It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Left can’t meme, but can only scold the Right for memeing well.
This dynamic was once confined to esoteric feuds among terminally online partisans. Now, it’s playing out in the open — between government agencies and what remains of the legacy media — and the stakes are increasingly tangible.
The Trump administration’s social media accounts have spent their summer appropriating classic images of Americana, notably J.M. Flagg’s famous<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Montgomery_Flagg#/media/File:I_Want_You_for_U.S._Army_by_James_Montgomery_Flagg.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 1917 Uncle Sam poster</a>. But things really hit a fever pitch when the Department of Homeland Security shared three seemingly innocuous images: <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Gast’s 1872 “American Progress,”</a> with the caption “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1940164863793549747" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thomas Kinkade’s “Morning Pledge”</a> with the caption “Protect the Homeland,” and<a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1944875154745778525" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Morgan Weistling’s “A Prayer for a New Life”</a> captioned “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Protect the Homeland.
“Morning Pledge” by Thomas Kinkade <a href="https://t.co/JLs26R3VlO">pic.twitter.com/JLs26R3VlO</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1940164863793549747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
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According to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/29/trump-dhs-immigrants-social-paintings/">Washington Post</a>, “the art world is not happy” with these posts because they are “part of an effort to rewrite the past with an exclusionary view of American history,” one in which there are clear standards of good and evil.
The Post doesn’t attempt to show why ordinary Americans should care about this. But while the Post’s freakout may be amusing to behold, it also gets at something important. Liberals are right to panic about these posts — and conservatives should pay attention.
The second Trump administration is staffed with right-wing Zoomers. These staffers are digital natives: born in the memeworld, molded by it, and in many cases more radically opposed to the leftwing hegemony that reached its apogee during their formative years than those of us who remember the days when cable news still dictated the terms of national conversation.
Those days are gone. Millennials like JD Vance and Stephen Miller hold high office. The aesthetic sensibilities of the Zoomers on their staff are shaping the administration’s narrative warfare, providing unprecedented air cover to the administration’s ground operations. Their social media habits are a visible sign of just how far the Left has fallen from its media and, thus, meaning-making monopoly.
The recent dustup about Homeland Security posting Americana paintings is just a minor skirmish in the larger war that is being waged for the sensibilities of the American people. Liberals have long realized that he who controls the production, distribution, and regulation of images controls the hearts, minds, and imaginations of the population.
Despite their confusion over other fundamental truths such as the difference between a man and a woman, liberals grasp this reality — and in it, something essential to the human condition.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.
American Progress &#8211; John Gast <a href="https://t.co/agU6bl8TZ8">pic.twitter.com/agU6bl8TZ8</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1948150126494482555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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We are imaginative as well as rational creatures, embodied as well as capable of abstract thought. Our reasoning about right and wrong, true and false, never gets very far without referring to something particular we’ve experienced, either directly in our own lives or vicariously through the testimony of others — including stories and history. “Music,” in the classical and comprehensive sense of “the arts of the Muses,” matters.
In ancient Greece, the nine Muses were the daughters of “Memory” and presided over the arts. Mythology and biography, parable and narrative, have always been the primary means of moral and political education, and they remain so today. Americans in general still recognize the power of the “Muse-ical arts,” mainly in the potency of historical narratives such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement.
We would do well to recover the sense of power contained in other forms of “Music,” especially the storytelling power of films. Newer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/movies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ventures</a> on the <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/07/20/2025/founders-films-aims-to-remake-hollywood-with-patriotism-palantir-and-ayn-rand" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Right</a> are beginning to do this.
But we still have a long way to go. Even the artists whose work the Trump administration is now using aren’t safe from the Left’s appropriation.
The Kinkade Family Foundation, scandalized by the Trump administration’s use of his work, <a href="https://www.kinkadefamilyfoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> it was “deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS” and pledged solidarity with “our communities who have been threatened and targeted by DHS, especially our immigrant, BIPOC, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and disabled relatives and neighbors.” Weistling, the only artist of the three still alive, took to his <a href="https://www.morganweistling.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> to distance himself from the politics of the moment: “The recent DHS post on social media using a painting of mine that I painted a few years ago was used without my permission.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.
New Life in a New Land &#8211; Morgan Weistling <a href="https://t.co/nFL61Nljbw">pic.twitter.com/nFL61Nljbw</a>
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1944875154745778525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Still, there is a virtually inexhaustible store of classic works of mythology, literature, and history, ancient as well as American, waiting to be adapted by artists who love rather than revile our inheritance.
There is a lesson here for older conservatives. Liberal donors have long appreciated the political utility of culture. As a class, they have lavished funds on all manner of artistic ventures, sowing seeds broadly in the expectation that just a few of their investments will blossom into captivating cultural products. As a result, they have dominated the culture for generations — not because young people are naturally more liberal (Zoomer men are currently disproving this myth) — but because their cold, hard cash has helped drag the next generation leftward.
Conservative donors are more comfortable running a business than patronizing the arts. They tend to focus their charitable giving on well-defined causes with short-term returns on investment. They have thereby won discrete battles — winning this election, pushing that policy through Congress — while losing the broader war for the soul of the nation.
That the unembarrassed Americanism of artists like Kinkade and Weistling has enjoyed commercial success while swimming against the tide of liberal cultural hegemony is a sign of just how high a demand remains in the American public for non-leftist cultural products. Liberal hegemony is cracking up, and as the Trump administration gets serious about winding down its taxpayer-funded power bases, from NPR and PBS to elite universities, the crack-up is bound to continue.
The emergence of an energetic and effective American Right has far more to do with digital disruption than with a strategic change in the conservative donor class. Conservatives who are serious about reclaiming American culture, and consigning the most anti-American elements of the Left to the dustbin of history, should put a shoulder to the wheel — not just in lobbying and campaign donations, but in directly patronizing the artists, educators, and other culture creators who celebrate rather than denigrate our civilizational heritage.
Pavlos Papadopoulos is Associate Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

American Progress

Americana Posting And The War For Culture

Conservatives

Department of Homeland Security

Gen Z

Painting

Washington Post

I lock my front door every night. Not because I despise the families who live down the street, but because I cherish the three sleeping heads under my roof.
That impulse — to guard what we love — lies at the heart of the conservative case for a secure border. Too often, we let opponents cast us as people against something (immigrants) when, in fact, we’re actually: for our children’s safety, for working-class wages, for the fragile civic glue that lets strangers treat one another like neighbors.
Polling shows the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/15/how-americans-view-the-u-s-mexico-border-situation-and-the-governments-handling-of-the-issue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mainstream agrees</a>. Eighty percent of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, say Washington is mishandling the migrant surge, and immigration now tops Gallup’s <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/611135/immigration-surges-top-important-problem-list.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“most important problem”</a> list.
Conservatives are right to sound the alarm. We just need to explain that we&#8217;re doing so out of a sense of stewardship, not spite.
History backs the prudence of timed, purposeful immigration. During the American Revolution, foreign-born allies such as <a href="https://www.history.com/articles/6-foreign-born-heroes-of-the-american-revolution" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France’s Lafayette and Prussia’s von Steuben</a> arrived with artillery drills, engineering skills, and diplomatic muscle that an infant republic simply lacked; without them, Yorktown’s surrender may never have come. The young nation welcomed outsiders for a specific mission: win independence and teach the citizen army how to march, aim, and dig trenches.
Fast-forward to the wreckage after Appomattox. The Civil War killed more than 600,000 Americans and scorched the rail lines meant to reunite the continent. Rebuilding demanded manpower the battered South and draft-depleted North no longer possessed. Thousands of Irish and German laborers <a href="https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?psid=3147&amp;smtID=2&amp;utm_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">laid the ties and pounded the spikes</a> of the transcontinental railroad, knitting markets back together and jump-starting a devastated economy. Immigration in that moment was not charity. It was the scaffolding of national recovery.
The same pattern repeated when smokestacks crowded city skylines. By 1920, immigrants and their children supplied <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2760060/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over half of all manufacturing workers</a> — two-thirds if you count grandchildren — allowing American factories to roar at a scale native labor alone could not have matched. The message is clear: when the nation needs fresh shoulders, controlled immigration can be a patriotic tool.
Yet prudence also means knowing when the job is done. After the industrial boom settled, Congress judged the house full and passed the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Johnson-Reed Act of 1924</a>, limiting visas to 2% of each nationality’s 1890 population, and virtually closing the door to Asia. Even a country famous for welcoming immigrants understood that unending inflows can outrun assimilation, depress wages, and strain public trust.
We are living through another such inflection point. The crisis is not a shortage of bodies but a shortage of babies. America’s fertility rate hovers well below replacement while housing prices, classroom head counts, and entitlement programs all creak under existing loads. Before we import millions more people, we should ask why so many citizens feel they cannot afford to start or grow a family.
Conservatives aren’t anti-immigrant. We are pro-family, pro-fairness, and pro-order.
When we do invite guests, we open the front entrance — offering lawful visas to people who follow the rules — rather than waving strangers through a broken window. Securing the southern border, finishing reliable fencing, and speeding up deportations for criminals are not acts of hostility but of hospitality rightly ordered. They protect wages for citizens at the bottom rung, preserve classroom resources for kids who are already falling behind, and honor the millions who waited in line.
Positive reform flows from the same ethic. Conservatives can champion faster asylum rulings so genuine refugees are sheltered quickly while false claims end swiftly. We can simplify legal work visas tied to market demand, not political patronage, and insist those visas come with a date certain to go home or a clear path to stay that includes English proficiency, tax compliance, and civic education. We can tighten E-Verify so employers cannot undercut American labor, and we can steer foreign aid toward church-based charities that fight cartel terror in place — reducing the push factors long before migrants reach the Rio Grande.
The test for our movement is tone. Instead of saying, “We’re against immigration,” say, “We’re for the American worker, for the rule of law, for assimilation strong enough to turn strangers into compatriots.” Tell the single mom in El Paso that a porous border lets fentanyl and traffickers hunt her kids. Tell the legal immigrant in Phoenix that respecting the line he stood in is an act of justice. Tell the Honduran father that a stable, self-confident United States is the best gift we can offer the world, because chaos here would slam every golden door shut.
Someday my children will ask what we did with the inheritance our grandparents secured — ordered liberty, decent wages, a common language of rights and responsibilities. I want to tell them we acted as guardians, not gatekeepers; that we said “yes” to a future large enough for newcomers and natives, but only after we repaired the foundation already cracking beneath our feet.
Conservatives are right on immigration because we refuse to trade short-term sentiment for long-term stability. We are not building a wall of hate; we are stewarding a border of love. And love, like any good father knows, sometimes says “stop” today so it can say “welcome” tomorrow.
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

American flag

Conservatives Are Right On Immigration. We Just Need To Say It Better. 

Illegal Immigration

Polls

Southern Border

As conservatives, we’re fond of praising marriage and family, and for good reason — marriage is both a cornerstone and a hallmark of a healthy society.
The conservative movement can’t seem to get its fill of telling young people to marry, settle down, and have kids. That’s fair enough. But unfortunately, eager to marry everyone off, conservatives tend to skip over one crucial detail: how exactly you get there.
For all their discussion of marriage, most conservatives don’t seem to touch the topic of dating with a 10-foot pole.
And to the extent they do discuss it, that discussion typically centers on the beginning of dating. They encourage men to make the first move and ask women out, or warn women against making the first move themselves. Or, their discussion centers on what not to do: don’t have sex before marriage, and definitely don’t move in together.
But no one talks about what healthy dating should look like. There’s no practical discussion of how to date in a way that’s likely to lead to marriage, or how to get to know someone and discern whether you should marry them while also maintaining healthy boundaries in the understanding that you aren’t yet married.
This leaves young conservatives caught between two flawed views of dating.
On the one hand, they’re faced with the destructive habits of their peers — hookup culture, casual dating, or even long-term dating relationships with no intention of marriage.
On the other hand, they’re confronted by the romanticism of the older generation and the ideal of the knight in shining armor, a perspective that mainly consists of strictures for the man to open the door, pay for dates, or show up with flowers, and for the woman to be “feminine” — bonus points for wearing a sundress.
While some of these principles have value, none of them address the actual day-to-day or week-to-week of dating, and it’s easy for them to turn into pressure to act a certain way simply to meet certain standards.
Perhaps it’s this black hole that accounts for the fact that, while <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw11y2CTM9KUJuVUXxIYfD1v">69%</a> of those ages 18-34 who have never been married say they hope to be married, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">a full 50%</a> of singles aren’t currently looking to date or enter a relationship.
Trapped between a hookup culture that leaves people feeling empty and broken and a romantic idealism that places performative pressure on both parties, many may decide dating is too difficult and that they have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">“more important priorities.”</a>
For those who do decide to date, there’s a relative dearth of older role models who exemplify healthy marital relationships, let alone healthy dating relationships. In <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/13/8-facts-about-love-and-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/13/8-facts-about-love-and-marriage/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1t_puy52HWeCinUKRP1O3C">recent years</a>, overall marriage numbers have declined; divorces among older couples have increased; and the number of couples, including older couples, cohabitating with an unmarried partner has increased.
Add to that the chronic pervasiveness of utterly flawed dating perspectives online, and you’ve got a recipe for the current situation: one in which well-intentioned young people are left on their own, groping in the dark for wisdom to guide their dating lives.
This leaves many struggling to successfully navigate relationships. According to one survey, 67% of “daters” say their dating life is either <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">not going too well</a> or not going well at all.
As a result, many relationships otherwise full of potential end up amounting to nothing, falling prey to miscommunication, social pressures, or other issues — many of which could be easily remedied with a dose of wisdom from an elder.
If conservatives are serious about wanting young people to get married, it’s time to stop simply preaching the merits of marriage and start offering practical advice on how to get there.
That starts at the individual level: older, happily married members of a community (like a church, for example) should come alongside younger members of that community, making themselves available to answer any questions those younger members may have.
This isn’t to say people don’t do that already. I’ve personally been blessed to have several members of my church walk with me in this manner.
But the same should also be practiced in society more broadly. Dating isn’t going to look the same for everyone—so influencers, commentators, and others in healthy marriages should share their personal stories of how they approached dating, offering examples of the ways to approach dating wisely.
Without these kinds of examples, we may stay stuck where we are now: a society where most people hope for marriage but few are capable of taking the necessary steps to achieve it.
Mary Mobley is an Editorial Fellow in the Strategic Communications department of the Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Couple getting married in church

What Conservatives Miss About Marriage 

Dating

Marriage

Chip and Joanna Gaines, whose public embrace of their Christian faith has made them especially popular among American Evangelicals, are facing new allegations of hypocrisy.
The “Fixer Upper” stars serve as producers for &#8220;Back To The Frontier,&#8221; a new show on HBO Max in which three families attempt to live as 19th-century homesteaders. One of the couples, Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs, are gay men with adopted children. Their inclusion in the show has caused some Christians to accuse the reality stars of failing to live up to the values they have publicly espoused.
Ed Vitagliano, vice president of the American Family Association, also publicly called out the couple for disappointing their fan base.
“This is sad and disappointing, because Chip and Joanna Gaines have been very influential in the evangelical community,” Ed Vitagliano, vice president of the American Family Association, <a href="https://x.com/AmericanFamAssc/status/1943747871985025097">said</a> on X.  &#8220;In the past, they have stood firm on the sanctity of marriage regardless of the personal cost that has entailed.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new show on their Magnolia Network spotlights a same-sex couple and their two sons, drawing concern from Christians who expected the network to uphold biblical values.
“This is sad and disappointing, because Chip and Joanna Gaines have been very… <a href="https://t.co/LKMupgB6o3">pic.twitter.com/LKMupgB6o3</a>
&mdash; American Family Association (@AmericanFamAssc) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmericanFamAssc/status/1943747871985025097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Chip Gaines responded to the backlash on X.
“Talk, ask [questions], listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never,” he wrote on Sunday. “It’s a sad sunday when ‘non believers’ have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Talk, ask qustns, listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never
It’s a sad sunday when “non believers” have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian💔
— Chip Gaines (@chipgaines) <a href="https://twitter.com/chipgaines/status/1944344464215957561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“On our way to church,&#8221; the father of five wrote in a follow-up <a href="https://x.com/chipgaines/status/1944378161732485352">post</a>. &#8220;Y’all enjoy this beautiful Sunday!”

Chip and Joanna Gaines

Fans Accuse Christian TV Stars Chip And Joanna Gaines Of Hypocrisy With New Reality Show

Chip And Joanna Gaines Slammed For Including Same-Sex Couple In New Series

Entertainment

Evangelicals

Joanna Gaines

LGBT

Social Issues

Television

U.S.

President Trump Delivers Address To Nation On Iran Military Operation

Trump Bombed Iran. What’s Next?

Democrats

Iran

Iran Nuclear

Israel

JD Vance

Matt Walsh

Middle East

Opinion

President Trump

Republicans

Trump Administration

Editor&#8217;s note: A previous version of this article included social media posts that falsely claimed that the Penske Media Corp had contributed more than a million dollars to political organizations associated with Donald Trump. Those donations came from the Penske Corp, which is a different entity. The story has been updated. 
&#8212;
Some Taylor Swift fans have theories about why she didn&#8217;t attend the American Music Awards (AMAs) on Monday despite being nominated for six awards.
One anonymous <a href="https://x.com/repgirlypop/status/1927194423063884012?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1927194423063884012%7Ctwgr%5E07e6f1f2ea34d03e62a6bfb9bc43b867e301bf77%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.dailywire.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D926219action%3Dedit">X post speculated</a> that the pop star might have skipped due to politics, suggesting that it could be because Billboard Magazine, which is affiliated with the award show, was owned by conservatives. But the post, which has amassed hundreds of thousands of views on X, appears to confuse Jay Penske and his Penske Media Corp with Penske Corp, a company owned by his father, the billionaire former race car driver Roger Penske. 
The younger Penske does not appear to have made any donations to Trump, or any affiliated political groups. His media group, Penske Media Corp, owns several prominent entertainment news outlets, including The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone.
Jay Penske maintains a politically neutral public persona. His father, Roger Penske, formally endorsed President Trump in 2020 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 . Penske Corp, according to a review of <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/penske-corp/summary?id=D000036594">campaign finance records</a>, has made several donations to Trump and other Republicans. 
Trump is on the mind of Swift&#8217;s fans due to his recent barb, in which he renewed criticism of the singer he once said he hates.
“Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’” the president shared with his followers on May 16.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday">Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
While some fans believe Swift skipped the ceremony due to Trump drama, another theory says the singer did not attend because of the ongoing legal drama between her friend, Blake Lively, and Justin Baldoni.
Swift was subpoenaed in one of the lawsuits, but the court order was later withdrawn. An unnamed source told <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14754785/Taylor-Swift-AVOIDED-AMAs-keeps-low-profile-boyfriend-Travis-Kelce.html">The Daily Mail</a> that the legal issues were the real reason Swift skipped the AMAs.
&#8220;She avoided the AMAs because she didn&#8217;t want to deal with 1000s of questions about the Blake Lively saga,&#8221; a source told the outlet.
&#8220;It is all anyone wants to talk about, and Taylor is really tired of it,&#8221; the source added.
Other <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/real-reason-taylor-swift-skipped-143737766.html">fans have speculated</a> that Swift&#8217;s absence had to do with rumors that an engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce is on the horizon.
Swift currently holds the record for most AMA wins in history with 40. Winners of the AMAs are determined by fans voting on social media and through an online platform.
With Swift&#8217;s absence, performers at the AMAs included Benson Boone, Gloria Estefan, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Reneé Rapp, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, Rod Stewart, Alex Warren, and Lainey Wilson. Lopez’s performance raised some eyebrows as she proceeded to kiss both a male and a female dancer on stage, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/desperate-viewers-react-to-jennifer-lopez-making-out-with-dancers-at-amas?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=%E2%80%98Desperate%E2%80%99%3A+Viewers+React+To+Jennifer+Lopez+Making+Out+With+Dancers+At+AMAs">reported</a>.

Taylor Swift

Fans Speculate Why Taylor Swift Skipped AMAs

Fans Speculate Why Taylor Swift Skipped AMAs, Blame Trump And Conservatives

Donald Trump

Music

Few artists loathe the music industry quite like Tom MacDonald.
The rebel rapper takes glee in taunting labels on his social media platforms. He recently posted a troll video in front of Sony Music headquarters, name-checking industry pariahs like R. Kelly and P. Diddy with a broad grin on his face.
And despite repeatedly crashing the Billboard music charts he’s refused to go corporate for a bigger promotional wallop.
MacDonald is solo to the core, with an assist from his girlfriend/video director Nova Rockafeller. No managers. No publicists. Just the music and his sizable social media flock.
The mind behind “Fake Woke,” “Snowflakes” and “American Flags” still felt influenced by mainstream superstars, from their branding efforts to songs that purport to dig deeper into their personal lives.
<div id="attachment_891745" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-891745" class="size-large wp-image-891745" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: YouTube/Tom MacDonald &quot;Facts&quot; feat. Ben Shapiro" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/MixCollage-14-Mar-2025-10-16-AM-4499-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: YouTube/Tom MacDonald &#8220;Facts&#8221; feat. Ben Shapiro</div>
“As an independent artist, we’re all watching what the biggest artists in the world are doing and what they sound like,” he says. “Even if you’re somebody like me who detests the major label system, you’re taking information in. You’re being indoctrinated … they must know what’s best.”
It took a while to shake free from that thinking, something he accomplished on his latest album.
“Proud to Be a Problem” finds the Canadian native opening up about his life in ways he never did before.
“I’ve never really been good with processing my emotions and explaining the way I’m feeling to other people… it’s the reason why I make music,” the California-based musician says.
<div id="attachment_915575" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915575" class="size-large wp-image-915575" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-574-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald.</div>
Time and maturity have let him tap into something vital and deeply personal, witness tracks like “Hell &amp; Back.”
<blockquote>I&#8217;ve been called a loser since first day of 2nd grade 
I&#8217;ve been an alcoholic with one foot inside the grave 
And I&#8217;ve been brave enough to say that I&#8217;m afraid I&#8217;m not okay 
And I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ll survive another day</blockquote>
Other tracks, like “Man in the Sky,” merge MacDonald’s protest-singer DNA with heartfelt pleas for empathy. He’s an imperfect vessel in an imperfect world.
The musician’s flaws, like his signature tattoos, are visible to all. <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/goodbye-joe-god-bless-the-usa-top-digital-song-sales-chart-after-election-1235825769/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">So are his successes</a>.
His post-election song “Goodbye Joe” gave him his <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/goodbye-joe-god-bless-the-usa-top-digital-song-sales-chart-after-election-1235825769/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fourth number-one ranking</a> on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart, following “Fake Woke,” “Ghost” and “You Missed.”
His YouTube channel boasts 5 million subscribers and most videos eclipse the million-view mark in days, not weeks.
MacDonald, whose recent pairings include songs with Roseanne Barr (“Daddy’s Home”) and The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro (“Facts”), sounds a little different on the new album. He isn’t giving up on rap, but the newer material offers a rootsy feel, brimming with acoustic guitars.
<div id="attachment_915573" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915573" class="size-large wp-image-915573" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-57-AM-7387-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald.</div>
That singing style hearkens back to his earliest days as a musician. He remembers riding in the car with his father as a boy when he came up with a jingle for Ford.
“[My Dad] was bewildered … where did that come from?” MacDonald recalls. 
He started writing music more often, but he felt he didn’t have the classic rock voice, a la Robert Plant or Joe Cocker, to execute the material. “I had to do something else. I was writing poetry, a primitive form of rap. That’s how the rap thing started,” he says.
“Problem” found him more confident in his singing, allowing him to expand his sound in the process.
“I know where my boundaries are and what I’m capable of singing on a song &#8230; if I don’t do it right now I won’t have a good enough excuse to give it a good shot [later],” he says.
Fans can pick up “Proud to Be a Problem” at MacDonald’s official web site, <a href="https://hangovergangofficial.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HangoverGangOfficial.com</a>. That’s part of his indie approach, lashing out at a streaming landscape that pays little to participating artists.
“I have such a big chip on my shoulder for the music industry,” he says, recalling a brush with a major label earlier in his career that ended in rejection. “I’ve done enough for these streaming platforms.”
“A big part of the reason I put the singles on streaming is we keep going to no. 1 on Billboard [charts] … it’s a giant f***ing middle finger to the music industry,” he says.
<div id="attachment_915581" style="width: 334px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915581" class="wp-image-915581 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-324x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: Instagram/@TomMacDonaldOfficial" width="324" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-324x576.jpg 324w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-169x300.jpg 169w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842-1152x2048.jpg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-12-10-PM-5842.jpg 1440w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 324px) 100vw, 324px" />Screenshot: Instagram/@TomMacDonaldOfficial</div>
That solo spirit extends beyond the music on “Problem.” He designed the merchandise around the released, mailed signed LP copies of it to fans personally and oversaw every part of the production.
“It hasn’t been touched by Hollywood. That’s the way I want it,” he says.
He shared his feelings about sending out signed copies of “Proud to Be a Problem” to fans on his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DJIdKXgPXX0/?img_index=1">Instagram account</a>:
<blockquote>I gotta tell y’all &#8211; people didn’t care about me for most of my life. I was one of the forgotten people whose voice was drown out by the noise of the world. Every single day I’m shocked that you guys care about me enough to want my album and my signature. I’m shocked…but I’m thrilled. I felt like a “nobody” for so long that every day I wake up expecting to be forgotten again. Every day that y’all remember me, you prove me wrong. And you absolutely make my day. No one should ever feel like a nobody. But it happens.</blockquote>
That personal connection reflects being a music fan growing up in Canada. He fondly remembers lining up at the local record store and waiting for the newest albums to go on sale.
“When you got that album .. you felt like you might be one of the only people in the world who had it,” he says. “You could hold on to it, a physical product … That’s the way I want my music to be experienced.”
Record labels still reach out to MacDonald about potential deals, and he sometimes will listen to the conversation. Then, he’ll share his reactions on Instagram.
“I’ve been trolling these people for years and years,” he says. “I’d rather roll around on broken glass [than sign onto a label].”
<div id="attachment_915577" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-915577" class="size-large wp-image-915577" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald." width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-1536x865.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-03-May-2025-11-58-AM-5929-2048x1153.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: YouTube.com/Tom MacDonald.</div>
MacDonald leveraged new media and a collective mistrust of the mainstream to power his music career. Somewhere a fledgling singer/songwriter might want to follow in his shoes, avoiding corporate overlords to make music on their terms.
MacDonald has some clichéd but honest advice for the next generation of indie musicians.
“Just be yourself … there’s always gonna be a better producer, a better rapper, a better singer. You’re the only person on earth who can do you better than anybody else,” he says. “The entire world is fake and bulls*** and disingenuous. The best way to cut through all that noise is to be honest and scream your truth at the top of your lungs … people gravitate towards the truth and what’s real.”
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Millions Of Views And Fiercely Independent. Inside The Mind Of Tom MacDonald.

Music Industry

Rapper

Tom MacDonald

Normally when some influencer posts a video that I find annoying and I feel the need to respond to it, I save it for my Daily Cancellation segment. Today, however, I am going to break that rule. I am going to begin with a video from an allegedly conservative influencer named Emily Wilson.
What makes this video relevant, aside from the fact that it just simply annoys me, is that it echoes a message we’ve been hearing with increasing frequency from women on the Right with, in some cases, very large platforms. Emily’s platform isn’t very large, but it is sizable enough. She has half a million followers on Instagram. I’m sure she’s a nice person. I don’t know her and have no issue with her personally. But she represents a growing, or at least increasingly evident, problem on the Right. The problem, in a word, is feminism.
Feminism is not compatible with any meaningful definition of conservatism. Whatever conservatism is trying to conserve — like marriage, the family, western civilization itself — feminism militates against. And yet many feminists have become mouthpieces in the movement, and are accepted as such, as long as they wear a MAGA hat and say that they don’t like illegal immigration or whatever.
So with that in mind, let’s listen to just the latest submission to the ever expanding conservative feminist genre:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Not to pick on <a href="https://twitter.com/emilysavesusa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@emilysavesusa</a> because I’ve been seeing a lot of girls on the right counter signaling the ‘trad’ stay at home mom lifestyle lately also, but I think this message is ridiculous.
Being a SAHM is not being ‘trapped’ by a man. That’s feminist BS. It’s also not… <a href="https://t.co/2iiwnYCb0T">pic.twitter.com/2iiwnYCb0T</a>
&mdash; Sarah Stock ✟ (@sarahcstock) <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahcstock/status/1917844165893018047?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Well, I am cringing. But not because of the trad wives. I’m cringing at this lame, half-baked attack on stay-at-home moms. And I’m cringing even more at the fact that women with these kinds of views are still embraced as “conservative.”
Try to imagine the opposite of this. Imagine a Left-wing influencer who advocates for every Left-wing policy under the sun but then comes out one day and says, “You know what? I think a woman’s proper place is in the home, raising her children.” It’s impossible to conceive of any Left-wing woman ever saying such a thing. And if she did, she would be immediately excised from the movement. That’s because leftists understand that supporting so-called traditional gender roles is fundamentally antithetical to their worldview. You literally cannot be a leftist and hold that view.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1588-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
The same is logically true in the reverse. Attacking gender roles is fundamentally leftist. Which means you cannot be conservative if you hold fundamentally leftist views. You have every right to express those views. But you should not be embraced as a conservative, much less listened to as a spokeswoman for the movement. 
Now let’s go through some of the specifics here. Emily says that a woman should have a job and her own income so that she isn’t “trapped” by a man. She envisions the relationship between husband and wife as inherently competitive. Marriage is a zero sum game where both husband and wife are competing for control. Again, this is a fundamentally leftist conception. It is a recipe for divorce. There is nothing in and of itself wrong with a wife earning money. As I’ve conceded many times, a family may feel that they need two incomes in order to survive. Or they may want a second income. Or the wife might have a job that doesn’t require leaving the house and going to an office every day. But if she’s earning money as an escape hatch because she doesn’t want to be “trapped,” that is a very bad sign.
If you want to understand why it’s a bad sign just imagine how it would sound if a man adopted this philosophy. A woman on X commented yesterday that a wife needs a “backup in case their man can’t fulfill his providing roles.”
Well what if a man decided to have a back up in case his woman didn’t fulfill her wifely duties? Most people would find that objectionable, for good reason. The whole point of marriage is that you are devoting yourself entirely to your spouse. Two become one flesh. It is not possible to make that level of commitment while at the same time actively building yourself a nest egg just in case you want to leave. Saying the vows and pledging yourself to your betrothed means not having an exit plan. It means you burn the boats like Cortés and turn towards that wilderness and journey into it together, come what may.
She also says that men want to be mentally stimulated. The implication is that stay-at-home moms are too stupid to provide that sort of stimulation because all they think about is their “sourdough bread.”
This is absurdly dismissive and insulting to millions of good, godly, intelligent women who, while staying home with the children, are also capable of having intelligent conversations with their husbands. It also assumes that a woman who sits in a cubicle all day will somehow have more interesting things to say to her husband at the end of the day. Having a job as a woman does not make you smart or interesting. I hate to break it to the working women of the world, but your husband is almost certainly not intellectually stimulated by your job or your stories about your job. If he was able to choose between listening to a story about your office drama or listening to a story about what you did with the kids that day, he would prefer to hear about the latter. This is the sort of thing you would know about men if you listened to them when they try to tell you what they want, instead of declaring what you think they should want.
But the biggest problem — and the objection you hear most often from these feminist types — is the claim that somehow the stay-at-home mom arrangement is implausible, or even impossible. Emily declares that your chances of finding a man who can provide for you while you stay home and raise the children are, “Slim to none. Actually none,” she says. There&#8217;s no chance that it works out for you. There’s no chance that it works out for you or anyone you know. And yet it has worked out for countless people. It’s worked out for my wife. It’s worked out for many families that I know personally. It’s worked out for billions of human beings across the globe and through history since the dawn of civilization. Emily has written off the most normal and historically common practice as not just difficult but, according to her, literally impossible. And not just impossible, but also absurd and grotesque.
There’s a lot of this kind of thing going around. During my conversation with Tucker Carlson this week, we talked about the absurdity of gay adoption and gay parenthood.
Here&#8217;s a clip of that exchange that Tucker&#8217;s team posted:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Should gay couples be able to adopt? Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson discuss. <a href="https://t.co/q3I5vRRzVF">pic.twitter.com/q3I5vRRzVF</a>
&mdash; Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/TCNetwork/status/1918058750692180235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Plenty of people on the Right, or Right-adjacent, took great exception to this. Glenn Greenwald is one of them. He tweeted in response: 
<blockquote>One has to be morally deranged — or totally ignorant of the grim realities of kids lingering without parents in orphanages, shelters and foster care, only to be expelled at 18 with no support — to believe that that dark hell is better for kids than being adopted by gay couples.</blockquote>
Morally deranged, he says. The view that two men should not be allowed to adopt children was held by nearly everyone in this country, and everyone across the world, until very recently. Barack Obama was against gay adoption when he first ran for president. So was every other elected Democrat. Any elected Democrat over the age of 50 was probably, at one point, opposed to both gay marriage and gay adoption. In fact, gay adoption was so obviously wrong to so many people for so long that it wasn&#8217;t even discussed. It wasn&#8217;t debated. It was just intuitively understood that children need a mother and a father. We won’t let two men adopt children for the same reason that we wouldn’t let a polyamorous polycule adopt a child. Children need a mother and a father. We are not going to deliberately put a child into a disordered environment where he is not only deprived of a mother or a father, but the role of mother or father has been replaced in an unnatural and confusing way.
This was always understood. Now, in the blink of an eye, what was always understood is &#8220;morally deranged.” The thing that everyone believed forever until approximately last Tuesday is not just wrong but shocking and upsetting and baffling. This is the game that&#8217;s played. And I, for one, am entirely sick of it.
Not everything that is old or traditional is automatically good, of course. Slavery is old and traditional — and still practiced in non-western countries. It&#8217;s also very bad. But there are basic truths about how human society is fundamentally structured. Truths that have withstood the test of time. Truths that have, while civilization held fast to them, it flourished and advanced in remarkable and seemingly miraculous ways. Truths that, minutes after our society abandoned, immediately led to decline and chaos and confusion. One of those truths is that a child needs a mother and a father. Only a man and a woman can have a baby, or should. Another one of those truths is that men and women are different, and so have different roles in the home and in society. This was an idea so basic that there wasn&#8217;t even a term for it. We only started labeling it &#8220;gender roles&#8221; at the moment that we decided to abandon it. And I would say that the results of that decision have not been good. Divorce, broken homes, declining birth rates, 60 million dead babies. And those are just the early returns.
That’s why we cannot be embarrassed to hold to a system that is ancient and timeless, and proven, tested, and vindicated by the testimony of our ancestors and by thousands of years of human experience beyond that. As conservatives, if that is not worth conserving, then nothing is.

Three businesswomen walking together in an office

Why ‘Conservative Feminism’ Is A Total Lie

Why 'Conservative Feminism' Is A Total Lie

Chemotherapy

Family Values

Fathers

Feminism

Husband

Parenting

Social Media

Women

David Horowitz died on Tuesday at the age of 86.
I knew David really, really well. I used to work at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Truth Revolt, which was a precursor to The Daily Wire, began at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
I knew David for more than a decade before that. He was truly a formative person in the modern conservative movement, a person who spoke the truth no matter the cost.
David started off as a radical communist. He wrote a book in 1996 titled “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Son-Generational-David-Horowitz/dp/0684840057?ref_=ast_author_dp&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey</a>.” In it, he talks about how his parents were communists and that he was a “Red Diaper Baby.”
He began his career as a far-Left writer for Ramparts magazine. He turned to the Right when his friend was allegedly killed by the Black Panthers. Then, basically all of his old friends disowned him and decided he was “untouchable.”
David then turned into one of the most effective conservative activists of his generation. He used to call the David Horowitz Freedom Center a “battle tank” rather than a think tank. Pretty much everybody who&#8217;s anybody in modern conservatism had some initial connection with David Horowitz. I met Charlie Kirk, for example, at a David Horowitz Freedom Center event back when Charlie was maybe 18- or 19- years old and was first getting started with TPUSA.
And that remains true for a huge number of people who got their start in the conservative movement in the 1990s and 2000s. His books are worth reading. He was really an amazing writer, a terrific speaker, and a strong voice.
There are many videos of him online that are really worth watching. Here is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuqTKXZjffE">just one</a>, for example:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="WILL YOU CONDEMN HAMAS: David Horowitz Goes Toe-to-Toe With Terrorism Apologist" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JuqTKXZjffE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
<blockquote>Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas here and now? 
Radical Student: I&#8217;m sorry, what? 
Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas? Will you condemn Hamas as a terrorist and genocidal organization? 
Radical Student: Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?
Horowitz: So you won&#8217;t. I actually have had this experience many times. You didn&#8217;t read the pamphlet because the pamphlet is chapter and verse. The main connection is that the MSA is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network, as revealed in the document.
Radical Student: I don&#8217;t think you understood what I meant by that. I meant if I say something, I&#8217;m sure that I will be arrested for reasons of Homeland Security. So if you could please just answer my question.
Horowitz: If you condemn Hamas, Homeland Security will arrest you?
Radical Student: If I support Hamas — because your question forces me to condemn Hamas — if I support Hamas, I look really bad.
Horowitz: Well, if you don&#8217;t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I&#8217;ve had this experience at UC Santa Barbara, where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, “Will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas?” And none of them would. And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask questions. I said, “You know, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah?” And he said, “Well, that question is too complicated for a yes or no answer.” So I said, “Okay, I&#8217;ll put it to you this way. I&#8217;m a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn&#8217;t have to hunt us down globally — for it or against it?
Radical Student: For it.
Horowitz: Thank you. Thank you for coming and showing everybody what&#8217;s here.</blockquote>
David was extremely clear in his approach to the world. He understood the morality of many of our foreign adversaries. He was an advocate for Americanism and American strength and security. And he will very much be missed.

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David Horowitz: The Most Effective Conservative Of His Generation

Ben Shapiro

Books

Communism

David Horowitz

Obituaries

I believe that America’s core ideals are very much linked to its Christian faith. So as Easter has just passed, I thought this would be a good time to take a closer look at the state of the American church and then weep quietly and say it was a great country while it lasted.
Now, according to a Pew poll, 62% of Americans identify as Christian. This is a slight drop from the 1697 poll which showed 99.9% of Americans were Christian with one heretic hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat wouldn’t blow his head off with a blunderbuss.
But today’s religious landscape looks different depending on political affiliation. For instance, on the political Left, 43% of those who identify as progressives say they have abandoned Christianity and become Episcopalians. Fourteen percent of progressives say they have renounced the corrupt beliefs of colonizing white men, have returned to the innocent and beautiful natural religion of indigenous peoples, and were preparing to sacrifice a virgin to the volcano God until they realized that by the time they were sure she was a virgin, she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and if they threw her into a volcano there’d be no one left who knew how to make breakfast.
Other progressives say they are sick of the sort of restrictive religions that ruined the 1950’s by making everything so great. Instead they have turned to more modern faiths with practices that reflect the moral progress of mankind. These practices include yogic meditation, ritual mindfulness, and tantric sex followed by butchering any unborn babies conceived during tantric sex, then celebrating the mass slaughter by dancing around a pole in a wild blood-drenched frenzy, getting a full body tattoo featuring goat-headed demi-gods with flaming eyes, then running naked through a forest while grunting inarticulately and listening to music that’s mostly composed of drumbeats and shrieking because classic rock is just the best.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
Among Christians on the political Right, 17% say they believe in Christ so hard they’ll kill anyone who disagrees with them, 14% say their faith is so strong they might even be willing to go to church as long as porn is provided, and 8% say their worship mostly involves posting unspeakably cruel remarks on social media to people who aren’t as Christly as they are. Four percent of conservative Christians say they have abandoned their own egos for Christ’s sake and have thus elevated their souls into a state of suffering-yet-serene agape love, and are now hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat won’t blow their heads off with a blunderbuss.
The remaining 57% of Right-wing Christians spend most of their time sobbing and whispering, “Oh God, I suck so bad, please, please, please have mercy on me and don’t send me to hell or California.”
As far as other American religions go, 94% of limousine drivers identify as Muslims, 16% of Christian women pretend they’re Buddhists, and 82% of Jews control 90% of everything except which parts of Ivy League campuses they’re allowed to walk on without one of their professors pointing at them and making that awful insect noise like Donald Sutherland at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Approximately 29% of Americans have no religion whatsoever and they say that makes life much easier because they&#8217;re able to rotate their heads 360 degrees and spider walk across the ceiling, which comes in very handy when they’re trying to escape from the exorcist.
Around the world, the religious landscape is much more varied. For instance, in Great Britain, while 47% of the people identify as Christian, 70% of them say that Islam is also absolutely great, totally fine, really wonderful and not a problem at all, no, really, it’s fantastic, they’re not just saying that because they’d be arrested for telling the truth.
In France, 49% of the population were excited because they thought they belonged to a dark, obscure, mystery cult with elaborate secret rituals until they found out they were actually just Catholics.
And in China, 23% of high-ranking Communists identify their kidneys as Uiger.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins).

US-ENTERTAINMENT-FILM-FESTIVAL-CARTOON-COMICCON-RELIGION

Progressives Abandon Christianity, Become Episcopalian

Andrew Klavan

Bible

Christianity

Easter

Episcopal Church

Humor

Progressivism

Satire

Buckley vs. Vidal. Frost Vs. Nixon.
Smith vs. Murray?
Everyone is still talking about the extended debate between Libertarian comic Dave Smith and author Douglas Murray on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The Spotify superstar set the chat in motion, knowing the two had extremely different views that would make for a compelling exchange. It’s a sad sign of the times when a debate between two well-meaning adults is increasingly rare in pop culture.
The chat did more than let both pundits share their views. It reminded Rogan of an old saw that Uncle Ben taught a budding web-slinger long ago.
With great power comes great responsibility.
<div id="attachment_909815" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6kirkSwTg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909815" class="size-large wp-image-909815" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience #2303. Dave Smith and Douglas Murray. PowerfulJRE. YouTube.com" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-23-PM-2662-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience #2303. Dave Smith and Douglas Murray. PowerfulJRE. YouTube.com</div>
The underlying message in the chat? Rogan’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6kirkSwTg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hugely popular show</a> has been letting some cranks share his podcast microphone. That might not have mattered a few years ago, but now “The Joe Rogan Experience” has the power to shape the political landscape.
Many pundits suggest Donald Trump’s appearance on the show, along with Kamala Harris’ unwillingness to do the same, played a role in the real estate mogul’s victory.
Letting “historians” in Rogan’s studio who resist that label, spread erroneous facts, and refuse to take on their critics, may not be the best way to flex his podcast muscle.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-rogan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rogan</a> has played podcast footsie with conspiracy monger Alex Jones for some time. Now, he’s expanding that practice to the format’s detriment. Think Ian Carroll and Darryl Cooper as two recent examples.
The latter called Winston Churchill, <a href="https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/cooper-koureas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“The chief villain of World War II.”</a>
“I feel you’ve opened the door to quite a lot of people who now got a big platform, who have been throwing out counter-historical stuff of a very dangerous kind,” Murray said early in the conversation. “These guys are not historians. They’re not knowledgeable about anything.”
“I just think, ‘I’d like to talk to that person.&#8217;” Rogan said of his guest choice.
The far-Left Hollywood Reporter, sensing a weakness in Rogan’s podcasting armor, called the podcaster’s recent tilt, “Dangerous.” That’s overstating it, but <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/joe-rogan-douglas-murray-podcast-1236192416/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">it’s neither healthy nor helpful.</a>
A week later, Darryl Cooper arrived to perform his act, which can be described as offering outrageous provocations he then half walks back so he can repeat them all again tomorrow. In September, Cooper had appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast to say that Churchill was the real villain in World War II and that Nazis didn’t want to kill Jews in concentration camps; Jews only “ended up dead” because Germany didn’t have the resources to take care of them.
Murray and Smith didn’t name call or insult one another during the often-tense exchange. Rogan proved an avuncular host, trying to keep the parties on an even keel. The two sparred over foreign policy, the Ukraine war, and, most passionately, the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Murray’s silky-smooth delivery and impeccable grasp of the facts mattered. Smith brought an Everyman’s perspective to the party, often appearing overmatched in the dustup.
<div id="attachment_909817" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909817" class="size-large wp-image-909817" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience #2303. Dave Smith and Douglas Murray. PowerfulJRE. YouTube.com" width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-13-PM-5832-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: Joe Rogan Experience #2303. Dave Smith and Douglas Murray. PowerfulJRE. YouTube.com</div>
Who “won” depends partly on who you were rooting for prior to the exchange. Both landed some blows, from Murray detailing the horrors of October 7 to Smith sharing the devastation in Gaza from the extended conflict.
It’s increasingly rare to watch these kinds of debates play out on the pop culture landscape. Hollywood’s near total domination by the Left means there’s little appetite for these healthy exchanges. 
Consider today’s late-night hosts. They all sing from the same progressive hymnal and invite progressive guests on to nod along with the audience. The host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” just raged against President Donald Trump in a Rolling Stone interview. Here’s part of his <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/jimmy-kimmel-trump-late-night-future-interview-1235315906/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jeremiad against all things GOP</a>.
&#8220;There’s no decency. It’s just a bunch of animals [emphasis added], and it’s disgusting… I mean, on the Fourth of July, I still put up a flag, and I’m never going to stop doing that, because I’m never going to let them have that symbol.&#8221;
Does that sound like someone willing to host a free and fair debate on his platform? Why can’t Kimmel invite someone like Dr. Jordan Peterson or Greg Gutfeld on his show for a civil conversation? It would make for compelling TV and might boost the show’s ratings.
Plus, audiences might take away something valuable from it beyond demonizing those with whom they disagree. It’s increasingly clear folks on the Left aren’t interested in that kind of exchange.
There is an exception, though. Classical liberal Bill Maher, both on his HBO talk show and “Club Random” podcast, routinely invites Right-leaning guests to talk out their differences. Think Dave Rubin, Kid Rock, and actor Zachary Levi, to name just three.
<div id="attachment_909819" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909819" class="size-large wp-image-909819" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-1024x576.jpg" alt="Screenshot: YouTube/Club Random Podcast. " width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-36-PM-7260-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Screenshot: YouTube/Club Random Podcast.</div>
Rogan probably didn’t like to hear someone like Murray, well-regarded in many circles, dressing him down on his own show. He needed to hear it all the same. It’s reminiscent of another pivotal moment from the show’s past.
Rogan invited then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on his show for what appeared to be a tepid chat that let Dorsey slink away from his platform’s censorious ways. Rogan got an earful from his fans who felt he had let the CEO off too easily. So he invited Dorsey back on the show, but brought backup.
He added journalist gadfly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCBRHOg3PQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tim Pool to the conversation</a>. Pool brought some unflattering receipts, and the exchange proved far more illuminating than the first interview.
Perhaps Rogan needed a reminder of why his show matters and the consequences of having one of the biggest podcasts in the country.
Uncle Ben would be proud if he took that lesson seriously.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-18-Apr-2025-04-07-PM-2073

Joe Rogan’s Smith-Murray Debate Shows The Power And Risk Of Platforming

comedian

Debate

Douglas Murray

Joe Rogan

Libertarian Party

Podcast

Pro-Israel

Pro-Palestinian

Spotify

Ukraine-Russia War

Winston Churchill

World War II

YouTube

A French court has now banned Marine Le Pen, who is highly likely to win the next election in France, from seeking public office for five years. The court convicted her of misusing European Union funds.
&#8220;The court ruled that Le Pen and other members of her party illegally used 4.4 million euros, equivalent to $4.8 million, in EU funding that was earmarked for assistants helping lawmakers in the European Parliament with their work,&#8221; The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/frances-marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement-b8c42dac" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. &#8220;Monday’s sentence bars Le Pen from seeking public office for the next five years, thrusting her far-right party into limbo. Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence. Half of that term was suspended, judges said, adding that she could serve the remaining two years by using an electronic bracelet or other alternatives to jail time. The ruling takes Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race, unless she can win a swift appeal. Le Pen had been expected to enter that contest as a front-runner as President Emmanuel Macron will be term limited and other prominent contenders have yet to emerge.&#8221;
This is crazy — but this is part and parcel of the broader attempt by Left-wing judiciary activists across the globe to stop “populist politicians” from being able to run.
We saw it with President Trump, where the DOJ went after him for supposed crimes, the same crimes for which they let Joe Biden off the hook. We saw it in New York, where a New York attorney general filed a civil fraud lawsuit in an attempt to stop then-candidate Trump.
We have seen it in Brazil, where the entire judicial apparatus has been brought down on the head of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, in favor of Lula da Silva, who was then freed by that same exact judiciary.
We&#8217;ve seen it in Romania, where Cǎlin Georgescu won the election in 2024 and then the judiciary decided the election had been rigged by the Russians and annulled it. 
We have seen it in Israel, where the attorney general of Israel has been targeting Benjamin Netanyahu on specious charges for literally years, and the judiciary keep saying that Netanyahu can&#8217;t perform the basic functions of an executive, such as fire his attorney general or fire anyone in the executive branch.
And now we are seeing it in France.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2169-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
It is absolutely amazing to watch these unelected officials going out of their way to thwart the will of the people in supposed democracies. It&#8217;s really insane.
You want to talk about undermining democracy itself? This undermines democracy because the reaction to this is, “Okay, what if we just overthrow the judicial institutions?”
Why do I feel like this is a put-up job? Because it takes effect immediately. The point is to get her out of the elections. Thus they&#8217;re suspending her jail sentence but they are not suspending her ban from running.
Le Pen had denied the charges, “testifying in court that it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, not direct employees of the European Parliament,” the Journal noted.
In other words, if the European Parliament didn’t want them focused solely on party-related tasks, perhaps it should have hired them directly, rather than paying the party to handle some of its work. That sounds like a strong defense.
Is the idea here that Marine Le Pen desperately needed a couple of million euros in order to pay off her political party? I feel like she probably could have raised it. Her party&#8217;s pretty big in France.
This is just the latest NATO member to reject a populist candidate by some sort of judicial intervention.
If you want to talk about undermining the argument that democracy must flourish in Europe, this would be a great way to do it.

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