Crushing fraud and DEI: Trump’s plan to restore the American dream of homeownership



The U.S. housing market has been a rollercoaster since the pandemic. First, lockdowns and economic uncertainty slowed the market to a crawl, followed by record-low mortgage rates that spurred a buying frenzy. Limited inventory worsened by construction delays and supply chain issues then spiked prices, creating a fierce seller’s market with frequent bidding wars.

In 2021, Biden’s economic policies, later called “Bidenomics,” drove inflation through the roof and prompted the Federal Reserve to spike interest rates, which doubled monthly mortgage payments for a median-priced home and made home ownership impossible for a huge percentage of American families.

Although the market has cooled slightly, affordability issues, elevated prices, and limited inventory continue to put homeownership out of reach for many Americans.

But thankfully, President Trump, as he always does, has a plan to fix what’s been broken.

Matthew Peterson, Blaze News editor in chief and co-host of “Blaze News Tonight,” recently sat down with Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to discuss President Trump’s plans to restore the American dream of homeownership.

The FHFA is in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – two government-sponsored enterprises that keep the housing market running smoothly by making sure banks have money to lend.

“My view on [FHFA] is that we are here to restore the American dream,” says Pulte. “For the last four years under President Biden, there was a significant amount of inflation, and nobody could afford a home, and so what we're really focused on is restoring the American dream of home ownership.”

However, what’s standing in the way of that goal is rampant fraud, waste, and abuse.

“There was a lot of fraud and a lot of waste and abuse that went on in 2008, and as a result, the government had to take over Fannie and Freddie, and so what we're focused on is getting rid of the fraud, getting rid of the waste, getting rid of the abuse to make sure that these entities are stronger than ever before,” says Pulte.

To further these efforts, FHFA has instituted a “tip line” where anyone can report fraud and has terminated employees for “fraudulent or misleading activity.”

Another issue that’s been standing in the way of restoring the American dream of homeownership is DEI. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have “affordable housing mandates” that encourage lenders to provide more loans to low-income borrowers, minority groups, and underserved communities above others.

“Everybody should be treated equally and our policies need to do that, and so we terminated the DEI executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” says Pulte.

While it’s a long and complicated road to rooting out corruption and making homeownership more accessible again, Pulte is confident President Trump is the person to see it done.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be great American icons once again,” he says.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from 'Blaze News Tonight'?

To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

J.D. Vance: Unchecked Migration Is Killing The American Dream

'If you allow 20 million people to compete with American citizens for the cost of homes, you are going to have a ... spike in the demand for housing,' J.D. Vance said.

Making English Our National Language Is One Step Toward A More Unified Country

Expecting everyone to speak English is a recognition of reality and a signpost for new Americans seeking to assimilate and prosper.

Panda Express didn’t sign up to represent generational failure



Panda Express and Chipotle have unintentionally become memes for mediocrity and failure. While their food might be unhealthy and has occasionally caused food poisoning, labeling the restaurants as symbols of decadence seems unfair.

Similarly, it was unjust to blame old shows like "Saved by the Bell" and "Boy Meets World" for corrupting white American youth and causing them to fall behind their Asian American peers academically.

Zoomers need to take active steps to improve their own lives. This means putting down the phone, engaging with the real world, and fostering spiritual growth.

This reflects today’s public discourse, which often simplifies ideas into memes for easier, more entertaining consumption. Unfortunately, this approach obscures genuine disagreements and turns clear, reasoned debates into a tangled mess of bad arguments.

In what feels like a sequel to the recent H-1B visa brouhaha, another discussion has emerged that deserves attention. As before, both sides present valid points and would likely agree on solutions. Yet, in the pursuit of content and audience engagement, participants continue talking past each other and trading potshots.

The current debate focuses on Zoomers — those in their late teens and 20s — and their ability to succeed in today’s America. One side argues that this generation faces insurmountable obstacles to success. The side claims the workplace and academia have become toxically feminized, and the gerontocracy leading our institutions suppresses the rise of younger generations.

Demands for ever more credentials have reached absurd levels, while the American dream of a spouse, children, and homeownership has become prohibitively expensive. Adding to this, older conservative voices seem oblivious to these challenges.

As a teacher working with Zoomers, I would add that online pornography and smartphones have taken a massive toll on the generation coming of age. These influences directly affect the libidos and social habits of young people entering adolescence. They have also created an anti-social culture marked by paranoia, crippling anxiety, and self-loathing. Most interactions between young people now occur online, limiting shared realities and empathy. This dynamic has wrecked the dating scene and stifled the formation of real friendships.

In addition to diminishing job opportunities and upward mobility, older generations have left Zoomers with a world of universal loneliness. This began when they handed children tablets and smartphones with unrestricted internet access. While parents rationalized these devices as tools for learning and self-improvement, the reality was far darker. These gadgets acted like a drug, poisoning children’s minds and damaging the culture at large.

The opposing side in this debate contends that a decent life is still achievable if young people were to stop making excuses and put in the effort. This is where Panda Express comes in. A motivated Zoomer could work his or her way up to managing a fast-food restaurant. While not glamorous, these roles offer honest work and could support a family with disciplined, frugal living.

Supporters of this perspective often share testimonials to back their claims. These stories highlight individuals who worked hard, avoided the usual vices, fell in love, started families, and now live fulfilling lives as popular influencers. Their message is clear: If they could succeed, so can anyone else.

To this, I would agree that Zoomers technically have access to all the resources they need to succeed. I’ve seen stumbling blocks turn into stepping stones, helping some of my students become far more accomplished at their age than I ever was. They have the tools to teach themselves nearly anything and engage in discussions once reserved for older generations.

However, what is possible isn’t always probable. Most people aren’t intellectual prodigies capable of instantly achieving fame and fortune. And more importantly, they shouldn’t have to be exceptional just to enjoy the same quality of life their parents once had.

Many Millennials in their 30s and 40s fail to see the significant generational gap between themselves and Zoomers. What was achievable for Millennials no longer holds true for Zoomers, who have borne the brunt of woke ideology and elite mismanagement.

For Millennials, hard work and basic credentials still could guarantee decent-paying jobs. Relationships and friendships formed naturally, and housing was relatively affordable. This is no longer the case for Zoomers, and dismissing them as “whiny brats” who spend too much time online fails to acknowledge the unique challenges they face.

To address or mitigate the struggles of this younger generation, both sides of the debate must acknowledge the validity of the other’s arguments. Leaders should adapt to modern realities by ending the reliance on cheap labor, curbing excessive public spending, streamlining regulations, breaking up monopolies, reforming education, prioritizing American workers, regulating addictive technology and online pornography as public health issues, and incentivizing marriage and parenthood.

At the same time, Zoomers need to take active steps to improve their own lives. This means putting down the phone, engaging with the real world, reading meaningful books, gaining work experience, and fostering spiritual growth. These efforts can help them build friendships, find partners, accumulate wealth, and create stability. While this path may not lead to glamorous jobs or extravagant homes, it is far better than resigning to a life of aimless frustration and online trolling.

Donald Trump’s return to office offers hope for both sides of this debate. If he fulfills his promises, conditions will improve. At the very least, the current decline will pause for a few years, giving Americans time to adjust and steer their course toward a brighter future.

As with the H-1B debate, this conversation is productive. These arguments have long been overlooked, and younger generations have endured the worst effects of this neglect, living in a world filled with unnecessary dysfunction. Beyond sharing memes and entertaining ourselves, we must address these challenges seriously, take constructive action, and leave fast-food chains out of the blame game.

Cut the Zoomers some slack



Every generation loves to give the next one a hard time. Socrates famously called youth lazy, disrespectful, and decadent, starting a tradition that continues today. Although these criticisms sometimes hold truth, elders rarely acknowledge their own role in fostering the conditions that led to spiritual and cultural decline.

Generation Z — or Zoomers — may seem alien to older generations, but they face unique challenges their elders can barely imagine, let alone solve. Issues of identity, spirituality, family, and economics have shifted beneath the feet of this younger cohort. Rather than disparage Zoomers, the right should offer them leadership and solutions.

Conservatives should offer the young a future worth embracing instead of ridicule for the world they inherited.

I am not a Zoomer. I was born only a few years into the Millennial generation, while Gen Z ranges from ages 13 to 28. Many of the problems Zoomers face originated long before they were born.

When young people complain about job prospects and financial stability, the standard response is to work harder and “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” On an individual level, this advice is sound. No matter how dire one’s circumstances, effort and attitude remain personal choices. At a societal level, however, this stance can be disastrous. As a nation, we have a responsibility to foster an environment where young people can succeed, start families, and invest in a brighter future for their own children.

When Baby Boomers came of age, America was flush with opportunity. Most jobs did not require a college degree, and a store manager could afford a home and support a family on one salary. Grandparents still tell stories of paying for college by working part-time and picking up extra shifts in the summer. Starter homes existed in decent neighborhoods and often cost less than one year’s tuition at many modern universities. Most important, the majority of children came from intact families that modeled stability, and parents felt an obligation to pass wealth and opportunity down to their children.

At 14, I rode my bicycle to work my first job at a Subway in the neighborhood. I believe holding a menial job as a teenager is a critical rite of passage, teaching humility and an ability to connect with average people. However, most employees were high school kids, and every manager or assistant manager was an adult with little ambition. No one there was paying for college, let alone buying a home or supporting a family, just by making sandwiches.

Today, many entry-level positions that would have offered much-needed job experience go to undocumented immigrants willing to work for less without the same labor restrictions. Meanwhile, Zoomers hear that college is the gateway to a middle-class life, but many white males quickly learn they do not meet diversity requirements. Those who make it into university pay tuition that can exceed the down payment on a home, only to land an accounting job their parents once secured through an apprenticeship.

After graduation, many discover that jobs not yet shipped overseas are granted to foreign labor brought in on H-1B visas. The path to financial security that their parents once took seems increasingly out of reach.

For Zoomers, dating and marriage seem bleak. They often come from broken homes, with few positive examples of healthy relationships. Churches — once crucial for moral guidance, meeting potential spouses, and helping couples through marital struggles — have been abandoned. Instead, young people turn to dating apps they find degrading, with low chances of success. Young women, burdened by college debt taken on to secure a job, hesitate to start families because they cannot rely on a husband’s income alone.

The American dream once revolved around becoming middle class. Rather than attaining a certain salary, middle-class status represented independence. Wage workers depended on employers for daily survival. Typically renters, they had little security and lived paycheck to paycheck. Aspiring to join the middle class meant freeing yourself and your children from dependence on the system.

A middle-class family owned its own home, its own car, and often a small business. The capital they accrued allowed for investing, saving for retirement, and creating new opportunities for their children. Civic organizations, fraternities, guilds, clubs, and churches formed a network of social institutions that kept government small while communities prospered. This leisure time and extra capital among the middle class fostered institutions that freed generations of Americans from depending on corporations or government.

Today, the American middle class has been proletarianized. Mortgages have stretched from 15 to 30 years, and that’s for those lucky enough to buy a home in a market where costs keep climbing. Car loans have lengthened as well, with many consumers opting to lease rather than own. Health care, education, housing, and food have all experienced runaway inflation, while wages have failed to keep pace. Even two college-educated parents often need long hours at jobs that compete with foreign labor just to afford a home and raise a child or two. Those children, in turn, are often cared for by strangers and educated by the state. For most workers, “middle class” now means affording both Netflix and Hulu, not a path to prosperity and independence.

Zoomers are not inherently entitled or lazy. They were born into a culture that gutted many key social institutions to boost abstract measures like GDP. Earlier generations forgot that economic growth should improve people’s lives, not just inflate earnings reports. Destroying faith, family, and community for profit invites cynicism among young people who see fewer pathways to success.

This does not excuse Zoomers from personal responsibility, but conservatives should encourage them rather than mock them. Opportunities remain, yet both illegal and legal immigration must be curtailed so American citizens can access those jobs. The college monopoly on credentials must end, and DEI mandates in schools and workplaces should be punished under the strictest legal standards. Conservatives who claim to uphold “family values” need to help rebuild the local institutions that enable families to thrive and mentor the next generation of leaders. They should offer the young a future worth embracing instead of ridicule for the world they inherited.

Which way, Trump voter? We react to election 2024



Cry me a river

Charly Triballeau/Getty Images

I’m done with liberal tears. I don’t care.

Do you enjoy finding out your ex-girlfriend got dumped after you’ve been married for five years? No. You couldn't care less. I knew they’d be crying, and I care as much about their belief system today as I did before Trump won.

The only remotely thing interesting about their meltdowns is how they’ve gone from, “Muh … RACIST” to “Muh … UNEDUCATED!” I actually prefer the latter allegation because it’s more true.

I don’t "wish them nothing but the best." I don’t wish them anything. They blew it a long time ago, and we’ve moved on.

For the next four years, we will be building a wall, deporting illegal aliens, privatizing everything, trashing CRT, dismantling affirmative action, de-wokeifying education, embracing meritocracy, and basically allowing America to reach its full potential without Marxist bureaucracy in the way.

The crybabies can join us or move to Europe or go on a sex strike, we don’t care. Bye-bye! Home to Mommy.

—Gavin McInnes, host of "Get Off My Lawn"

Time to build

Print Collector/Getty Images

A national mandate has been delivered by the American people to Donald Trump and all who would serve at his pleasure: a mandate to secure our borders, revive our economy, and bring peace to our empire — to change the trajectory of our nation.

The American revival has begun. This is our century. We will not surrender to despair and malaise, nor consign ourselves and our civilization to decline and collapse.

Beyond this political victory, achieving this grander civilizational goal will require sober thinking and serious work. Politics and civic duty will be required, as will enterprise and economics, entertainment and the arts, technology and exploration.

The American people and their engines of war and peace — private and public, secular and religious, urban and rural — must set their minds and hands to the work needed for this revival of their civilization. America has been drowning in mere inches of water. All we must do is stand up.

—Andrew Beck, co-founder, Beck & Stone

Sun's out, guns out

Steven D. Starr/Getty Images

That disorienting feeling you are feeling is not vertigo.

It's the Overton window, which just made the most dramatic shift to the right in decades.

The win is so massive. Their loss is so total.

The worst people in America are vanquished. Evil dynasties fell. All Trump's enemies are in exile, humiliated. GOD IS GOOD.

On November 5, 2024, America fought and won a second war against European governance. We rejected unelected bureaucracy. We rejected state-enforced decline, crushing and inhuman rule by faceless overlords, socialism, communism, European-style feudalist wars over territory, and globalist rot.

Next summer is going to be the biggest and best White Boy Summer we’ve ever had. You have six months to work on your tan.

—Peachy Keenan, cultural commentator and author of "Domestic Extremist"

Fear factor

David Dee Delgado

A decade as pariahs. Reverse McCarthyism.

Think of how many of us in blue cities put up with the petty harassment, the constant, low-grade fear they'd come after our livelihoods or our families. And come they did.

A Tuesday evening in November put an end to all that. Suddenly, we're citizens again. MAGA hats in Manhattan and Beverly Hills. Has any other piece of clothing so enraged a regime?

For ten years our friends, families, and employers pretended that voting for an extremely popular, mainstream politician and his frankly milquetoast policy proposals was not wrong, not misguided, but deeply, historically evil.

I can't think of anything less American than that. Trump will inevitably disappoint, as does every president once faced with the task of actually governing. It remains to be seen whether he will make good on his promises.

But we must remember him for what he was — a hammer that punched through the door of an absolutely rotten elite that simply had to go. And, ultimately, a leader who freed us from an era of fear.

—Isaac Simpson, founder and director, WILL

Dictatorship at the door, democracy on the floor

Sonia Moskovitz/Getty Images

She would nod while delivering her response to a question like a teacher trying to get buy-in from a truculent fourth grader.

There was a fair amount of "Nnkay?" — eventually fodder for impersonators on TikTok.

But even very simple, general, softball questions got engulfed in "Americans have hopes, and dreams, and aspirations" — as if, yep, those three things were not the exact same thing.

What was clear to the world was that this woman had not done the homework. If you look at video of her in Europe right as the invasion of Ukraine happened, a reporter asks her a fairly specific and detailed but not at all hostile question, and she makes a comical deer-in-the-headlights face and points at a diplomat from Iceland, as if to say, "He knows the answer!"

In brief, the reason the coconut lost was not "misogynoir," not gender war, not "a battle for the future of our multiracial democracy."

It was because she appeared incapable of the gig and the orange man seemed capable. You might not like his solutions, but he knows what he wants to do and how he's going to do it.

Legacy media was shocked and appalled that large percentages of "Latinx" people wanted to make money and wanted things to run properly. For this disloyalty, you had the likes of Joy Reid and Al Sharpton saying that the "Latinx" were more racist (read: anti-black) than whites were. So much for thick-and-thin loyalty!

People want (yes, go for it, Mussolini meme-makers!) the trains to run on time. They want crime to be punished and for the border to be enforced.

It cannot be overemphasized what an existential shock to the system it is that Trump suggested that the United States of America is not just some block of real estate that anyone on earth can hang out in but rather an exclusive club — kind of like Roy Cohn's favorite hangout, Studio 54 — where to gain admittance you have to show some value.

What a concept! It makes even the Ella Emhoffs of the world worry that someday they might not be on the list. This to me is an admirable form of discipline for the hoi polloi.

The second-biggest takeaway from this election is that the entire legacy media sang the same note together.

It's brat summer, wear Charli XCX putrid green, it's coconut-tree meme time, it's the summer of vibes, she didn't do so badly against Trump, Walz didn't do so badly against Vance, her "60 Minutes" bobbles didn't matter, she's gonna win it in a landslide, it's gonna be a squeaker but she's gonna make it after all, she's gonna save democracy ...

... and no real Americans out there in the real world bought it.

Puerto Ricans went up for Trump after the garbage gag. No one will trust the mainstream media in the same way ever again.

The biggest takeaway: We have a golden age coming at us. Not just in terms of laws passed but where the culture is going. It feels weird to have hope on a large scale!

—Matthew Wilder, writer and director of the forthcoming film "Morning Has Broken," with Ava McAvoy and Fred Melamed

Uncle Donald

Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

I don’t think it’s very feminine to have political thoughts — it’s kind of a dirty topic that’s best left to the men. But I used to be very involved before I married my husband. I would mostly help my dad, John Lamb, with his campaigns.

It’s hard to have feelings about Trump, in the way that it’s hard to know what to think about your eccentric uncle. When I spent six months in Germany in 2019 as an au pair, the children I looked after asked me, “How can you stand to have him for your president?”

I felt a righteous indignation to defend his honor — as if he were my uncle. A little unsavory, perhaps, but still family.

I also felt pride — not the brazen sense of superiority Americans stereotypically display in Europe, but a simple, sincere gratitude for my country. I decided then to like Trump, to the point that I became more active on Twitter so I could see his tweets.

I liked that he didn’t seem calculating, that he just said things as he saw them. Sometimes even I was offended by what he said, but I could respect his authenticity. When he didn’t make it the second time around, I regretted that I hadn’t liked him a little more. America felt less fun those next four years.

This election, I ignored the news as much as I could, although my husband and I did watch both debates. I remember thinking how Trump seemed changed — more poised. I had a feeling he might actually be able to win this time, especially when Kamala took over the race. Nobody wants a prosecutor for a president.

Is a Trump presidency truly God's will? It's still too early to know, in my opinion. Part of me wonders if there might be more assassination attempts, or if the left has accepted this victory to lull us into complacency. I really don’t know — all I’m certain of is that these next four years show promise to be interesting and fun.

—Keturah Hickman, writer and lace tatter

Go fast and go forward

Heritage Images/Getty Images

We are on the good timeline now.

The triumph of Trumpism is complete. He has put away the old GOP and defeated both the Clinton and Obama factions of the Democratic party. Trump has built a coalition of core Americans and Silicon Valley power brokers that is unique to modern history. Young people, tired and put off by the constant moral hectoring of the left, have also come on board. It is now cool to support Trump. It is high-status to support Trump.

In this new environment, anything is possible.

American dynamism has been tamped down for decades by bureaucratic dead weight and the enervating spirit of the longhouse. No more. The conditions are ripe for unprecedented growth and innovation. We are going to the stars, literally. And a wide-scale cultural renewal is imminent.

People want beauty, they want optimism, they want adventure, and they want heroism. We are going to deliver them the symbols and narratives that instantiate this latent yearning. We must not lose sight of this opportunity. We must not get bogged down in petty squabbles and factional disputes. We must go fast and go forward.

—Jonathan Keeperman, founder, Passage Publishing

Exit the Twilight Zone

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

There have been times over the past four years when I have felt like I’m living in the Twilight Zone.

We have been gaslit over and over by the Biden administration and the media regarding the strength of the economy and all of their accomplishments.

I would hear this while pulling my hair out to keep my restaurant going amid skyrocketing costs and frequent supply shortages — as our family's savings evaporated.

I would hear this while my wife and I did everything we could to support our four children, while also having to protect them from relentless ideological nonsense. And while being called bigots for wanting our daughter to play in sports with just biological women.

All of this against a backdrop of lies suggesting this is simply what "democracy" is.

But the people have spoken, and it turns out that many of us have seen through the lies. We want to leave this twisted, far-left fantasy world and get back to reality.

It’s comforting to watch the left's once semi-secret agenda get exposed once and for all — just before the new administration rips it up.

I feel confident we will see the cost of goods come down as a result of less inflationary spending, smaller government, regulations being rolled back, and American food producers being given priority within the supply chain. I know it will be easier to get my kids healthy food without having to spend a mortgage payment. There’s a lot of work to be done, but winning the election was the most important first step.

—Chef Andrew Gruel, restaurant owner and author of "Andrew Gruel's Family Cookbook"

Folie à Duh

Ollie Millington/Getty Images

To all the members of the intellectual dark web who could not bring themselves to endorse Trump, hereby known as the ineffectual dork web:

Listen, you guys had a good run. Everyone had high hopes that your breakaway sect of intelligentsia would recognize that your little pet anti-woke topics weren't just isolated problems but endemic to the entire rotting corpse of the left.

We thought you guys would realize that the issues you were stumbling upon had actually been clocked years before by the ordinary, uneducated Americans despised by the elites and that this might engender some humility.

Congrats for realizing trans people are mostly perverts and DEI is wildly unpopular. It doesn't take a great genius to realize castrating children and villainizing white people is wrong. In fact, these are basic moral intuitions that the intellectual class somehow deluded themselves into suppressing, before tepidly rolling back their cultural revolution while expecting great acclamation for such efforts.

We are sick of gentility and nuance, because we rightly perceive it as another form of intellectual skullduggery. That's different from genuine analysis and argument, which have tremendous energy and dynamism. Your role, whether you realize it or not, has been to sterilize these insights at every turn, stripping them of their charisma and repackaging them into ineffectual and glib "discourse."

For whom? You have irreparably alienated yourself from the left and will never be welcomed back there again. The left's fundamental tenet is not freedom or equality or the exchange of ideas, but eradicating all opposition on its ineluctable, grand march toward progress.

Understandable mistake, but you only get to make it once.

You're done. Nobody is going to take away your little Substacks or your sparsely populated conferences or your anti-woke nonprofits, but they're going be irrelevant.

Nobody on the right will engage with you again. These are our issues now, and any useful ideas we can extract from your self-serving, butt-covering pontification will be repurposed by those of us who actually want to do something about these problems.

—Catherine Sulpizio, writer and co-host of the podcast "Temple of Friendship"

Win or die

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Trump has won. Although this incredible victory is cause for celebration, I believe the risk of disaster has never been higher than it is right now.

As one Russian official said of attempts by the czar to modernize Imperial Russia shortly before the revolution: “The most dangerous thing you can do to a bad system is try to reform it.”

For the American right, this is the eye of the storm. It's only going to get crazier from here, and only organization and discipline will carry us through the challenges ahead. We could go into a new golden age and reach higher than anyone else has done before, or we could collapse into despair and passivity in just a few years.

It really is up to us. We get to choose whether we win or die. That’s the only choice.

—Conundrum Cluster, writer and critic

Vibe shifting

Barbara Freeman/Getty Images

There's been a "vibe shift."

Our decade of shameless anti-Americanism is over. The climate in which former New York governor Andrew Cuomo said "America was never that great" is finished.

Being an American patriot is "in" again. Crank up the rock 'n' roll. Have a cigarette. From here on out, every day is the Fourth of July. Stand tall like an American should — because you don't have to walk on eggshells any more.

I've spent more than a decade traveling this country and I now spend most of my time writing and thinking about America and celebrating this great country. As we forge into the next few years, I'm up for the task of dedicating all of my energy toward provoking the greatest resurgence in national spirit, romance, and mythos this country has ever seen. And I know I'm not alone on that score.

What the liberals get wrong about today's paradigm shift is that we're not about "American History X"-style curb-stomping rage and goose-stepping crap.

This is about the rhythm of the Rolling Stones, the Mississippi Delta blues, the little barbeque shacks and honky-tonks on the side of the highways. It's about the view from the top of Mount Washington and the stars from the beaches on Lake Superior. It's about old colonial-era homes on the Mohawk and ice cream socials at the town hall.

If there's any "populist rage" here, it's only a rage at the fact that a class of sleek, self-interested, globe-trotting elites ever sought to bleed the color from this nation. They tried to take away the fun, the vigor, the head-high pride that so many of us feel for this land. They tried to make us into a giant "human resources pool" instead of the big, weird, wild nation we always were.

Sure, there'll be policy changes. Some of them will be good; others might not be. That doesn't matter. What matters is that the dark days are over. We're done flying the flag at half-mast.

—A.M. Hickman, itinerant geographer and proprietor of "Hickman's Hinterlands"

Whose freedom?

Kirn Vintage Stock/Getty Images

Abortion doesn't save women. It doesn't stop or fix rape. It doesn't end poverty. It doesn't stop domestic violence.

It doesn't do anything except undo a woman's healthy biology, kill her child, and send her right back to whatever circumstances she came from.

This is our freedom? This is our equality?

I am legitimately angry on behalf of all the people who think the election results mean they have no agency or control over their own bodies, lives, or futures.

These people are in despair because they've been lied to. They've been told that women need to go to war with their bodies to be free, that limits on abortion limit access to lifesaving care, that surgical and hormonal intervention is the way to "treat" gender dysphoria, that restricting abortion or "gender-affirming" care leads to suicidal ideation.

These lies demand that you, an individual, rely upon your government to be safe, free, and successful.

You are so much stronger and more capable than you have been told. You have so many more options and paths to a joyful life than you have been led to believe.

—Robin Atkins, licensed mental health counselor and founder of Charis et Veritas

Dad energy

Gary Leonard/Getty Images

I never thought this would happen. I’ve been living in an insane world that put into practice the worst kind of child abuse anyone could imagine in a perverted nightmare.

People acted like it was normal. They acted like it was loving. And applauded the permanent destruction of the health and wholeness of children around the country.

Mothers, evil, wicked mothers, got spots on breakfast television and heart emojis from America for practicing Munchausen by proxy on their children. Mostly their sons.

Had I been born a little later, I could have been one of them. I was a sweet, sensitive, fey boy who thought God had cursed him with a freakish defect, one that would forever set him apart. Had someone promised to ease my pain with this warped "health care," I would have embraced it.

And I would have woken up years later even more broken than I am.

Donald Trump and his team, for the first time in our history, have called this what it is and have said no more in plain terms. “Mutilation.” “Abuse.”

A matriarchal, smothering mother culture has held America hostage for too long. We need a father energy now.

To any liberal reading this: I used to "hate" Trump every bit as much as you do. My hope for you, man or woman, is that you understand how blatantly you've been lied to about Trump.

And I hope you consider the psychological manipulation that has given these lies such power: the lingering father wounds you haven't wanted to attend to, because it was easier to rage against the big imaginary "fascist" than to face the demons of your childhood

This was me. And if you recognize yourself in it, I want you to know that you don't have to pretend any more. Believe me, it's better on the other side.

—Josh Slocum, host and co-creator of the "Disaffected" podcast

Man the lifeboats

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

The Trump Restoration will look less like "righting the ship" and more like launching the lifeboats.

Giving Americans the freedom to exit failing financial, political, educational, and corporate systems is the right thing to do, but it will accelerate their failure of those systems.

After this week, we are much shorter on U.S. government and much longer on America.

—Kevin Dolan, founder, EXIT

Overregulation In Childcare Tied To Families Having Less Kids, Report Says

'Boost prices much more than quality'

Most Voters Believe in American Dream But Find It Less Attainable, Citing High Housing Prices, Poll Shows

The majority of voters believe in the American dream but find it less attainable, a new poll found, thanks to sky-high housing prices, which have jumped more than 30 percent under the Biden-Harris administration.

The post Most Voters Believe in American Dream But Find It Less Attainable, Citing High Housing Prices, Poll Shows appeared first on .

Multimillionaire Democrat bashes JD Vance in DNC speech for rising above poverty



For many Americans, the story of JD Vance's ascent from relative poverty to the rank of corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps and to the position of U.S. senator is inspiring. His memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," informed by his struggles along the way, did after all become a bestseller as well as the basis for the Ron Howard film adaptation of the same name.

It appears that some affluent Democrats regard personal achievement of this nature and by this particular stripe of American as deplorable.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (R-Ohio) seized upon the opportunity Monday in her Democratic National Convention speech to criticize Vance — not for his legislative priorities or for his track record in Washington, D.C., but for actively pursuing greatness.

After doing her best at the outset to associate Vance with Democrats' go-to bogeyman, Project 2025, Beatty said, "JD Vance likes to talk about how he's from Ohio, but as soon as he could, he ran away to Yale and Silicon Valley, cozying up with billionaires while trashing our communities."

Beatty — the multimillionaire beneficiary of an upbringing in a stable nuclear family, two university degrees uninterrupted by military service, and a politically connected spouse — neglected to mention some critical biographic details about Vance in her attempted character assassination.

Vance's parents divorced when he was a boy. His sometimes-abusive mother struggled with addiction. Vance and his sister were largely raised by his maternal grandparents, who apparently had issues all their own. Resisting various temptations that could very well have trapped him in poverty and an all-too familiar pattern of addiction and abuse, Vance took steps toward realizing what some have described as the American dream.

Contrary to Beatty's suggestion, Vance did not run away to Yale and Silicon Valley. Rather, he enlisted in the Marines after graduating from high school then deployed to Iraq. While the editors at Wikipedia have worked diligently to downplay Vance's military background, he received numerous medals during his four years of service.

Like Beatty, Vance later attended university, albeit at schools with greater name recognition: Ohio State University in Columbus — a city Beatty famously helped gentrify, potentially pricing out poorer Americans — and Yale Law School. After a brief stint as a corporate lawyer, then spending years as a venture capitalist, Vance returned to his home state to serve his countrymen as senator.

'If you're poor better you stay put, stay poor and stay dependent on the state b/c then they got you.'

Beatty is hardly the first to attempt to downplay Vance's accomplishments.

Some critics have suggested that far from being a hillbilly or poor, Vance grew up solidly middle class, afforded "the relative socio-economic mobility available to many whites."

Lennard Davis, a liberal arts professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, penned an attack piece for a leftist blog last week accusing Vance of engaging in "poornography."

New York Magazine advanced the claim earlier this year that Vance is a "class enemy."

Beatty's latest variation on this theme has elicited plenty of ridicule online.

"Yeah screw that guy who grew up dirt poor and had the chutzpah to go to the highest-ranked law school in the country," wrote Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project.

Donald Trump Jr. noted, "JD left Ohio to join the Marine Corps and serve his country then came back went to Ohio State and then Yale. Apparently that's not good enough for the Democratic Party who just wants everyone to remain in abject poverty rather than live the American dream."

"Class warfare on two fronts here: First the notion that bettering yourself is an affront to other poor people, who should resent you for it. Second, the notion that hillbillies shouldn't be allowed into Yale, and middle class people should resent that," tweeted Irish political commentator John McGuirk, the editor of Gript Media.

"'How dare he have agency?'" wrote one commentator. "'Doesn't he know he's supposed to stay there, be a cashier at Dollar General, and become addicted to fentanyl? Who does he think he is?'"

Dan Proft, the Republican co-host of "Chicago's Morning Answer," stated, "Such a telling comment. It's the New Bolsheviks' program. If you're poor better you stay put, stay poor and stay dependent on the state b/c then they got you. Did Bill Clinton 'run away' from rural Arkansas to Georgetown and then Yale Law too? I suppose it's okay if you escape so long as you blow the bridge behind you and become one of them."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

July 4 exclusive: What we love about America



Rod Dreher, American expatriate writer and editor living in Hungary

"Red Headed Stranger" by Willie Nelson (1975). This ghostly concept album by the Texas outlaw singer is about a man in the Old West on the run after killing his wife and her lover. It is about pain, passion, and redemption. Pure as branch water and possessed of the narrative power of a biblical parable, "Red Headed Stranger" is as perfect a piece of Americana as ever was. When I play this album, I know that no matter how far we stray from God, a country that can produce Willie Nelson is not lost.

David Redfern/Getty Images


Glenn Beck, cofounder, Blaze Media

"Up from Slavery," by Booker T. Washington.

Interim Archives/Getty Images


Christian Toto, film critic and writer

Will Smith's 2006 film "The Pursuit of Happyness" is all about the American dream. The film follows a single father struggling to break through in the business world. Spoiler alert: There's a very happy ending. The moment that matters is one of the final shots. We watch Smith's character, fresh from learning he got the job he dreamed about for so long, walking into a crowded street. He's dizzy, unsure where to go, and his face reflects a thousand emotions at once. Elation. Relief. Joy. The knowledge that he'll be able to care for his young son without worrying about his next paycheck. He starts applauding himself, and his smile couldn't grow any wider.

It's the precise moment when his American dream becomes real, and it's glorious.

The Pursuit of Happyness: Chris is hiredwww.youtube.com


Doug Gray, Army veteran and founding member/lead vocalist of the Marshall Tucker Band

"Independence Day" (1996). As unusual as it sounds, this movie brought the entire country together against a true enemy. Though it was a fictional film, it perfectly symbolized unity brought on by a sinister evil.

I say this jokingly, I think, but I hope it doesn’t take an alien invasion to bring us all back together. God bless America!

Doug Gray

Bayard Winthrop, founder and CEO, American Giant

I periodically re-read the Gettysburg Address. And when I do, remind myself of what was happening in our country at that time, so that when today, things feel divided or fractured, we can remind ourselves of how important the cause of liberty is and how small our differences actually are.

Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Universal History Archive/Getty Images


Aaron Renn, author, 'Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture'

In the 19th century, many countries had female symbols of the nation. These have fallen by the wayside, except for Marianne in France. There's a vast trove of historic imagery of Columbia, the female symbol of America. She is a wonderful national symbol, sadly fallen out of use save for the famous Columbia Pictures logo.

There are many images of Columbia to choose from, but I like this cover from the book "The Story of the Constitution," produced by the United States Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission. Columbia stands watch over the Constitutional Convention, an eagle and flag behind her, with a blue ribbon labeled "We the People" emerging from the flag and encircling the fasces — a symbol that in America, governmental power rests with the people. We need a Columbia revival.

Getty Images


Peachy Keenan, cultural commentator and author of 'Domestic Extremist'

She liked the enormous sky and the winds, and the land that you couldn’t see to the end of. Everything was so free and big and splendid.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder, "Little House on the Prairie"

Laura Ingalls Wilder was my first teacher of American history — not the history of Washington but the history of daily life as a young, curious girl in a new land. I would marvel at a childhood so simple, so “deprived,” that one piece of candy and an orange — maybe a bit of ribbon, if you were really lucky — in your stocking Christmas morning was considered a lavish bounty for which you would be grateful all year. Laura's father could build a log cabin in a few days by himself, and her mother could prepare dinner in a covered wagon with no appliances. Laura’s frontier was a place worth pioneering, worth the hard battle to win over the land and claim it for all time. Is it still? That seems to be the question again before us.

Bettman/Getty Images


Spencer Klavan, associate editor, Claremont Review of Books

Lovers of poetry know Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as a writer of surpassingly graceful and moving verse. But few realize he’s also the author of what is, to my knowledge, the manliest assessment of the American revolution ever written by an Englishman.

Almost a hundred years on from the first Independence Day, Tennyson invites Britain to look back on the war not with resentment but with admiration: “Strong mother of a Lion-line / Be proud of those strong sons of thine / Who wrench’d their rights from thee!”

It’s short, perfect for reciting as a barbecue toast, and appropriate this Fourth of July, when our older brothers across the pond are facing a bleak election of their own. Tennyson tells his countrymen that by insisting on their rights as Englishmen, the founding generation “retaught the lesson thou hadst taught / And in thy spirit with thee fought” — suggesting that the noble Anglo-American lineage of freedom can be revived even in moments of apparent discouragement and defeat. Let’s hope that’s still the case.

O thou that sendest out the man
To rule by land and sea,
Strong mother of a Lion-line,
Be proud of those strong sons of thine
Who wrench'd their rights from thee!

What wonder if in noble heat
Those men thine arms withstood,
Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught,
And in thy spirit with thee fought
Who sprang from English blood!

But thou rejoice with liberal joy,
Lift up thy rocky face,
And shatter, when the storms are black,
In many a streaming torrent back,
The seas that shock thy base!

Whatever harmonies of law
The growing world assume,
Thy work is thine the single note
From that deep chord which Hampden smote
Will vibrate to the doom.

MPI/Getty Images


Gavin Mcinnes, host of 'Get Off My Lawn'

“Empire of the Summer Moon” by S.C. Gwynne is a fantastic book and a beautiful reminder of the immense struggles we had as a country shortly after we were born. The West was still untamed. It was a war. We didn’t steal land from the Indians. We fought them in an epic battle that was gruesome and long because they were worthy adversaries. The story of America is an arduous journey with a million dead ends, but we all got here together. That’s something to be proud of — warts and all.

Apic/Getty Images


David Azerrad, professor at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government

For me, there is only one answer: America is not a country for servile men. As Samuel Adams said in his rousing oration on American Independence: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” Americans must choose liberty over despotism, even if it is sugarcoated, as it is today, with loan forgiveness, junk food, antidepressants, endless porn, and all other sedatives and somas that sap our spiritedness.

Boston Globe/Getty Images


Michael Knowles, author and political commentator

I recommend a little-known painting by William Halsall: “The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor.” Painted in 1882 as memory of America’s founding generation began to fade, it depicts the Pilgrims’ ship at dawn. Or is it dusk? One cannot quite tell if the sun is rising or setting on America.

Heritage Images/Getty Images


Isaac Simpson, founder and director, Will

After Muhammad Ali returned victorious from Zaire after defeating George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle, a reporter asked him, "What did you think of Africa?" After he outwardly rejected the war in Vietnam and embraced Islam, many progressives saw Ali as a hero of Marxist anti-Americanism.

The trip to Zaire itself was viewed by many as a "return to Africa"-type statement, but Ali instantaneously put that to bed with this quote, one of his all-time classic whimsical responses: "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat."

After all the turmoil and criticism, it acknowledged that at the end of the day, he was a pure-blooded American and wouldn't have it any other way. Sort of the conclusory response to "no Vietcong ever called me n****er."

ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images


Matthew Wilder, writer and director of the forthcoming film 'Morning Has Broken,' with Ava McAvoy and Fred Melamed

I don't get the problem people have with George Stevens' "Giant." To me, it's an American "Leopard." And Rock Hudson does carry that. I am not a James Dean fetishist, but his conception of Jett Rink is advanced. For the first half he's a broken-down, incomprehensible hobo very similar to Joaquin Phoenix's Freddie Quell in "The Master."

Then, when the oil is struck, he turns into Howard Hughes in his latter days — he goes from zero to 100 to brick wall in five seconds. His whole final scene at the banquet — wow!

Imagine if he had lived to go on to do stuff with Peckinpah and Frankenheimer and Lumet and Kubrick and Richard Lester. He would have been reason enough for Godard to come to America to make "Bonnie and Clyde" with him and Tuesday Weld.

All right, enough of my cinema speculations!

United Archive/Getty Images


Ben Boychuk, opinion and analysis editor, Blaze Media

July 4 is, of course, the date we officially celebrate American independence, but John Adams believed the more momentous day was July 2, when the delegates of the Continental Congress voted to draft the Declaration of Independence and sever ties with Great Britain once and for all.

Adams wrote two letters to his wife, Abigail, on July 3 explaining the significance of the decision and sharing his relief, hopes, and fears about the struggle to come. His closing lines still strike a chord:

"You will think me transported with enthusiasm; but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory; I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph, although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not."

Hulton Archive/Getty Images


Lou Perez, comedian/writer/producer/actor

My favorite immigrants are the ones who become Americans. So thank God my immigrant father became a U.S. citizen! That’s one less daddy issue for me.

My father came from Argentina in the late 1970s. He crossed the border with maybe a couple years of high school education and no English. His business in San Miguel de Tucumán had gone under — a butcher shop next to his childhood home — and he was in debt.

When he got to New York, he was able to find work in a deli in Queens. One day, he sat in the back of the store and cried. This wasn’t his store. This wasn’t his country. He was experiencing a new low that was truly foreign to him.

But he was in America — though he didn’t realize it at the time. Not the geographical reality — of course he knew that. It was the American ethos he had yet to grasp.

My father worked and worked and worked. He built a family, a business (Casablanca Meat Market in Spanish Harlem), and an appreciation for the United States that I’m not sure I can fully understand. I was born here, after all. I didn’t choose to make the journey.

I often joke that my father taught me the value of hard work ... and I plan on living off of his hard work for as long as I can. He butchered so that his son could make jokes. He’s my favorite American.

Lou Perez