'Enemy of Europe': Liberal globalists attack Trump over recognizing 'civilizational erasure' in Europe



President Donald Trump has set about bringing the "golden age of America" into existence though appears keen also to strengthen Western civilization at large. Nations across the Atlantic have, however, proven reluctant to join the U.S. in rejecting the "false song of globalism" and in turning away the hordes of unassimilable migrants who threaten to transform their lands into places both unsafe and unrecognizable.

The Trump administration made abundantly clear in its newly released 33-page National Security Strategy that European allies now have a choice to make: lean into their strengths and former greatness, reassert their national identities, and reject the liberal policies that have led them to relative ruin or continue down the path to "civilizational erasure" without the United States of America holding their hands.

'We want Europe to remain European.'

European officials and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic — including a former Obama official — have melted down over the document, attacking the Trump administration for daring to identify the threat and choice now facing Europe.

In civilizational terms

The administration has attempted on several occasions to give America's European allies a helmet readjustment.

Vice President JD Vance, for instance, noted in a Feb. 14 speech at the Munich Security Conference in Europe that it is high time to "change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction."

In addition to blasting the British and European political establishment for their ruinous mass migration polices, Vance expressed disappointment over their suppression of popular political movements, crackdown on free speech, and routine attacks on religious liberties.

RELATED: No more stiff upper lip: My fellow Brits are fed up with 'diversity'

Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images

The State Department has similarly expressed concerns about the trends weakening Europe and the need for America's friends across the Atlantic to buck up and get their affairs in order.

In a May essay shared on its Substack, the State Department suggested that the globalist liberal campaign to "usher in an era of unprecedented peace" in the wake of World War II "by overcoming the anchors of nationhood, culture, and tradition" was a colossal failure.

"This promise lies in tatters," wrote Samuel Samson, a senior adviser for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. "What endures instead is an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself."

"Our relationship is too important, our history too valuable, and the international stakes too high to allow this partnership to be undermined," continued the essay. "Therefore, on both sides of the Atlantic, we must preserve the goods of our common culture, ensuring that Western civilization remains a source of virtue, freedom, and human flourishing for generations to come."

Trump's national security strategy

The 33-page National Security Strategy document released by the Trump administration on Friday signaled a continued break with the thinking of previous administrations on a number of matters, including on America's special relationship with Europe, which the document suggested is conditional on Europe maintaining its values and culture.

In a section titled "Promoting European Greatness," the document notes that Europe has lost significant share of global GDP over the past 35 years largely as the result of "national and transnational regulations," "but this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure."

"The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence," continued the strategy document. "Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less."

The Trump administration's strategy document indicated that if certain NATO members continue down their present path, they might not only cease to be recognizably European but cease to remain "reliable allies."

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau summarized on X that despite insisting upon transatlantic cooperation while wearing their NATO hats, "when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security — including censorship, economic suicide/climate fanaticism, open borders, disdain for national sovereignty/promotion of multilateral governance and taxation, support for Communist Cuba, etc etc. This inconsistency cannot continue."

"Either the great nations of Europe are our partners in protecting the Western civilization that we inherited from them or they are not," continued Landau. "But we cannot pretend that we are partners while those nations allow the EU’s unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative bureaucracy in Brussels to pursue policies of civilizational suicide."

With the understanding that "Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States" and that the U.S. cannot "afford to write Europe off," the Trump administration emphasized its support for "genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history," and recommended its European allies get their acts together.

Backlash from the usual suspects

The strategy document was welcomed by many of those on both sides of the Atlantic who've read the writing on the wall and paid close attention to the various crises now destabilizing Europe.

British-American historian Niall Ferguson noted, for instance, "However unpalatable you may find this analysis, you will struggle to find evidence to the contrary. My better-informed British and European friends whisper it softly: 'Maybe it's true.'"

'We must stop behaving as a friend.'

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) wrote, "America is back to practicing a foreign policy rooted in strength, restraint, and national interest, not Wilsonian fantasy. The new National Security Strategy marks a clear return to a distinctly American tradition: Realism."

Of course, those supportive of Europe's current path condemned the document.

RELATED: 'Begin repatriating': German chancellor admits it's time to give Syrian migrants the boot

Syrian rallygoers in Berlin. Photo by RALF HIRSCHBERGER/AFP via Getty Images

Valerie Hayer, a member of the European Parliament and president of the liberal political group Renew Europe, called the document "unacceptable and dangerous," stating that the Trump administration "has no right to question what makes the European Union, its values, its democratic choices" and no right "to attempt to impose onto our territory the xenophobic and ultra-conservative vision of the MAGA networks."

Hayer suggested further that the National Security Strategy served as confirmation that the "Trump administration is an enemy of Europe" and that "we must stop behaving as a friend toward it."

Shashank Joshi, an editor at the Economist, echoed Hayer, saying it was "a radical, dangerous document" and suggesting the strategy was to "Make Europe White Again."

Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who served as director of global engagement at the Obama White House, told the Independent that the plan was a "disastrously dumb, deeply damaging document for American diplomacy."

"It only further fuels distrust and puts more distance between Washington and the allies we most desperately need to ensure our own security and prosperity," added Bruen.

The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, was reportedly also prickled by the document, stating that "we see ourselves as being able to discuss and debate these matters entirely on our own in the future, and do not need outside advice."

In Wadephul's country, which had a birthrate of 1.35 children per woman last year, has in recent years, like other European nations, suffered an explosion in violent crime as a result of its admission of third-world migrants; has a capital city with apparent no-go zones where Jews and homosexuals cannot safely transit certain areas; and has sought to ban, vilify, disarm, debank, and criminalize the popular party that has attempted to turn things around.

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Homeowners' associations weren’t supposed to replace civilization



Homeowners’ associations exploded across America beginning in the 1960s. No one describes HOAs as “popular,” and the horror stories of petty rules and bureaucratic neighbors are legion. Yet more Americans fight for the privilege of buying into them every year. The reason is simple: The HOA is the last legal mechanism Americans have to artificially recreate something the country once produced organically — a high-trust society.

People want neighborhoods where streets feel safe, houses stay maintained, and neighbors behave predictably. We call these places “high trust” because people do not expect those around them to violate basic standards. Doors remain unlocked, kids play outside, and property values rise. Americans once assumed this was the natural condition of ordinary life. It never was.

Everyone complains about HOAs, but they remain the only defense against the chaos modern culture produces.

High-trust societies are not accidental. They emerge only under specific cultural conditions. Trust forms when people can understand and predict the behavior of those around them. That requires a shared standard — how to act, how to maintain property, how to handle conflict. When those standards come from a common way of life, enforcement becomes minimal. People feel free not because they reject limits, but because the limits match their instincts and expectations.

Every social order requires maintenance, but the amount varies. When most residents share the same assumptions, small gestures keep the peace. A disapproving look from Mrs. Smith over an unkempt lawn prompts action. A loud party until 1 a.m. results in lost invitations until the offender corrects the behavior. Police rarely if ever enter the picture. The community polices itself through mutual judgment.

Several preconditions make this coordination possible. Residents must share standards so violations appear obvious. They must feel comfortable addressing those violations without fear of disproportionate or hostile reactions. And they must value the esteem of their neighbors enough to respond to correction. When those conditions collapse, norms collapse with them. As New York learned during the era of broken windows, one act of disorder invites the next.

American culture and government spent the last 60 years destroying those preconditions.

Academics and media stigmatized culturally cohesive neighborhoods, and government policies made them nearly impossible to maintain. Accusations of racism, sexism, or homophobia discourage the subtle social pressure that once corrected behavior. The informal network of mothers supervising neighborhood kids vanished as more women entered the corporate workforce. And as Robert Putnam documented, social trust deteriorates as diversity increases. Residents retreat into isolation, not engagement.

The HOA attempts to reconstruct a high-trust environment under conditions that no longer support it. Ownership, maintenance, and conduct move from cultural consensus to legal contract. Residents with widely different expectations sign binding agreements dictating noise levels, lawn care, parking, paint colors, and countless other micro-regulations. A formal board replaces Mrs. Smith’s frown. Fines replace gentle rebukes. Gates and walls replace the watchful eye of neighborhood moms.

What once came from community now comes from bureaucracy.

With home prices surging, families dedicate larger portions of their wealth to their houses. Few want to gamble on declining property values because their neighborhood slips into disorder. Everyone complains about HOAs, but they remain the only defense against the chaos modern culture produces. People enter hostile, artificial arrangements where neighbors behave like informants rather than partners — because the alternative threatens their largest investment.

RELATED: Do you want Caesar? Because this is how you get Caesar

Blaze Media Illustration

This analysis is not about suburban frustration. The HOA reveals a far broader truth: Modern America replaced a high-trust society with a trustless system enforced by administrative power.

As cultural diversity rises, the ability of a population to form democratic consensus declines. Without shared standards, people cannot coordinate behavior through social pressure. To replicate the order once produced organically by culture, society must formalize more and more interactions under the judgment of third parties — courts, bureaucracies, and regulatory bodies. The state becomes the referee for disputes communities once handled themselves.

Litigiousness rises, contracts proliferate, and coercion replaces custom. The virtue of the people declines as they lose the skills required to maintain trust with their neighbors. Instead of resolving conflict directly, they appeal to ever-expanding authorities. No one learns how to build trust; they only learn how to report violations.

The HOA problem is not really about homeowners or housing costs. It is a window into how America reorganized itself. A nation once shaped by shared norms and informal enforcement now relies on legalistic frameworks to manage daily life. Americans sense the artificiality, but they see no alternative. They know something fundamental has changed. They know the culture that sustained high-trust communities no longer exists.

The HOA simply makes the loss unavoidable.

Orbán emphasizes to Trump that Hungary survives today as Christian 'island of difference in a liberal ocean'



President Donald Trump had a cordial meeting at the White House on Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who he emphasized was a "good person" and a "great leader."

In addition to discussing trade, the war in Ukraine, and energy, the two leaders discussed two transformative matters where Hungary has distinguished itself from the rest of Europe, namely immigration and faith.

'We want a Christian Europe because we believe that this is the only way forward.'

Trump noted that while other European nations have made "tremendous mistakes on immigration and it's really hurting them very badly, [Orbán] has not made a mistake on immigration," adding that while not universally liked, Orbán, who has been prime minister since 2010, "is respected by everybody" and well-positioned to win his 2026 election, where he's likely to face off against liberal Europhile Péter Magyar.

After Trump celebrated the conservative nationalist's leadership, Orbán made a point of clarifying the nature of his government: "We are the only government in Europe which considers itself as a modern Christian government. All the other governments in Europe are basically liberal, leftist governments."

Orbán noted that since retaking office in 2010, he and his Christian government have endeavored to break from the pack "at the philosophical level and at the level of practice as well."

RELATED: Christians are refusing to compromise — and it's terrifying all the right people

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

"We are kind of a special island of difference in a liberal ocean in Europe and consider ourselves as a modern Christian government," the prime minister continued.

Orbán has made no secret of his antipathy for atheistic establishmentarians and liberal bureaucrats in Brussels, noting in a September statement, for instance, that "the European Union is teetering on the brink, with debt, migration, violence, and failing policies everywhere. Hungary stands firm: migrant-free, pro-family, providing opportunities to those willing to work. We need courage — intellectual, political, and personal — to recognize that the West is no longer a role model to follow, and to show that there is a better way."

The prime minister's policies have long enraged liberals — who frequently refer to him as an "authoritarian" — and in some cases resulted in threats and financial penalties from the European Commission.

Hungary under his leadership has, for instance, imposed a ban on LGBT propaganda targeting children; signaled opposition to Ukraine's proposed admission to the European Union; drove bums out of public spaces; built a barrier to keep out border jumpers; and implemented various pro-natalist measures including tax exemptions for mothers.

"We want a Christian Europe because we believe that this is the only way forward," the prime minister said earlier this year. "In the shadow of empires, at the crossroads of civilizations, we have always won our battles for the survival of our homeland, the preservation of our nation, and Christian culture."

— (@)

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From Puff Daddy to Prison Daddy



Sean “Diddy” Combs — mogul, producer, and architect of a billion-dollar brand — was sentenced Friday to more than four years in federal prison for his despicable crimes against women. The sentence won’t shatter the glossy mythology he’s sold for decades. The headlines will obsess over the punishment and whether justice was done. But the deeper story is the culture he built — and that millions of Americans continue to bankroll.

Let’s stop pretending: No other major American music genre has a criminal record like rap. This isn’t a bad apple. It’s a poisoned orchard.

No other genre has turned crime, misogyny, and hatred for order into cultural virtues.

Tay-K was convicted of murder in 2019 and again in 2020 for a separate shooting. He’s serving 55 years. South Park Mexican is doing 45 years for child sexual assault. C-Murder? Life for killing a teenager. Big Lurch is doing life for murder and cannibalism. B.G. just got out after 14 years for weapons and witness tampering. Chris Brown — who still charts — pled guilty to felony assault of Rihanna and keeps finding trouble. Shyne served nearly a decade for a nightclub shooting that Diddy himself may have committed. Kodak Black, Max B, Crip Mac, Flesh-N-Bone, Big Tray Deee — all convicted felons.

That’s not some obscure playlist. That’s the soundtrack.

Try compiling a similar rap sheet for classical violinists, country balladeers, or pop crooners. Even rock, infamous for its drug excesses, never reached this level of violence or degradation.

Still think this is just about “personal behavior”? Listen closer.

Even when not committing crimes, many hip-hop “artists” glorify them. Anti-police, anti-woman, anti-civilization — these aren’t exceptions but industry standards. “F**k the police” wasn’t a phase. It was a forecast. “Shoot a cop, that’s my solution” isn’t satire. It’s strategy.

You don’t have to dig to find chart-toppers dripping with misogyny, death threats, and celebrations of drug-dealing and street violence. This isn’t fringe content. They’re topping the Billboard charts.

In what other industry could someone openly brag about pimping women, selling narcotics, or “sliding on ops” and still land Super Bowl halftime shows, Sprite deals, and White House invitations?

RELATED: Bad Bunny gets the ball, football fans get the finger

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Defenders call it “storytelling,” “street realism,” or “art.” But these aren’t neutral observations. They’re recruitment ads for a culture of moral rot. Many rappers don’t just depict criminality — they embody it, and their fans reward them for it.

Every stream, download, and ticket sale is a vote for decadence — a few more dollars for the next defense attorney, a little more validation for the notion that responsibility is oppression and chaos is authenticity.

Even academics have noticed. Law journals have dissected the way hip-hop glorifies violence while its corporate enablers polish the packaging. The same elites who decry “toxic masculinity” will nod along to lyrics calling women “bitches” and “hoes.” The same corporations that preach “inclusion” will bankroll artists who sneer at civilization. The same politicians pushing gun control will campaign beside men who made fortunes romanticizing drive-bys.

Yes, hip-hop has artistic power. It grew from hardship and gave voice to the voiceless. But no other genre has turned crime, misogyny, and hatred for order into cultural virtues.

There’s a difference between reflecting reality and selling it — between giving voice to pain and turning pain into product. Today’s rap industry isn’t holding up a mirror to society. It’s pointing a gun at it.

The Diddy sentencing should be a wake-up call. It isn’t just a reckoning for one man. It’s a moment of clarity for a culture that has lost its moral compass.

The question isn’t only who committed the crime. It’s who bought the album.

This 7% of Earth’s surface burns more fuel than anywhere



The ruling class trades in carbon outrage like it’s gold. Sanctimony fuels its crusade against oil, gas, and coal — never mind that those very fuels built the modern world. The comforts we take for granted — from longer lives and stocked shelves to clean water and lifesaving medicine — all trace back to the energy abundance that hydrocarbons made possible.

Still, the decarbonization faithful press forward. They dream of a carbon-free Eden, even as the global power grid, still humming on fossil fuels, refuses to cooperate.

Critics keep forecasting a shift away from fossil fuels. Reality keeps proving them wrong.

You won’t find a clearer contradiction than in the Yuxi Circle.

Draw a circle with a 2,485-mile radius around the southern Chinese city of Yuxi. British geographer Alasdair Rae did just that — and inside it resides 55% of the world’s population: some 4.3 billion people crammed into just 7% of Earth’s surface. The region includes China, India, much of Southeast Asia, and parts of Pakistan. Some of it — like the Tibetan Plateau and the Taklamakan Desert — is barren. But the rest is packed with cities, factories, and the aspirations of hundreds of millions clawing their way toward modern life.

Why does this matter? Because this region now anchors the world’s biggest fight over energy, growth, and climate policy.

While bureaucrats in Brussels sip espresso and activists glue themselves to the pavement in London, the real action plays out in Asia’s economic engine. In cities like Shanghai, Delhi, and Tokyo, energy demand soars — and fossil fuels do the heavy lifting. Coal and gas plants keep the lights on, while wind and solar trail far behind.

China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. India burns more than the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom combined. The 10 ASEAN countries rank third. Oil use tells the same story: China and India sit alongside the U.S. atop the global leaderboard of consumption. Economic growth, it turns out, runs not on hashtags but on hydrocarbons.

Critics keep forecasting a shift away from fossil fuels. Reality keeps proving them wrong.

Hundreds of millions in the Yuxi Circle are still striving for what Westerners call a “decent life.” That means refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioning — and with them, a dramatic spike in electricity demand.

RELATED: Climate orthodoxy punishes the West

Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

For context: The average American consumes 77,000 kilowatt-hours of energy each year. The average Indian uses a 10th of that. A Bangladeshi? Just 3% of what the average Norwegian consumes.

Now multiply that gap by a population of billions, and you begin to understand what’s coming.

The living room revolution is only the start. An industrial boom is building behind it — factories, office towers, and shopping malls all hungry for electricity. The coming surge in energy use across the Yuxi Circle will make the West’s climate targets look like a quaint relic of the past.

In this part of the world, the green fantasy runs headfirst into human need. Wind and solar can’t meet the moment. Coal, oil, and gas can — and do.

Just as they did for the West, these fuels now power the rise of the rest. And no amount of Western guilt or climate alarm will change that.

Trump-backed conservative wins Polish presidency, can torpedo Tusk's liberal agenda: 'Rebuff to the Brussels oligarchy'



Polish boxer-turned-historian Karol Nawrocki met last month with President Donald Trump and attended an event at the White House marking the National Day of Prayer. Nawrocki reportedly shared with Polish media that Trump told him he would win the Polish presidential election.

Trump was right again.

Nawrocki, backed by Poland's national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) Party, defeated the liberal mayor of Warsaw — whom Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem deemed a "train wreck" — in Poland's presidential election runoff on Sunday. The results, published on Monday, showed that Nawrocki beat Rafał Trzaskowski 50.89% to 49.11%, thereby securing a five-year term.

'You picked a WINNER!'

Upon taking office on Aug. 6, Nawrocki can continue former President Andrzej Duda's work of preventing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's "globalist liberal government" from simultaneously advancing its leftist, pro-European Union agenda and from undoing the reforms undertaken by the previous PiS government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Nawrocki on his "hard-earned victory," noting that "together, the United States and Poland will forge the most ambitious alliance in our shared history on defense, energy, and commerce."

Trump said in a Truth Social post, "Congratulations Poland, you picked a WINNER!"

RELATED: Liberals freaked out over Vance's Munich speech. Just wait till they read the State Department's Substack.

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Nawrocki noted in response that his top priorities are a "strong alliance with the USA, as well as partnership based on close cooperation."

In addition to opposing illegal immigration and the EU's ruinous migration frameworks, the former boxer made abundantly clear on the campaign trail his opposition to leftist social policies, promising to axe any legislation that threatens to weaken Poland's pro-life legislation or normalize non-heterosexual unions, reported the Catholic News Agency.

Nawrocki also emphasized that Poland's national culture is rooted in traditional Catholic values, telling supporters, "Poland's strength lies in its faith and family values."

'It's bad news for the EU, Ukraine and women.'

Homeland Security Secretary Noem likened Nawrocki to Trump last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Poland and suggested that under his leadership, Poland could "steer Europe back toward conservative values."

Various European conservatives and populists celebrated Nawrocki's victory, including Jordan Bardella, the president of France's right-wing populist National Rally party, who tweeted, "The Polish people have spoken and their free and democratic choice must be respected, including by the Brussels leaders who ardently hoped for their defeat."

"Faced with a European Commission whose authoritarian policies and federalist ambitions are brutalizing national sovereignty, Karol Nawrocki's victory in the Polish presidential election is welcome news," said Marine Le Pen, former National Rally president. "It is a rebuff to the Brussels oligarchy, which intends to impose a standardization of legislation on member states, contrary to any democratic will."

Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán Viktor called the election a "nail-biter," calling the outcome a "fantastic victory."

Western liberals, meanwhile, clutched pearls and ramped up their fear-mongering.

Adam Simpson, a lecturer at the University of South Australia, wrote, "Nawrocki's win has given pro-Donald Trump, anti-liberal, anti-EU forces across the continent a shot in the arm. It's bad news for the EU, Ukraine and women."

RELATED: Rubio wages war on foreign free-speech tyrants with visa ban

The White House

Simpson acknowledged that it's harder to frame Nawrocki as "Russia-friendly" — a framing routinely used by critics of other national conservatives and populists in the region.

'More anti-European, nationalist and pro-Trump.'

It'd be an especially hard case to make that Nawrocki is sympathetic to Moscow given he has called Russia a "barbaric state," recommended cutting off diplomatic relations with the Kremlin, and has personally been put on a Russian wanted list after leading efforts to topple Soviet monuments while director of the Museum of the Second World War and head of the Institute of National Remembrance, reported ABC News.

Nevertheless, critics have made hay out of the incoming Polish president's vow to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine and suggestion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "treats Poland badly."

Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Warsaw office, told the Washington Post that Nawrocki will be a "much more radical politician" than his predecessor — "more anti-European, nationalist and pro-Trump."

Anne Applebaum, the Atlantic staff writer who smeared as propagandists early proponents of the pandemic lab-leak theory and wasted ink last year imagining parallels between Trump and various 20th-century dictators, made sure to repeatedly label Nawrocki as an "authoritarian populist."

In the wake of the election, Tusk, now facing some calls to step down, indicated the Polish parliament will hold a confidence vote on his government.

Jacek Sasin, a PiS parliamentarian, suggested that Tusk was a "completely frivolous man who got a red card from the Poles."

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Liberals freaked out over Vance's Munich speech. Just wait till they read the State Department's Substack.



The State Department raised some eyebrows when it launched a Substack last month. Its latest Substack essay highlighting both the importance of renewing Western civilization and the failure of global liberalism might be enough to give liberal establishmentarians ulcers and national conservatives butterflies.

Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford said of the recent essay, "To put it simply, the Department of State has been ground zero for undermining Western values and putting American interests last. This turnaround is just incredible to see, and it's not getting the attention it deserves."

President Donald Trump has set about bringing the "golden age of America" into existence. While Trump's is a U.S.-focused endeavor, his administration appears to be simultaneously working on the renewal and strengthening of Western civilization, broadly understood.

'Our transatlantic partnership is underpinned by a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics, and national sovereignty.'

Vice President JD Vance, for instance, made abundantly clear in his controversial February speech to America's allies at the Munich Security Conference in Europe that it is high time to "change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction."

While prioritizing the interests of America at home and abroad, the State Department has similarly been thinking in civilizational terms, as evidenced by a recent post titled "The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe" on the agency's new Substack. The essay has already upset the usual suspects and wowed conservatives long accustomed to seeing liberal bromides and platitudes from their government.

— (@)

Samuel Samson, a senior adviser for the State Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, noted in the essay that the relationship between America and Europe "transcends geographic proximity and transactional politics," representing a "unique bond forged in common culture, faith, familial ties, mutual assistance in times of strife, and above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage."

Samson noted further that:

Our transatlantic partnership is underpinned by a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics, and national sovereignty. This tradition flows from Athens and Rome, through medieval Christianity, to English common law, and ultimately into America's founding documents. The Declaration's revolutionary assertion that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" echoes the thought of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and other European heavyweights who recognized that all men possess natural rights that no government can arbitrate or deny. America remains indebted to Europe for this intellectual and cultural legacy.

Samson stressed that the deep, unique, and historic relationship between the U.S. and Europe warrants protection, which can take the form of constructive criticism, much like Vance's comments in Munich.

RELATED: Thin-skinned German minister melts down over Vance's speech: 'Not acceptable'

Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images

The vice president angered European elites with the suggestion in his speech that the more concerning threat posed to Europe is not China, Russia, or any other external actor but rather "the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America."

Vance also put Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European nations on blast for their suppression of political movements and ideas unfavorable to their respective ruling classes; for their dismissal of citizens' concerns and common sense; for their routine attacks on religious liberties; and for their disastrous mass migration policies.

'The global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy.'

Samson echoed a critique now popular among national conservatives and thinkers in the president's orbit, suggesting that the globalist liberal campaign to "usher in an era of unprecedented peace" in the wake of World War II "by overcoming the anchors of nationhood, culture, and tradition" has proven to be a colossal failure.

"This promise lies in tatters," wrote Samson. "What endures instead is an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself."

RELATED: Erase the Bible, lose the West — and that’s the point

Blaze Media Illustration

After recycling a number of Vance's complaints — hammering again on Britain for arresting Christians over silent prayer; on the German government for its clampdown on critics and on the country's ascendant right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany; and on the European Union over its latest censorship scheme — Samson conceded that similar tactics were brought to bear in America against President Donald Trump and his supporters in recent years.

"What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy," wrote the State Department adviser. "Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people."

By committing to its Western heritage and by reversing the liberal project of deracination, disenchantment, and disorientation, Samson indicated that Europe will be better equipped to stand "firm against external threats and internal decay" and to cooperate with America on "shared foreign policy goals."

'We finally have political leaders who are brave enough to face the crisis head on.'

"Our relationship is too important, our history too valuable, and the international stakes too high to allow this partnership to be undermined," wrote Samson. "Therefore, on both sides of the Atlantic, we must preserve the goods of our common culture, ensuring that Western civilization remains a source of virtue, freedom, and human flourishing for generations to come."

One of Samson's professors at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C., Dr. Matthew Mehan, associate dean and associate professor of government for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government, told Blaze News, "It is heartening to see from our government a seriously candid psychological operation, one that seeks not to gaslight our allies but to remind them who they truly are and what we have deeply in common, in our shared Western history and our principles of natural right and law."

"This is exactly right," Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) said in response to excerpts of Samson's post shared on X by Blaze Media digital strategist Logan Hall. "Globalism, liberalism, censorship, mass migration — for decades, the West has been war with itself. We finally have political leaders who are brave enough to face the crisis head on."

RELATED: Former 'disinfo' czar Nina Jankowicz tells Europeans to take a stand against the US, double down on social media regulation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photo by John McDonnell/Getty Images

Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) noted, "The West has spent the last 30 years governed by people who were ashamed of their past and hate Western civilization. President Trump is embracing our heritage, which built the greatest nation on the face of the Earth."

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, similarly suggested it was remarkable to see this essay from the State Department, calling it "eloquent and true."

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Church is cool again — and Gen Z men are leading the way



Amid a broader spiritual collapse, one trend stands out: Young men are returning to church in growing numbers. Generation Z, in particular, seeks structure, meaning, and community in a world fractured by chaos and alienation.

For decades, the dominant story in the West told of religion’s slow death. Church attendance dropped year after year, while “nones” — those who reject any religious affiliation — surged. But recent data complicates that narrative, especially among younger Americans.

The return of young men to the church is a cultural reckoning and a budding flower of renewal.

Gen Z remains the least religious generation on record, with 34% identifying as unaffiliated — higher than Millennials (29%) or Gen X (25%). Yet signs of revival are breaking through. One recent survey found that 31% of Gen Z attend religious services at least once a month, while 25% actively practice a faith.

Similar trends are occurring in the United Kingdom. A report by the Bible Society reveals that Catholics now outnumber Anglicans by more than two to one among Generation Z and younger Millennials. In 2018, Anglicans made up 30% of churchgoers ages 18-34, while Catholics accounted for 22%. By 2024, these figures had changed to 20% Anglican and 41% Catholic.

According to the Becket Fund’s 2024 findings, members of Gen Z attending religious services at least monthly rose from 29% in 2022 to 40% in 2024. Similarly, those who consider religion important in their lives increased from 51% to 66% over the same period.

Religious is the new ‘rebellious’

What explains the sudden shift? For generations, youth pushed back against the dominant order, and for much of the 20th century, that order was Christianity. But what happens when Christianity fades, replaced by atheism or whatever postmodern creed happens to be in vogue? The instinct to rebel remains. Only now, the rebellion turns back toward order, tradition, and moral clarity.

For years, legacy media and Hollywood told young men they were disposable — interchangeable, expendable, even dangerous. That narrative failed. And now, young men are driving the revival.

Historically, women filled the pews in greater numbers. But in 2024, that dynamic flipped. According to the Alabama Baptist, 30% of men attended weekly services compared to just 27% of women — a quiet but telling reversal of a long-standing pattern.

Men lead the charge

Traditional, structured worship has become a magnet for young men seeking discipline and meaning. Orthodox and Catholic churches — with their rituals, hierarchy, and deep historical roots — have seen a marked rise in male converts.

A 2022 survey reported a 78% increase in conversions to Orthodoxy since 2019. Catholic dioceses across the country have posted similar gains. From 2023 to 2024, some reported conversion spikes of up to 72%. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone welcomed 5,587 people into the Catholic Church this Easter, including 2,786 baptisms at the Easter Vigil — a 34% jump over last year.

But this resurgence goes deeper than doctrine. Churches offer young men what the modern world fails to provide: real community. According to the Barna Group, 67% of churchgoing adults report having a mentor — often someone they met through church. Among Gen Z and Millennials, that number rises to 86% and 83%, respectively.

Small groups and discipleship programs allow young men to wrestle with challenges, seek counsel, and build genuine friendships. These are exactly the structures secular society neglects — and precisely what my generation craves.

Cultural shifts have accelerated the return to faith. The internet may connect everyone digitally, but it often isolates people in the real world. Local churches still offer something screens can’t: brotherhood, accountability, and face-to-face contact. In a culture that demonizes masculinity and treats male virtues as liabilities, the church remains one of the last institutions to honor strength, discipline, and leadership without shame or apology.

A cultural mandate

Many young men today feel discarded by a society that marginalizes their natural instincts and virtues. Christianity offers them something different — a call to action rooted in service, discipline, and brotherhood. It gives them a place where effort matters, strength is welcomed, and belonging isn’t conditional. The need to connect, to matter, and to be respected — long ignored in secular culture — finds real expression in the life of the church.

This return of young men to the pews marks more than a spiritual revival. It’s a cultural reckoning. In many ways, it echoes the moral foundation laid by America’s founders. Though denominationally diverse, the founders agreed that freedom without faith could not last. George Washington said it plainly: “Religion and morality are indispensable supports” to political prosperity.

Today’s young men appear to understand what many in power have forgotten — liberty without virtue cannot endure. As America drifts, a new generation looks not to slogans or screens but to God — for strength, clarity, and the courage to rebuild what has been lost.

Elon Musk’s Children Need Him — Not Just His Money And His DNA

The answer to humanity's civilizational crisis isn't the multiplication of fatherless children; the solution is men who are truly willing to be fathers.

Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson get to the bottom of the West's 'civilizational suicide'



Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently identified three key drivers of the "civilizational suicide" underway in the West: a "parasitic mindset," climate alarmism, and false religion.

Musk noted midway through his interview with the titular host of the Tucker Carlson Network that while leftist billionaire George Soros is "senile," he has bequeathed a powerful nongovernmental system to his son Alexander Soros and other "like-minded people" who may continue his "anti-civilizational" campaign of normalizing criminality and dismantling borders.

While open borders and unchecked crime are certainly ruinous, Musk intimated that they are merely symptoms of a greater civilizational sickness — a sickness that leaves the body politic tolerating the Open Society Foundations' agenda, spurns life, mutates empathy, and glorifies an unmanned nature.

When asked to assess the current state of Europe, Musk bemoaned the collapse of birthrates.

"My biggest concern for Europe is that their birth rate is half replacement rate," said Musk. "So Europe is rapidly becoming with each passing year older and older with fewer and fewer young people. ... At the most fundamental level, unless Europe has a birth rate at least roughly equal to replacement rate, it is in population free fall, population collapse."

'Their main sort of domestic social policy is convincing you not to have kids.'

In May, a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet revealed that fertility rates have declined in all countries and territories since 1950 and that "human civilization is rapidly converging on a sustained low-fertility reality."

The fertility rate references the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime. The replacement rate Musk referenced is 2.1. This is necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals.

Blaze News previously reported that in 1950, the global fertility rate was 4.84. In 2021, it was 2.23. By the end of the 2100s, it is expected to drop to 1.59 globally.

The average fertility rate for the European Union as a whole in 2022 was 1.46. Italy and Spain were among the European nations with the lowest rates — 1.24 and 1.16, respectively.

While Europe is on the greased track to collapse, Carlson reflected on the situation stateside, noting, "It does seem like the U.S. government — if you take three steps back — is pretty committed to making fewer Americans. There's a lot of anti-fertility propaganda. Actually, that seems like their main sort of domestic social policy is convincing you not to have kids."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the general fertility rate in the U.S. reached a historic low of 1.61 in 2023. By way of contrast, in 1960, the U.S. fertility rate was 3.7.

Despite these staggering statistics, the Biden-Harris administration has continued championing the slaughter of the unborn and the effective sterilization of vulnerable populations while Democratic lawmakers work to dissuade some young couples from becoming parents.

A big driver of Western anti-natalism in recent years has been climate alarmism.

Morgan Stanley analysts told investors in 2021 that the "movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline."

'It's infecting people and making it impossible for them to make rational decisions.'

"The environmental movement in the extreme is fundamentally misanthropic and anti-human," Musk told Carlson. "They start seeing humans as a plague, a blight on the surface of the earth — that earth would be this paradise if only the humans weren't here."

Musk noted that some climate alarmists are forthright about their desire to see humanity destroyed in a massive "holocaust," whereas others have not admitted as much out loud or to themselves.

"A lot of people believe that the earth can't sustain this level of human population, which is utterly untrue. It may seem that in a crowded city there are a lot of people, but actually, if you look down in an airplane and say, 'Am I over a person at any given point in time?' when you're in an airplane, the answer ... 99.9% of the time is 'no.'"

Musk emphasized that the world is in fact underpopulated and that the suggestion to the contrary was the result, in part, of the successful anti-human depopulationist propaganda advanced by biologist Paul Ehrlich.

Despite having had the primary claim in his magnum opus proven wrong by real-world trends, Ehrlich doubled down on his anti-human mania in a "60 Minutes" interview last year, stressing the world has "too many people."

Musk said, "I hope he burns in hell, that guy. Seriously. Terrible human being."

After Musk highlighted that amidst the West's activist-supported population collapse, leftist governments — particularly the Starmer government in Britain — are actively censoring those who would dare criticize the native population's replacement and sporadic rape by immigrants, Carlson said, "You've used the phrase 'mind virus,' but it's behaving like a virus. It's infecting people and making it impossible for them to make rational decisions."

Musk recommended the work of evolutionary behavioral scientist Gad Saad, who has argued that the West "has been parasitized by a set of idea pathogens that negate reality and common sense."

Saad noted last year in the National Post that chief among all idea pathogens now plaguing the West is postmodernism:

It is a form of intellectual terrorism as it posits that there are no objective truths since apparently all truth claims are tainted by subjective relativism and personal biases. Postmodernism opens the door to questioning the 'antiquated' reality of what constitutes a man and a woman. Until fifteen minutes ago, the 117 billion people who had ever lived, as a sexually reproducing species, knew exactly how to identify these two phenotypes. This is no longer true.

The other pathogenic ideas Saad suggested are now crippling the West are the "DIE cult (diversity, inclusion, and equity)," cultural relativism, and suicidal empathy.

Saad noted that suicidal empathy is what animates that class of people who would excuse the illegal entry of criminal noncitizens into the homeland despite their track record of preying upon the citizen population.

'The woke mind virus — it takes the place of religion.'

"Progressives are driven by misplaced and hyperactive faux empathy," wrote Saad. "According to the tenets of progressivism, criminals are victims of society. Hence, to severely punish them for their acts presumes that they have personal agency."

Musk contrasted the kind of "deep empathy" that would entail a desire to see civilization thrive and continue with this shallow or "suicidal empathy," which he suggested "results in the destruction of civilization."

According to Musk, there is a link between the implantation and spread of this parasitic mindset and the decline of religion.

"Nature abhors a vacuum. So when you have essentially a decline in religion and increase in the secular nature of society, for most people, they need something to fill that void, so they adopt a religion. It's not called a religion," said Musk. "The woke mind virus — it takes the place of religion, and they internalize and they feel it with religious fervor."

Musk indicated that the adherents of this woke pseudo-religion then wage a "holy war."

Blaze News recently discussed the implications of America's de-Christianization with Dr. Joshua Mitchell, professor of political theory at Georgetown University.

'Identity politics is the latest iteration of an incomplete religion.'

Mitchell, whose thesis in "American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time" pre-empted Musk's realization by a few years, indicated that identity politics has absorbed much of the attention and energy previously invested into traditional religions.

"So when the Pew Charitable Trusts notes that American church attendance is going down, I say, 'You don't know where to look,'" said Mitchell. "If we call religion 'institutionalized Christianity,' well, then of course the numbers are going down. But if we call religion 'the search for a way to think through purity and stain, innocent victimhood, and historical sin in order to find atonement,' then in America today we're having a religious revival."

Mitchell borrowed a term from Alexis de Tocqueville to describe the woke pseudo-religion Musk recently identified:

We didn't move from Christianity to a secular world. We moved from one incomplete version of Christianity — complete with a designated innocent victim and a moral economy that says who's purified and who’s damned — to the next. Identity politics is the latest iteration of an incomplete religion.

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