What it really means to be a conservative in America today
Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?
For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.
We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.
The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.
Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.
Conservatism as stewardship
In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.
That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.
Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.
Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.
Rebuilding what is broken
We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.
Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.
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This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.
A creed for the rising generation
We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.
For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.
Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.
To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.
We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.
We Can’t Let Offensive Memes, Edgy Humor, And Nihilism Consume Young Men
There’s room between ceding ground to the left that need not be ceded and pretending like the decades-long campaign to alienate and ostracize conservatives is not pushing some people into dark corners.What if Johnny Carson turned MLK’s murder into a punch line?
What if, in 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Johnny Carson opened “The Tonight Show” with jibes about how one of King’s own supporters had pulled the trigger? What if he followed with a gag suggesting that President Lyndon Johnson didn’t care much about losing a friend? Or how maybe we need to keep up the pressure on conservatives who think free speech includes engaging those who disagree with them in civil dialogue?
Does anyone believe NBC executives would have shrugged and said, “Let Johnny talk — free speech, you know”? Does anyone think Carson’s 12 million nightly viewers would have treated it as harmless banter and tuned in the next night with curiosity about what he might say next?
Jimmy Kimmel needs to ‘grow a pair,’ take his lumps, and find another venue.
When the members of the first Congress wrote the First Amendment, enshrining freedom of speech, they did it within the context of the words of John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
St. Paul puts it this way: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say — but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’ — but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Sadly, I was included in an email from a dear relative who chided anyone who did not protest Jimmy Kimmel’s firing, citing the First Amendment. My relative felt very strongly about this. In his own words, if you didn't loudly defend Kimmel, you needed to “grow a pair.”
My wife and I had just finished watching the entire eight-hour-long, beautiful, uplifting, and spirit-filled memorial service for Charlie Kirk. Before I went to sleep, I decided to clear out my email inbox for the day. Unfortunately, I opened the email from my relative (thinking it was just the usual newsy missive) and read his thoughts.
He had written his opinions before the service, so I am not sure if he would have sent the same message; he made it clear that what happened to Charlie was certainly serious and evil.
No buts about it
My relative used words I had heard before from those who want to virtue signal, while also insisting that doing bad things is not acceptable. It was a variation of this: Yes, what happened to Charlie Kirk was wrong, terrible! But ...
If you hear people on the left — or even people who consider themselves rational, reasonable people “in the middle” who like to play the both-sides-are-wrong card — you need to push back. Comparing the temporary suspension of a mediocre, inconsequential talent like Kimmel to the assassination of a beautiful, influential man like Kirk — well, they are not in the same arena.
Since I was the only one on the email thread who knew Charlie personally (we had been colleagues at Salem Radio), I felt my comments would carry more weight.
I highlighted the Martin Luther King Jr.–Carson comparison and then focused on the “free speech” aspect from a purely business standpoint.
Jimmy Kimmel loses tens of millions of dollars for the network annually. It's been said that his viewership was so low that if you posted a video on X of your cat playing the piano, you could attract more viewers than Kimmel gets on any given night.
Moreover, the claim that Kimmel was denied his First Amendment rights is simply untrue. Kimmel remains free to say whatever he wants anywhere else. For example, when Tucker Carlson (who had the hottest show on Fox, making millions for the network) was canceled for speaking the truth politically, he launched his own “network.”
The funny thing is (no, not jokes from Kimmel’s opening monologues), unsuccessful shows hosted by people with varying degrees of talent get canceled all the time in the world of television. If that were not so, we would all be subjected to the 59th season of “My Mother the Car,”starring Jerry Van Dyke.
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Lackluster shows are replaced by something for which the viewing public actually cares to tune in. The public had clearly tuned out of Kimmel’s show a long time ago.
What Jimmy Kimmel needs to do is “grow a pair,” take his lumps, and find another venue. Nevertheless, Kimmel has (viola!) returned after all, because I suppose the network figures it still hasn’t lost enough money — or influence.
Prove Him wrong
Young Charlie Kirk paid the ultimate price for standing against the obvious evil he saw in plain sight. And in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, many more, unfortunately, may join him.
My relative closed out his email challenging those of us who didn't agree with him to respond à la Charlie: “Prove me wrong,” he wrote.
I closed my email response to him in a way I think the humble Charlie Kirk might have done: “Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me'” (John 14:6).
“Prove Him wrong.”
Want To Honor Charlie Kirk’s Legacy? Emulate His Moral Courage
Honor Charlie's legacy by asking yourself each day, 'How can I demonstrate the type of moral courage that he displayed to the very end?'The Founders Wanted A Christian Nation But Not A State-Enforced One
Demanding, as Douglas Wilson seems to do, that public officials proclaim their personal faith in Christ is neither wise, nor moral, nor American, nor Christian.Why America can — and must — outlaw pornography
My daughter is 7 years old. She is adorable, kindhearted, and full of life. I would do anything to protect her.
Now think about all the 7-year-olds in your life — children, nephews, nieces, neighbor kids. Statistically speaking, 50% of them will be exposed to pornography in the next five years. Read this paragraph repeatedly until the gravity of it hits you.
Family is the building block of society, and pornography is the corrosive acid that is eating away at its foundation.
As bad as a Playboy would be, I am not talking about a magazine. I am talking about the most depraved, hard-core, and often violent sexual intercourse footage ever conceived in the human mind that is available with a few clicks to anyone with access to a smartphone or computer. The median age of first exposure to this content is 12 years old; 15% will view hard-core pornography before they graduate elementary school.
As Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is finding out, age verification checks are doing little to deter any of this and are as easy to pass through as our border during the Biden administration.
What kind of sick society allows this?
Pornography's effects
Pornography is a corrosive acid that rots the soul; steals innocence; destroys marriages; fuels objectification, exploitation, and sex trafficking of women and children; increases rape and abuse rates; and unravels the moral fabric of society, causing great public harm. It increases anxiety, shame, sexual dysfunction, and relationship unhappiness among those who use it.
As J.C. Ryle said well, “Nothing darkens the mind so much as sin; it is the cloud which hides the face of God from us.”
Porn use affects every part of our mind, body, and soul. It inflicts immense external harms on individuals and society.
Not only does it directly warp the minds of America’s children, it affects them in indirect ways. Recent data indicates that marriages in which at least one spouse views pornography are nearly twice as likely to result in divorce, and the effects of divorce on children are staggering. Children of divorced parents often experience heightened levels of anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues.
A study by the University of Illinois Chicago indicates that divorce may lead to social withdrawal, attachment difficulties, and increased behavioral problems in children.
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Research published in the Journal of Divorce & Remarriage found that children from divorced families are more likely to exhibit lower academic performance compared to their peers from intact families. Data from PLOS One indicates that individuals who experienced parental divorce before the age of 18 have a 61% higher risk of experiencing a stroke in adulthood. Research from Baylor University indicates that adults who experienced parental divorce during childhood have lower levels of oxytocin, a hormone associated with relationship bonding and emotional regulation.
Family is the building block of society, and pornography is the corrosive acid that is eating away at its foundation. Without any redeeming element whatsoever, pornography destroys marriages, destroys lives, and steals the innocence and protection of the young.
All of these outcomes are the result of a choice made by public officials who refuse to stand in the way of this obscene content being published.
What kind of sick society allows this?
What about the First Amendment?
Pornography is not “speech” in any meaningful, constitutionally protected sense. We rightly prohibit prostitution. Yet somehow, when the same act is filmed and distributed to millions of people over the internet, prostitution becomes exalted as “protected speech.”
This is legal nonsense of the highest order. It insults the intelligence of the American people and is a crime against children and the moral fabric of any society. To claim that the founding fathers fought and bled to secure a right to broadcast prostitution is as absurd as it is evil.
No serious person believes this legal framework is the result of honest lawmaking or faithful judicial interpretation. Rather, this perverse outcome is a product of cultural rot and late 20th-century judicial activism. Our courts were captured by ideologues more committed to preserving the sexual revolution at any cost than upholding constitutional fidelity.
But common-law tradition and Supreme Court precedent provide a clear path to prohibition.
Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the Supreme Court in Barnes v. Glen Theatre (1991), rightly noted that public nudity was a criminal offense at common law. The founders did not interpret the First Amendment as a shield for public obscenity, indecency, or exhibitionism. In fact, Miller v. California (1973) gives us the legal test we need: If material appeals to the prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way as defined by contemporary standards, and lacks serious political, educational, or artistic value, it is not protected by the First Amendment.
Modern pornography clearly meets all three criteria — except where legislatures have failed to define and prohibit it accordingly.
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Pornography’s advocates point to Reno v. ACLU (1997), but the ruling was based on the failure of the bill in question to distinguish “obscene” from “indecent.” Moreover, the court justified its decision by claiming the internet was less invasive than radio or television.
How well does that assertion hold up 28 years later?
The internet is now the primary battleground for the soul of this generation. Because of its incorrect factual findings and clear disregard for the power clearly reserved to the states, any element of Reno and other opinions that would prohibit states and municipalities from banning public obscenity should be overturned. There are upcoming opportunities to do so. State legislatures need to provide more.
It is past time for us to recognize that publishing prostitution footage is not speech — it is an attack on human decency and the moral fabric necessary to hold families and the republic together. We must deal with it as such.
That is why I filed SB593 to abolish pornography in Oklahoma.
What SB593 does
SB593 would define “obscenity” according to the Miller test and outlaw the production, distribution, sale, and possession of obscene pornography in Oklahoma. It would re-establish the state’s authority to prosecute those who profit from the destruction of marriage, innocence, and society. It would empower law enforcement to shut down pornography rings that exploit women and children. It also increases penalties for child pornography.
The American people — many suffering the effects of a culture drowning in pornographic material — are increasingly supportive of bills like this one.
A society without pornography is better than one with it.
A 2024 YouGov poll found that support for and opposition to the total pornography ban suggested by Project 2025 were split evenly at 42-42. Among Republican voters, 60% were in support, with only 27% opposed. Republican officials can ban pornography, knowing their voters have their back by a greater than two-to-one margin.
Many object that the bill, or others like it, will be challenged in court, but that is no reason to shrink back. The goal is to pass the bill, but not merely that — it is also to force a reckoning. The Miller test provides a well-established framework to ban obscene pornography. The factual findings from Reno have been proven disastrously wrong.
Public opposition to pornography is rising. There is no better time to put this discussion before the American people and the Supreme Court.
Time to act
The left possesses no limiting principle to forcing its twisted, Marxist vision of the good on society. Leftists weaponize agencies to perform raids on political opponents, meme-makers, and pro-life protesters. They collude with social media companies to censor right-leaning opinions. They shut down businesses and churches.
Yet too many on the right still flinch at any minor deviation from utter libertinism.
A society without pornography is better than one with it. Everyone knows this, yet too many cling to unlimited, laissez-faire state approval of public prostitution footage. People have been conditioned to believe that the highest conservative principle is inaction and “neutrality.”
It is children who pay the biggest price for this folly.
Pornography exemplifies this crisis: It objectifies people made as God’s image-bearers, reducing them to commodities for gratification, thus defacing the imago Dei and alienating us from our creator. Neurologically and spiritually, it rewires the brain's reward pathways, creating addictive filters that pervert sexual perception and fracture body-soul unity, as Jesus warns in Matthew 5:28.
This echoes broader anthropological harms, fueling exploitation, addiction, and societal division that undermine human flourishing and the common good.
In legislating against it, we affirm God's design for humanity. This is not about criminalizing private lustful thoughts (a sin for the church) but addressing external actions that exploit, addict, and divide (a crime for the state). By enacting such a law, we honor God, protect the vulnerable, and fulfill our duty to promote the common good.
What kind of sick society allows pornography?
For the sake of children and the survival of the republic, pornography must be abolished.
Christian woman goes viral for saying she wants a divorce. Here's why she's wrong.
A TikTok of a Christian woman named Camille Wight has gone viral, as she claimed she wanted to divorce her “perfect” husband — which sparked an intense debate about marriage and divorce across all social media platforms.
“Earlier this year, I told my husband I wanted a divorce. I feel like I have been searching for something in my relationship that we don’t have for the whole time we’ve been married, which has been 10 years,” the woman said.
“There is not a single thing about my husband in and of himself that I do not love. Let me be very clear about that. He is the most self-disciplined, loyal, hardworking, good person that you could meet on this planet. And that is probably the reason why I have not left,” she continued.
The woman went on to explain that her expectations are not being met and that she doesn’t feel like she can be herself with her husband — emphasizing that she is a mom of three who still doesn’t know who she is.
She couched the confession by asking for advice and wanting to know how she can salvage her marriage.
“It won’t come as a surprise to you that I have a lot of problems with this, that God has a lot of problems with this person’s reasoning and what she is articulating here,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey says.
“Posting a video confessing your soured feelings about your husband — talking negatively about your spouse, talking negatively about your marriage — indicates a lot of very profound spiritual and mental issues going on here. You’ve got to honor your husband more than this. You’ve got to cherish your marriage more than this. You’ve got to protect your privacy better than this, love your kids more than this,” she continues.
Because Wight publicly claims the name of Christ, Stuckey speaks to her in Christian terms.
“Number one, marriage is for life. Except in rare circumstances, divorce is not allowed. Jesus says, ‘What God has joined together, let not man separate.’ Number two, life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about denying yourself, as Jesus calls us to do. The journey to self-discovery is endless, and self-fulfillment is a very heavy burden to bear,” Stuckey says.
“Number three, your kids' well-being matters more than your wants. Your feelings will change. Your kids' emotional, psychological, and spiritual need for an intact home will not. And number four, marriage is not primarily about happiness. It is primarily about holiness,” she continues.
“And then finally, number five, feelings are real,” she says. “They are strong. And it is so tempting to follow our feelings, but it is a trap. Our hearts cannot be trusted. Jeremiah 17:9. So go to people at your church, in your life, that won’t just affirm how you feel, but will actually point you, as uncomfortable as it may be, to the unchanging truth of God’s word.”
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