These are remarks adapted from the closing keynote at the Heritage Foundation’s Annual Leadership Conference, which took place earlier in April in Naples, Florida.

Conservatives have been given a generational opportunity — a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shift our country’s trajectory back toward people and values that Washington has for too long left behind. The five values that Ronald Reagan espoused when he won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 1980 are “family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom.” More than any time since Reagan, those values are making a comeback. “Rejoice in hope,” St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans. How could we not?

This is our moment to truly shape America’s future.

But this should be our rallying cry, not a victory lap.

Because the left’s counter-fight is coming, and our response will determine whether last November was the high-water mark of the new conservative movement or simply the first triumph in America’s greatest comeback — whether we squander this moment in history, or whether we seize it.

Conservatives have the opportunity, the mandate, and the plans to rise to the occasion. The only question is whether, in these turbulent days, we have the vision to put those plans into action and the grit to see them through despite doubts and adversity.

Mandates from the past

When I think about how the conservative movement should respond to this moment, I look for lessons from our past. And lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about one of my heroes from the founding era: Patrick Henry.

Two hundred and fifty years ago last month, Henry stood up at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, and delivered one of the great speeches in American history. Everyone remembers its most famous line: “Give me liberty or give me death.” That one always hits home.

But another sequence in that speech resonates even more specifically with us now. Henry’s speech was not just a call to revolution. In his mind, the colonies had already passed that point. “The war is actually begun,” he said, whether Americans realized it or not. He was calling for the courage to see it through — to push past fear in the face of a powerful adversary.

“They tell us, sir, that we are weak,” Henry said, “unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger?”

The question still resonates: When shall we be stronger?

Six months from now, when the left throws everything it has in Virginia and New Jersey, or 18 months from now, when we head into the midterms, shall we gather strength while sitting on our hands? Will we stand by as our president weathers a hurricane of criticism? Shall we watch quietly as our majorities in Congress sidestep the most critical issues facing our country? Will we pass by the working families who wait for Washington to deliver them from a woke culture, a weaponized government, and a rigged economy?

Of course not. We have worked too long and too hard to squander this opportunity. Now is the moment conservatives can enact permanent policy change, not just half-a-loaf compromises: rebuild our economy, our military, and our local communities to answer the challenges of the coming generation.

This is our moment — not just to win elections or temporary 51-49 majorities — but to truly shape the future. This is our generation’s shot to secure a new birth of freedom. To write a new chapter in the American story — one that begins with courage and ends with victory.

The left is regrouping

But as extraordinary as this moment is, it will be just as fleeting. If we do not seize it now, it will slip through our fingers and won’t come back for a long time. And what comes next would be worse than anything we have yet endured.

The left hasn’t changed. Leftists may rewrite their talking points, but the writing on their hearts is the same. They’re still elitists who disdain the Constitution, globalists who scorn national sovereignty, and woke theocrats who reject religious liberty, parental rights, moral truth, and scientific fact.

They are already regrouping, re-funding, and reasserting their power. Their victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was not a fluke. They still control the media and elite institutions, and they are going to weaponize both for as long as they can.

That is why conservatives cannot sit back. We must stay in the fight — and open new fronts in it.

Will we rise up?

Two hundred and fifty years later, Americans still face Patrick Henry’s question: When shall we be stronger?

At the Heritage Foundation, we have an answer.

We’ll be stronger every time we stand on principle — and for America and Americans. When we act with the urgency and courage this moment demands, when we realize the future is ours to win or to squander, when we understand that neither the left, China, media, nor any other adversary can defeat us, our only downfall is our own timidity and complacency.

Just consider: What do we think the other side wants us to be doing right now? What do Planned Parenthood, the teachers’ unions, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and MSNBC want us to do right now?

Nothing. They want us complacent, fat, and happy — just like good establishment Republicans. They want us to think the last six months are all we need and all we can hope for. They want us basking in the success of 2024, eating popcorn, and watching Fox News while they storm the field.

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint them.

The Heritage Foundation is not sitting this one out. Donald Trump and JD Vance are not sitting this fight out. And I know you won’t either.

We can’t. The moment is too important. The stakes are too high. Last November’s historic victory was only the beginning. The next chapter in America’s history is ours to write. Whether we fight or not will be our generation’s story — what our children and grandchildren learn about us.

A time to act

I can’t help but think that if Patrick Henry were alive today, he would look at President Trump and his entire administration and be convinced that the American dream is still possible to revitalize. And that dream isn’t just about an idea, as noble as that idea is. It’s about a real place — where you were born and are likely to be buried. It’s a place our children and grandchildren and generations after us — God willing — will be born and buried.

This providential moment we’ve been given to save this republic and revitalize America gives honor to all those who came before us — wherever they were from — who, in their last moments, were as grateful as you and I are to call ourselves Americans.