shows us the ways that Charlie Kirk, a complex and good man, imperfect like every last one of us, has been hammered flat and dehumanized.
He’s racist… despite running a Young Black Leadership Summit for years, despite his avowed and articulate admiration of black luminaries like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Thomas Sowell, despite his mentoring of many young black activists and leaders, and despite his voter mobilization efforts for the black community.
He’s anti-gay… despite welcoming gays into the conservative movement with love and grace, despite his taking fire from actual homophobes and arguing to persuade them, despite his deep friendships with many gay people.
He’s transphobic… despite his multiple kind and respectful discussions with trans students in which he welcomed them and encouraged them toward health and meaning.
He’s a misogynist… despite the fact that he ran a Young Women’s Leadership Summit, elevated women on his podcasts and events, encouraged women to engage politically, uplifted female chapter leaders and ambassadors, and spoke to podcast audiences, which at times skewed 60-65% female.
He’s a violent extremist… despite his countless denunciations of violence and coercion, despite his refusal to fight when challenged, despite his exemplification of debate and discourse.
He’s alt-right… despite the fact that his opinions are not far from average Catholic and Christian views from a single generation ago, despite the fact that he was a bulwark against extremism on his own side, despite the reality that he was hated by Groypers, Nazis, terrorists, and white supremacists.
There seems to be a genuine belief among many that everything Charlie Kirk did was for power, manipulation, and control. A belief that his movement is all grift and corruption. A belief that for him and everyone in his orbit — and what an orbit it was — there was no wisdom, no grace, no care for people or the nation. Nothing genuine, only Machiavellian plans for an evil takeover.
How does this happen?
Our radicalizing media, social and otherwise, has strangled our curiosity, forbidding exploration of opposing notions, ideas, and thinkers. It tells us that we cannot risk contamination with information that might provide nuance and context. It tells us that anyone seeking to offer a different perspective is captured, brainwashed, not to be trusted. It tells us that if we modify our position, we will be outcast as a traitor, despised, one of “them.”
We all know the feeling. A stubborn ping in the chest, a compulsion at the back of our lizard brain that whispers: I’m on the right side of this issue, I just know it. I’m on the right side of history, I just know it. He’s a bad guy, I just know it. I don’t need to see or hear anything else that might disprove or alter my opinion, I just know it.
I just know it. And won’t be told otherwise.
That is what radicalization sounds like.
Terrifying to see in the mirror. Terrifying and shameful.
And it prevents many from gazing with open eyes and an open heart on a tableau that can only be described as biblical. A husband and father shot before his wife and young children at a free speech event on a college campus beneath a sign that says, Prove Me Wrong, in front of 3,000 kids, live-streamed to tens of thousands more. Terrified by the gunshot, his three-year-old daughter ran to him, crying, “Daddy.”
What would have been our overwhelming national reaction to this moment in a time before social media and cable news?
Not moral confusion, equivocation, political expediency — certainly not gleeful malice.
The difference between then and now is our widespread radicalization from being fed selective information 24-7.
This is what it looks like.
It looks like us.
And it will destroy America if we don’t stop it.
Because when we are blinded by radicalization, we are also blind to who our real enemies are.
Our foreign adversaries are feeding this division. Profiteering social media companies with teams of addiction specialists are laser-focused on exploiting our kids. Nihilists who wish only chaos, pain, and destruction.
There are alt-right extremists. Charlie Kirk was not one of them. 

He was the embodiment of how you teach conservative young men and women not to become alt-right extremists.
When challenged to fight by a grown man in front of 2,000 kids, Mr. Kirk said, “The only thing that is preventing us in this country from going to civil war is debate and dialogue… In fact, a mark of civilization is that we don’t have to go to blows and bullets, that we can have discourse and debate… We are going to remain peaceful.”
Again and again this week, I have been told:
Charlie was part of the problem. 
He was a peddler of hate.
He said some horrendous things.
Do you really want to defend him?
That is not a good hill for you to die on.
Is it?
For a man I never met?
For a thinker I considered to be, on many topics, a beneficial adversary?
For the principles he evinced — debate not fists, discussion not bullets, gratitude not grievance, love not hate?
Yes.
It is.
This is a hill for us to die on.
Just like he did.
* * *
Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 26 thrillers including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Gregg currently serves as the Co-President of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he’s written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, and is an award-winning documentary producer. Gregg also wrote comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, and poetry. Currently, Gregg is working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he&#8217;s penned dozens of Op/Eds and pieces for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark, Salon, and others, and pieces of creative content which have won numerous industry awards and achieved several hundred million views on digital TV platforms. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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‘Do You Really Want To Defend Him?’ Algorithms, Outrage, And The Death Of Charlie Kirk

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