Kennedy compresses the entire span of recorded history into a single half‑century. If all of human civilization were just fifty years old, he says, then steam engines arrived only in the last minute. Penicillin appeared seconds ago. And in that same blink of time, we invented airplanes, split the atom, and hurled satellites into orbit.

It was his way of reminding Americans that the future does not unfold at a steady pace. It accelerates. It compounds. It surprises. And the societies that thrive are the ones that prepare for that quickening rather than cling anxiously to the world they already know.

Today, as we stand at the threshold of artificial intelligence, automation, and the possibility of artificial general intelligence, Kennedy’s timeline feels less like a metaphor and more like a warning. The pace of change he described has only intensified. What seemed like a superhuman feat of space exploration in 1962 is now the stuff of museum exhibits. Children today swipe through satellite imagery on their phones with the same casualness that earlier generations flipped through comic books.

If the last fifty years turned the extraordinary into the ordinary, what will the next ten bring? The next thirty?

And more urgently: what is the United States doing today to prepare for that world?

The Future Is Arriving Faster Than Our Imagination

Many Americans still think of AI as a distant frontier, something still forming on the horizon. But the truth is that the horizon is rushing toward us. The tools we are building today — large‑scale models, autonomous systems, self‑improving algorithms — are not incremental upgrades. They are foundational shifts in how knowledge is created, how work is done, and how decisions are made.

If Kennedy’s half‑century metaphor were updated for 2025, the last few minutes before midnight alone would now contain the invention of smartphones, the rise of cloud computing, the sequencing of the human genome, the emergence of social media as a geopolitical force, and the birth of modern AI. And the timeline is compressing still.

Enterprise adoption reflects this reality. In 2017, only 20% of firms reported using AI. By 2024, that number had climbed to 78%, with 71% using generative AI specifically in at least one business function. That is not a trend line — it is a transformation.

And the investment behind that transformation is staggering. Global private AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024, more than 13 times the level a decade earlier. The United States alone accounted for $109.1 billion, nearly 12 times China’s investment.

And yet, our politics often behaves as if we have all the time in the world — as if the future will politely wait for us to get our act together.

It won’t.

The countries that lead in AI will shape global norms, set the rules of the digital economy, and define the boundaries of human‑machine collaboration in the years and decades and centuries ahead. The countries that hesitate will find themselves living in a world built by others.

Kennedy understood this dynamic instinctively. The moon shot wasn’t just a scientific challenge; it was a test of national character. It asked whether a free people could marshal their ingenuity, their resources, and their courage to meet a moment of profound technological change. We face a similar test now.

Fear Is Not a Strategy

It’s understandable that people feel anxious about AI. Change at this scale always produces uncertainty. But fear cannot be the organizing principle of a confident nation.

Too often, our public conversation about AI is dominated by dystopian scenarios — job loss, runaway systems, existential risk. These concerns deserve attention, but they cannot be the whole story. If we let fear dictate our posture, we will default to paralysis. We will regulate reflexively, innovate timidly, and cede leadership to countries that do not share our values.

Kennedy didn’t promise that the moon shot would be safe or smooth. He promised that it would be hard — and that difficulty was precisely why it mattered. It would “organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

AI demands the same mindset. It is not a threat to be contained; it is a frontier to be shaped. And frontiers reward those who move with purpose, not those who cling to the familiar.

The Responsibility of a Free People

The moon shot succeeded because it was a national project. It wasn’t just engineers at NASA; it was teachers, machinists, welders, mathematicians, factory workers, and taxpayers. It was a collective act of democratic will. The scale deployment of AI to benefit humanity requires a similar civic commitment and unity of purpose, especially at a moment when our political leaders and culture seem to be pulling us apart.

We need public institutions and leaders that understand the technology, not fear it. We need a workforce trained for the jobs that automation will create, not just the ones it will replace. We need ethical frameworks that reflect democratic values — transparency, accountability, human dignity — rather than the opaque priorities of authoritarian systems.

We also need our politics to reflect the sober and substantive demands of a serious nation that means to lead the world. Because the chief bet being made by our authoritarian opponents around the world is that American democracy has become too chaotic, too self-referential, too performative, and too confused — unable to focus on a singular goal and persevere through the time and tradeoffs it can take for even a great people to achieve difficult things.

And we need to recognize the scale of what AI is already enabling. In healthcare alone, the FDA has now approved 950 AI‑enabled medical devices, up from just six in 2015. In transportation, autonomous vehicles are no longer experimental; Waymo now provides 150,000 self‑driving rides each week. These are not hypotheticals. They are the early signals of a world being rebuilt in real time. Most of all, we need citizens who see themselves as participants in shaping the future, not passengers being carried along by forces beyond their control.

Kennedy’s timeline reminds us that humanity advances not by standing still, but by choosing to move forward even when the path is uncertain. The question is not whether AI will transform society. It will. The question is whether we will shape that transformation or simply react to it.

Ten Years From Now

If the pace of progress continues, the world of 2035 will look radically different from the world of 2025. AI systems will be embedded in every sector — healthcare, education, transportation, national security. Personalized tutors could help every child learn at their own pace. Medical diagnostics could become faster, cheaper, and more accurate. Entire industries could be reorganized around intelligent automation.

The question is whether the United States will lead these developments or watch them unfold from the sidelines.

Leadership requires investment — in research, in infrastructure, in talent. It requires regulatory frameworks that encourage innovation while protecting the public. It requires a national narrative that sees technology not as a threat to human dignity, but as a tool for expanding it.

Most importantly, it requires a willingness to imagine a future that is better than the present. And the societies that thrive will be the ones that prepare — not by clinging to the world they are leaving behind, but by embracing the world they are building.

Choosing the Future

Kennedy closed his speech by reminding the country that “space is there, and we’re going to climb it.” It was a declaration of agency — a refusal to let the unknown intimidate a free people.

AI is our generation’s version of that challenge. It is vast, complex, and uncertain. But it is also full of possibility. It offers us the chance to cure diseases, expand knowledge, strengthen democracy, and unlock human potential on a scale that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.

The question is whether we will choose to lead; not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And because the future is arriving whether we are ready or not.

The moon shot taught us that a confident nation does not fear the quickening pace of history. It rises to meet it. It shapes it. It leads.

We choose to go to the moon, Kennedy said. And today, we must choose to build the future yet again.

We hear it everywhere. If only leaders cared more. If only voters were better informed. If only the “right people” were in charge. These arguments share a common premise: that outcomes flow primarily from virtue. That if we could just fix character, the system would fix itself.

The people who designed our country did not believe this.

The Framers were not cynics, but they were realists. They valued virtue and character but also understood human nature well enough to know that appeals to virtue alone would not sustain a republic. They assumed ambition, self-interest, faction, pride, and fear would always be present. And rather than pretending otherwise, they built a system designed to work because of those traits, not in spite of them.

James Madison put it bluntly in Federalist 51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The sentence is often quoted, but less often taken seriously. Madison wasn’t lamenting human weakness. He was designing around it. The Constitution is, at its core, an incentives-based document—a blueprint for channeling human behavior through structure, counterweights, and accountability.

Ambition was made to counteract ambition. Power was fragmented. Authority was separated. No single actor was trusted with unchecked discretion. The goal wasn’t to create perfect leaders; it was to create a system resilient to imperfect ones.

In other words, the American experiment was never founded on intentions. It was founded on incentives.

Yet, those of us fighting authoritarianism in the United States sometimes treat values alone as sufficient. We talk endlessly about norms, decency, and character, while paying far less attention to the institutional incentives that shape behavior every day. When outcomes disappoint us, we blame moral failure—of voters, of politicians, of “the other side”—rather than examining whether the system is doing exactly what it is designed to do.

Take polarization. Nearly everyone claims to oppose it. Yet the structure of our politics relentlessly rewards polarizing behavior. Primary elections favor ideological extremes. Media ecosystems reward outrage and simplification. Social platforms amplify conflict over persuasion. Fundraising incentives reward fear more than trust. None of this requires bad intentions. It merely requires rational actors responding to the environment they inhabit.

The Framers would have recognized this immediately. They would not have been surprised by it. They understood that systems shape behavior more reliably than sermons. That is why they focused so intensely on institutional design—on checks, balances, and incentives—rather than on cultivating virtue through exhortation.

This doesn’t mean they dismissed character as irrelevant. Quite the opposite. They believed republican government required civic virtue. But they also understood that virtue is fragile and unevenly distributed. Institutions had to be strong enough to withstand its absence.

Today, we often reverse that logic. We expect institutions to function only if participants behave well. When they don’t, we express outrage rather than redesigning the system. The result is predictable frustration and repeated failure.

This pattern shows up well beyond politics. In any complex system—whether economic, civic, or organizational—outcomes track incentives. When incentives reward short-term performance, short-term thinking dominates. When incentives reward visibility, behavior becomes performative. When incentives reward conflict, conflict multiplies. This is not a moral judgment; it is a structural observation.

The Founders understood something else we tend to forget: incentives do not need to be malicious to be destructive. A system can fail even when most participants are acting in good faith. That insight is both sobering and liberating. It means our problems are not uniquely American, nor uniquely modern. But it also means they are not solved by indignation alone.

Populism, in its various forms, thrives on the idea that the system is broken because the people in charge are corrupt or indifferent. Sometimes that’s true. But more often, it’s incomplete. Replace the people without changing the incentives, and the behavior persists. The roles remain the same, even as the names change. Even many of those in the MAGA movement, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are beginning to learn this lesson.

This is why the Framers were so suspicious of concentrated power, and so skeptical of appeals to pure intention. They knew that unchecked authority attracts those most eager to exercise it. They knew that moral certainty, untethered from restraint, is a danger—not a safeguard. And they knew that durable self-government requires structures that quietly discipline behavior even when no one is watching.

We have drifted from that wisdom.

Our institutions today are strained not because Americans suddenly became worse people, but because the incentives that once moderated behavior have weakened or disappeared. Congress has ceded authority while avoiding responsibility. Executive power has expanded with limited accountability. The public square has been redesigned around attention rather than deliberation. Each change may have seemed incremental or even convenient at the time. Together, they have reshaped behavior in ways the Framers would have recognized and warned against.

Recovering an incentives-based approach to reform requires a shift in mindset. It means talking less about motives and more about structures. Less about what leaders promise, and more about what they are rewarded for. Less about restoring norms through scolding, and more about rebuilding institutions that make good behavior the path of least resistance.

This is not glamorous work. Institutional reform rarely is. It requires patience, technical competence, and a willingness to accept tradeoffs. But it is also the only work that endures.

If we want a healthier republic, we would do well to relearn what the Framers already knew: intentions matter, but incentives govern. And a free society survives not by wishing people were better, but by building institutions wise enough to assume they are not. After all the damage to those institutions in recent years, we have much to build.

Six hours later, after a battery of tests, fluids, and anxious pacing in the ER, the doctors concluded what any seasoned parent might have suspected: she had nausea and indigestion. Nothing life-threatening, nothing exotic, just a rough night. We were relieved. Then came the bill.

The invoice listed a top-line charge of $7,498. Then, in a mysterious row labeled “adjustments,” the hospital knocked off $3,354. My insurer covered a portion, and somehow — through a series of opaque calculations — the final out-of-pocket responsibility landed at a perfectly even $1,200.

Now, I’m grateful my daughter is fine. But staring at that bill, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the numbers were almost imaginary. What was the real price of the care? Was it $7,498? Was it $4,144 after “adjustments”? Or was it $1,200, the amount I actually paid? The truth is, none of those numbers reflect the actual cost of care. They are artifacts of a broken system — a system where prices are not signals of value but weapons in a negotiation.

The Fiction of the Chargemaster

Every hospital in America maintains what’s called a chargemaster — a master list of prices for every service, supply, and drug. These lists are not standardized, not regulated, and not tied to actual costs. They are inflated sticker prices, designed to maximize leverage in negotiations with insurers.

If you’re uninsured, you might be billed at chargemaster rates, which can be financially ruinous. If you’re insured, your insurer has negotiated discounts off those rates. The “adjustments” on my bill were simply the difference between the fictional chargemaster price and the insurer’s negotiated rate.

This is why healthcare prices feel imaginary: they are not tethered to the cost of delivering care, but to the bargaining power of institutions.

The Opacity Problem

The opacity of healthcare pricing creates several structural problems:

• Patients cannot shop intelligently. Unlike buying a car or booking a flight, you cannot know the price of care before you receive it.

• Insurers and hospitals collude in secrecy. Negotiated rates are hidden from public view, making it impossible to compare across providers.

• Bills are confusing by design. Patients receive invoices littered with codes, line items, and unexplained adjustments.

• Cross-subsidization distorts incentives. Hospitals claim they must inflate private insurance prices to cover losses from Medicare, Medicaid, and uncompensated care. While cost-shifting is real, the bigger driver is consolidation and market power.

Market Power, Not Just Costs

Hospitals often justify high prices by pointing to rising costs: labor shortages, expensive drugs, advanced technology. And those pressures are real. But the biggest driver of inflated prices is market power.

Large regional systems dominate local markets, leaving insurers with little leverage. When a hospital system controls most of the beds in a region, it can demand higher rates simply because patients have nowhere else to go.

This is why hospital margins have been rising in recent years, especially for large systems. Smaller rural hospitals struggle, but consolidated urban systems thrive. The profits flow to executives, bondholders, and — in for-profit systems — shareholders. Patients rarely see the benefit.

Reform Efforts

There are promising reforms underway:

• Hospital Price Transparency Rule (2021, strengthened in 2025): Requires hospitals to publish negotiated rates and provide consumer-friendly tools for “shoppable services”.

• Transparency in Coverage Rule (2022): Requires insurers to publish negotiated rates and provide online cost estimator tools.

• Consumer tools: Independent platforms like FAIR Health Consumer provide procedure-specific cost estimates by geography, helping patients anticipate bills.

These reforms are steps in the right direction. But compliance is uneven, enforcement is weak, and the data is often too complex for ordinary consumers to use effectively.

The AI Horizon: Demystifying Healthcare and Restoring Trust

Thankfully, we are now entering a moment where the opacity and confusion of large and complicated datasets and secretive bureaucratic negotiations can be virtually erased for consumers — not by another round of half‑hearted regulatory tweaks, but through the scaled deployment of artificial intelligence.

AI has the capacity to sift through the mountains of data that hospitals and insurers have long hidden from patients — chargemaster lists, negotiated rates, government reimbursements — and translate them into plain‑language, personalized cost estimates. Instead of leaving families to decipher PDFs and machine‑readable files, AI can deliver clarity in seconds.

Imagine opening an app before heading to the ER and seeing:

• The estimated total cost of care at nearby hospitals.

• Your likely out‑of‑pocket responsibility based on your insurance plan.

• Alternative sites of care (urgent care vs. ER) with price comparisons.

This is not speculative. It is already happening in pilot programs, and AI can scale it. Just as GPS demystified navigation, AI can demystify healthcare pricing.

But the promise goes further. AI is not only a translator of opaque bills; it is also a consultant in care itself. A recent study reported in The New York Times found that AI systems could diagnose illnesses based on patient‑reported symptoms with a high degree of accuracy — in some cases outperforming human physicians in initial triage. This capacity to deliver consultative services at scale could dramatically reduce the costs of unnecessary tests and care.

Think about the implications:

• A parent with a sick child could consult an AI system before rushing to the ER, receiving a reliable assessment of whether urgent care is necessary.

• Patients could avoid costly, redundant diagnostic tests by receiving accurate guidance upfront.

• Hospitals could streamline triage, focusing resources on the most urgent cases.

The potential savings are enormous. If AI can prevent even a fraction of unnecessary ER visits and redundant testing, billions could be saved annually. More importantly, patients would be spared the anxiety of navigating a system that feels designed to confuse and extract. To be sure, the deployment of AI in the healthcare space will come with its own issues and concerns but we should address those concerns as they come and not slow our progress toward a transformation of US healthcare that can reduce costs and improve access for every American.

Imaginary Prices, Real Consequences

My daughter’s midnight ER visit was a reminder of how broken our system is. The $7,498 sticker price, the $3,354 “adjustment,” and the final $1,200 bill were not reflections of value or cost. They were artifacts of a system designed to obscure, confuse, and extract.

Healthcare prices in America are imaginary. But the consequences are real: delayed care, financial ruin, eroded trust. With the advent of AI, we finally have the tools to demystify and transform healthcare pricing and care itself. We can strip away opacity, confusion, and complexity. We can empower patients with clarity, restore trust in institutions, and make healthcare as navigable as booking a flight or buying a car.

The future of healthcare is not another inscrutable invoice. It is a transparent, consultative system where patients know both the price and the value of care before they receive it. AI is the lever that can move us from fiction to clarity — and it is arriving just in time.

The war in Ukraine is not just another foreign policy challenge or “territorial dispute”—it is the defining test of whether the United States still believes in a world anchored by enduring principles rather than brute force. Russia’s invasion has shattered Europe’s peace, displaced millions, and killed hundreds of thousands. It is the largest land war on the continent since 1945, and its outcome will shape the futures of free people around the world.

For the United States, the stakes are clear: if Ukraine falls, authoritarian aggression will be validated, NATO’s credibility will be shredded, and America’s ability to lead coalitions elsewhere—from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East—will be gravely weakened. This is not a distant problem; it is a direct challenge to the system of alliances and norms that has kept Americans secure for generations.

Trump’s Transactional Retreat

The Trump administration’s posture toward Europe has been dangerously transactional. It has questioned NATO’s durability, entertained Russian demands for territorial concessions, and cast doubt on whether the United States should remain committed to Ukraine’s defense. Envoys have floated “peace plans” that amount to coercing Kyiv into surrendering land, while simultaneously holding parallel talks with Moscow without Kyiv or our European allies at the table.

This is not realism—it is abdication. Realism acknowledges limits but does not abandon principles. Trump’s approach signals to Russia that aggression pays and will be credited on its ledger, and to our allies that America’s word is conditional. That is precisely the opposite of what deterrence requires.

History offers a warning here. In the 1930s, Western democracies tried to buy peace by conceding territory to Hitler. The result was not stability but escalation. When the United States flirts with similar concessions today, we risk repeating that mistake.

Practical Liberalism: Principles Married to Reality

Rejecting Trump’s approach does not mean ignoring hard truths. Ukraine cannot reclaim all occupied territory overnight, Europe must shoulder more of the defense burden (as it has begun to do) and the United States must calibrate its aid to avoid escalation. But practical liberalism insists that our strategy be grounded in enduring principles: sovereignty, collective security, and the defense of free nations against coercion.

That means:

• Sustained military aid to Ukraine—not as charity, but as investment in a stable Europe.

• Permanent NATO deployments in Poland and the Baltics to deter further Russian aggression.

• Economic pressure on Moscow, including secondary sanctions to close loopholes that are currently exploited by countries like Hungary.

• Political solidarity with Europe, rejecting rhetoric that casts allies as weak or unreliable.

This is not idealism divorced from reality. It is realism informed by principle. The United States cannot afford to treat alliances as disposable contracts, because they are ultimately the backbone of our security. And as the Trump Administration has shown us: if we aren’t dealing with our friends in Europe, we are left to cut deals for Putin.

The ROI of Ukraine: A Strategic Windfall

Critics often frame aid to Ukraine as a drain on U.S. resources. But the numbers tell a different story. Since 2022, the United States has committed roughly $175 billion in aid across military, financial, and humanitarian channels. Of that, about $75 billion has been military assistance—advanced air defense systems, artillery, drones, and intelligence support.

For less than 3% of the annual U.S. defense budget spread over four years, Washington has helped Ukraine inflict staggering costs on Russia:

• Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops killed or wounded.

• Thousands of tanks and armored vehicles destroyed.

• Much of Russia’s pre-war conventional military capacity degraded.

• Energy revenues curtailed and long-term economic contraction under sanctions.

This is the definition of return on investment. For a fraction of our Cold War expenditures, America has helped neutralize Russia’s conventional military threat without a single U.S. soldier in combat.

And the alternative is far more expensive. Analysts at the American Enterprise Institute estimate that if Ukraine were to lose, the U.S. would face an additional $808 billion in defense costs over the next five years to reconstitute forces, reposition troops, and deter Russia along NATO’s frontier. That is seven times more than all aid appropriated to Ukraine to date.

Every dollar spent supporting Ukraine saves multiple dollars in future defense spending. It is cheaper to help Ukraine fight Russia now than to fight Russia ourselves later.

Benefits Beyond the Battlefield

The ROI is not just measured in dollars. America’s investment has yielded strategic dividends across the board:

• Ukraine has preserved its sovereignty and prevented Russia from installing a puppet regime in Kyiv.

• NATO has been revitalized: Finland and Sweden joined, eastern members strengthened defenses, and alliance cohesion deepened.

• Russia’s conventional military threat to NATO has been blunted. Its losses in Ukraine mean it will take years, if not decades, to rebuild the capacity to threaten Europe at scale.

• America’s credibility has been reinforced. Standing firm in Europe signals to allies in Asia that Washington’s commitments are reliable, deterring China in the Pacific.

• Economic stability has been preserved. By preventing Russia from destabilizing Europe, we protect America’s largest trading partner and preserve global markets.

These are not abstract benefits. They are tangible returns on a relatively modest investment.

Why Europe Matters

Some argue that America should pivot away from Europe and focus on Asia. But this is a false choice. The credibility of our commitments in Asia depends on the credibility of our commitments in Europe. If NATO fractures, Beijing will conclude that Washington cannot be trusted to defend Taiwan or uphold freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Moreover, Europe remains America’s largest trading partner and closest cultural ally. A fractured Europe would leave America isolated in a world dominated by authoritarian powers. The Marshall Plan, NATO, and the defense of Berlin were not “deals”—they were commitments that built a freer world.

The Broader Strategy: Fortify Principles Where They Are Tested

The role of the United States in global affairs must be to fortify enduring principles where they are tested, strengthen alliances where they are strained, and remind the world that our commitments are durable. That requires rejecting the narrow, transactional worldview of the Trump administration and embracing a principled liberalism that marries principle to realism.

This does not mean the United States should intervene everywhere. It means we must be clear about where our interests and principles align most powerfully—and Europe is such a place. The defense of Ukraine is inseparable from the defense of the principle that borders cannot be changed by force.

The Trump Administration’s posture risks throwing all of these hard-fought gains away in pursuit of a transactional “deal” that it has no guarantee that Putin will respect. If America retreats now, it will not only betray Ukraine—it will betray the very idea of a world where alliances mean something, where sovereignty is respected, and where free nations can resist coercion. And the credibility of those principles is a big part of what keeps us safe. The United States should defend these ideas, even if the Trump Administration won’t.

Why We Gather: Principle over Personality

A week from today, over a thousand principled Americans will come together from all over the country for the 2025 Principles First Summit to inject some much needed seriousness back into our politics.

We started this Summit five years ago as a response to the decline of principled leadership in American politics. Too many institutions on the right—once dedicated to the battle of ideas—have abandoned principle for personality-driven spectacle. CPAC, for example, was once a forum for conservative policy debate. Today, it’s a self-parody, a circus of outrage merchants and celebrity agitators—Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon. Competent leaders are nowhere to be found.

Principles First exists to challenge that decline. Our Summit will reject empty theatrics and rekindle a politics of substance—restoring integrity in governance at a time when too many so-called leaders have given up on taking their jobs seriously. The Republican Party had a choice, and it chose isolationism, entertainment populism, victimhood, and fealty to a single personality. The only choice left is for the rest of us: what will we do about it?

Consider this year’s Summit the beginning of that answer.

America’s Real Challenges in 2025

While unserious actors pursue clickbait and conspiracy, real crises are bearing down on the country. And if our elected officials won’t talk about them, we will. That’s why our theme this year is American Principles and Priorities—to surface the key strategic challenges and engage seriously with solutions. In my view, among the most pressing are:

• The Affordability Crisis: Americans are being crushed under the soaring cost of living. Healthcare expenses are out of control—more than 100 million people (41% of adults) struggle with medical debt, even though we spend nearly 18% of our GDP on healthcare—far more than any other nation. Housing is just as dire: over 21 million renter households—nearly half of all renters—spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Meanwhile, homeownership is becoming unattainable for the middle class, with prices surging 47% since 2020. Even basics like gas and energy costs have become unpredictable, hitting record highs and further straining family budgets. Yet, instead of tackling these issues, the government remains chaotic and unfocused, enacting policies like tariffs that only make matters worse. We need to reject protectionism, invite global competition and price transparency, and use tested solutions to increase supply to bring prices down.

• Technological Upheaval and The Rise of AI: A new industrial revolution is underway, and our leaders are unprepared. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are transforming industries at lightning speed—ChatGPT reached a million users in just five days, a sign of AI’s rapid scale and American interest in these groundbreaking innovations. But alongside progress comes disruption. An estimated 300 million jobs worldwide could be diminished or entirely dismissed due to AI automation. While AI offers opportunities for economic growth, it will also widen inequality, eliminate jobs, and raise complex ethical dilemmas. Yet instead of preparing for this transition our politicians are too busy chasing viral outrage. We need to prepare for this future today—by investing in workforce retraining, updating regulations, and ensuring AI is developed responsibly.

• The Education Crisis: American students are falling behind, and the consequences will be severe. Years of underinvestment, culture wars, and pandemic disruptions have resulted in historic learning declines. For the first time ever, the math scores of 9-year-olds fell—dropping seven points between 2020 and 2022—while reading scores saw their largest decline since 1990. High schoolers are graduating unprepared for college and the modern workforce. But rather than focusing on solutions, too many politicians are fixated on performative debates about banning books. We need to restore excellence in education—by increasing teacher pay, treating education as the serious profession it is, modernizing curricula, and ensuring schools are competitive globally—else every other long-term challenge we face will only worsen.

• Authoritarianism on the March: Defending principle isn’t just a domestic challenge—it’s a global one. Part of restoring serious leadership in America is reaffirming our role in the world as a champion of democracy and a bulwark against authoritarianism. Isolationist voices in our politics, including leaders in the GOP, argue that America should pull back, abandon its allies, and ignore global threats. But history teaches us that retreating from the world invites catastrophe. When the U.S. refuses to lead, the world grows more dangerous—economically, militarily, and morally. Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a stark test of our resolve. Over 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed. Millions have been displaced. This is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II—a direct contest between tyranny and freedom. And if we abandon Ukraine now, Putin won’t stop there. Eastern Europe—Poland, the Baltics—will be next. Other authoritarian regimes, from Beijing to Tehran, will take note that aggression goes unpunished. America must stand with its democratic allies and counter the forces of illiberalism before it’s too late.

We do not have the luxury of ignoring these things to indulge in entertainment politics. Our Summit will bring them to the fore.

A Principles-First Path Forward

Fixing these challenges won’t be easy, but we’ll be taking a first step by forging a political coalition of principled Americans that can defeat entertainment-populism at the ballot box.

The liberal versus illiberal divide is now the primary faultline in politics—the “great realignment” has already happened. On one side are those flirting with authoritarian ideas, whether by embracing conspiracy theories, political violence, or outright racism and xenophobia. On the other side are those who believe in the American experiment of self-government, liberty under law, and equal justice. At Principles First, we aim to unite the majority of Americans who still believe that America’s greatness lies in its liberal foundation.

We recognize time is short. The hour is late, as the saying goes, but our country is not past saving. America has an uncanny ability to correct right when things seem hopeless—and I believe we’re at one of those inflection points now. The Summit can be a small part of America’s course correction—citizens coming together to demand better and to be better. We gather to champion ideas over idols, service over self-interest, and country over party. We gather to remind our fellow Americans that principled leadership is not some dated relic; it’s the only way to build a future worthy of our great nation. Let’s get to work.

Opening remarks delivered at the 2023 Principles First Summit in the Grand Ballroom of the Conrad Hotel in Washington, DC on Saturday, March 4. Thanks to all the volunteers whose effort and passion help make the Summit such a special success each year.

“Thank you, Dave – and I echo his thanks to all of the groups he mentioned. It is an incredible feeling to stand here and see all of you – who have come from near and far at personal expense and sacrifice to be in this room today. In that way – even if this is your first Principles First event, we are all cut from the same cloth – our speakers, our leaders, and you. You are here, not to fawn over someone, but because you still believe in our country and you hold a set of principles higher than your loyalties to any politician or party. That’s what makes this Summit different. And, while we are still in our early days and may always be the underdogs, this room today makes the trendline clear: CPAC is shrinking and Principles First is growing.

I want to talk this morning about the theme of this year’s Summit: Preserving American Institutions. And I wish it were different, but the plain truth is that our institutions today are under an all-out attack. Our elections, our Constitution, our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement, our businesses, media, schools – you name it – all have become the targets of talentless and small-minded politicians. Instead of leading and proposing solutions to attack actual problems like poverty or inflation or the high cost of healthcare or the fact that we are still in the middle of the global pack in terms of educational outcomes -- populist demagogues attack our institutions instead and, rather than improve them in some way, they tell us we should just tear them all down or that the institutions themselves are our enemy.

They tell us that we’re all victims of our institutions -- that they are rigged against us, and that some other group of Americans – the rich, the “woke”, or the “elite” – are to blame. They tell us that if we just elect them – they will save us and punish those other Americans who don’t think like us, or talk like us or look like us. This – as far as I can tell – is their only principle: protect those who agree with us and punish those who don’t. That is not a recipe for American greatness.

These same politicians like to say “America First” – but if you listen carefully, they don’t seem to like much about America. They say our businesses are too liberal, our schools are too woke, our military and intelligence agencies are too corrupt, our courts can’t be trusted, our elections are rigged, our Constitution needs to be terminated, they tell us we just need to get a “national divorce” – and once they catch their breath from all that, they’ll tell you America isn’t strong enough to survive even another day if you don’t elect their guy so government can step in and fix everything.

And when asked what we should be doing instead – they don’t look to America anymore…. they look to Hungary! Where Viktor Orban’s government shutters radio stations critical of the state and attacks minorities.

It’s really no surprise that these folks keep losing elections in this country – America – founded on a healthy skepticism of government power and a fundamental faith in individual freedom and personal responsibility. They so dislike how we choose to exercise our freedoms, that they now aim to limit them. That isn’t America First – because it isn’t America at all.

It’s such a small view of our country and of what we are capable of achieving. The us-vs-them mentality that pits us against our neighbor is holding us back in a very real way and threatening our global leadership and competitiveness. It’s like we’re in a boat, with only one side rowing at a time – constantly going in a circle. We have to reject it – and it starts, I think, by focusing on our institutions – because they are what channel our disagreements into constructive outcomes.

Now, our institutions aren’t perfect – and I doubt anyone here this weekend would claim that they are. But our institutions are a big part of what make America America – they are what separate constitutional democracy from populism; rule of law from rule of men; capitalism from cronyism; and freedom from tyranny. After 250 years, it is easy to forget just how thin the lines are between these things and just how costly it can be to cross them.

So, for all the faults of our Framers, I still believe they actually did a great thing when they penned the Declaration of Independence and wrote the Constitution all those years ago – and we damn sure shouldn’t start throwing it all away over one lost election.

You are here today because you realize that that’s what defines us as Americans – not our ethnicity, or our religion, or our culture, or who we elect. Leaders come and go, but our institutions and our principles define who we are as a country and who we want to be. Institutions and concepts like the free press, the Constitution, the separation of powers, the bicameral Congress, the separation of church and state, free and fair elections, federalism, the Bill of Rights, and the peaceful transfer of power. Principles like every person has dignity and worth; that we should all be treated equally in the eyes of the law; that elections aren’t rigged just because you lose; and that character and truth matter. These are the things that define us – not the outcome of some trumped up culture war. If the culture war really determined the essence of America, we would have 50 different Americas and they would constantly change from one generation to the next. The America I know is a lot bigger and grander than that.

I believe in the America that I read about in my history book – an exceptional America, that was always at its best when it was united in common purpose instead of divided inward against itself. The America that won an underdog revolution, helped rid Europe of Nazi tyranny, ended segregation, beat Russia to the moon, and defeated Soviet communism. It is a “Can Do” America – one that finds a way rather than an excuse. It’s an America big enough and confident enough to say: we can welcome and leverage the skills and talents of legal immigrants; we can open up our economy and train our workforce to compete; we can let gay teachers mention their spouses in class; we can secure our border and treat everyone with respect while we do it; and, yes Tucker, we can help Ukraine defend freedom in Europe; and, yes Marjorie, believe it or not, we can keep surviving as one unified country. In America, the possibility of what we can do will always be much greater and promising than whatever it is we can’t do.

And it’s because of those possibilities that I think you and I are indeed on a rendezvous with destiny, as Reagan once said – one that connects us not just to each other but to the generations of Americans who came before and who will follow after us. But we face a choice – not between Republicans and Democrats, but between our rich liberal tradition of freedom and a fundamental rejection of it.

So as we listen to these panels the next few days – I urge you to think critically about that choice and what it will take from each of us in the coming years to save these principles that we love and the imperfect institutions that realize them. Because that is the task in front of us. It won’t be easy, it won’t be without struggle, or sweat or sacrifice – but it will be worth it.

Thank you, God bless you and welcome to the Principles First Summit.”

Few good things last forever, but even fewer manage to become the butt of a joke. Over its 47-year history, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has morphed its first C from Conservative into Carnival.   

Rewind to the start. On January 25, 1974, California's governor took to a wooden podium in a DC hotel ballroom to address the first CPAC. The timing was auspicious and his message was clear: the country needed to move beyond the scandal-plagued corruption of the Nixon administration in a more principled direction. In his remarks, Ronald Reagan would honor three naval aviators who had just returned from Vietnam as POWs (including the late Senator John McCain) and paint his famous portrait of America as a shining city on a hill and an important force for moral good in the world.   

Those were heady days for the conservative movement and for CPAC. The conference assembled the intellectual lights of conservatism, free enterprise, and democracy. The panels and speeches were substantive and serious, and ultimately fused a new political cocktail of anti-communism, limited government, and individual liberty that would reshape American politics. The gathering was never perfect — and neither was the conservative movement it spawned, flirting as it did over the years with racial angst, xenophobia, and sexism. But the inaugural CPAC was focused, it galvanized an important new argument in American politics, and it set the stage for the GOP’s gear shift after Nixon’s corruption that ultimately powered Reagan's landslide victory in the 1980 presidential election.   

Fast-forward to the present. CPAC is more circus than conservative - a spectacle meant to sell $300 tickets to platform the very shock-and-awe edginess that Americans have overwhelmingly rejected in back-to-back-to-back election cycles. What once set a budding movement's standard for principles and character is now a showcase of its worst ills.   

When CPAC convenes this weekend, you'll sooner find a golden statue of Trump than a conservative principle. Instead of rejecting the Nixonian corruption of our day, CPAC will hand Steve Bannon a microphone and Kari Lake an award. And if any ideas happen to find their way into the agenda, they won't be conservative or even American. They'll be the mindless musings of a rudderless illiberalism - like how the Constitution should be terminated, how we need a “national divorce,” how only lost elections are rigged, how our own law enforcement is a 'deep state' bent on destroying us, or how America really shouldn't care what happens in Ukraine.   

CPAC says "America First" - but if you listen carefully, it doesn't like much about America. You'll hear how our businesses are too liberal, our schools are too woke, our military and intelligence agencies are too corrupt, our courts can't be trusted, our elections are rigged, our Constitution isn't working - and, once they catch their breath, they'll tell you America isn't strong enough to survive even another year if you don't elect their guy so government can step in and fix everything. "Look to Hungary!"  they say, where Viktor Orban's government shutters radio stations critical of the state and attacks minorities. It's no surprise the CPAC crowd keeps losing elections in America – a country founded on a healthy skepticism of government and a fundamental faith in individual freedom. Unhappy with how Americans exercise their freedom, CPAC now aims to limit it. That isn’t America First because it isn’t America at all.  

And if virtue, character, and objective truth matter to you, CPAC isn’t your scene. It actively applauds a conspiratorial fringe of our politics completely unmoored from ethical constraints and moral commitments. And it starts at the top. CPAC's president, Matt Schlapp, faces a number of credible sexual assault and harassment allegations made by former staffers—allegations which will no doubt dog each of the party faithful who opt to join Schlapp’s stage. The CPAC speakers are themselves walking HR complaints—from Donald “They-just-let-you-grab-them” Trump to Candace “Kanye-had-a-point-about-Jews” Owens. These examples may be uncomfortable to confront—but when you elevate those who traffic in these ideas for entertainment, an entire movement’s moral compass is compromised and the conservative banner is stained. Our country cannot be healed by leaders who are not good.  

America deserves something better than CPAC. Like 1974 needed Reagan's sunny anti-communism, 2023 needs a new spark. One that is rooted in the classically liberal values of the Founding; that places faith in principles instead of personalities; that believes in Americans enough to let them live their lives without the state dictating their cultural choices; that sees our businesses as engines of innovation and growth; that knows the value of helping freedom’s allies turn away totalitarian invaders; and that wants to win elections instead of reject them.

That’s what we’ve built at the Principles First Summit - which will be held during the same dates as CPAC at the Conrad Hotel in DC starting this Friday, March 3 to Sunday, March 5.  We’ll focus on America’s institutions - why they matter, why they are fraying, and how they can be preserved and strengthened. We’ll convene governors and state election officials from around the country who defeated election deniers and spoke truth about the vote. Former generals and ambassadors will discuss our foreign policy institutions and Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. Party leaders and former candidates will look at our parties as institutions - and ask whether innovation is possible. We’ll also tackle other of America’s institutions - Congress, the courts, the Constitution, the presidency, the cable news media and free press, and churches. The full agenda is available on our website.

Insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result - and buying a ticket to CPAC expecting a dynamic and competitive political movement to emerge is insane. Like the tired grifters it platforms, CPAC should be displaced for the good of the country. Let’s stop the circus and put principles first.  

Heath Mayo is the volunteer founder of the Principles First Summit, to be held this year in Washington, DC at the Conrad Hotel from Friday, March 3 to Sunday, March 5. See more information and register here.  

This evening, after denigrating US intelligence and cheering the Russian thugocracy instead, Trump gave Putin his “warmest regards.” Lest you think I’m overstating, I’ve included the full statement below - in all its anti-American ignorance:

“As President, I had a great and very productive meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with President Putin of Russia. Despite the belated Fake News portrayal of the meeting, the United States won much, including the respect of President Putin and Russia. Because of the phony Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, made-up and paid for by the Democrats and Crooked Hillary Clinton, the United States was put at a disadvantage - a disadvantage that was nevertheless overcome by me. As to who do I trust, they asked, Russia or our “intelligence” from the Obama era, meaning people like Comey, McCabe, the two lovers, Brennan, Clapper, and numerous other sleezebags, or Russia, the answer, after all that has been found out and written, should be obvious. Our government has rarely had such lowlifes as these working for it. Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin - don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!”

I don’t care how much you disagree with Democrats (and, believe me, I disagree with them on a lot, too). It is never reason enough to throw in with a killer, tyrant, and thug like Putin against our own country - or praise the likes of Russia’s roving assassin squad over US intelligence.

This is one of the most galling statements that Trump has ever issued - right up there with his denigration of American prisoners of war. Since Trump rarely highlights the vicious evil of tyrants like Putin, it is worth revisiting just why this statement is absurd. Here is a short and incomplete list (compiled from this more extensive summary):

• When Putin came to power in 1999, he approved, and perhaps even orchestrated, the bombings of two apartment buildings in Moscow, in which hundreds of innocent Russians lost their lives.

• Putin used those bombings to reignite the Second Chechen War, in which he launched an unprovoked offensive onslaught against the Chechen capital of Grozny that devastated the city, killed 25,000 civilians, and produced thousands of refugees.

• Putin has routinely funded, encouraged, and supplied pro-Russian terrorists in eastern Ukraine. The violence they have provoked has claimed over 10,000 lives. It was these proxies that shot down the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, killing 298 innocent civilian passengers.

• Russia’s bombing of the Syrian population and his alliance with Bashar al Assad led to the slaughter and gassing of the Syrian people.

• During Putin’s tenure, Russian political dissidents, reporters, and democrats have all been killed. The horrific jailing and starving of Alexei Navalny is just the latest example of Putin’s ruthless evil.

Trump - a former President of the United States - siding with the Russian state over US intelligence and sending a man such as Putin his “warmest regards” is a slap to America’s face. His comments today and his previous actions in office have made us the laughingstock of our enemies.

If this doesn’t piss you off, I question your patriotism. This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth and loyalty to country.

There’s no excuse or explanation for this statement. It’s wrong - plain and simple - and it’s way past time for the Republican Party to disown this crap instead of blindly following along hoping for votes.

Our enemies are playing us for fools. Stop letting them.

Enterprise is a dirty word in Washington these days.  Camps in both parties talk as though they despise it.  Turn on MSNBC and you might catch Senator Bernie Sanders or AOC railing against “evil corporations” who “oppress” their workers.  Turn on Fox News and you’ll hear Tucker Carlson yucking it up with Senator Josh Hawley about how businesses and the “metropolitan elite” who run them are set to destroy America if the government doesn’t step in and do something. 

Put simply: businesses, the people who start them, and - if we’re being honest - anyone who wears a tie or a blouse to work, have become the public boogeymen of choice for both left- and right-wing populists.  And with so few spines to be found in Washington, no one is standing up to the demagogues in defense of free enterprise.  It’s all embarrassingly un-American.

We’ve forgotten ourselves.  We’ve forgotten that it was the successes of free Americans innovating and delivering new products in a competitive and dynamic private sector that made us a global leader and the envy of the world.  We’ve forgotten how, just twenty years ago, we had to listen to $20 CDs on $80 Walkmans.  We’ve forgotten how free enterprise wiped out a vast chunk of global poverty over the last two centuries.  Some even seem to ignore that free enterprise just delivered not one, but multiple life-saving COVID vaccines in record time to hasten the beginning of the end of the global pandemic.

Instead of embracing this model and perfecting it for the 21st century as an engine of opportunity for all, most in Washington seem to be betting against it.  A politics of victimhood that pits haves against have-nots is the new bipartisan tonic.  Voices on each side think capitalism is old news and only disagree over who should count as its primary victims — uneducated whites or poor minorities.

It is a national shame, for example, that we hear so little in Washington about small businesses these days.  Republicans used to be their champions - and rightly so.  Our 31 million small businesses, defined by the SBA as businesses with 500 or fewer employees, are still responsible for creating almost 65% of all net new private sector jobs each year.  And if anyone in Washington actually took the time to speak to the people who work for these small businesses - they wouldn’t hear talk of proletarian wars between workers and management.  No.  Small businesses are miniature platoons.  They don’t survive unless everyone buys in - from the hostess to the proprietor.  Workers, like management, are too invested in helping the business succeed to play out some Marxist fantasy against the owner.  They know that if they do that, everyone goes down with the ship.  Much to the chagrin of both the socialist and the populist, free enterprise is still a team sport.

Sadly, the neglect of small business isn’t just rhetorical.  It has had real-world consequences.  COVID and the government’s haphazard response has devastated small businesses and their workers more than perhaps any other constituency.  During the worst part of the pandemic, a study found that 800 small businesses shuttered per day, thanks to government incompetence that had us battling multiple waves of cases, deaths, and lockdowns. Those enterprises were sadly the first to shutter and will the be the last to re-open as the recovery picks up steam.

And even as we emerge from the pandemic, the Republican Party continues to talk about everything but free enterprise and treats business advocates like the Chamber of Commerce as public enemies.  The Party touts conspiracy theories about a stolen election in which it won Congressional seats. It takes to Twitter or goes on cable news to complain about being silenced.  It will spend hours trying to convince you those weren’t actually Trump supporters storming the Capitol on January 6th. And it’s more than happy to sit with Tucker Carlson and criticize business as the singular purveyors of American societal decline.  

In their pointless political theater, Republicans warn about the dangers of socialism, but don’t actually do anything to support free enterprise.  Much to the detriment of our country, the current Republican Party is no longer a champion of capitalism because it doesn’t want to be one.  

So a void exists - there is currently no movement in American politics that embraces and unapologetically defends American free enterprise.  The growing movement that seeks to supplant today’s Republican Party would do well to fill it.

Credit: National Review

For the sixth straight month, the people of Hong Kong are fighting for their liberty against a tyrannical government in Beijing. They have braved bullets and tear gas in the streets to reject China’s creeping influence over their legal right to self-government. At a time when many around the world are beginning to question the strength of constitutional democracy and the rule of law, Hong Kongers are risking their lives to protest totalitarianism. Yet, so far, America has been unacceptably silent.

In many respects, the plight of Hong Kong mirrors the plight of our early American colonies. Since 1984, the people of Hong Kong have been governed under the legal authority of an international treaty signed between China and Britain — the Sino-British Joint Declaration. As part of that agreement, China submitted Hong Kong to a transition period of British sovereignty until a handover in 1997, subject to certain important conditions. The most important condition was that Hong Kong would retain its capitalist economic system, along with the basic freedoms required for capitalism to function. This arrangement was aptly dubbed the “one country, two systems” policy and was to remain in place until 2047.

Yet, since 1997, China has routinely and systematically violated these legally binding commitments to both Hong Kong and the international community. First, Hong Kong’s government has been held back from undertaking the types of reforms that would secure the liberal foundation of free-market capitalism, despite its commitment to do so after 2007. To this day in Hong Kong, universal suffrage does not exist, the chief executive is selected by an election committee heavily influenced by Beijing, and the legislative council is only partially democratically elected. This has kept Hong Kong’s government insulated from popular accountability — forcing the people to resort to mass demonstrations to have their voices heard.

Second, China has directly intervened in Hong Kong’s development, flouting the terms of its international treaty. In 2002, China pushed Hong Kong to adopt an anti-subversion measure which sought to tamp down criticism of China but that was later tabled in the face of public agitation. Then, in 2014, the Chinese government published a white paper that questioned Hong Kong’s autonomy and cast doubt on China’s commitment to the “one country, two systems” policy. China even attempted to pre-screen candidates for Hong Kong’s chief executive position to ensure a pro-Beijing bent. Yet again Hong Kongers responded, taking to the streets by the thousands in what became known as the Umbrella Protests.

Most recently, China has again sought to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy by passing new extradition laws that would permit Hong Kong citizens charged with a crime to be sent to Chinese courts and tried under Chinese law. This assault on Hong Kong’s independent judiciary strikes right at the core of the region’s autonomy. If Hong Kongers must answer to the Chinese government instead of their own, they will have lost a critical pillar of self-government.

To be sure, China is not invading Hong Kong and dissolving its legislature, but neither is it respecting the terms of the Joint Declaration to which it remains bound. China’s posture towards Hong Kong is fairly obvious: it fears what might happen if Hong Kongers are truly left to govern themselves in the presence of free-market capitalism for the next thirty years. It fears that the liberating impulse of such a regime will whet Hong Kongers’ appetites for freedom and make their ultimate integration into China’s communist fold virtually impossible by 2047. Such an outcome would mean a humiliating loss for Chinese communism in the battle of ideas.

To its credit, China is right on the money. It turns out, when given the choice, people the world over choose freedom — and so China has resorted to a death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy to assert its dominance over Hong Kong, erode the legitimacy of the Joint Declaration’s 2047 timeframe, and limit the incidence of true freedom in the region.

As any American knows, liberty and self-rule are not lost in one fell swoop. They are eroded gradually over time in the hopes that the subjugated won’t notice that they are slowly losing their freedom. In this way, a people are drained of their hope and their expectations are adjusted. Hong Kongers understand this — and the limited freedoms of their neighbors just outside the HKSAR remind them of the stakes. It’s why they have taken to the street by the thousands to agitate for their rights. It’s why 71 percent of them voted in unprecedented numbers over the weekend to elect 300 pro-democracy candidates to their 452 district council seats. It’s why they are singing a revolutionary tune and begging the world to listen.

But, so far the White House isn’t listening. The president is narrowly focused on his own political position ahead of the 2020 elections and is begging Xi to agree to just about anything so that some kind of a “victory” can be announced before November. This posture led Mr. Trump to announce on Friday that he might veto two measures recently voted out of the House and Senate by overwhelmingly bipartisan margins. The first bill instructs the Secretary of State to certify once a year that Hong Kong has enough autonomy to retain its special trading relationship with the United States. The second prohibits the sale of rubber bullets and tear gas to Hong Kong police. These are small but meaningful steps that would send a clear signal to China and the people of Hong Kong who carry our flag through their streets: America still stands on the side of freedom.

A veto of these measures would be an affront to 200 years of American foreign policy and undermine our national commitment to liberty, freedom, and democracy. It is this commitment that ultimately defines us as a nation — not our GDP or trade balance. It need not lead us to right wrongs all around the world or to reconstruct foreign lands in our image. But, it must remain a commitment nonetheless, or the liberating values that America represents will recede as the totalitarian impulses of others take root.

We are engaged in a battle of ideas with China that will shape the course of the 21st century. Xi is betting that we as Americans have grown tired of our idealism and are eager to forfeit our role as a global leader to focus solely on our own internal political problems. He hopes that our selfishness and short-term lens will consume our ability to think and act strategically on the world stage with generational outcomes in mind. If we shirk our values, if we stand for nothing — Xi will win that bet and China’s version of modern totalitarianism will convince other leaders around the world that democracy and the rule of law are not suited for the challenges of tomorrow.

Must the consequence of our overzealous extension in the wake of September 11th really be the abandonment of our values? Does America as a nation really stand for nothing more than the material well-being of our own citizens? Aren’t our own futures inextricably linked to the cause of liberty throughout the world? The world depends on a strong America that stands for something more than itself. We are a nation defined by our just causes. We penned the Declaration of Independence, we fought a bloody Civil War against our family and neighbors to end slavery, we liberated continents from the twin scourges of Nazism and Soviet communism. All of these things cost us money and lives — but we won entire centuries and blazed new paths of human growth. If the nation that did those things can no longer muster the moral courage to pass a few Congressional resolutions to stand with a beleaguered people fighting for freedom against one of our chief geopolitical adversaries, we truly have lost our way.

Over the past three months, I’ve traveled the country on my own dime to meet with others like me who can no longer stomach the hypocrisy of Republicans in Congress — Republicans who claim to be conservative while abandoning every principle we’ve ever championed. We huddle in hotel lobbies or bars; we pay our own tabs and set our own agenda. It’s not glamorous. Sometimes we fill a room and other times we fill a table. But no matter how many of us there are, the question is always the same: What the hell happened to conservatism and how do we fix it?

Principles First gathering (Atlanta, GA)

We gather because our beliefs are being ignored by those in Washington in favor of the party line. Where we once heard our voices in Nikki Haley or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Tim Scott, we now hear only silence.

Put simply, the conservative movement isn’t moving at all. It’s stuck. And it certainly isn’t hiding out in the Republican Party. In the last month alone, Republicans have transgressed just about every conservative principle in the book.

Fiscal responsibility? The White House recently projected the annual deficit to surpass the $1 trillion mark this year, while the $22 trillion national debt is in even worse shape than it was under President Obama. But, Republicans aren’t bothered. When asked about the red ink, once-conservative Larry Kudlow suggested that it “wasn’t a huge problem right now at all.” (Contrast that with his concern as a member of the Reagan Administration in 1985 that the then $2 trillion federal debt was crowding out private capital and hampering growth).

The rule of law? Hasn’t been much of a priority, either. When Mueller presented reams of evidence tending to show that the Russians made “sweeping and systematic efforts” to influence our elections and that a sitting president obstructed justice on multiple occasions, Republicans responded by attacking the messenger and talking about Hillary Clinton.

Separation of powers? Forget about it. Just this year, the President has issued 28 executive orders. Some re-appropriated dollars Congress had earmarked for other purposes and others threatened to unilaterally set trade policy. Apparently, doing its job is about the last thing Congress wants to do — and Republicans barely bat an eye. “Congress gave him the ability to do this,” Senator Shelley Capito (R-WV) said, “and so I’m going to be supportive of it, but I think, certainly as an appropriator, we need to keep our handle on our ability to make those decisions.” Or, when translated: “This is something Congress ought to take a stand on at some point — just not now. Not until after my next election.” Some spine.

L — R: Washington, DC; Salt Lake City, UT; Boston, MA

L — R: Dallas, TX; Dallas, TX; Washington, DC

L — R: Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL

L — R: Minneapolis, MN; New York, NY

L — R: New York, NY; Atlanta, GA; Philadelphia, PA

What’s worse is that the Republican Party has turned its back on more than just conservative principles; it has abandoned American principles, too. Principles like the equality and dignity of all people, truth, honesty, integrity, and values-based leadership. All of these things have seemingly been discarded as tired, unimportant clichés, leaving our country unsure of what it stands for and lacking moral purpose.

When it comes to our principles, members of Congress have simply stopped caring. Over the past few years, what they believe has taken a backseat to who they support. As political ends came to justify any means, politicians lost touch with our guiding commitments. The result has been a rudderless Party and an unanchored leader, veering freely away from our principles with the support of a base that cheers on Team Republican no matter what.

But not all of us. Many of us recognize that principles are still important. They anchor our politics to core values and ensure that those we elect today wield power tomorrow according to some blueprint larger than themselves. Principles don’t care which party’s letter sits next to your name. They define who we are, what we believe in, and the type of country we’ll become.

That’s why a group of us has been gathering around the country to put principles first. As I’ve learned these past three months, the frustrated and politically homeless aren’t planning to just roll over: we want our voices heard and our votes to be earned. That’s why our group has grown so quickly since our first ad hoc gatherings in February, collecting thousands of signatures on our Declaration of Principles and having hundreds give up two hours on a weekend to join our working sessions.

Principles First gatherings from across the country

This progress hasn’t come without pushback from the expected chorus, of course. Seb Gorka called us “monomaniacal and pathetic,” Julie Kelly at American Greatness said we were “cucks,” and Matt Schlapp even tried to sic Judge Jeannine on all of us for the high crime of meeting to discuss our shared principles. In an age where the obvious isn’t always apparent, it can take some courage to just come right out and state it — but we aren’t afraid.

Others, too, are showing similar courage. Checks and Balances has been sounding the alarm about newfound threats to our Constitution and the rule of law. Stand Up Republic continues its fight for better government. Publications like The Bulwark and think tanks like Cato, Hoover, and AEI crank out honest, fact-driven work. There are even the occasional bright spots in Washington led by the likes of Justin Amash (I-MI) and Will Hurd (R-TX). And for our part, Principles First is keeping up the drumbeat on the ground, organizing grassroots meet-ups and taking action to remind elected officials about the ideas they should be championing.

The task is a tough one. Republicans in Washington aren’t likely to suddenly snap out of their sanguine stupor. But, in order for things to improve, the country must first be reminded of what conservatism even is. And then, once populism and nationalism have had their day in the sun, there will at least be something left over from which to build, thanks to the principled few who had the courage to keep a beacon amid the storm.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The dirty not-much-of-a-secret in Washington isn’t even debatable anymore: Republicans don’t actually care about debt and deficits. Since they took control of government in 2016, they have increased the national debt by more than $2 trillion to an all-time high of $22 trillion. After years of railing against Obama and the Democrats for big spending packages, Republicans have quickly changed their tune and followed suit. They’ve liberally sprinkled tax dollars against one political talking point after another, with little concern as to the effectiveness of each investment. And the White House’s recent budget proposal, with a projected deficit of $1.1 trillion, doesn’t suggest a seriousness about turning off the spigot any time soon. Fiscal conservatives, to the extent they still exist, should be disgusted.

What have Republicans spent your money on? Let’s review. Trump and the Republican Congress kicked things off in May 2017 by passing a $1 trillion omnibus spending package that many criticized as overweight. The spending binge was followed by a December tax cut which recently had its deficit impact doubled given less-than-anticipated federal revenues. The Tax Foundation now expects the Trump Tax Cuts to add $900 billion to the deficit over the next ten years, even after accounting for offsetting economic growth that has been hamstrung by the trade war. A second spending binge followed in March 2018 to the tune of $1.3 trillion. All told, that’s more than $3 trillion in new debt over just two years.

Then, there was the wall — a suspect investment that Congress did not agree to fund. Despite widespread questions about the effectiveness of a physical structure along the length of the border relative to other “smart wall” technologies, Trump barreled forward with his spend-happy ways and declared a national emergency to appropriate another $6 billion for a massive government construction project. If you want to know how good of a construction manager the federal government can be, we have a recent example: President Obama’s infamous “shovel-ready construction projects” in the wake of the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — and we all know how those turned out. They didn’t.

There were also the tariffs, the subsidies, and the selective tax breaks for favored companies. A recent study estimates that the trade war is costing the U.S. economy $1.4 billion in dead-weight loss every month — even after accounting for incremental federal revenue from duties. Alongside the tariff, Trump has launched a $12 billion subsidy program for farmers that hasn’t done much to soften the sting. Then there were the smaller things, like the tax break for Carrier that failed to accomplish anything and the much-heralded $4 billion Foxconn handout that went nowhere. Republicans just can’t seem to take the hint that government meddling in the economy is both expensive and ineffective. But, Trump seems to like it, so… everyone shut up and smile!

Given the sorry state of fiscal conservatism on the right, one would be forgiven for casting their eyes to the left. But, don’t expect to see much. Democrats seem even less concerned about the debt. So far, the early 2020 primary seems to be a competition to see who can propose the most costly set of federal programs without paying for them. The grab bag is endless: a $25 trillion Medicare for All program, a $1 trillion infrastructure package, billions more for a new student loan forgiveness program, free community college, a pie-in-the-sky $50 trillion Green New Deal. The list goes on and on. Many haven’t bothered to explain how they would pay for all of this, either — while the few who have dramatically overestimate the ability of wealthy Americans to foot such a bill. For example, even if the Democrats passed Elizabeth Warren’s “wealth tax,” which takes 2–3 percent of the wealthy’s assets each year, the resulting haul would be less than $3 trillion over the next ten years and wouldn’t make for even a down payment on the Democrats’ wish list.

“So what?” cries Paul Krugman. The United States is the world’s reserve currency and money is cheap — we should borrow even more now while rates are low and the terms are favorable. This is like telling an alcoholic to buy all the liquor they can because the store down the street just announced a big sale. That’s not how this should work — and it presumes that the federal government will one day just snap out of its spending addiction once the rent comes due.

In fact, large debt loads on unsustainable growth trajectories do catch up with their governments in the end. One doesn’t have to look hard for examples. Italy recently succumbed to its third recession in a decade as it struggles to convince investors to take its populist government seriously despite a debt-to-GDP ratio of 130%. Greece recently confronted its own crisis that, after years of external negotiation and internal turmoil, resulted in the biggest financial bail-out of a bankrupt nation in history.

Some think that the United States could never face these types of existential issues given its control of the world’s reserve currency and its centrality to the global economic system. But, even these advantages have their limits. Plus, sizable government debt crowds out important public investments in things like education, R&D, and infrastructure that will be needed as we adapt our economy to the 21st century. Just like a family managing its household pocketbook, a nation saddled with debt has less to invest in its future.

Fiscal conservatives need to wake up and get back at the wheel. There are plenty of ways to start bending the debt curve. For one, we could re-address our healthcare crisis in a way that actually reduces long-term outlays. We could also get serious about our Social Security programs and have a realistic conversation about what is and isn’t possible. Other areas of the budget deserve scrutiny, too. We need an all-of-the-above approach with no sacred cows — along with a fresh set of eyes on our still-broken tax code.

The United States desperately needs at least one Party that is committed to balanced budgets and living within our means. If not, we can expect to get more of what we have now: ever-increasing deficits, record-high debt, and no serious plan to get either under control.

Credit: WakingTimes.com

The label “Never Trump” is off the mark — not because true conservatives could potentially support Trump, but because our rejection of him has nothing to do with his name or who he is. Instead, rejection of Trump has everything to do with his policies and behavior as President. In more ways than not, his conduct has been antithetical to conservatism’s core, in direct tension with most everything for which we’ve claimed to fight in the past.

Put simply, Trump is not conservative. Here are just a few reasons why (in no particular order):

1. Trump has unilaterally levied billions in tariffs in contravention of free trade and free market principles, raising prices for consumers and putting the squeeze on domestic businesses that rely on foreign sources of supply. Not conservative.

2. Trump has brokered preferential tax deals for companies like Carrier, picking winners and losers in the exact same way Obama used taxpayer money on pet projects like Solyndra. Not conservative.

3. Trump has ignored the constitutional separation of powers on several occasions. He has, among other things, tried to unilaterally end the statutory asylum process for refugees and, most recently, threatened to unilaterally declare a “disaster” at our border to appropriate funds that Congress won’t give him. Just because the Constitution makes things tough sometimes doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Not conservative.

4. Trump has cozied up to our enemies (e.g., Russia and North Korea) for little-to-nothing in return and strained relations with some of our closest allies (e.g., Britain and Canada). Not conservative.

5. Trump has conducted himself in a way wholly unbecoming of the dignity of the office he holds. He tweets about the fleeting topic du jour like an impetuous teenager and directs the nation’s attention to the dramatic and inconsequential. Not conservative.

6. Trump has utilized the antitrust laws to threaten and attack certain companies, like “Amazon’s Washington Post,” in order to execute a personal vendetta or just because he’s been rubbed the wrong way. Not conservative.

7. Trump has routinely made judgments about the quality and ability of Americans based on their race. He once claimed that a Hispanic Article III judge (who was a native-born US citizen) could not fairly adjudicate a dispute because of his heritage. Not conservative.

8. Trump has, on a number of occasions, undermined the rule of law and the legitimacy of our courts by personally attacking career Justice Department and FBI officials, and attacking the independence and competence of Article III judges. Not conservative.

9. Trump blindsided his top military advisers and key allies when he abruptly announced that he would withdraw some 2,000 troops from Syria. Ill-planned and lacking any coherent rationale, the move provoked the resignation of then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. Retreating from battlefields on a whim and abandoning our allies like the Kurds is a weak betrayal of our values and our commitments. Not conservative.

10. Trump has waged war against the press, creating hostile environments for reporters and chilling the freedoms that the Constitution guarantees and upon which this country was built. He attacks and deflects instead of answering questions head on. Snowflake. Not conservative.

11. Trump’s politics are vindictive, personal, and mean-spirited. He often opts to demean his opponents and critics by calling them names and publicly shaming them, and very rarely makes substantive counterarguments. Not conservative.

12. Trump has also increased the national debt to historic levels on the back of his $1.3 trillion omnibus spending binge. At $21 trillion, the national debt now stands at a near all-time high. But, Trump is busy tweeting late-night missives at folks and could care less. Not conservative.

13. Finally, Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be morally bankrupt. He knowingly lies when the facts are uncomfortable for him, rarely if ever takes responsibility for his mistakes, and has attacked women, minorities, the disabled, and vets for political gain. Not conservative.

Just two years ago, conservatives were busy taking folks like Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio to task for being insufficiently conservative over miscues paling in comparison to Trump’s heresies. The cult of hypocrisy that surrounds Trump today is killing our movement’s coherence. Doing a few things we might like doesn’t make up for a mountain of bad things that make a mockery of our beliefs.

So — if you consider yourself a conservative, but you’re wearing a red MAGA hat cheering the president’s every move, please look in the mirror. Ask yourself if Trump really passes the conservative sniff test. Then, snap out of it, throw the hat away, and let’s get back to our principles.

Jerry Seinfeld once said that it’s odd to see folks essentially “cheer for clothes” at a baseball game. Players change, coaches leave, and the ballparks themselves don’t even last forever, making it difficult to see exactly what keeps fans rooting for the same team year after year. Seinfeld thought the hook was ultimately a team’s name and jerseys — the brand, rather than how a team plays the game.

Sadly, Seinfeld may just as easily have been talking about our politics. We live in a moment when our political players and ideas are rapidly changing — yet, many fans still dutifully cheer for their same old teams.

But our politics shouldn’t mirror our baseball allegiances. Our political movements and ideas should represent something more concrete. Fixed principles make our electoral choices reflect our collective values and ensure that the leaders we elect today wield power tomorrow according to some blueprint larger than themselves.

Trumpian populism has completely destroyed that blueprint for modern conservatism. The ideological seams that once bound Republicans together have completely unraveled, replaced by fealty to a single leader, no matter where he leads them. “Conservatives” still support lowering taxes, but have joined Trump’s fight to increase tariffs. “Conservatives” still pay lip service to their Buckley-era faith in reduced spending, but cheer billions to subsidize a trade war. “Conservatives” are quick to champion the Founding-era belief that all are created equal, but are even quicker to defend the President when he questions the competence of an Article III judge solely on the basis of his Hispanic heritage. And the list goes on and on.

The thread tying it all together? Some loose concept of “making America great again.” Trumpism has no intellectual anchor: nothing but Mr. Trump’s approval numbers and the threat of impeachment stop him from veering in whichever direction he chooses. Neither principled nor conservative, the swamp has never been swampier.

Yet, in the doldrums of despair, hope springs eternal. With time, Trump too will pass — and conservatives will be left to pick up the pieces of a shattered institution. How we choose to put the pieces back together will define us for a generation and determine the country’s course. The new ideological blueprint we use should be fresh, innovative, and easy-to-comprehend, but also true to our core beliefs.

What will that new conservatism look like? What will its organizing themes and policy goals be? These are questions that, so far, have gone unanswered by our current crop of leaders in Washington. We cannot move beyond Trump without an idea to move towards. It’s time to start building that idea. “Opportunity conservatism” would be a good place to start.

Opportunity is at the core of the American ideal — that anyone, no matter their race, creed, gender, or circumstance, can apply themselves to a pursuit and succeed. As Americans, we have long celebrated the pioneer, the self-starter, and the entrepreneur. They typify what it means to be an American. Being an American isn’t about looking a certain way or talking a certain way — it is about being a certain way. It is about being driven and self-reliant, compassionate and enterprising, energetic and collaborative. Conservatism’s ideas and policies should reflect that ethos.

But, at the moment, it isn’t clear that they do — or, at least, Americans aren’t getting that message. For all of their talk about fathers from Cuba with $100 in their underwear and parents working as bartenders and maids, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were unable to move a Republican electorate with grandiose tales of individual perseverance and rags-to-riches success. Perhaps that’s because these stories ring increasingly hollow for many Americans — the inspirational “work hard and reap the benefits” crusade isn’t quite the salve it once was.

And it isn’t hard to see why. The American dream is, on the whole, staying a dream for many Americans. Today, the gears of economic and social mobility are not as greased as conservatives should like them to be. A child born to parents in the bottom 20% of incomes is more than 10 times more likely to remain in the lowest 20% than to leap up to the highest (43% versus 4%), while a child born to parents in the top 20% of incomes is 5 times more likely to stay there than fall to the lowest 20% (40% versus 8%).

This disconnect between the outdated language of conservatism and the reality Americans are living each day allowed Trump’s populism and Bernie’s strain of democratic socialism to exploit the growing sense of unfairness felt by folks across the political spectrum. Trump blamed immigrants, Bernie blamed capitalism, and, without a compelling rebuttal, traditional conservatism was rendered irrelevant.

Trumpian populism may have scratched the country’s emotional itch, but it also corrupted our soul and distracted us from tending to our central promise: that no goal ever lies beyond any American’s reach. And while the Left predictably and mistakenly focuses on smoothing over outcome gaps with ex post redistributive schemes, conservatives have an opening to refocus on the root of the problem: the ex ante opportunity gap.

What does that look like in practice? It starts with the recognition that a quality education is the primary avenue by which a child of low-income parents can rise to achieve their dreams and that grade school is a better place to combat poverty than the welfare line. Opportunity conservatism will not accept that the United States is ranked 30th in math and 19th in science compared to other OECD nations. It won’t deny that wealthier families invest, on average, 7 times more in their kids’ education than their poorer counterparts; or that, while children up and down the socio-economic ladder exhibit similar cognitive abilities at 8 to 12 months, kids of wealthier families, by the age of 3, have a vocabulary twice the size of kids whose parents are on government assistance.

Instead of running away from these facts, opportunity conservatives will tackle these challenges head-on. We’ll prioritize improving our schools and encourage stronger families. We’ll transform inner-city classrooms into laboratories of opportunity and encourage bold experimentation until we discover the best ways to educate underprivileged kids. We’ll tailor curricula to the skills and flexibility required in a 21st-century economy. In order to make good on America’s promise, every child will need a top-rate school that gives them a fighting chance at success no matter where they live or how much money their parents make.

Second, opportunity conservatism will champion the dignity of work and ensure that the best workers are able to climb the corporate ladder, no matter their race or gender. But, it also won’t be blind to the fact that globalization and technological innovation present major headwinds for American labor. As businesses have found new ways to accomplish things for less, the need for low-skilled labor has declined and the skill sets required for most jobs have changed dramatically. Many who spent years training and working in a particular field are increasingly seeing their skills devalued and their opportunities diminished.

The uncomfortable reality is that these jobs will not soon resurface simply because of a hard-nosed negotiation with China or a game of chicken with Canada over NAFTA. Opportunity conservatives will recognize that if we outpace other countries in the coming decades and remain the leading global economic power, it won’t be because our tariffs were 30% higher — it will be because we out-innovated and out-worked the rest of the world.

Instead of walling ourselves off to protect against forces that are far bigger than our trade policy, an opportunity mindset will confront these trends with an economic agenda that focuses on spurring growth and innovation, upgrading our workforce, and improving the fluidity of our domestic labor market. It will set a goal that by 2030, a construction worker in Ohio be able to finish a 2-year job and, within 6 to 9 months, transition and be reemployed as a data analyst or warehousing technician. The more nimble American workers become the less they will be harmed by cyclical market corrections and macro trends, stabilizing employment and ensuring that opportunity remains available to any American willing to seize it.

Finally, opportunity conservatism will confront the failing state of our criminal justice system. It will question why the United States accounts for just 5% of the world’s population, but over 20% of its prisoners; and wonder whether we’re really getting the return we should expect on the over $60 billion we spend on corrections each year. It will commit itself to the idea that a prison sentence shouldn’t be a lifetime bar to employment or productivity and strive to reform prisons in a way that addresses the staggering fact that 77% of released prisoners are rearrested within five years.

We’ll readily acknowledge that it’s in the country’s best interest to have a robust prison-to-work pipeline. Our ideas will explore new ways to restore former inmates’ access to revoked or suspended occupational licenses; to stabilize families and get them back on their feet after extended incarceration of a primary breadwinner; and allow former prisoners to vote once their debt to society has been fully paid. If America wants to save money and get more out of all of its citizens, it should give former prisoners more opportunity.

Opportunity conservatism’s reach isn’t limited to these examples — its applications abound. About 22% of the working civilian population in the US needs a license to work. This means the United States licenses a greater percentage of its workforce than the European Union. Opportunity conservatism could thus make it far easier to actually work in America. The US abortion rate among prenatally diagnosed babies with Down syndrome is 67% — and is increasing globally — while medical advances are allowing Down kids to live longer, more productive, happier lives. They deserve opportunity, too.

Opportunity conservatism has the power to accomplish all of these things if only a new generation would find the courage to stand up and fight for them. It won’t be easy and may require losing several primaries before we win — but, that’s the point. Conservatives need to rediscover that politics isn’t all about winning elections or finding a policy agenda that maps onto an existing constituency. It’s about winning hearts and minds and creating new constituencies. The current state of play isn’t static and though it’s Trump’s GOP today, it could be anyone’s tomorrow. Conservatives should drown out the chaos, set our eyes to the future, and get to work.

The Framers gather in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Today, it is hard not to wonder whether we are helplessly watching the steady degradation of our political union — of our norms, our values, our institutions, and our mutual trust of one another. When the outrageous and unbelievable are one-upped on almost a daily basis, it’s easy to suspect that our ship has somehow been irreversibly tipped. In the face of these questions, there comes a time when even the most steadfastly conservative Republican, whose team may hold the reins of power momentarily, ought not hold his tongue nor keep his pace as the herd tramples on. Now is such a time.

Our success as a lasting democracy is due, in no small part, to the genius of our Framers and the Constitution they drafted. Through the First Amendment’s categorical command that no law shall abridge the freedom of speech, the Framers created a space in which John Stuart Mill’s marketplace of ideas could take root. Like the Enlightenment thinkers before them, our Founders believed that Americans would more readily discern truth and settle on the best ideas so long as the discursive thoughts of our people remained beyond the reach of the state. For centuries, America has proven the Founders’ faith well-placed, and our success has inspired other nations to grant similar discursive and political freedoms to their people.

Today, though, America’s marketplace of ideas stands frighteningly shaken. Shaken from the top by a leader who views truth as simply another political tool capable of manipulation. Shaken from its roots by university officials and radical campus organizations that limit the free exchange of ideas. And, most importantly, shaken from its core by our own willingness to let half-truths and lazy slander go uncorrected in our daily discourse.

Though the Framers, in their wisdom, set up a free marketplace conducive to democracy, they left the duty of its continued maintenance in our hands. The system’s vitality has always depended ultimately upon our own honor, decency and discerning collective mind. For the marketplace to properly function, everyday citizens must deploy a certain level of judgment through proper civic engagement to assign value to propositions. Without these essential “price-setting” tools, certain ideas become dramatically over- and under-valued and the constitutional scheme of liberty, however well-designed, breaks down.

Of late, we are failing to uphold this civic end of the democratic bargain. At times, it seems we have lost our ability to reason, to separate fact from fiction, to disaggregate a statement’s persuasiveness from the identity of its speaker, to reject out of hand ideas and arguments based on faulty premises or personal animus. The invisible hands of our idea marketplace, once dependable, have suddenly disappeared altogether and set the market teetering toward crazed disequilibria.

The consequences of this market failure cannot be overstated. The idea marketplace sits at the very center of our American experiment and its healthy functioning is key to everything from sound collective decision-making to the integrity of our national moral fabric. Without it, we lose the ability to elevate worthy aims and to promote healthy policy prescriptions into practice. Our discourse devolves, and the marketplace of ideas transforms into a marketplace of personalities.

Since when did we let ourselves demean intelligence and celebrate ignorance? When did it become fashionable to tear down people instead of ideas? When did unreasoned anger, unbridled passion, and unconstrained rhetoric — once confined to the sundry indulgences of our popular culture and entertainment — become desired qualities in our most vaunted public leaders?

We used to be a country that cared about dignity and honor. We would never have condoned (much less elected) a leader so impulsive, crass, and juvenile. We aspired together to meet the great challenges of the day instead of relishing the pettiness of a snide tweet or outrageous stunt. We are the nation that discovered and harnessed electricity, that built the railroads, that put a man on the moon, that led the effort to drive the scourge of Soviet communism from the Earth. It is time we acted like it again.

We must reassert the importance of truth and integrity. Hold ourselves and our neighbors once again to the high standards of civic engagement that the Greatest Generation set for themselves. Refuse to don anonymity’s cloak to loose bitter invective and personal hate. Only then will America’s idea marketplace repair and rebalance.

The stakes, too, could not be higher. More restrictive ideologies less trusting of individual freedom threaten to fill the void if we fail to maintain the Framers’ vision. Just weeks ago, Xi Jinping was heralded for his leadership of China at the Communist Party’s annual convention. While Mr. Xi has opened up the Chinese economy and overseen its considerable growth in recent years, he remains committed to the totalitarian impulses of his predecessors. In China, the internet remains heavily regulated, with the government policing domestic information-sharing platforms. The Chinese people are closely monitored and often relegated to subsistence living in the countryside if ever suspected of dissent. “If you open a window for fresh air for longer than 10 hours,” former leader Deng Xiaoping once said, “you have to expect some flies to blow in. A good country will swat the flies.”

As the world sees the United States and our idea marketplace produce chaotic leadership, volatile policy shifts, and a paranoid withdrawal from the world stage, it undoubtedly questions its confidence in freedom and wonders whether, like China, it ought to be swatting more flies. This is the danger of a dysfunctional marketplace of ideas. Not only does it erode the strength of our own institutions and our ability to course-correct when a popular movement goes too far, it also diminishes the freedom of those abroad who look to America for guidance.

Though we face many challenges across the world today, our ability to confront them will be seriously inhibited if the integrity of our political union is weak. The health of our idea marketplace is central to that integrity and will likely determine whether America will continue to thrive and lead the world, or be swallowed by our own indifference. How we confront this new internal test of our national character will be a defining choice.

Benjamin Franklin, when asked if a monarchy or republic had been created at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, once replied: “A republic — if you can keep it.”

We must keep it — and we will. But, first, we must each reaffirm our own internal standards of intellectual honesty, moral integrity, and collective judgment. Then, possess the courage to make them known.

And, as a young conservative, I’m not alone. Over recent months, I’ve received countless texts, phone calls, and social media posts from colleagues and friends who can’t understand how all of this happened. “Is this really the country we’re inheriting?” The conservatives among them fear that our principles have been lost to a populist/nationalist tide and that there will be no Party for our generation to lead. The liberals express genuine concern that the Republican counterweight in our political discourse has become unhinged. I’m not sure I am able to grasp things any better than my peers, but I offer this reflection up as a constructive framing of the problem and a potential path forward.

In my view, the fruitful inquiry isn’t whether to vote for Trump or for Clinton. Both will come with their own set of problems and we should be prepared to elect a new president in 2020 anyway — no matter who wins. So, hold your nose like most of the country will do and pull the lever however you see fit. The real challenge is figuring out how we lost the Republican Party and how conservatism as a viable governing ideology can be revived before 2018 and 2020 roll around.

The Road to Trump: Understanding the Problem

What once appeared to be a farcical publicity stunt parading down a gold-plated Manhattan escalator has quickly and not-so-quietly evolved into a populist movement that has upended my Party and the conservative principles it purports to defend. Watching the circus unfold in Cleveland, my many thoughts center on one inquiry: how has it come to this?

And, yet, that really isn’t the difficult question. Despite the insincere (or, perhaps more likely, tin-eared) head-scratching of the pundit class, the ingredients of Trump’s rise are easy to make out.

Broadly speaking, the American people are weary of Washington. Not weary in the generic, talking-point sense of opposing anything and everything having to do with the federal government, but weary in the sense that government and its policies haven’t actually delivered any tangible improvements in their lives.

An objective observer should quickly see why. President Obama promised “hope” and “change” to a people yearning for unity and growth in the face of war and recession. Eight years on, little progress has been made on either front. ISIS has replaced al Qaeda as a global purveyor of terror, instability ripples through the Middle East from Iraq, to Syria, to now Turkey, and millions of Americans face stagnant incomes amid a bleak job market. On top of that, racial tensions have left Americans of all races and creeds fearful of new domestic sources of violence. Put simply, Americans are tired of walking uphill and need little convincing to try something new.

The Republican Party itself has also aided Trump. The chief culprit: division between an established elite that discounted for too long the legitimate grievances of the Party’s conservative lifeblood and the activist groups and talking heads that sowed this division to capitalize on intraparty discord. As scripture tells us in Matthew, a house divided against itself cannot stand. The divided GOP was a ripe breeding ground for a Trump-led populist revolt against both strands of the Party. As the captains of the Republican Party fought at the ship’s wheel, Trump turned the crew against the bickering lot and co-opted the vessel as his own.

The problem, of course, is that no one bothered to ask where Trump planned to steer the ship — or, if he even knew how! Such are the pitfalls of a Party faithful so disillusioned with its leadership that anything new is by definition an improvement. Yet, it’s also a necessary consequence of a Party lacking clear vision. While the Establishment and the Tea Party bickered, the conservative blueprint for governing devolved into a reflexive set of opposition stances. In the wake of Obama’s election, being a Republican quickly became about what you were against rather than what you were for. In the process, conservatives lost all sense of who we were and the broader American public simply didn’t know what they would get if they supported us — other than, of course, repeal of everything Obama managed to pass.

This — namely, the lack of a comprehensive governing vision — has been the principal ill of the Republican Party — not Donald Trump. Trump is a symptom, a side-effect, a hangover. He doesn’t have the power to alter conservatism — only to suppress it. That’s why the Republican leaders who have signed on to his team don’t cite Trump’s agenda as the reason. Instead, Republican support for Trump is all about Republican opposition to Hillary. And, why shouldn’t it be? For eight years, pure opposition to the Democrat is all that Republican primary voters have demanded.

The indifference to substantive policy within the Republican Party has allowed the following logic to take hold: An expensive and ineffective border wall? “Sure, why not?” A ban on Muslims? “Whatever.” Protectionist tariffs? “Fine. All fine — so long as we get to vote against Hillary Clinton.”

This indifference within our Party must end. It divides us and makes it harder to beat back the growth of liberalism in America. It’s also what prevents us from winning national elections.

The Path Forward: Fixing the Problem

This begs the second, more perplexing inquiry: where do we go from here? The answer has to begin with the realization that our problems predated Trump, that they are larger than Trump. The solution isn’t simply replacing Donald Trump with a Ted Cruz or a Marco Rubio or a Paul Ryan. The solution requires a complete refresh of the Party’s message and leadership in Washington.

The Grand Old Party needs to become the Grand New Party — with new ideas, new messaging, and — most critically — new leaders. Without new leaders, the same intraparty subgroups will too easily form around the next crop of contenders seeking to seize control of the GOP ship. This zero-sum dynamic has to end.

As for the new ideas, they should focus on our principles and lay out a positive governing agenda. New leaders ought to offer results-oriented solutions to the biggest issues we face as a nation. The new GOP has to be a Party that talks about ideas, not tactics. Policy, not politics.

These positive reforms aren’t hard to name, but may seem hard to remember after hearing so little of them over the past few years. To name just a few:

Comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and closes corporate loopholes for big business.

Education reform that empowers parents to pick the right school for their child and gives every student an opportunity to succeed.

Infrastructure reform that rationalizes wasteful government spending on pet projects and focuses on rebuilding the nation’s highways and bridges.

Increased energy production that encourages America’s energy boom while remaining environmentally responsible through private oversight.

A strong defense that protects the US and its allies when the national interest is at stake by stabilizing turmoil in the world and combating our enemies with resolve.

Limited government that stays within the scope of powers granted to it by the Constitution.

Be Part of the Solution

Ultimately, none of this will happen without a new crop of conservative leaders standing up to lead the Party in a new direction. We need the next generation to stand up and start running for office. They need to come from all professional backgrounds and walks of life — business and agriculture, rich and poor, north and south — everywhere.

I know they are out there, because I know them. They are my friends and colleagues — fellow law students that just graduated, my former consulting colleagues, friends that are currently serving in our armed forces, leaders of family businesses back home in Texas. These are the future leaders of the new Republican Party. They are independent, innovative, and anti-hierarchical. They see value in merit and don’t like waiting in line. They are the solution to the problems we face.

It’s time we stopped waiting for the party leaders and politicians that have already failed us, to run and fail us again. They gave us Trump. Establishment and Tea Party alike. They aren’t going to succeed, or make America great again, or anything of the sort.

We’re going to have to do it ourselves.