To generations old enough to remember growing up without a cellphone, social media. Or the housing crash, Generation Z is many things. Depending on who you ask, they might be labeled as “lazy,” “entitled,” or generally accused of not knowing how the “real world works.” Others cling to the belief that Gen Z is overtly liberal, addicted to social media, and the North Star of a racially diverse progressive future.

Instead of stereotypes, let’s start with the facts.

Generation Z numbers over 71 million Americans — roughly 21 percent of the population. It is indeed the most ethnically diverse generation in the country’s history. A bare majority are non-Hispanic white, 52 percent, and one-in-four Gen Zers identify as Hispanic. Around 22 percent have at least one immigrant parent, compared to 14 percent of Millennials at the same age, but the number of foreign-born Gen Zers is lower than in the millennial cohort.

This matters. Gen Z is not a generation of immigrants, but it is a generation shaped by immigration.

The youngest members of Gen Z are just entering their mid-teens and the oldest are in their late twenties. A significant cohort turned 18 in time to cast their first ballot in 2020, where they made up roughly one-in-ten eligible voters. That share will only grow over time.

In the 2020 Democratic primary, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two of the most progressive candidates in the field, received a combined 60 percent among voters under 30 in YouGov/Economist polling. While the energy of the Sanders and Warren campaigns was real and staffed by young organizers, both lost the nomination to Joe Biden, who dominated with older, moderate Democrats. Their primary failures only reinforced the conventional wisdom among political strategists: young voters are unreliable, hard to mobilize, and don’t show up.

That conventional wisdom, however, took a hit in 2020. Roughly 51 percent of young adults ages 18 to 24 voted in the 2020 presidential election — a significant jump from 43 percent in 2016 and the highest youth turnout since the modern era began.

For a brief period, it seemed like the conservative movement was paying attention. In the 2024 election, young voters as a whole favored Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by just four points, a dramatic collapse from Biden’s 25-point margin, and the strongest showing for a Republican presidential candidate among young voters since 2008. Among young men specifically, the shift was historic. A post-election survey found that 58 percent of Gen Z men reported voting for Trump, the first time a majority of young male voters backed a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Unlike Harris, the Trump campaign actively worked to gain votes from the “manosphere,” with both Trump and then-vice-presidential nominee JD Vance appearing on numerous major podcasts.

It proved decisive. There are numerous examples from data that tell the story, but one anecdote may tell it best. On the day of the election, MSNBC was asking voters who they were voting for and why. One young man answered Trump, because he had gone on Joe Rogan’s podcast and Kamala Harris had not.

The 2024 party identification number switch is equally striking. A survey conducted in late 2023 found Gen Z men more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans — 30 percent versus 24 percent. By late 2024, that had completely reversed: 38 percent identified as Republican, compared to just 23 percent as Democrat. Conservative identity among Gen Z men rose from 31 percent to 45 percent in a single year. Meanwhile, a Yale Youth Poll found voters aged 18 to 21 now favoring Republicans by 11.7 points.

None of this means conservatives have won the generation. By mid-2025, young men were essentially split on the 2026 congressional ballot: 41 percent said they would back the Republican candidate, 40 percent the Democrat, with 16 percent saying they would vote for neither. These voters are not locked in. They are persuadable, which is precisely the problem for a political right that has done almost nothing to hold them.

Social media is where this fight is actually happening, and the right has been slow to understand its own advantage there. TikTok’s algorithm is designed to learn quickly what keeps users watching and deliver more of it — creating ideological echo chambers built not by conscious choice but by code. The left recognized this early and built infrastructure around it. But the algorithm is not inherently liberal — it rewards engagement, and conservative content can be just as sticky. YouTube’s recommendation engine pushes increasingly conservative videos onto home pages based on viewer behavior, and the podcast ecosystem — led by figures like Rogan — has delivered millions of young men into conversations about economics, masculinity, and political identity that no traditional Republican Party operation ever reached. Even X has now become a preferred platform for conservative messaging.

The influence of these platforms is no longer up for debate. A June 2025 Morning Consult report found that Gen Z has become 12 percentage points less likely to identify as liberal than in 2016 — a drop more than twice as large as the general populations over the same period. Young people have gone from being potentially the most progressive generation since the Baby Boomers to potentially the most conservative generation in 50 to 60 years.

However, much of what drove young men rightward in 2024 was less ideological conviction than a spirit of anti-establishment rebellion, channeled through the cultural force of Donald Trump. A Manhattan Institute focus group of right-leaning Gen Zers found that what matters most is not ideological consistency but vibe: humor, transgression, and the sense of being led by someone who commands attention. That is not a political movement. That is a political moment. And moments end.

Young conservatives are not waiting to be handed a party identity. They are forming one loosely, online, around personalities and aesthetics more than party platforms.

There are young conservatives on every campus, in every mid-sized city, posting on X and watching YouTube and holding views that are not reactionary but genuinely populist: pro-worker, pro-industry, skeptical of concentrated power whether it comes from government bureaucracies or Fortune 500 boardrooms. Many of them have never been asked to do anything with those instincts. They have never been recruited, trained, or given a platform that treated them as the future rather than the audience. As a result, some drift. Some get absorbed into an online culture that is loud but purposeless. Some quietly become right-liberals — people who vote Republican but whose political identity is untethered from any durable set of commitments.

Winning a generation’s vote is not the same as winning its loyalty. And loyalty, in politics, is built through the experience of belonging to something and being given a stake. The progressive infrastructure understood this for decades. The question is whether the conservative movement is ready to build the same thing — not for the next election cycle, but for the next generation.

Aiden Buzzetti is the President of the Bull Moose Project. You can follow him on X @AidenBuzzetti.

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There are three paths one can choose when discussing the 2028 Republican presidential primary. The first is the obvious one: that Vice President JD Vance is the obvious frontrunner and that he will almost certainly win the nomination. The second is the less obvious one, that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will win instead, either as a result of a spirited challenge to the vice president or due to Vance refusing to run. And the third, as recently argued in Politico, is that some sort of dark horse akin to Los Angeles’ Spencer Pratt will successfully challenge Vance.

The third should be dismissed immediately. Spencer Pratt is running a spirited campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, but he is a Republican in, well, Los Angeles. As my colleague Evan Riggs recently wrote in these pages, Prattism may soon be a major force in the GOP. But Politico’s prognostication that Pratt – a little-known reality star – can challenge JD Vance in the 2028 nomination is the Gambler’s fallacy: it assumes that something will happen again because it just happened.

The “just happened” here is Donald Trump shocking the world with his rise in 2016. But Trump’s win was so shocking because it was so rare; the reason people stretched back to “Dewey defeats Truman” – nearly 70 years prior to 2016 – was because major upsets do not happen often.

As for Vance losing to Rubio or to someone else? There is nothing in the polling or the state of play, outside the wild hopes of a certain segment of the Washington-based right, which would lead one to believe that Vance will lose (more on that here).

The most likely scenario – Vance and Rubio running together, with Trump’s blessing – is therefore all that’s left. But there’s still one more argument against it that some have tried to make: that their foreign policies do not align.

The biggest display of this supposed difference was in the response to their Munich Security Conference speeches, delivered a year apart. Vance’s speech was justifiably caustic, targeting European establishments for their restrictions on free speech. Rubio’s address, delivered earlier this year, was – on the surface – more conciliatory, making paeans to our shared history and to the need to save Western civilization.

As such, this led foreign commentators and governments to see the two as somewhat opposed: opposite ends of a Trump administration split between supposedly neoconservative-lite individuals and isolationists. But this is a complete misreading of the state of foreign policy on the American right, and the views of the two men.

Vance has been painted by the media, and by individuals still stuck in the Cold War, as an isolationist, incredibly wary of foreign entanglements. The vice president is not an isolationist – almost no one is – but he is indeed wary of foreign entanglements.

Someone else who is? Marco Rubio, whose State Department withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations earlier this year. Rubio has also repeatedly express frustration with NATO, making the case that the Cold War-era relic must be “valuable” to America. Adding to that thought, he said:

So obviously one of the things that I’ve always used – and I’ve long been an advocate for NATO in my time in the Senate, and one of the arguments I always made was that these bases in the region provided us logistical options that we wouldn’t otherwise have. And when some of those bases are denied to you during a conflict that we’re involved in, then you question whether that value is still there. So that’s going to have to be discussed. There’s no doubt about it.

This is far from the Anne Applebaum or Michal McFaul types who have been resoundingly supportive of NATO no matter what, as they believe that America’s national security is inherently affected by who controls the eastern portion of the Black Sea. Rubio, in contrast, clearly values NATO for its ability to allow America to power project.

Vance likely puts less of a value on power projection, specifically into the Middle East. But he is no less of a civilizationist – he, and Rubio, simply want Europe to embrace Western values, as opposed to desiring to becoming a liberal internationalist global soup.

Vance opened his address not with an attack, but with an expressed desire “to talk about…our shared values.” He stated his belief that we were “on the same team,” pleading with all attending to “do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.” He then proceeded to blast “EU commissars” for prohibiting speech, and gave a list of frightening examples, from Scottish citizens not being able to pray within their own homes if they lived near an abortion clinic to annulled Romanian elections based on false claims of Russian interference. On this latter point, the vice president pointed out – likely to the chagrin of the audience – that “if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

Of particular concern for Vance was Europe’s lack of defense spending and its lack of understanding of what once made it great:

Now, this is a security conference, and I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years in line with some new target. And that’s great, because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent. We don’t think— you hear this term, “burden sharing,” but we think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance to­gether that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger. But let me also ask you, how will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting questions if we don’t know what it is that we’re defending in the first place?

Reactions to Vance’s speech were venomous, with numerous European officials blasting the vice president for interfering in European affairs.

Reactions to Rubio’s, by contrast, were more positive – at least initially. But over the following days, a seeming reality sunk in for the European elite: that Rubio had said essentially the same thing as Vance, just in a different way.

The Secretary of State opened his address, like Vance, by making reference to something that united America and Europe; in this case, it was our “shared alliance.” But he then proceeded to blast the liberal international order and the loss of a focus on national interest. Whereas Vance’s primary critique was freedom of speech, Rubio’s was the dangers of mass migration. He painted Western civilization’s past in glowing colors – as it should be – describing our connection as “the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

Rubio, toward his closing, elaborated upon what he wished for from Europe:

And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it, for we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history. What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency.

This is fundamentally no different from Vance’s argumentation. Both demanded Europe defend itself and understand why Western civilization was once great. They just did it differently, with Vance highlighting the deep issues in Europe’s present and Rubio seeking to inspire them by invoking their past.

Call it bad cop and good cop. Call it president and vice president.

Both of course have disagreements. Rubio likely is more supportive of robust action abroad, be it in Cuba or Iran; on the latter, reporting has indicated Rubio was moderately supportive or neutral toward the conflict, whereas Vance was opposed. But presidents and vice presidents often disagree on some issues. Donald Trump and Vance even clearly disagreed on some issues before the 2024 election; likewise did Trump and Mike Pence, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The question is if they agree on most things, and if they are motivated by the same desires.

On foreign policy, the answer to that question seems to clearly be “Yes.”

If JD Vance and Marco Rubio do end up sharing a presidential ticket, they will have no issue doing so. When it comes to how America should behave abroad, they are two sides of the same coin.

Anthony J. Constantini is the policy director at the Bull Moose Project. He is writing his Ph.D. on populism and early American democracy at the University of Vienna in Austria and tweets at @AJConstantini.

About a month ago, a major moment in American politics passed by with little notice — President Trump now has less than 1000 days left to serve. For those looking to figure out what the American right will look like after Trump’s departure from center stage, the Los Angeles mayoral race has shown a potential path for the Republican Party’s future. At the end of last year, it seemed LA would continue to be mismanaged under incumbent Karen Bass. This would have been despite the Palisades fires, the fierce response from the president and public for the lack of reconstruction, the large amounts of grift surrounding the aid money that seemed to have disappeared into a labyrinth of NGOs, and other, less acute but longer-lasting crises like vast swaths of the city being turned into open-air mental asylums.

Enter Spencer Pratt: a former reality TV star turned dark horse candidate with a flair for social media. Pratt has created a groundswell of popular support with his unfiltered, unabashed, and uncompromising vision for bringing about “a new golden age of Los Angeles.” Sure, his plan might seem a little light on the details (he’s never held public office before), but it’s optimistic and rooted in clear common sense. More importantly, he’s not afraid to go after his opponents directly, holding them accountable for their failures, mocking their pieties, and moving past the typical political charades to get right at the heart of crucial issues. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

In Spencer Pratt, we see what MAGA might evolve into. Pratt is fundamentally Trumpian, but a little less abrasive, a bit more bearable to suburban moms, and better at appealing to a wide coalition in a deep-blue battleground like Los Angeles. His motivation and message — the incompetent, lying Democrats have burned down my home, and I’m not going to take it lying down — also drove Donald Trump to plunge into politics, only in Pratt’s case, his house did quite literally burn down. But while Pratt’s political positioning and ambitions are designed to insulate himself from accusations of national ambitions, his tactics in running an extremely media-savvy campaign have already brought massive national attention.

In this respect, though, Pratt provides a path to make Trump’s success much more replicable. Steering clear of the culture war messaging that has carried conservatives through two elections, Pratt positions himself as an easy-to-get-along-with 90s-era Clinton-style Democrat (which is to say, a modern Conservative). Unlike Mamdani, whom he is frequently compared to, he’s unwilling to promise free buses, only buses free from feces and the drug-addicted “zombies” (Pratt’s preferred term for the homeless) that produce them. Also, differentiating himself from the new mayor of New York, Pratt is determined not to discuss international or even national politics. He also doesn’t seem to want the President’s endorsement, even though he is a registered Republican. Running an independent campaign, with a bootstrapped team that can’t doorknock quite as pervasively as Mamdani’s socialist support squad, comes at a cost, but it’s a risk worth taking when embracing the MAGA label his opponents are desperate to decry him with could be the kiss of death in liberal LA.

Pratt is also not overly ideological, focusing on what he views as low-hanging, pragmatic improvements, like enforcing the laws his Democratic predecessors put on the books but then decided to put off enforcing. And, unlike his competitors, he is entirely focused on one thing: fixing his city. He’s got no higher aspirations than that; the mayorship is the pinnacle of his political ambitions. In this, he cites Cincinnatus as his model, with his end goal being to pick up his plough (or perhaps his healing crystals) once again after his eight-year tour of duty.

Pratt’s primary appeal to centrist and left-leaning voters — that ideology and political labels are irrelevant when your kids are being terrorized by rampant public disorder, and that our tax dollars are funding this terrorism — is the right play for Republicans to run on for the foreseeable future. Call it Prattism: take everything from Trump that works, smooth off the rough edges that alienate the centrists, focus on actually winning over performed purity for the too-online pundits, and make no apologies for being an unconventional candidate. If it can work this well in LA, it can work anywhere. There are dozens of cities across the country in which the Spencer Pratt playbook could be deployed. A closer focus on the local level, avoiding the all-too-enticing culture war, and a willingness to get out into the community don’t take massive donor support or political capital. Neither do the AI ads nor the social media savvy that Pratt has deployed to great effect; if he fails to win his election, he could likely start a successful consultancy, teaching others his tricks.

And lesson number one would surely be a focus on what will impact the lives of actual voters. Staying local grants staying power in modern American conservative politics. Too many figures find fame, only to then flame out by focusing on issues too far flung from their constituents — Thomas Massie’s anti-Israel obsession being the most recent example. Less than two years into the Trump administration, many have already traded in real responsibility for a much less respectable career as social media stars, opting for the podcast circuit over real power.

But this is a false dichotomy. By focusing on the fundamentals voters care about, the fame so many have forfeited everything to find can be won — just look at the rise of independent journalist Nick Shirley. The hidden genius of Prattism is that addressing local issues will resonate with the broader country, while maintaining the moral high ground. While Pratt’s challengers use their time in front of the cameras to wage war on the administration, Pratt has shown an almost unique willingness to address the key issues for Angeleno voters: crime, homelessness, functional city services, and the cost of living. Unsurprisingly, there is a massive overlap between what Americans in LA care about and what Americans across the country care about.

Nationally, the cost-of-living crisis will be the ultimate deciding factor in future elections. Any savvy politician who can promise to curb the costs imposed on voters, potentially by tackling the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse that is eating into everyone’s taxes nationwide, will have a much easier time maintaining power. For someone like J.D. Vance, this is an easy win with voters. Vance has already shown an ability to run the Prattism playbook with his communications strategy, avoiding the trap his inevitable challenger, Gavin Newsom, has set for himself. Most voters want confident messaging, not an endless stream of crass social media memes. Pratt could also be a potential spoiler for a 2028 Newsom run if he manages to actually improve LA, as voters will ask, “Why couldn’t we have had this the entire time?”

It’s unknown whether Spencer Pratt will get the chance to succeed in his grand gamble to save the city he loves. He’s got a lot working against him, and, even if he manages to win the election, he’s only then at the start of his quest. But his meteoric rise has provided the template for others to follow in his stead. For the first time, we are seeing what the future of the right might look like, and it shouldn’t be a shock that it took an ex-reality TV star to light the way.

Evan Riggs is the Operations Director at the Bull Moose Project. You can find him on X @EvanRiggss.

By Rio T Pate

President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is often described as erratic or improvisational, but beneath the daily noise there is a clear organizing principle: the restoration of American sovereignty. Across multiple fronts, the administration has sought to reclaim powers that previous administrations willingly diluted through international institutions, security guarantees, and economic arrangements. Whether confronting China on trade, pressuring NATO allies to increase defense spending, or reasserting American influence in the Western Hemisphere, the underlying goal has been consistent: restoring the United States’ ability to act independently and protect its national interests.

In this sense, the administration represents a deliberate reversal of the post–Cold War consensus that defined American policy for decades. Rather than managing a diffuse global order, the Trump doctrine attempts to concentrate authority back in the hands of the nation-state. European allies are expected to assume greater responsibility for their own defense, trade agreements are renegotiated to prioritize domestic industry, and adversaries such as Iran are confronted directly rather than accommodated through international frameworks. Each of these moves reflects a broader effort to reassert national autonomy in areas where Washington once accepted constraints. The common thread is not isolationism, as critics often claim, but a reordering of priorities. The doctrine assumes that the first duty of American statecraft is not to preserve a liberal international system for its own sake, but to defend the sovereignty, security, and productive strength of the United States itself.

Immigration policy has largely followed the same logic. On illegal immigration, the administration has paired its rhetoric with significant enforcement actions aimed at restoring control over the southern border. Deportations have increased, enforcement priorities have shifted, and the federal government has made clear that immigration law will once again be treated as law rather than suggestion. Critics, like myself, argue that the scale of deportations is still insufficient to roll back demographic change—but even then, one must acknowledge that the scale of enforcement marks a significant departure from the approaches of recent decades. The administration at least understands something its predecessors often refused to admit: a nation that cannot control illegal entry cannot meaningfully claim to possess sovereign borders. In that respect, Trump’s approach to illegal immigration is not a departure from his larger doctrine, but one of its clearest expressions.

But immigration policy does not begin and end with illegal entry. If the administration’s broader doctrine is truly about restoring sovereignty, then legal immigration cannot be treated as a separate or secondary issue. A sovereign nation does not merely decide whether its laws will be enforced at the border; it also decides who may enter, in what numbers, and under what conditions. On that front, the administration has been far less willing to challenge inherited assumptions. Rules governing legal immigration have been largely untouched, and debates over them have been strikingly absent from the broader sovereignty debate. That silence is not a minor oversight. It is the most conspicuous unresolved question in an otherwise remarkably consistent worldview.

This is the internal contradiction at the heart of Trump’s doctrine. The administration has recognized that sovereignty requires control over trade, alliances, military commitments, and illegal immigration, yet it has hesitated to apply the same principle to the legal intake system. That reluctance is difficult to reconcile with the logic driving the rest of its agenda. A nation cannot fully reclaim sovereignty abroad while leaving the largest channel of long-term demographic change at home essentially undisturbed. Enforcement against illegal immigration may reduce disorder at the margins, but it does not address the broader question of national continuity if legal inflows remain at levels that continue to transform the country. If sovereignty means anything, it must include the right of a people to determine the pace, scale, and character of the demographic changes taking place within their own country. Otherwise, sovereignty is reduced to a partial doctrine—vigorously asserted in diplomacy and trade but suspended at the very point where it bears most directly on the future composition of the nation itself.

The problem is not merely procedural; it is civilizational. Immigration policy shapes more than labor markets or GDP tables. It shapes schools, neighborhoods, voting patterns, civic culture, and the long-term capacity of a people to sustain—or revive—a common national identity. Political leaders who speak forcefully about freedom and sovereignty for foreign nations should have no difficulty recognizing that sovereignty also applies to the legal channels through which the country determines who enters and in what numbers. To leave that valve largely untouched while celebrating the restoration of sovereignty elsewhere is to preserve the contradiction rather than resolve it. Illegal immigration is primarily a question of enforcement. Legal immigration is a question of regime design. A sovereignty doctrine must be able to answer both.

A temporary pause on most new legal immigration would therefore not represent a break from Trump’s sovereignty doctrine, but its logical completion. If sovereignty means the authority to decide who joins the nation and at what pace, then the question of legal inflows cannot be treated as administratively separate from sovereignty itself. Such a pause would give the country time to stabilize enforcement, reduce overall inflows, and allow institutions to better absorb those already here. It would also force policymakers to confront a reality they have long avoided: legality alone does not determine whether immigration serves the national interest. The central question is not simply whether migration is lawful, but whether it occurs at a pace and scale consistent with assimilation, institutional stability, and the preservation of a coherent national identity.

For years, conservatives have been comfortable condemning illegal immigration while treating legal immigration as an unquestioned good. That binary is no longer adequate to present conditions. A nation can be transformed through lawful channels just as surely as through unlawful ones. The relevant issue is not merely legality, but scale. If annual inflows remain historically elevated, then demographic change continues even under stricter border enforcement. In that case, the sovereign recovery the administration seeks in every other domain remains incomplete where it matters most.

Trump has already shown a willingness to challenge stale orthodoxies on trade, foreign policy, and border enforcement in the name of sovereignty. But as long as legal immigration remains largely exempt from that same scrutiny, the doctrine remains incomplete. The question is no longer whether sovereignty matters; the administration has answered that clearly. The real question is why the most sovereignty-conscious administration in decades has refused to apply that principle to the legal intake system that most directly shapes the nation’s future.

On April 12, 2026, Viktor Orbán conceded defeat after 16 years in power. Péter Magyar’s Tisza Party claimed over two-thirds of seats in parliament – a constitutional majority – with a roughly 80% turnout, the highest participation since the fall of communism. It was a stunning victory for the relatively new party.

If one wanted a reason why Orbán lost after an impressive length of tenure, one can look at CPAC’s annual convention in Budapest, where several European and U.S. influencers and celebrities openly lauded Orbán’s achievements in fighting “the West’s managed decline.” Just a few weeks after CPAC, Vice President J.D. Vance flew to Budapest in a last-ditch effort to boost Orbán. It was ironic that Orbán, who had spent sixteen years presenting himself as a nationalist free from European bureaucrats trying to decide Hungarian policy, was trying to be rescued by American patronage. In 2018, he once railed that Hungary was being threatened by “supranational and anti-democratic forces”; this didn’t prevent him from accepting help from a right-wing apparatus that was as foreign as the EU he decried. The optics revealed some contradictions in Orbán’s tenure: a sovereigntist whose initial economic success came from membership in the EU, a Western civilizationist who enjoyed closer ties with nations like China and Russia determined to sabotage it, and a man whose narrative couldn’t match reality. Yet Orbán didn’t lose because his project failed. He lost because his project in many ways succeeded; the Hungarian people just decided that Magyar would be a better steward for such a project.

Before going further, it’s important to know that Orbán was not a dictator. The opposition campaigned openly, ballots were counted fairly, and there was no constitutional crisis when the opposition won. Hungary has no political prisoners, and unlike the United Kingdom or Germany, it does not jail citizens for social media posts. Framing Hungary as under the grip of a “Viktator” is misleading at best and harmful at worst. Orbán was a skilled democratic politician whose work, while partly kleptocratic, was a mirror image of what progressives have done throughout Western Europe and the United States.

When Orbán took power for a second time in 2010, Hungary was in dire straits due to the 2008 economic crisis. Hungary was at risk of default and required an IMF bailout package, with hundreds of thousands facing homelessness due to foreign-denominated mortgages. Orbán promised economic rejuvenation alongside a nationalist agenda that would help Hungary restore some of its national pride. The unorthodox measures Orbán introduced — the flat tax, the nationalization of private pension funds, the sector-specific levies on banks and multinationals, and the administrative cuts to household utility prices — stabilized the country faster than expected. Hungary repaid its IMF obligations ahead of schedule in 2013, giving the government the credibility it needed. Unemployment fell from over 11% in 2010 to under 7% by 2015, then continued to decline to 3.5% by 2019, well below the EU’s average. Public debt declined from roughly 80% of GDP to 65% by 2019. Real GDP growth averaged 2.7% annually in the second half of the 2010s, consistently above the EU average. In the 2010s, the macro indicators vindicated the project, and many conservatives considered Hungary a viable model given Orbán’s great start.

His economic achievements pre-COVID were laudable, though how he achieved this also bears some perspective: he built an economy more dependent on foreign capital than before. Many companies invested in Hungary because the country’s 9% corporate income tax was the lowest in the EU, but they were also drawn by low wages and lax overtime regulations enacted under the Orbán government. Additionally, Hungary’s position in Europe provided additional funds for the government which it could then use to bolster its economy. Under the EU’s 2014–2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, Hungary received roughly €22.5 billion from other members, an average of 3.2 percent of GDP per year, the highest share in the region. These funds helped subsidize his domestic patronage and stabilize its fiscal situation, even as he increasingly became an irritant to Brussels bureaucrats. In many ways, Europe subsidized his claim to maintain his popular subsidies and tax breaks without making the populace pay for them, at least until the EU froze distribution in 2022, weakening his economic agenda.

As Hungary’s relationship with the EU deteriorated, its relationship with Russia grew. Hungary was a consistent spoiler within the European Union and NATO, vetoing or delaying successive Ukraine aid packages, blocking the bloc’s efforts to freeze Russian central bank assets (which were eventually circumvented under Article 122), and holding up Sweden and Finland’s membership in the military alliance. While Orbán agreed to some sanctions against Russia, he forced the EU to renegotiate their renewals every six months as leverage. Orbán was a (relatively) friendly leader to Russia when the country was effectively isolated from Europe, leading to continued energy imports from Russia and Rosatom’s expansion of the Paks II nuclear plant.

Another hypocrisy in Orbán’s narrative lies in his signature issue: migration. From 2015 onward, Orbán focused on migration, from building the border fence to framing migration as “the great replacement” theory that many foreign conservatives spoke of. While the details of the great replacement theory espoused on X are both uncouth and inaccurate, Orbán’s tough policies on migration saved Hungary from the societal destabilization currently impacting other European Union member states. To make up for the lack of mass migration, Orbán sought to encourage the birth rate through generous social policies, such as reduced tax rates for families and home grants, which temporarily boosted the fertility rate to 1.61 births in 2021, up from a low of 1.23 in 2011.

However, what he did to boost the labor force in the short term was a guest worker program that, by the mid-2020s, was bringing in workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Central Asia. As Orbán bragged that they will not accept a single migrant, several firms were petitioning to hire guest workers, even as some announced a hiring freeze against Hungarians given these workers can take lower wages than domestic workers. Orbán and his party may state that the program is highly regulated and is different than illegal immigration, but it does undercut the message that they’ve promulgated through CPAC and the well-funded right-wing think tanks. It is jarring that Orbán’s government is allowing immigration that bears some resemblance to the controversial H-1 B visa scheme in the U.S.

For several years, many well-paid American and European intellectuals in Budapest fawned over the country’s defense of tradition, affordable living, and the lack of quality-of-life issues like crime they’ve seen in the U.S. and Europe. Yet step outside the nicer parts of Budapest, or talk to Hungarians outside of Orbán’s network, and one sees a different story. GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms is 77 percent of the EU average, ahead only of Slovakia, Latvia, Greece, and Bulgaria. Actual individual consumption per capita, the measure closest to lived material living standards, was the lowest in the entire European Union at 72 percent. Since 2022, GDP growth has lagged the EU, with the economy growing a measly 0.3 percent in 2025. Concurrently, inflation is consistently higher than the Eurozone average. The budget deficit, which was running high due to continued tax cuts, was projected by IHG to be 5 percent of GDP, with public debt rising to ~74 percent of GDP - similar to where it was in 2008. The economy may have done well in the 2010s, but the shocks have shown that Hungary’s model is not much better than the one espoused in Brussels.

Supporters of Orbán in the U.S. may concede that the economy has regressed under Orbán, but they would readily point out that he consistently ensured that traditional values were promoted in the public square. And yes, LGBT laws have stopped advancing, Hungary has not seen mass migration, and the birth rate did recover throughout the 2010s. But the government’s promotion of traditional values has largely fallen flat, especially when scandals broke that show some members’ unfriendly family behavior. The birth rate, after rising to 1.61 in 2021, has fallen every year to 1.31. The incentives only encouraged people to have children earlier in life, but did not encourage them to have more children than they originally planned. Furthermore, Orbán has failed to preserve Hungary’s religious traditions, as ~30% of Hungarians consider themselves Catholic and only 17% attended worship monthly. While Hungarian religiosity is better than in Germany or Belgium, it is lower than in Fico’s Slovakia or even Tusk’s Poland. And lastly, while the government extolled family virtues, several officials were caught acting in the opposite way. József Szájer was caught in Brussels in 2020 attending a gay orgy, forcing him to resign. In 2019, Gyor’s mayor, Zsolt Borkai, was also caught, though his crime was being on a yacht with prostitutes and drugs. And lastly, there was the Konya scandal, where the President of Hungary, Katalin Novák, gave a presidential pardon to Endre Kónya, the deputy director of a state children’s home who had been convicted of helping to cover up sexual abuse of ten minors by his superior. Ironically, this scandal directly triggered the political rupture that made Magyar Orbán’s most effective opposition challenger in sixteen years.

The issue is that Orbán subordinated governance to the creation of a narrative. Economic policy was optimized for elite loyalty instead of broad-based prosperity. Foreign policy was optimized for international visibility as a civilizational icon rather than for strengthening natural allies. Immigration policy was optimized for the electoral content it generated showing himself as a defender against migrants that would threaten western civilization. Even the utility price caps and family subsidies, which did deliver real benefits to real households for a real stretch of time, functioned more as a narrative device than as a sustainable policy, which is why they failed the moment external shocks hit them. Sadly, Orbán became a contradiction of his own making, performing nationalism while detaching from the long, hard work of building national capacity. This worked for sixteen years because voters allowed it to, so long as they received what was promised. When the material benefits collapsed amid double-digit inflation and frozen EU funds, the transaction fell through, and they voted for a candidate who promised change.

The United States is not Hungary, but Orbán’s defeat is a warning about what can happen if populists mistake narrative for capacity, alliance-breaking for strategy, and loyalty for competence. Common Hungarians tolerated so much before they opted for a more genuine nationalist alternative. Talking trash about the opposition and calling out “the left” will only work so far as Americans start to care less about what you are against and more about what you have done.

There is still time to make needed course corrections in economics and foreign policy, such as disengaging from the Middle East and focus on making housing more affordable for the younger generation. But if the government decides to continue pursuing a war abroad at the expense of a genuine domestic agenda beyond extending tax cuts, many on the right will find themselves back in opposition, like many of their colleagues in Budapest right now.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the position of The New Outlook or the Bull Moose Institute.

Heberto Limas-Villers is a co-founder at a geopolitical advisory firm called SkySeal Global and a Fellow at the Bull Moose Project.

If Washington is the Founder of the Republic, and Lincoln the preserver of the Republic, then Theodore Roosevelt was the restorer of the Republic.

For many years, especially during the Tea Party surge of the late 2000s and early 2010s, Theodore was derided for costing the Republican Party the 1912 election and dismissed as a big-government statist, hostile to liberty and business alike.

But as the tides of politics have shifted from Tea Party to Trumpian policy, the conservative historiography of our leaders has developed in a peculiar direction. Today, Roosevelt’s legacy is in resurgence among the right, for some of the right reasons – but something is still missing.

While it’s true that his position on the protective tariff, his big-stick foreign policy, and his trust-busting are all closer to the mainline Republican tradition today than they were just over a decade ago, one issue above all else has been popularized: Theodore Roosevelt’s conservationist policies. The legacy of Roosevelt’s conservation, as the man who set aside 230 million acres of public land, is celebrated freely, proudly, and quoted often, particularly by those on the left who claim that conservatives are wrongfully claiming Roosevelt as their own

This view is incomplete to the point of distortion.

Roosevelt was a moral crusader, a warrior, and a conservationist as much as he was an economic nationalist, a trustbuster, a labor advocate, and a systematic opponent of concentrated private and public power. He wielded the power of his positions in New York and D.C. as a weapon against the corporate interests and public corruption of his era with a ferocity that would make modern politicians blush. The conservation legacy is real, but it is also the least threatening part of his record to the contemporary donor and governing class, which is a large part of why it gets the most airtime.

Conservatives who forget the rest of Roosevelt are not just undermining his role in genuine statesmanship and policy. They are also undermining themselves.

Roosevelt’s Legacy

The legacy of Theodore Roosevelt is one of great national renewal. Born in 1858 and passing in 1919, Roosevelt’s life spanned the recovery and discovery of America’s domestic and international power. Arriving three years before America tore itself apart in a war that put brother against brother – with the Roosevelt family likewise divided, as his own mother was from Roswell, Georgia – and dying two months after America entered into its role of global leadership upon the end of World War I. Roosevelt was the central figure in restoring America after the destruction of the gruesome Civil War and developing the character necessary for America’s forthcoming position as a world leader.

Writing years later, Roosevelt framed his action in San Juan Hill as proof that the Civil War’s wounds had, in a meaningful sense, closed.

“All—Easterners and Westerners, Northerners and Southerners, officers and men, cow-boys and college graduates, wherever they came from, and whatever their social position—possessed in common the traits of hardihood and a thirst for adventure. They were to a man born adventurers, in the old sense of the word.”

The United States saw the acts of bravery and leadership for what they were. Coming out of San Juan Hill, Roosevelt was propelled to stardom across our Republic that hadn’t been seen since U.S. Grant’s own rise. After returning from Cuba, Roosevelt would find himself the Governor of New York within three months, the Vice President within a year and a half, and President within nearly three years.

The same courage that gained him the fame that he wielded at San Juan was the same courage that it took to confront Tammany Hall and Washington, D.C. The same character that drove him up that hill drove him to break up Standard Oil, stand down corruption, and reshape the relationship between the American government and workers. And yes, to save 230 million acres of land. These are not separate men.

The “Useful” Roosevelt

What is not useful to many commentators, organizations, or individuals is the true, rugged, and multi-dimensional Roosevelt, the one who believed in more than just national parks. He was quite brash, unapologetically American, and held beliefs that today would be offensive to the left and the right. Many have embraced this “useful” Roosevelt precisely because he fits neatly within their lines. In doing so, they strip him of his power and his legacy. We can neither pretend that Roosevelt was a “Subaru owning” liberal conservationist, who tacks on perfectly to America’s contemporary interpretation of Progressive, nor a pure-American right-winger whose every instinct can be cherry-picked to validate whichever fight the right is having this week.

Both portraits are convenient, but both are wrong. And both flatten a man whose actual convictions cut across the lines our current politics has drawn from him.

That is what the conservationist framing misses. It mistakes the symptom for the diagnosis. Roosevelt set aside 230 million acres because he believed the land belonged to the American people and not to the private interests that would devour it. The same logic that protected Yellowstone broke Standard Oil. The same instinct that preserved the wilderness for future generations fought to preserve the republic from capture by the powerful few. You cannot separate the conservationist from the trustbuster, because they share the same root: a conviction that the common inheritance of the American people must be defended aggressively, against those with the power and appetite to consume it.

The conservationist framing is not wrong; it is simply safe. It costs nothing. It offends no donor, threatens no interest, and demands nothing of the politician who invokes it beyond a vague commitment to the outdoors. It is Roosevelt as aesthetic, not Roosevelt as a statesman. And for a political movement that has spent the better part of four decades making its peace with concentrated corporate power, a Roosevelt reduced to national parks and hunting trips is quite convenient.

Conservatives who invoke Roosevelt’s love of the land while ignoring his war on concentrated power are not honoring his legacy. They are domesticating it. And a domesticated Roosevelt is of no use to a political movement that claims to speak for the American worker, the American family, and the American future. The full Roosevelt is the useful one. What we should aspire for is scholars who truly know Roosevelt as a man who fought his entire life to restore, grow, and keep our Republic. It is time to claim him whole.

David Carlson is a Strategist at Beck & Stone, a brand consultancy for building institutions. You can find him on X at @DavidCarlson.

In the same economy where large employers are cutting corporate staff, builders are struggling to find enough workers to meet demand. In March alone Amazon, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Nike continued layoffs while pushing for efficiency and investing in AI.

That is what makes the current labor market unusual. It does not look like recessions we’ve seen historically. The national unemployment rate was 4.4% in February 2026, and new jobless claims are still subdued. But the job market does not feel healthy to many people, especially in white-collar fields, where hiring has slowed and layoffs remain visible.

America does not just have an unemployment problem. It has a misalignment problem.

For college-educated workers, the market has become noticeably tougher. Gallup polling reported by AP today found that only 28% of U.S. workers say it is a good time to find a quality job, and college graduates are especially pessimistic. Hiring rates have fallen to 3.2%, the lowest since 2013, in what many economists describe as a “low-hire, low-fire” market.

That slowdown is showing up most clearly in white-collar sectors. Reuters reported that major firms are continuing job cuts in 2026 as they streamline operations and ramp up AI spending. Earlier in the month, Morgan Stanley alone cut about 2,500 employees, or roughly 3% of its workforce, across major divisions.

At the same time, the broader labor market remains short of workers in many hands-on fields. There were 7.7 million job openings in January 2026, according to the BLS, and ABC estimates the construction industry alone will need hundreds of thousands of additional workers this year. Electrician employment alone is projected to grow 9% through 2034, with about 81,000 openings annually, with many of these openings driven by retirements.

That is the contradiction at the center of the economy right now: fewer attractive openings in offices, but persistent shortages where the work is physical, local, and hard to automate.

The simplest explanation is that the economy is weakening. But that does not fully fit the data. Hiring has slowed sharply, yet layoffs remain relatively low, and employers are still trying to fill millions of roles. ADP said last month that hiring has cooled dramatically over the past three years, while the payoff from switching jobs has fallen to its lowest level since 2017.

A better way to understand this is as a mismatch between the jobs available and the workers most readily available to fill them.

Part of that mismatch is educational. For decades, the United States treated the four-year degree as the default route to upward mobility, while vocational pathways were seen as secondary. That shift is now showing up in enrollment data. The National Student Clearinghouse reported in May 2025 that enrollment at vocational-focused public two-year institutions had grown by nearly 20% since spring 2020, and its January 2026 update found that community colleges and certificate programs continue to gain ground faster than many traditional four-year schools.

The mismatch is also about skills. A worker laid off from recruiting, marketing, software, or middle management is not easily interchangeable with an electrician or machinist. LinkedIn’s March 2025 skills-first report found that hiring based on skills rather than degrees expands candidate pools, while NACE reported in January 2026 that 70% of employers now use skills-based hiring. Employers are adapting because the credential pipeline is no longer producing the labor they need.

Demographics are another part of the story. The BLS’s outlook for electricians notes that many annual openings are expected to come not just from growth, but from workers leaving the labor force, including retirements. In other words, some of the shortage is not temporary demand. It is replacement demand built into an aging workforce.

Markets do adjust, but not instantly. Wages can rise, but workers cannot retrain overnight. Geography matters. Apprenticeships take time. And social expectations tend to change more slowly than labor demand.

That is why this shows up as inefficiency rather than a simple shortage. Last July labor shortages in construction were contributing to project delays and cost overruns, and ABC’s 2026 forecast makes clear the industry still expects a significant worker gap even after several years of strong demand.

The same lag is visible on the white-collar side. AP’s Gallup-based reporting describes a labor market where hiring is weak enough that many workers no longer believe quality jobs are easy to find, even as unemployment remains relatively low. That is what a misaligned labor market feels like: the numbers say one thing, while lived experience says another.

If the problem is structural, the response has to be structural too.

The first step is to rethink the pipeline. That does not mean dismissing college, but it does mean moving beyond the assumption that it is the only respectable route into the middle class. Enrollment gains at community colleges, certificate programs, and vocational institutions suggest students are already starting to respond to that reality.

The second step is to take skills-first hiring seriously. That means focusing on demonstrated capability, not just pedigree. LinkedIn and NACE both point in the same direction: employers are shifting toward skills-based screening because traditional credential filters are too blunt for a labor market this fractured.

The third step is cultural. For years, white-collar work was treated as the aspirational default and the trades as a fallback. That hierarchy is getting harder to defend as trade workers remain in short supply, and as The Washington Post reported in January, workers with occupational associate degrees have, for the first time in decades, edged past bachelor’s degree holders on unemployment.

The labor market is not failing because there are no jobs. It is failing because the jobs and the workers no longer line up.

That is the real story beneath the headlines: not a single recession, but two labor markets moving in opposite directions. One is cutting. The other is desperate to hire. Until policy, hiring practices, and cultural expectations catch up, the country will keep producing the same contradiction: white-collar anxiety in an economy that still cannot find enough blue-collar workers.

Alex Dwyer is a political analyst with over a decade of involvement in the political process. His writing focuses on how policy shapes incentives, behaviors, and drives outcomes. He holds an MS in Finance from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas. You can find him on X at @AlexDwyerKS.

Every morning, billions of people wake up and reach for a device that has become essential to modern life. Whether iPhone or Android, smartphones connect us to work, family, entertainment, and the vast digital economy. Yet despite their revolutionary impact, these devices operate under a peculiarly restrictive model: The software we can install, the payment systems we must use, and the choices available to us are controlled by just two companies.

The Open App Markets Act, co-led by Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, offers a simple proposition: In a competitive market, consumers and developers should have choices. The Senate Judiciary Committee should move swiftly to approve this overdue reform.

Consider the absurdity of our current arrangement. Imagine if Dell or HP could dictate that you could only install software on your laptop through their proprietary store, taking a 15-30% cut of every transaction. Picture Microsoft demanding that Netflix use only Microsoft’s payment system for subscriptions, or face removal from Windows entirely. We would recognize this immediately as anticompetitive overreach. Yet this is precisely the reality for mobile devices, where Apple and Google have constructed elaborate justifications for maintaining iron control over their platforms.

The companies argue that their restrictive practices protect consumers, particularly children, from harmful content and security threats. This claim deserves scrutiny. Despite their supposed vigilance, both platforms have repeatedly distributed problematic apps. Meanwhile, they’ve demonstrated remarkable efficiency at one particular form of protection: protecting their revenue streams. When Epic Games attempted to offer direct payment options to customers, bypassing app store fees, it was summarily banned from both platforms within hours.

The Open App Markets Act would establish basic principles of competition without compromising security. The bill requires major app store operators to allow users to install apps from other sources, choose third-party app stores as defaults, and delete pre-installed applications. Developers would gain equal access to the interfaces and features that Apple and Google reserve for themselves. Crucially, the legislation includes provisions for reasonable security measures, acknowledging that openness need not mean chaos.

Critics will argue that this legislation threatens innovation or the user experience. History suggests otherwise. The personal computer revolution flourished precisely because platforms remained open. The Internet itself emerged from principles of interoperability and user choice. When Microsoft faced antitrust action for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, the resulting competition sparked a wave of browser innovation that continues today. Markets thrive when gatekeepers cannot extract monopoly rents or dictate terms to entire industries.

The economic implications extend far beyond Silicon Valley. Small businesses, educational institutions, and creative professionals all depend on mobile apps to reach customers and provide services. When app stores can unilaterally change terms, impose fees, or restrict functionality, these entities have no recourse. A restaurant using a booking app, a therapist providing telehealth services, a musician selling directly to fans—all must accept whatever terms the duopoly imposes or forfeit access to half their potential market.

The international context matters too. Jurisdictions in Asia, South America, and Europe have moved forward with reforms and antitrust enforcement targeting app store chokepoints. While their approaches differ, they all recognize that concentrated platform power threatens innovation. The United States, having pioneered the digital revolution, risks falling behind in establishing fair rules for the digital economy—and ceding leadership overseas. The House’s companion legislation, the App Store Freedom Act, demonstrates growing recognition in Congress that reform is necessary.

Perhaps most importantly, this legislation represents a choice about the kind of digital future we want. Do we accept a world where two companies determine what software billions can use, which business models are permitted, and how much tax every digital transaction must pay? Or do we insist that revolutionary technologies should expand rather than constrain human freedom?

The Open App Markets Act provides ample room for Apple or Google’s business models. These companies would remain free to operate their app stores, compete on quality and security, and profit from their innovations. They simply couldn’t leverage their control over mobile operating systems to exclude competition. This is a return to the basic competitive principles that have driven American innovation for generations.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has an opportunity to help restore competition to one of the economy’s most vital sectors. Every day of delay means billions in extracted rents, stifled innovations that never see daylight, and consumers denied choices they never knew existed. The committee should approve the Open App Markets Act without delay, sending a clear message: in America, even the biggest platforms must compete fairly. The age of the app store monopoly must end.

Evan Swarztrauber is a senior fellow at the Digital Progress Institute and Principal at CorePoint Strategies. Previously, he served as a policy advisor at the Federal Communications Commission.

In the lead-up to the 250th anniversary of the United States, Americans are reflecting on the landscapes, cultures, and stories that define the nation. While the National Park System preserves iconic natural wonders - from the Grand Canyon to the Great Smoky Mountains - many culturally significant places that capture the American experience remain underrecognized. As President Theodore Roosevelt, a leading architect of America’s conservation movement, observed, “There is nothing so American as our national parks,” a reminder that our shared heritage extends beyond scenery to the stories and traditions that shape national identity.

Designating Shepherd of the Hills State Park, Henning Conservation Area, and the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama Amphitheater as a National Historic Landmark District (NHLD) would preserve this culturally significant Ozarks landscape while expanding recreation and heritage tourism. Under federal policy, NHLDs are designated by the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the National Park Service (NPS), pursuant to the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and implementing regulations at 36 C.F.R. Part 65. This designation is reserved for places of exceptional national significance, particularly where multiple, geographically linked landscapes, structures, and cultural features collectively convey a cohesive and nationally important American story.

The designation process follows a well-established precedent: properties are rigorously evaluated against NHL criteria by NPS experts, reviewed by the National Park System Advisory Board, and ultimately designated by the Secretary of the Interior. A unified NHLD designation for these Ozarks sites aligns squarely with this framework. Together, they form an integrated cultural landscape that preserves the legacy and story of The Shepherd of the Hills, a literature work that has profoundly shaped national perceptions of the Ozarks and rural American life.

Such designation would elevate the Ozark’s role in American cultural identity while supporting sustainable economic growth through heritage tourism. Few places more fully capture the intersection of American literature, frontier settlement, and enduring rural traditions. Its importance has long been recognized, including through Congressman James F. Fulbright’s introduction of H.R. 11477 to establish “The Shepherd of the Hills National Park” near Branson, Missouri.

A Landscape that Shaped American Culture

Wright, a Christian minister suffering from tuberculosis, traveled to the Ozarks in the late 19th century seeking recovery and solitude. What he found instead was inspiration. Living roughly eleven years among the people of the Roark Valley near present-day Branson, Wright observed the rhythms of Ozark life. This included their faith, hardships, humor, rugged individualism, and deep sense of community.

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Harold Bell Wright began his writing career as a form of Christian ministry. Largely self-taught and educated only through the equivalent of middle school, he developed his storytelling ability through extensive reading and personal determination, producing novels that blended moral themes with suspenseful narratives appealing to general audiences. His works often reflected the ideals of the Social Gospel, emphasizing helping others and the common good over theological debate, with churches portrayed as community centers that uplift people in the present. Although immensely popular with readers, Wright’s Christian-influenced fiction was frequently dismissed by mainstream literary critics of his time as overly moralistic and simplistic (a rejection of his Christian faith).

These experiences formed the foundation for The Shepherd of the Hills, a story of redemption, mystery, and love set in the rugged hills and hollers of the region. The novel centers on Dan Howitt, a mysterious “shepherd” who arrives in the Ozarks carrying secrets from his past and becomes a moral guide to the local community.

The book became a cultural phenomenon. It was the first American novel to sell more than one million copies, bringing national attention to a region that had long been isolated and misunderstood. Readers across the country were captivated by the Ozark landscape and the authenticity of its people.

In doing so, Wright put the Ozarks on the national map.

The Birth of Ozark Tourism

The influence of The Shepherd of the Hills extended far beyond literature. The novel ignited a tourism movement that reshaped Missouri’s Ozarks, especially Laketown Branson, Missouri.

Travelers began arriving in the early 20th century to see the landscapes described in Wright’s book: Mutton Hollow, Inspiration Point, and the Roark Valley. Over time, the site where Wright stayed became preserved as the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead, now home to the famous outdoor drama that has been performed since the 1960s and an adventure park with ziplines, a mountain coaster, and suspension bridges.

This place carries deep personal and historical meaning for me. My grandmother (my Granny) and grandfather (my Papa) moved from Illinois to Branson, Missouri, with their daughters, including my mother and aunts, where they operated a small motel called Shepherd of the Hills Court. From 1964 to 1988, he also performed in the outdoor drama The Shepherd of the Hills, portraying Doc Coughlan - the Shepherd’s old friend and physician from Chicago - bringing warmth and well-timed humor to the role. I later graduated from Branson High School, and my first job at sixteen was working as an usher and bus greeter at the IMAX Entertainment Complex, an early connection to the tourism economy that grew out of the legacy of The Shepherd of the Hills. (Disclosure: My cousin, Jeff D. Johnson, is part owner and general manager of the Shepherd of the Hills attraction, though the views expressed here are my own.)

Today, the surrounding area includes major destinations such as Silver Dollar City theme park; Big Cedar Lodge, a wilderness resort with several golf courses; and the entertainment district of Branson, a tourism economy that owes much of its origin story to Wright’s novel.

The Ozarks’ national recognition began not with entertainment venues, but with The Shepherd of the Hills, a novel that told the story of ordinary Americans in the hills. Designating the landscapes it immortalized as a NHLD would formally recognize and preserve this unique American cultural legacy and recognize the settlers that founded this community.

An Undeveloped Treasure in the Ozarks

In 2022, Missouri state officials unveiled the sign renaming the property Shepherd of the Hills State Park in Branson, honoring Wright’s novel. The 1,011-acre park in Taney County, located in the Roark Creek valley and bordering the Ruth and Paul Henning Conservation Area, preserves historic landmarks such as the 1903 Garber Schoolhouse along with glades, woodlands, and more than two miles of Roark Creek.

Though currently undeveloped and closed pending future planning, the site holds tremendous potential as a recreation and heritage destination. Federal recognition could support investments in campgrounds and rustic cabins, hiking and biking trails along Roark Creek, birdwatching areas, interpretive trails on Ozark settlement, and river access for fishing and ecological education. Such development would not commercialize the landscape but preserve it while making it accessible to families, students, and visitors seeking an authentic Ozarks experience.

The Forgotten Story of the Ozark Settlers

Beyond literature and scenery, the Shepherd of the Hills landscape preserves the history of a community that once thrived along Roark Creek. Human presence in the region dates back at least 6,000 years, but the most visible historical footprint comes from the homesteaders who settled the valley in the late 19th century. This includes Joel Garber, a preacher who received a land patent in 1895 and helped establish the settlement that became the town of Garber. Other settlers, including William Fronabarger, who operated one of the area’s first stores and donated land for a schoolhouse, helped build the foundations of rural life, with agriculture centered on crops, livestock, and timber. The early-1900s Garber Schoolhouse, which still stands within the park boundaries, remains a tangible reminder of this frontier community and the families who sought opportunity and independence in the Ozark hills.

Yet the culture of these Ozark settlers (working-class farmers, preachers, and craftsmen) has often been overlooked or caricatured by more cosmopolitan narratives of American history. Preserving the geographic area quoted in the Shepherd of the Hills as a NHLD would help restore balance by recognizing the dignity and contributions of rural Americans whose lives helped shape the nation’s interior. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the moment invites reflection not only on landscapes but on the communities and traditions that form the American identity.

Shepherd of the Hills tells a distinctly American story: a Christian minister seeking healing who found inspiration in the Ozarks, a novel that captured the imagination of millions, and a community of settlers whose lives reflected the resilience and moral character of the American heartland. A NHLD recognition would honor both national and local culture; the traditions and communities that together form the American mosaic. Just as the National Park Service preserves Appalachian heritage in places like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Ozarks and its people deserve similar recognition.

For generations, the Ozarks have symbolized a uniquely American blend of independence, faith, resilience, and connection to the land. Harold Bell Wright captured that spirit in The Shepherd of the Hills, and the landscapes that inspired his story still exist along Roark Creek and the hills above Branson. Without recognition and preservation, however, the cultural meaning of these places risks fading. Designating Shepherd of the Hills State Park, Henning Conservation Area, and the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama Amphitheater, the geographic area honored in the Shepherd of the Hills, as a NHLD would ensure that the story of the Ozarks, and the people who shaped them, remains part of the national narrative.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, preserving the landscapes of the Ozarks would send an important message: America’s story belongs not only to its cities and monuments, but also to its hills, hollers, and rural communities. The Ozarks helped shape the American imagination and reflect the enduring character of the nation’s heartland.

As Theodore Roosevelt observed, conservation should serve “the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time.”

It is time the nation recognized and preserved that legacy.

Scott Winton is a 16-year U.S. Foreign Service Officer, a Latin Americanist, and Spanish speaker currently serving as Senior Labor Advisor at the U.S. Department of State. A first-generation college graduate, he was born and raised in Branson in Missouri’s Ozark Mountains. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State or the United States Government.

Photos: All photos are courtesy of Shepherd of the Hills website:

https://theshepherdofthehills.com/

Americans have been told this lie about manufacturing: if something is made offshore, it is because the United States cannot do it competitively. Sometimes that is true. Very often it is not. In a great many situations today, offshoring has become less a sign of superior capability (or even price) than a sign of superior coordination, combined with a learned willingness to dump risk downstream and let someone else absorb the damage later.

That distinction matters because misdiagnosing the problem leads to the wrong cure. Washington (joined more recently by large investors) talks about labor arbitrage, subsidies, tariffs, and giant factory announcements, while ignoring the quieter fact that much of American industry is already here, already capable, and already underused because buyers cannot find it, trust it, or engage it without friction. We keep debating whether the United States can still make things, while leaving untouched the day-to-day failure that sits right in front of us: a buyer with a drawing and no reliable way to reach the right domestic shop with enough shared context to get a serious quote back fast.

I have spent the last several years building Noramark, a network and coordination layer for U.S. manufacturing. In the process, I have also been writing a forty paper series called the Industrialist Papers, which argues that America does not have a manufacturing capacity problem first. It has a coordination problem first. Beneath that, it has a trust problem.

Today, offshore often looks faster not because the manufacturing problem is easier, but because ambiguity is absorbed differently. Opaque intermediaries and offshore brokers can quote quickly by making assumptions, hiding supplier identity, spreading risk across anonymous counterparties, and pushing the real cost into rework, delay, quality escapes, and brittle supplier relationships. American shops do not do that; their name is on the building and one bad job can cost them a customer they spent ten years earning.

That is why many domestic shops quote more carefully, and that caution gets misread as weakness. In reality, it is often the behavior of firms that still live in the real economy, where scrap is real, downtime is real, and a bad tolerance callout on a drawing can ruin the week. Fast quoting from foreign shops often reflects a willingness to transact under uncertainty and let the consequences land later as churn, dispute, and disappointment. Americans should stop confusing speed without accountability for industrial superiority.

Once you see that clearly, a lot of the mythology around offshoring starts to crack. Many of the supposed capability gaps are actually discovery gaps, packaging gaps, and trust gaps. Buyers say, “No one in the U.S. makes this,” and then we look at real capability data and find multiple domestic shops that machine that material, hold that tolerance, run that finish, or ship that assembly. The real issue is that those shops do not want to burn hours on vague RFQs from unknown buyers, and they are right not to.

This is also where the conversation usually gets too small. People start talking about selling another internal software tool to another small shop, as if the main problem were local inefficiency inside each firm. That misses the much larger prize. The real outcome in manufacturing is making fragmented industrial capacity legible and routable at network level, so that a buyer with a real need can reach a verified supplier with the right capability without spraying the RFQ into the void.

Big firms solve fragmentation by acquisition. They buy shops, centralize the customer relationship, standardize process, and make the network visible by owning it. That works, but it is expensive, slow, and naturally concentrates power. A trusted U.S. coordination layer can solve much of the same problem without owning the factories. When supplier identity is verified, capability is normalized, demand is routed with context, and execution history is carried forward from one RFQ and PO to the next, fragmented capacity starts to behave like a coherent industrial base instead of a pile of disconnected logos in a stale directory.

That points to some concrete changes the country should make now. American engineers and buyers should stop treating identity-hiding, opaque marketplaces and China-first prototype sourcing as harmless defaults. Prototype work is where the drawing gets cleaned up, the fixture strategy starts to emerge, the inspection plan gets clarified, and the supplier relationship often gets anchored. It is also where real IP theft happens, constantly, when this work is sent to China. When that phase is routed through an opaque intermediary or sent offshore by reflex, the learning compounds somewhere else, and so does the leverage.

American manufacturers also owe more to themselves than a permanent posture of complaint. Complaints about unfair trade are often justified, but they are not an operating model. Shops need response discipline: acknowledge the RFQ quickly, triage it quickly, ask clarifying questions early, no-bid cleanly when the fit is wrong, and quote as fast as the facts allow. Buyers owe the same seriousness in return: locked revision state, material callouts, cert requirements, ship-to location, inspection expectations, and real response windows in the work package. Domestic industry starts to win again when speed and trust show up together. This level of coordination is state-mandated in authoritarian China. They have engineered coordination in their industrial base for the express purpose of taking industry out of other countries (and the IP that goes along with that).

Ensuring U.S. industrial dominance through coordination of our remarkable and heterogeneous supplier base is what Noramark is trying to do. We are not asking people to choose domestic manufacturing out of sentiment, charity, or nostalgia. We are trying to make the market clearer, faster, and more trustworthy so that American capability can actually surface and win. If buyers send better formed requests, and verified U.S. shops can see enough context to respond quickly and confidently, then a large amount of work that currently leaks offshore comes back within reach through better coordination and better commercial discipline, not just better slogans.

This should also change how we think about industrial policy. Large plants, defense programs, and energy intensive reshoring all matter, but a nation’s manufacturing strength does not live in its biggest firms alone. It lives in the distributed fabric of small and midsize shops that already know how to cut, form, weld, machine, finish, inspect, repair, adapt, and - yes - innovate under constraint. Those firms are one of America’s greatest industrial assets, and they are still treated like background scenery by the people who claim to care most about rebuilding domestic production.

America can make more than people think. The harder problem is making that capability visible, trusted, and fully utilized. If we want a stronger industrial base, we should stop hiding behind opaque intermediaries, stop exporting early learning by reflex, and stop acting like fragmentation is somebody else’s problem to solve.

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Andrew Kornuta is the Founder of Noramark, Inc. You can follow him on X @andrewkornuta.

By Patricius Buchananus

The fallen state of Man – whether we like it or not – plagues geopolitics. Although partnerships can temporarily bring order and solemnity to the chaos, these prove in time to be quite fragile. Every alliance, sooner or later, fractures. Drawing from several examples in history, such as the Peloponnesian War, Crusades, and the World Wars, we can see this frustrating dialectic occur time and time again.

Ancient Greece demonstrated that it was possible to set aside petty rivalries to confront the existential threat of Persian conquest. Rivals one day and allies the next, the city-states were bound by the simple logic of survival: unite or perish. Hard-fought battles – from Marathon, to Salamis, to Plataea – were not just won by the bravery of the citizen-soldiers, but by their unlikely alliances.

And yet, the lesson was fleeting. Within a generation, the once-united Greek world turned on itself in a long, destructive, and totally pointless conflict. The Peloponnesian War was not one of conquest, but of pride. Whether driven by Athens’ ambition or Sparta’s insecurity, the Greek states spent nearly three decades in one of history’s most futile wars. Man’s fallen state produced a brutal civil war among former brothers-in-arms.

The pattern repeats itself centuries later. For generations, the fractured states of Christendom were forced to unite against another existential Eastern threat. As the brutality of Islamic invasions swallowed up whole swaths of the Christian world, the European kingdoms were faced with the same stark choice as the Greeks: unite or perish. The stakes were once again existential: failure to repel the repeated invasion meant not just defeat, but the potential eradication of Christendom.

History remembers the heroic battles: Antioch, Jerusalem, Lepanto, Vienna, Belgrade. These campaigns were often fought by coalitions of disparate Christian kingdoms, bound together by absolute necessity. When faced with annihilation, alliances formed, strategies aligned, and Europe was ultimately preserved. Future generations – including our own – owed their survival to the temporary unity that secured these victories. These moments were triumphs of pragmatism over pride, of necessity over petty ambition.

But in the centuries that followed, with the tide of Islam retreating to its former (albeit once-Christian) borders, Europe then turned on itself in the bloodiest civil wars known to mankind: the First and Second World Wars. It followed the same playbook as the Peloponnesian War. Pride, ambition, and insecurity began the wars; what followed were bloody, pointless years of destruction. The aftermath effectively ended the Old World: World War I toppled four great empires, and World War II completed the social and economic dismantling of the old European order. By 1950, less than 10 percent of the European aristocracy’s political power and land holdings remained. In a single generation, Christendom had been decimated by its own hand.

Why study these examples? Because they illustrate a fundamental truth about alliances: they are temporary, conditional, and fragile. In a perfect world, nations could rely on perpetual cooperation and live in eternal harmony. Unfortunately, we do not, nor have we ever, lived in that world. To assume that alliances alone will sustain global order is to court disaster. Alliances may delay conflict, but they can never eliminate the Original Sin of Man. A hypothetical, harmonious world order will always be undone by the underlying pride, ambitions, and insecurities that resurface in Men once external threats have passed.

Does this mean we should retreat into isolationism? Not at all. As the Trump Administration’s 2026 National Defense Strategy emphasizes:

“Ours is not a strategy of isolation… it is one of focused engagement abroad with a clear eye toward advancing the concrete, practical interests of Americans.”

This perspective is wise. Geopolitics must be approached with a clear-eyed focus on one’s own interests. Hobbes called it realism; Machiavelli called it prudence. Whatever the label, history vindicates this approach. Temporary alliances can safeguard survival, but the long-term pursuit of national interest is what ensures enduring security.

The American foreign policy establishment failed to follow this course for the last seventy years. Instead of pursuing our own interests on the international scene, they fecklessly adhered to the apparent “sacred obligations” of international order in pursuit of their global utopia.

But after decades of ritualistic subservience to the “sanctity” of global organizations like the U.N. and NATO, the latest National Defense Strategy has finally righted the ship. This is because the Trump administration, informed by history, fundamentally understands the brittle dynamic of these alliances.

If President Trump truly seeks to solidify his name as the President of Peace, he should remain laser-focused on the 2026 NDS’ vision for years to come.

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Writing under the pen name Patricius Buchananus, the author works in conservative politics in Washington, D.C.

The following speech was delivered by FTC Commissioner Mark Meador at the Bull Moose Institute/s America First Antitrust Forum on March 19, 2026.

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Thank you to the Bull Moose Institute for inviting me to speak with you today. It is an honor to be in a room filled with people who believe, as you do, that America’s future is strengthened by creating conditions for American families and workers to thrive.

Your mission—to relentlessly advocate for a dominant American future—echoes the spirit of a man who refused to accept decline, who championed a muscular American nationalism that put our country’s interests first, and who fought to preserve free and fair competition: Theodore Roosevelt. He understood that a dominant American future requires strong American institutions. It is in that same spirit that I speak before you today.

More than a century ago, Roosevelt stood before a crowd in Osawatomie, Kansas, and delivered one of the most important speeches in American political history. He called it “The New Nationalism.”1 He was speaking to veterans of the Civil War, men who had bled for the Union, and he told them that their sacrifice would be wasted unless a new generation rose to fight new battles.

In doing so, he spoke not only of battles with rifles and cannons; he spoke of battles of law, of commerce, and of political will. As he put it, “[t]he essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.”2

An America First antitrust policy should pick up from where Roosevelt began: with the recognition that markets have moral content. A free market, as that term has been used in the American tradition, comes from a nation’s commitment to justice in economic life. And justice, as Roosevelt understood it, has a concrete meaning: that each individual should be free to produce, trade, and succeed on his own merits. That commitment—to earned success and equality of opportunity under the law—is what defines free and fair competition. And it is what has allowed America to build the most productive and innovative economy in human history.

An American First vision of antitrust recognizes that economic competition and free enterprise are fundamental to our national interest.3 Our way of life was built on the values of capitalism, as embodied in our common law tradition that sought to preserve principles such as freedom of contract, voluntary exchange, good faith dealing, informed choice, and the ability to pursue different trades.4

We must recognize, however, that these values are not self-sustaining. It requires us to return to our common law roots and make a clear and conscious political choice: to be steadfast in safeguarding our free market system through law enforcement.5

We cannot shape our economic future if we are unwilling to say plainly what the law requires, and to enforce it. The antitrust laws exist to safeguard the economic liberty of American citizens.6 Enforcing these laws promotes the national interest by targeting accumulations and abuses of economic power—whether by private actors who evade competition through collusion or exclusion, or by firms that conscript government process as a competitive weapon against their rivals.

Roosevelt understood this challenge with a clarity many have lost.

He did not oppose the great trusts of his era merely because paid consultants told him that consumer prices would fall if he did so. He opposed them because they acted in ways that corrupted free markets: by replacing competition with coercion, earned success with entrenched privilege, and open markets with corporatism. He drew a line, and the line was legal and moral before it was economic. As he stated, with characteristic directness: “[w]e draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”7

Roosevelt admired great enterprise and industrial strength. He spoke with high regard of men who built railroads, steel mills, and factories that transformed a continent. What he opposed was unearned advantage and special privileges—power secured through coercion, through deception, through manipulation of public authority, and through structural arrangements that denied others the opportunity to fairly compete.

U.S. competition policy should adhere to this approach. It should serve American consumers, American workers, and American innovators. It should support and preserve our domestic productive capacity. It should prevent the abuse of government process as a competitive weapon. And it should ensure that the rules of trade and commerce reflect the values of capitalism.8

An America First antitrust policy should therefore adhere to a simple proposition: the American national interest in free enterprise and economic competition is the guiding star for law enforcement.

The Moral Content of Markets

To say that markets have moral content is not to claim that market outcomes are always just or that anything that emerges from the market automatically deserves deference. The claim is narrower: that the process of free exchange is itself a legitimate expression of agency. When parties bargain openly and voluntarily, they form relationships on terms they have chosen. That process has moral standing and advances human flourishing.

But this process retains that standing only if the choices involved are genuinely free and informed. Antitrust law, properly understood, targets conduct that systematically undermines these choices—including forms of coercion that suppress rivalry, unduly restrict alternatives, or deny individuals the ability to use and enjoy their property.9 Collusion, exclusion, and the strategic abuse of government processes are objectionable not only because of downstream price and output effects, but because they represent an abuse of power and the use of force in the economic sphere. As Justice Brandeis framed it: “[t]he illegality of a combination under the Sherman Law lies not in its effect upon the price level, but in the coercion thereby effected. It is the limitation of freedom . . . which constitutes the unlawful restraint.”10

The core task of antitrust enforcement and adjudication, then, is to distinguish competition on the merits from coercion. Competition on the merits occurs when companies strive to improve products, lower costs, innovate, and better serve consumers. Coercion involves efforts to foreclose and control consumer access to rivals, manipulate institutional processes to entrench dominance, and deceive consumers about the nature of competition and available alternatives.

Roosevelt captured this principle when he asserted that the “true friend of property” insists that “property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth.”11 Property earned through value creation and open competition is legitimate. Property acquired or maintained through the suppression of competition is of a different moral character and is an appropriate target for law enforcement.

We saw a textbook example of this distinction in the Commission’s recent action against Edwards Lifesciences. Edwards proposed acquiring JenaValve and JC Medical—the only two companies with active clinical trials for a revolutionary heart valve treatment. Executed over two days, the transactions would have placed the only two realistic paths to market under a single incumbent.

Against the theoretical arguments the parties put forward about saving lives and their postmerger innovation incentives, consider what Edwards’s senior leadership actually said. In its internal strategy documents, it identified JenaValve as a key “competitive threat” and raised concerns about it “gaining momentum.”12 And in a deposition, a senior executive described the company’s strategy as “we were just going to be a fat kid at the pie store and we were just going to take them both.”13 That is not the language of value creation and production. It is the language of appetite—of a dominant incumbent looking at the competitive landscape and deciding to consume it instead of competing within it. That Edwards’s arguments were pretextual was further confirmed by concerns raised by JenaValve executives, who opined that Edwards acted in “bad faith” and “conceal[ed]”14 its effort to simultaneously acquire JC Medical in order to cut a better deal for itself—all at the expense of JenaValve and patients with heart disease.

Whereas some FTC Commissioners in the past were willing to defer to theoretical economic arguments and self-serving public statements,15 this FTC takes executives at their word— especially when bad faith is involved. When trying to identify misconduct, the first place we should look is the parties’ documents, market participant testimony, and complaints from trading partners. This evidence is the primary foundation upon which any economic claims should be considered.

Affordability and Labor Markets

When we talk about putting American citizens at the center of our enforcement agenda, affordability is a natural lens through which to view our approach. When core goods—such as housing, healthcare, energy, and food—become more expensive in ways that cannot be explained by innovation or genuine improvements in quality, that tells us something about whether competition is working.

The antitrust laws do not exist to myopically guarantee cheap goods and purportedly free products without consideration of what the resulting harms mean for competition and American communities more generally. At the same time, when Americans citizens experience a higher cost of living and reduced optionality in their everyday lives, these experiences provide enforcers with signals about where economic abuses are likely to arise and whether firms are likely to have market power.

Of course, as demonstrated by our active merger enforcement program, our matters span across all industries, including housing, healthcare, energy, and consumer goods. But an affordability agenda includes another fundamental component of the economy that, in the past, had been overlooked in antitrust circles: labor markets.

The promise of free markets belongs to the nurse, the machinist, and the security guard as much as it does to the entrepreneur. As Roosevelt noted, quoting Abraham Lincoln, “[c]apital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.”16 Yet that promise is often broken through the quiet proliferation of different forms of contractual coercion, including with respect to the use of noncompete agreements.

On this front, I want to commend Chairman Ferguson for addressing this issue with clarity and his decision last year to launch the Joint Labor Task Force.17 Under his leadership, the Commission has moved away from a categorical, “one-size-fits-all” regulatory approach that was taken by the last administration, which threatened to ban the use of even limited non-compete arrangements that could be demonstrated to support investment in employee training or ensure protection of trade secrets. Instead, this Administration has adopted an evidence-based enforcement approach, which allows us to focus scarce resources on real, documented abuses without chilling legitimate business activity or making it harder for American workers to work for small and medium size businesses, or even start their own business.

For example, we recently took action against Gateway Services, the largest pet cremation company in the US, that subjected nearly 1,800 employees—including hourly laborers—to noncompetes regardless of skill level, and which lasted up to one year after these employees had already left the company.18 We likewise took action against Adamas Amenity Services, one of the leading building service contractors in the Northeast, which broadly instituted no-hire agreements that applied to janitors and front desk workers, preventing them from being hired directly by the very buildings where they worked.19

These workers were not holding trade secrets. They were people doing honest work, held in place by contractual coercion dressed up as boilerplate business practice. Dominant firms that try to lock up their workforce in long-term arrangements and threaten litigation against those who cannot afford to defend themselves has long been understood in our common law tradition to be a form of market misconduct that unreasonably restrains trade.

As I have stated before, tackling affordability means taking on both demand and supply side issues. And when it comes to labor restrictions that reduce labor mobility, we have not hesitated to hold companies accountable.

Invisible Government

There is another dimension of market misconduct that Roosevelt identified, which has also been an important focus of the Commission over the past year. The corruption of free markets does not happen only through market-based transactions. It happens—perhaps more durably—through the abuse of government process. “Behind the ostensible government,” Roosevelt warned, “sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”20 And in setting forward the principles of New Nationalism, he explained, “[t]here must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions.”21

Unfortunately, many concentrations of economic power in our time are not the result of firms outcompeting their rivals on the merits. Instead, dominant firms oftentimes deploy their resources to define the regulatory environment in which they operate—to capture the agencies meant to police them, to write the rules of their own industries through lobbying, and to populate think tanks and academia that put out so-called “thought pieces” to support these same efforts. In effect, these firms conscript regulators and government process to pursue anticompetitive ends. And in the last administration in particular, broader social policy goals, like DEI and ESG, were broadly used to provide cover for firms to engage in exactly this kind of behavior.

The Commission’s investigation of the Clean Truck Partnership provides a textbook illustration of this dynamic. Four companies controlling approximately ninety-nine percent of the American heavy-duty truck market entered into a single agreement with California’s Air Resources Board, committing to abide by emissions regulations—and, critically, committing to maintain output restrictions irrespective of the outcome of any litigation challenging CARB’s legal authority to impose them.22 Even if these emission regulations were to be repealed by people of California through the legislature or invalidated by a court, the terms of the agreement would have remained in effect. Essentially, regulatory authority was laundered through a private agreement in coordination with state officials outside any politically accountable process.

CARB’s regulatory overreach, however, did not go unanswered. President Trump signed legislation revoking CARB’s EPA waivers, and the Commission moved swiftly to investigate and secure written commitments from all four manufacturers—backed by reporting and disclosure obligations—that the Clean Truck Partnership is unenforceable, that no participant would attempt to enforce its terms against a competitor, and that no participant would enter into a similar arrangement with any state regulator in the future.23 The result is that the invisible government, in this instance, was dismantled.

Closing Thoughts

Roosevelt closed his Osawatomie speech by insisting that the national interest can only be achieved by citizens who have strong moral character and possess qualities such as honesty, integrity, and conscientiousness.24 The same is true with respect to economic power. We as a country have always celebrated business success and ingenuity. But part of that appreciation means insisting on accountability when the line is crossed.

An America First antitrust does not apologize for that scrutiny. It views our common law traditions and a willingness to take decisive action as essential to maintaining public confidence in the American capitalist system. If Americans believe markets are fair, they defend it. If they believe markets are corrupted, they demand correction.

The choice before us is whether we will sustain institutions that align profit with the national interest, or tolerate systems that allow for corporate immunity without contribution or service to that interest.

The Bull Moose legacy calls us to choose the former, and I am proud to be part of an antitrust enforcement team that does as well.

Thank you.

Mark R. Meador was sworn in April 16, 2025 as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

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By Patrick J. Wolf

As Alexander Hamilton argued in his Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791), a nation must cultivate its industry to avoid dependence on foreign suppliers for military and other essential goods, a cornerstone of true independence rather than merely diplomatic recognition. Sovereignty is not created by treaties or recognition, but rather it is sustained by the capacity to act without asking permission. A nation is sovereign only if it can build, repair, move, and control itself. Weakening these capacities turns independence into a formality instead of a reality.

Dependency as the Precursor to Constraint
History eloquently illustrates this point in each century, with countless instances of the greatest regional powers deteriorating over time. Material dependence becomes political constraint long before open subjugation. Empires and great powers are seldom conquered outright; instead, they are weakened as reliance on external resources steadily erodes their ability to act independently. Control over grain, energy, shipping lanes, and industrial production has shaped outcomes over centuries.

Logistics and Industrial Power in War
A familiar historical example is Ancient Rome. At critical points in its expansion, the empire became heavily dependent on Egyptian grain to sustain its population and maintain political stability. This arrangement created a strategic vulnerability, as Rome’s internal order depended on the reliable functioning and trade of its outer provinces. Any disruption to grain supplies threatened Rome’s domestic stability and its ability to project power abroad. The center of imperial authority could not feed itself without the continued functioning of Rome’s Egyptian province, and what appeared to be an efficient logistical system became a point of pressure at the heart of the empire.

A more modern example illustrates the same principle at an industrial scale. Britain’s power during the world wars was inseparable from its ability to secure sea lanes and sustain industrial output. During World War II, the German Kriegsmarine targeted Britain’s maritime supply lines to restrict access to food and industrial inputs, seeking to constrain British power without the need for a land invasion.

The United States’ industrial mobilization during World War II further clarifies the relationship between production and sovereignty. American victory was not the product of superior rhetoric or moral clarity alone. Steel, fuel, shipyards, factories, and a vast logistical network formed the backbone of its wartime power. By the time 1943 rolled around, American shipyards were churning out Liberty ships at a pace that outstripped the German U-boats’ sinking capacity. At the same time, the surge in aircraft production allowed for the sustained use of strategic bombing campaigns for years, not just months. The Soviet Union’s capacity to maintain its punishing war against Germany was, in large part, thanks to American Lend-Lease, which effectively sent entire factories to Russia to replace lost materials on a massive scale.

Europe’s Energy Dependence as a Contemporary Case Study
Industrial capacity is not merely a measure of economic growth but the hidden foundation of national power and sovereignty. In this context, contemporary Europe offers a clear case study in the strategic consequences of dependence. For years, Europe’s biggest economies leaned heavily on Russian energy. By 2021, Russia was supplying roughly 45% of the EU’s natural gas and more than a quarter of its oil. Some countries in Central and Eastern Europe were even more dependent, getting nearly 80–100% of their gas from Russia.¹ Europe justified this setup as a smart economic move, pointing to the cheap energy, dependable supply lines, and the system’s overall effectiveness. But when geopolitical tensions flared up in 2022, that efficiency came with a price. Disruptions to the inexpensive Russian pipeline gas left Germany’s industrial base exposed. As supplies tightened, energy-intensive sectors faced the prospect of scaling back production or shutting down altogether. Leaders in Germany’s labor and industrial sectors warned that entire industries, including chemicals, glass, aluminum, and heavy manufacturing, were at risk as energy costs surged and reliable fuel supplies vanished. Plants built around steady, low-cost gas found themselves unable to switch fuels quickly or cheaply, turning what had once been an efficient energy arrangement into a source of acute industrial vulnerability. This crisis compelled Europe to undertake a difficult and costly restructuring; by 2025, Russian gas imports had decreased to 13% of the EU’s supply, supplemented by augmented LNG imports from the United States, Norway, and Qatar, albeit at considerably elevated costs. ² What had looked like sensible interdependence turned into leverage once the political situation changed. Europe retained formal sovereignty throughout, but its range of policy options was constrained by decisions made decades earlier about where to source its energy.

Fragile Supply Chains and Strategic Vulnerability
A nation’s dependency on foreign countries goes beyond energy. Globalized supply chains sacrificed resilience for cheaper costs. The pursuit of efficiency created vulnerabilities that only showed up when the system was put under strain. While just-in-time logistics and manufacturing practices successfully lowered expenses, they eliminated the buffer of sustainable inventory. Semiconductor manufacturing exhibits the same structural vulnerability due to foreign dependency. Heavy concentration in Taiwan and South Korea has created single points of failure for critical industries, including automotive and defense. Medical supply chains were optimized for price rather than surge capacity, a weakness the 2020 pandemic exposed when disruption revealed how thoroughly American production had been hollowed out. Rare earth production may serve as the most significant example of America’s ability to project sovereignty. In 2024, China accounted for roughly 70 percent of global rare earth mining output and nearly 90 percent of global rare earth processing capacity, giving it outsized control over inputs essential to everything from wind turbines to precision-guided munitions. In the same year, the United States sourced approximately 75–80 percent of its rare earth imports from China, underscoring how concentrated processing power translates into direct strategic leverage over the U.S. industrial and defense supply chains. ^{3, 4} In each case, efficiency gains during stable periods translated into strategic constraint during disruption.

Why Deindustrialization Occurred

Policy and Trade Regime Shifts
American deindustrialization did not emerge spontaneously from neutral market forces. It followed a sequence of bipartisan policy decisions that restructured the economy around global trade rather than domestic production. Over the latter half of the twentieth century, trade liberalization was pursued as a primary economic objective, with the assumption that access to cheaper foreign goods and expanded export markets would offset the strategic costs of domestic industrial contraction. Industrial policy, once regarded as an essential aspect of governance, was progressively forsaken in favor of market allocation. In practice, these changes meant that production was permitted, and often encouraged, to migrate abroad without corresponding requirements to preserve domestic manufacturing capacity. What was presented as economic modernization resulted in the steady erosion of the productive base upon which strategic independence depends.

Labor Arbitrage, Offshoring, and Intellectual Property Leakage
As the globalization of the economy grew, so did the global labor arbitrage. This practice provided the operational pathway through which deindustrialization and the undercutting of American workers unfolded. Advances in logistics and transportation allowed firms to separate design, management, and finance from physical production, relocating manufacturing to regions with lower wages and weaker regulatory constraints. When production was offshored, it was American labor that bore the cost. Entry-level manufacturing roles and skilled trades alike were displaced as firms shifted production abroad in search of lower costs and looser constraints. This transfer did not simply change where goods were made; it dismantled local economies that had been built around stable industrial employment. Communities organized around mills, plants, and workshops lost their economic base, and with it the pathways through which workers could develop skills, advance, and sustain middle-class livelihoods. The social consequences of deindustrialization reshaped local economies in ways that limited opportunity, reduced social mobility, and produced long-term regional stagnation. Another often overlooked consequence is the global environmental effect of deindustrialization. As Western governments advanced environmental protections and climate commitments, many of the same firms that publicly embraced these standards shifted production to countries with far weaker environmental enforcement. Manufacturing did not become cleaner; instead, its production was shifted overseas. The pollution associated with industrial production, particularly in countries such as China and India, came to dwarf the marginal gains achieved through Western regulatory regimes. Instead of reducing the environmental burden, we transferred it to foreign nations with weaker environmental standards and enforcement regimes. This approach was justified as progress, yet it would have been better achieved by keeping production at home, where environmental standards, industrial resilience, and community stability could have been preserved rather than exported along with the work.

Financialization and Capital Reallocation
As trade policy reduced the strategic priority of domestic production, the internal logic of American capital allocation shifted away from industry and toward finance and technology. Over time, the prospect of higher and more quickly realized returns in financial assets, real estate, technology, and speculative markets drew capital away from long-horizon industrial investment. Corporate governance increasingly rewarded near-term performance metrics over the maintenance of durable productive capacity. Tooling, workforce development, and factory modernization came to be treated as costs to be minimized, often resulting in factory closures due to lower expected returns on reinvestment.

The contrast between capital-intensive industrial projects and high-margin technology ventures illustrates this shift. A greenfield mining operation or large-scale manufacturing facility typically requires long development timelines, substantial upfront capital, uncertain regulatory approval, exposure to commodity price cycles, and delayed profitability. By contrast, venture-backed technology startups operate on shorter time horizons, face lighter regulatory burdens, scale rapidly, and promise a larger return on investment. Under such conditions, capital predictably migrates toward assets that maximize speed, margin, and exit optionality rather than toward projects that build durable productive capacity but tie up capital for decades.

This shift did not simply reduce the pace of industrial reinvestment; it changed how productive enterprises were treated altogether. When financial institutions and investment firms took control of factories and industrial assets, the incentive was often to extract value rather than rebuild capacity. In many cases, it was easier and more profitable to strip plants for parts, sell off equipment, or liquidate real estate than to undertake the long, uncertain work of modernization and long-term management. The productive base was dismantled in the name of efficiency, even as balance sheets and financial indicators continued to signal growth. What appeared as economic vitality at the macro level masked the steady erosion of the nation’s ability to build.

Cultural and Political Devaluation of Industry
A broader cultural and political reorientation away from production itself reinforced these structural shifts. Manufacturing came to be treated as a declining sector in a post-industrial economy oriented around services, finance, and information. This framing became normalized in the private sector, and political priorities followed suit. People no longer viewed the preservation of productive capacity as a strategic goal but rather as a transitional issue that required management. Educational pipelines, workforce development programs, and institutional prestige increasingly favored managerial and professional pathways over technical and industrial skills. Over time, the loss of domestic manufacturing capacity was normalized as an inevitable feature of modernization and globalization rather than recognized as a growing strategic liability and cultural decline.

Deindustrialization as Strategic Constraint
Taken together, the combined effects of trade and regulatory policy, financialization, labor offshoring, and the cultural downgrading of industrial work did not merely alter the structure of the American economy. They redefined the material basis of sovereignty itself. Deindustrialization was not an accident of globalization but the cumulative result of policy design, capital incentives, operational offshoring, and ideological reorientation that deprioritized the productive base in favor of short-term efficiency and near-term financial returns. What appeared as rational economic management during periods of stability produced strategic constraint under conditions of disruption. When a nation relinquishes the capacity to build, it does not lose sovereignty in name. It loses the ability to act without reliance on external systems when pressure is applied.

Shipbuilding as a Strategic Case Study

Consider, for example, the American shipbuilding industry. In 1945, the United States employed a workforce of almost 750,000 people capable of building everything from carriers to cargo vessels. By 2025, just over 150 private shipyards remained, and the skilled workforce had contracted to a fraction of its wartime scale.⁵ In 2024, U.S. commercial shipbuilding accounted for only about 0.1 % of global shipbuilding output, while China alone produced a majority share, underscoring the scale of foreign dominance in this industry.⁶ In a prolonged conflict, this loss of shipbuilding capacity would constrain the United States’ ability to replace combat losses, expand sealift, and sustain maritime power projection at scale. The erosion of domestic shipbuilding eliminated factories and dismantled the accumulated knowledge, supplier networks, and workforce expertise that made rapid production possible. Maintaining World War II-scale shipbuilding throughput would be economically unfeasible during peacetime, but the United States has lost the ability to build new ships at any meaningful scale when required. Whether for naval vessels or commercial cargo, the country is now critically dependent on foreign shipyards for both construction and maritime logistics. This further hinders the United States’ sovereignty and negotiation abilities on an international scale when such critical industries can easily be threatened or withheld.

The shipbuilding industry is not an outlier but a reflection of a broader industrial collapse. Since 2000, the United States has suffered a net loss of more than 91,000 manufacturing plants and nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs.⁷ Manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million in 1979; by 2024 it had fallen to 12.9 million, even as the population grew from 225 million to over 330 million.⁸ Manufacturing’s share of GDP collapsed from 28% in the 1950s to under 10% by 2024, below the world average.⁹ The factories were closed, the supply chains were shipped overseas, and the workforce was either displaced or undercut by cheaper foreign labor. Free trade and economic efficiency were long promoted as economic goods, but in strategic terms they amounted to a voluntary disarmament of the nation’s productive base.

Strategic Implications for Industrial Capacity

If sovereignty is grounded in the capacity to build, then industrial policy cannot remain peripheral to national strategy. The erosion of domestic production was not the result of a single error but of a policy architecture that consistently privileged short-term efficiency over long-term resilience. Reconstituting industrial capacity will therefore require more than isolated incentives or symbolic reshoring initiatives. It requires a strategic realignment that regards production, energy, logistics, and essential supply chains as components of national power rather than merely commercial factors. Without such a shift, efforts to restore industrial capacity will remain fragmented, and the structural vulnerabilities outlined here will persist regardless of changes in rhetoric.

Sovereignty as Physical Capacity
In the end, sovereignty is a physical reality expressed in concrete, steel, energy, and logistics. It is maintained by builders, engineers, technicians, and operators who sustain the material foundations of national life. China’s increasing limits on rare earth mineral exports to the United States in 2024 and 2025 show this idea in action: controlling the ability to process materials needed for defense systems, renewable energy, and electronics has given China significant power, making it expensive for the U.S. to find other sources and limiting its defense manufacturing capabilities. When a nation loses the capacity to build, independence does not vanish overnight. What disappears first is the ability to resist coercion and to negotiate from strength. Sovereignty is not granted by documents; it is maintained by the capacity to produce what a nation needs when it needs it.

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Endnotes

¹ European Commission, “Roadmap to fully end EU dependency on Russian energy,” May 6, 2025, European Commission Press Corner,

https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/roadmap-fully-end-eu-dependency-russian-energy-2025-05-06_en

² Eurostat (European Commission), “EU imports of energy products – latest developments,” accessed 2026, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/EU_imports_of_energy_products_-_latest_developments

³ The Motley Fool, “Rare Earths Trade Statistics,” April 25, 2025, https://www.fool.com/research/rare-earths-trade-statistics/

⁴ Gracelin Baskaran, China’s New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten U.S. Defense Supply Chains (Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 9, 2025), https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-new-rare-earth-and-magnet-restrictions-threaten-us-defense-supply-chains

⁵ Marine Log, “Op-Ed: The Degradation and Recovery of U.S. Shipbuilding,” May 21, 2025, https://www.marinelog.com/views/op-ed-the-degradation-and-recovery-of-u-s-shipbuilding/.

⁶ Deloitte analysis — U.S. shipbuilding ~0.1 % of global output, China ~53% https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/government-public-sector-services/us-shipbuilding-innovation-competitiveness.html

⁷ Robert E. Scott, We Can Reshore Manufacturing Jobs, but Trump Hasn’t Done It: Trade Rebalancing, Infrastructure, and Climate Investments Could Create 17 Million Good Jobs and Rebuild the American Economy (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, August 2020), https://www.epi.org/publication/reshoring-manufacturing-jobs/.

⁸ Katelynn Harris, “Forty Years of Falling Manufacturing Employment,” Beyond the Numbers 9, no. 16 (November 2020), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling-manufacturing-employment.htm. December 2024 figure from BLS Current Employment Statistics.

⁹ Coalition for a Prosperous America, “U.S. Manufacturing’s Shrinking Share of GDP and How to Catch Up,” November 8, 2024, https://prosperousamerica.org/u-s-manufacturings-shrinking-share-of-gdp-and-how-to-catch-up/

Patrick J. Wolf, PhD, is a strategist and advisor working across business, manufacturing, energy, and technology. He writes on economics, political economy, and the strategic forces shaping institutions and national outcomes.

“It had all begun long ago with a poor boy’s conviction – in a time and at a place which nurtured such convictions – that a man should receive the whole fruit of his labor so that he might get ahead in life. The boy became a man and a politician, and worked through the better part of his life to the end that government might always be dedicated to that proposition. Both politics and political economy were moral enterprises for him, and so his goal, which we call the American Dream, was a moral goal.”

These words capture the essence of Lincoln’s life as captured in Gabor Boritt’s Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream. Published in 1978, this little-known history explores Lincoln’s life in the context of his economic views. Though primarily (and justifiably) remembered as the Great Emancipator, Lincoln spent most of his political life working towards an economic vision primarily Whiggish and particularly Lincolnite. Boritt details in compelling fashion how economics was Lincoln’s first passion, and how his dream of a modern, industrial America where a man could earn his keep became the guiding light to all his endeavors. In these economically uncertain times, Lincoln’s vision of America offers a number of suggestions we might borrow today.

Like any good Whig, Lincoln’s economics were centered on a tripartite platform of protective tariffs, internal improvements, and strong central banking. Of these, the first is most pressing on contemporary minds. An acolyte – perhaps the chief acolyte – of Henry Clay, Lincoln accepted as a given that the future of the United States was manufacturing. Such is the future of all great powers, and nationalist he was, Lincoln was determined to see the domestic industries developed so that they might compete with European (particularly British) industry. For a man to earn a keep sufficient to get ahead in life, the free labor industries of America needed to be capable of competing with serf labor [AJC1] abroad (not unlike modern conditions), and so the infant industries of Lincoln’s early days required protection to thrive. Lincoln’s support for protectionism wasbuilt on two ideas; historically, states always protected their early industries while they matured, and economically the money spent on transportation costs would be better spent at home. Manufacturers, farmers, and merchants would all be better served, he argued, by a primarily domestic market. Additionally, protection would encourage productive labor and discourage idlers – a position revealing Lincoln’s deep moral convictions about the value of honest work and its necessity for the independent life.

Lincoln was not naive to the costs of industry, however. Like Clay, he recognized and encouraged technological innovation that brought costs down and production up, assuming correctly that these things would ultimately create more value for the laborer than technological stagnation would. In his two Lectures on Discoveries, delivered in 1858, Lincoln makes great hay of the fact that man is the only creature on earth who invents, and that Americans are particularly inventive. Lincoln’s love of invention was particularly true of agriculture, an industry he cared little for and talked little of. In his one notable address on the subject, given to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in September 1859, Lincoln advocates for innovative farming techniques, arguing that producing more bushels per acre is a more valuable goal than bringing more acres under cultivation. In this, Lincoln was out of step with the homesteading impetus of his age. Though he ultimately signed the Homestead Act that brought the frontier under cultivation, he did so reluctantly. Lincoln believed that increased production on those lands which were already productive would better serve the future than further expansion.

In that same vein, Lincoln felt the energies of the nation should be directed toward internal improvements, the second pillar of Whig thought and what we today call infrastructure. His first recorded public address is a letter to the people of Sangamo County announcing his intention to run for the state house. Though remembered for its prophetic ending, the substance of the letter was his desire to pursue the construction of a railroad and a canal within the county to facilitate trade. During his time in the Illinois State House, Lincoln was a leading sponsor of the massive improvement plan he dubbed the Illinois System. His presidency oversaw massive advancements in railroad investment, including the beginnings of the first intercontinental railroad. His early years traversing the Mississippi and his later travels across the nation, as well as his uniquely American optimism, ingrained in his mind an abiding belief that a nation as large and varied as the United States requires robust transportation capacity, and as such it is the duty of government to build it. It also taught him a valuable lesson; no project so particular as to not have a general impact, and no project so general as to not produce local benefits.

The third pillar of Whig economics is a robust support for central banking. Though modern readers are often unaware of Lincoln’s support for these policies, it was his support and defense of the Illinois State Bank that cemented his place in the Illinois Legislature as leader of the Whigs. His first great moment in the Illinois House comes in a speech defending the state bank from frivolous investigation, articulating at length how the bank served Illinois well and accusing those attacking it of seeking partisan gain at the expense of the state’s fiscal health. His defenses of the bank helped prolong its life, until the Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression brought an end to its activities. His defense of central banking extended to supporting the Second National Bank in the face of Andrew Jackson’s attacks, and his speech on the Sub-Treasury Plan lays out in great detail the inherent corruptibility of a system in which government revenues sit idle in storehouses, rather than be put back to work through loans and bond purchases. Though less relevant in a day and age in which currency is digital and the nation runs regular deficits, the principle that revenue by the state should be put to work rather than collect dust remains valuable for states that are required to balance budgets and thus collect reserves. It remains incredibly relevant when it comes to financing public works, an area of government few think about but all benefit from. Lincoln understood that the engines of capital must be brought to bear on the public interest, and that a state-chartered bank capable of issuing bonds and raising capital benefits the state and the nation at large.

Where Lincoln digressed from orthodox Whig thought, he did so in service of the working man. A particularly poignant example for our day is his support for a 10 percent interest rate cap. Lincoln in his lifetime became a small lender of sorts, and believed that 10 percent interest was the most a bank could justifiably charge without preying on the needs of the masses. He also noted that, should emergency dictate it, the cap could be set aside without much trouble. Lincoln also took persistent stands against public indebtedness, and in my view, saw debt as a tool justifiably used for items that most people in most places believed to be a life necessity and could not expect to pay out of pocket. Business loans, land and house financing, and public improvement projects fit this bill, but beyond this Lincoln believed that a man should strive to be independent where he could be. This belief Lincoln all his life and through the great conflict which came to define his legacy.

The last Lincoln economic belief of note will arguably be the most relevant to America in the present-day. In the early 1840s, Illinois faced public ruin due to the depression and drying up of tax revenue. States across the Union were rebuking their public debts as a result, and throwing away their public credit. Lincoln, in the face of mass demands for similar policies, stubbornly insisted that the state find a way to pay its debts. The maintenance of the public credit was of paramount importance to him, and up to the day Illinois defaulted on its interest payments Lincoln submitted plan after plan to refinance the debt and thus meet its obligations. Honesty in government, and the fulfillment of its promises, were of the utmost importance to Lincoln. Such questions may soon trouble us, and we should hope to find inspiration in Lincoln’s example.

Scott Howard resides in Lake Wales, Florida, and is a graduate of the University of Florida. He is a legislative aide with the Florida House of Representatives with previous experience at National Review. In his free time, Scott reads biographies of American statesmen and the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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America has been losing on many fronts in the strategic-industrial race with China.

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute finds that China has an advantage in thirty-seven out of forty-four major emerging technologies. Already, China is by far the largest producer of commercial drones, holds a near-total monopoly on rare earth mineral processing capacity, leads in hypersonic missile development, and possesses 230 times America’s shipbuilding capacity. Even in nuclear energy, the Chinese have utterly leapfrogged American capabilities.

There is, however, one sector where the United States still holds a significant advantage: commercial outer space. To preserve and expand this lead, Washington should prioritize the industrialization of orbit through large-scale manufacturing in microgravity. This would secure American dominance in the emerging orbital economy, drive breakthroughs in advanced materials, and revitalize the nation’s industrial base.

Although China has recently made notable strides—successfully testing reusable rockets, creating its own satellite constellations, and even frying chicken wings on their space station—America still conducts twice as many orbital launches. Relatedly, since China’s reusable rocket technology is still in its infancy, their equivalents to Elon Musk’s Starlink have only launched a mere 120 satellites, compared to Starlink’s 8,000. This is far behind their own stated goals: the satellite constellation Qianfan planned to launch 650 satellites in 2025 but has so far only launched 108. Perhaps most importantly, the United States is determined to maintain its lead. American companies like Axiom Space, Nanoracks, and Sierra Space are pioneering the next generation of commercial space stations through NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations program. And then there’s SpaceX’s Starship: if successful, it could drop launch costs to $150/kg, which is a tenfold decrease from the Falcon Heavy’s current pricetag of $1500/kg.

This dramatically reduced launch cost would make economically viable what was once prohibitively expensive: large-scale orbital manufacturing facilities and lunar mining. It would also present America with a historic opportunity to establish dominance in the orbital economy before any competitor can catch up. With this in mind, and as “science fiction” may sound, the focus of America’s space strategy should be the industrialization of outer space.

The promise of orbital manufacturing lies in the unique properties of microgravity. Many physical processes behave differently owing to the lack of gravitational force. These include, but are not limited to, crystallization, surface tension, combustion, material sag, foam formation, and mixing. These differences offer significant advantages over manufacturing on Earth. See no further than experiments on the International Space Station, where companies like Redwire (formerly Made In Space) have produced ZBLAN fiber optic wire. This is because, on Earth, gravity-induced crystallization creates signal-degrading defects, while the absence of convection currents limits production length. Meanwhile, in microgravity, ZBLAN can solidify without these imperfections, potentially yielding longer, perfectly uniform fibers that have ten times the quality of those produced on Earth.

Another promising technology is containerless processing. This involves allowing molten materials to float freely, without touching the walls of the container they’re stored in, thereby eliminating contamination sources and allowing for the creation of novel and ultra-pure materials. The Chinese are also already experimenting with containerless processing on their Tiangong-2 space station. Then there’s pharmaceutical production, currently being pursued by Varda Space, as microgravity suppresses convective currents, buoyancy, and sedimentation, and the resulting crystals are more uniform in size and structure.

In short, orbital manufacturing pushes the frontier of materials science. Yet although the United States already has all the components to start the orbital manufacturing revolution, Washington can do more to accelerate it.

Currently, all related innovative work is split across multiple companies and research programs, each pursuing its own specialized microgravity projects. As a consequence, many space manufacturing projects are fizzling out or have very slow and sporadic progress, owing to the extremely capital-intensive nature of experimenting in space. What America needs is a coordinated approach modeled after SEMATECH, the semiconductor manufacturing research consortium that successfully restored American competitiveness against Japanese chipmakers in the 1980s.

Such a consortium would bring together major launch providers, emerging space manufacturers, and traditional industrial giants to pursue the goal of making space manufacturing economically viable. By pooling resources and expertise, the consortium could accelerate development timelines, establish common technical standards, and create the critical mass needed to reach commercialization.

This should be pursued by NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, who is uniquely well-suited for this task, given his years of experience in the private spaceflight industry. He has already declared that “unlocking the orbital economy” is part of his vision for the agency.

Industrializing orbit also provides opportunities for America’s allies. Japan in particular stands out as a natural partner given its existing industrial know-how and burgeoning commercial space sector, which has been encouraged through government initiative. Its materials science sector is among the most advanced in the world, with deep expertise in ceramics, specialty alloys, and composites; all areas that benefit disproportionately from microgravity production. Japanese industry also famously leads in robotics and automation. This is already visible in NASA’s Artemis program, where Toyota is developing the Lunar Cruiser.

Japan’s commercial space ecosystem adds another dimension of synergy. Astroscale, a startup pioneering in orbital sustainability and servicing, is already working with the U.S. military: it was recently chosen to refuel a Space Force satellite in geostationary orbit. Pairing American reusable launch capacity with Japanese debris mitigation and servicing technologies would create a sustainable foundation for industrial infrastructure in space. Not only would this be a boon to both the American and Japanese civilian economies, but it would also create a common base of interoperable commercial infrastructure that can be readily integrated into each other’s space-based military systems. As an additional benefit, the approach would align seamlessly with the Department of War’s strategy of “prioritizing and aligning efforts to integrate commercial solutions into our national security space architecture,” while bolstering military cooperation with a key Pacific ally.

Moreover, if successful, this partnership would deny China the ability to unilaterally dictate the standards and rules of the orbital economy. By ensuring that allied firms control the market, Washington and Tokyo would shape both the commercial and security environment of space to their advantage. This model could eventually expand to include other trusted partners, establishing a network of allied orbital manufacturing hubs that reinforces both economic cooperation and collective security in space.

Finally, space industrialization is the key to revitalizing America’s industrial base as a whole. The first space race already demonstrated this phenomenon: NASA’s Apollo program created Silicon Valley. Materials science breakthroughs for heat shields and lightweight structures filtered into automotive and aerospace applications. The precision manufacturing techniques developed for rocket engines found their way into countless industrial processes. The examples go on.

Today, a similar dynamic could unfold on an even larger scale. Widespread deployment of space-manufactured ZBLAN fiber optics could revolutionize global internet infrastructure, while containerless processing techniques could create entirely new classes of materials for electronics and medical devices. Most significantly, the precision manufacturing ecosystem required to sustain orbital operations could finally inject competition into America’s stagnant defense industrial base. The specialized capabilities needed for space manufacturing, such as precision machining, advanced materials, and complex systems integration, directly overlap with defense aerospace requirements, creating natural competitors to established contractors.

This same ecosystem could spill over into the civilian economy. A dense network of advanced suppliers doesn’t just serve aerospace; it lifts every sector by giving manufacturers access to higher-quality components, faster innovation cycles, and more competitive pricing. It is precisely this kind of virtuous industrial clustering that allowed China to leapfrog into global manufacturing dominance. By catalyzing a similar cycle through the orbital industry, America can transform its remaining technological advantage into the engine that rebuilds its industrial strength.

Overall, the United States stands at a historic inflection point: its lead in commercial space offers the chance to industrialize orbit, secure the orbital economy, and rejuvenate its industrial base through microgravity breakthroughs. Under NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, whose entrepreneurial vision aligns perfectly with this commercial imperative, America has the leadership and momentum to turn this advantage into lasting strategic and industrial supremacy. The next frontier is space industrialization, and the time to claim it is now.

Siddhartha Kazi is an industrial engineer working in supply chain management. He has previously written for The National Interest and Newsweek.

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By Taylor Sulik

With the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January of 2025, and the emergence of economic nationalist and protectionist policies, the United States has seen a resurgence of interest in the mining industry, specifically with rare earths and critical minerals. The focus of this administration so far has been to reshore the production of items vital to our national security and economy. To facilitate this objective, there have been multiple lines of effort put forth by the Trump Administration, ranging from creating a Mining Czar position, creating a National Energy Dominance Council, and even the direct equity ownership stake taken by the government in multiple critical mineral companies – such as MP Materials, America’s leading producer of rare earths and the associated magnets.

While these steps in the direction of Making America Mine Again have been a net positive, the majority of ownership and control over critical mineral deposits in the United States remains in the hands of foreign owned/listed corporations, primarily junior exploration companies, which are often headquartered in the likes of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Just because a mine is in Nevada, Utah, or Arizona, does not automatically mean that the decisions on what to do with mine output are made locally, or even within the United States. If public funding is being used to rebuild critical mineral supply chains, then American owned companies, not foreign shareholders, should be leading the charge.

When tax dollars are deployed, they should come with expectations beyond just production metrics. If the government was to underwrite early-stage exploration and infrastructure development, then that decision should also be used to underwrite American ownership, governance, and long-term decision-making authority, otherwise the United States risks recreating an imbalance: public risk paired with foreign reward.

We’ve learned the hard way what happens when we outsource the means of production. Take for example the supply chain crisis experienced during and post-COVID, where necessary items such as pharmaceutical products, baby formula, or even toilet paper were subject to shortages. The same is true with critical minerals. Not only is a secure critical mineral supply chain a national security issue, but lack of minerals can impact our daily life. These minerals are vital to our power grids, electric vehicles, defense systems, and the manufacturing ecosystem. The average smart phone has over 30 minerals, many of which are critical minerals that are solely dominated by China. We talk about reindustrialization across the United States, but in order to incubate an advanced manufacturing industry, we need to be able to manufacture basic items, and to do that, we need to secure the base elements that are integral to this vision.

Currently, China dominates the critical mineral output and processing industry. China is the leading producing country for 30 of the listed critical minerals, which means the United States has a net import reliance of over 50% on minerals from China on minerals such as Yttrium, Bismuth, Rare Earths, Antimony, and Arsenic. Americans aren’t ok with this: a recent survey by the National Mining Association found that approximately 70% of Americans want the U.S. to boost domestic minerals production to reduce our reliance on China. The United States does not lack critical mineral deposits, nor does it lack workers or capital. What it does lack is Americans getting involved and building these deposits from the ground up. If the American taxpayers are going to continue footing the bill, then American owned and operated companies should be in the driver’s seat. We need more Americans focused on identifying, developing, and building mines as opposed to building technology or selling their deposits.

Take, for example, the major Tungsten projects located across the United States. The four largest companies involved are all foreign owned. Although the U.S. welcomes foreign investment and many foreign companies do operate responsibly, it is unclear who decides where these materials go during war, a trade dispute, or shortages, as investment in these companies does not equal control and their location does not equal ownership. We will never be able to rebuild American critical mineral independence on quarterly exit strategies. Foreign shareholders’ obligations, incentives, and loyalties may not align with long-term U.S. interests.

Much of the last two decades in the mining industry have been focused on the financialization of deposits as opposed to being developmentally-oriented. Far too often, American projects are viewed as speculative assets as opposed to strategic assets. Projects are bundled together, promoted, and sold long before they are brought into production. This mindset prioritizes shareholder value as opposed to long-term strategic victories.

Mining is also not embedded into the American consciousness as it is for Canadians and Australians. If the United States is serious about rebuilding this industrial capacity, then those Americans who are willing to take the risk on developing a mine should be rewarded, rather than those who market assets to the highest foreign bidder.

But American mining will not just secure our domestic mineral needs. Through mining, we can drive economic growth and job creation while supporting sustainability and environmental standards. Domestic production and ownership ensure that economic benefits stay within our borders, fostering innovation, infrastructure development, and opportunities for communities within mining regions. It also allows for the U.S. to adhere to some of the highest environmental and labor standards in the world, ensuring that extraction and processing minimize harm to both the environment and workers.

Ownership of these deposits should be front and center. As there has been justified concern over China purchasing land directly adjacent to military bases across the United States, there needs to be clear disclosure of beneficial ownership and established foreign control thresholds for any group looking to receive government funding or financing. We, as taxpayers, should be able to see who benefits from our support. Ownership is not a technical detail or a check in a box on an application.

This does not require exclusionary policies or blanket bans on foreign participation – it requires clarity. Preference should be given to companies that commit to domestic processing, reinvestment, and workforce development. Transparency around beneficial ownership should not be non-negotiable, particularly when public funds and our national security are at stake. Mining is one industry among many in which America can reassert itself as a nation of producers and innovators – if our policy rises to meet the moment.

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Taylor Sulik is the President & CEO at Mithril Mining Corp. You can follow him on X @TheTungstenGuy.

Most individuals born in the United States are citizens. A few others, born abroad to American parents, acquire citizenship through application. For those not lucky enough to be born in the United States or to an American parent, the only pathway to citizenship is naturalization. And the culmination of the naturalization process is the Oath of Allegiance.

An important but today too often ignored part of that oath is the requirement that foreigners abandon all other citizenship before becoming American. Unfortunately, this aspect of the naturalization process has been muted by voices intent on celebrating dual citizenship. They’re wrong. The oath is right. We need to start enforcing again the requirement that new citizens abandon their loyalty to other countries.

The Constitution vests Congress with the authority to establish a “uniform Rule of Naturalization.” An oath has been part of that process since 1790, when the first law establishing naturalization rules required applicants “to support the Constitution of the United States.” Five years later, Congress added a requirement that aspiring citizens “renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty… whereof such alien may, at the time, be a citizen or subject.” The statute did not stipulate the exact text of such an oath though. That improvement occurred in 1929, when naturalization regulations first required applicants to swear expressly:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty, and particularly to __________ of who (which) I have heretofore been a subject (or citizen)...

This text remains in effect today. Put simply: when you naturalize and become American, at that moment you are only American. Any prior citizenship is gone. A newly naturalized America is not a dual citizen.

Such a rejection of dual citizenship was part of an early 20th century push for assimilation. Approximately 10 million immigrants entered the United States during the first decade of the last century, reaching a percentage of the population not seen again until the present immigration crisis. The majority arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe, which previously had not been major sources of immigrants. To make these foreigners American, the aptly named Americanization Movement emerged, spurring nationwide initiatives to instruct immigrants about the traditions of the United States. Churches, schools, and civic institutions promoted learning English, patriotism, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other American customs. Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation in 1907 heralding Flag Day. Constitution Day, also called “Citizenship Day” and in some locations “I Am An American Day,” emerged during the same period. Throughout this era of mass inculcation of foreigners into the ways of the United States, dual citizenship was shunned by Americans across the country. This included by the federal government, where the assertion of dual citizenship while residing abroad, by joining a foreign military, and in other cases, was proscribed by law.

But in 1967 the Supreme Court decided in Afroyim v. Rusk that the government had no authority to terminate the citizenship of an American who voted in a foreign election. The only action that could amount to expatriation of a U.S. citizen, wrote Justice Black, was “voluntary relinquishment.” This holding effectively legalized dual citizenship. It did not, however, affect the Oath of Allegiance. Afroyim and subsequent holdings applied only to citizens, not aspiring citizens.

Legally, despite the best efforts of dual citizenship apologists, the Oath of Allegiance endures. But the part of the oath that new Americans abandon their prior citizenship is nearly forgotten. This should be reversed. The Trump Administration has led efforts to correct the damage of decades of unchecked immigration. It should extend those efforts to reinvigorating the oath, particularly the mandate to abandon citizenship in other countries.

A good start would be to correct official language surrounding the Oath of Allegiance.

Current State Department guidance, for example, not only informs foreigners that they can naturalize “as a U.S. citizen while keeping the nationality of another country” but also that “dual nationality has advantages.” This language, cheerleading dual citizenship, should immediately be removed from State’s website. The same should occur at USA.gov, the official website of the federal government. America’s homepage provides a “How to get dual citizenship or nationality” guide, including a list of foreign embassies and consulates to contact for advice. The USCIS product “10 Steps to Naturalization“ also needs correction. That site shares how potential Americans can get an exemption from the English and civics test for naturalization, but mentions the Oath of Allegiance only in passing. The text of the oath is not offered, or the fact that it obligates abandonment of foreign citizenship.

This deliberate downplaying of the Oath of Allegiance must be corrected. Instead, the policy of the U.S. government should be neutrality and frankness on the subject of dual citizenship. Existing language encouraging dual citizenship should be replaced with an emphatic “Naturalization requires the immediate and complete abandonment of all foreign citizenship and nationality” and “Acquiring dual citizenship or nationality in a foreign country can complicate foreign travel, tax obligations, as well as eligibility for federal and other employment.”

The federal government cannot presently ban dual citizenship. Other countries can always claim a prior citizen remains a citizen, even after American naturalization. But the United States government, at least, doesn’t have to play along – nor should it.

And unlike the federal government, the public need not be neutral about dual citizenship. Like most problems, government action alone is not the sole solution. Some of the societal concerns that inspired the Oath of Allegiance should be resurrected. Most discrimination based upon national origin is illegal. But insisting aspiring Americans adhere to the law requiring an abandonment of foreign citizenship is reasonable.

The Oath of Allegiance must be enforced, both publicly and privately. We must change dual citizenship-encouraging regulations immediately. Additionally, the Oath of Allegiance should be promoted in general political discourse. The government and the public at large should embrace the ethos of a century ago and urge new citizens to assimilate. For a guide, those new Americans can look to the oath they took when naturalizing. Supporting the Constitution and relinquishing loyalty to other countries is the foundation of good citizenship. We should cheer the Oath of Allegiance again, and the great Americans it helps create.

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Nick Pietrowicz is the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moldova. A career member of the Foreign Service, He is an alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University’s School of Law and was a State Department fellow at the Institute of World Politics in 2021.

It’s been one year since the Vice President took the stage in Paris and broadcast the Trump administration’s priorities on AI: firmly placing opportunity at the forefront.

In the twelve months since, much has been said by naysayers on the risks of AI; there are those that would look to pause AI development entirely or limit the ways we use American AI to the purely aesthetic. But as the Vice President outlined at the AI Action Summit, to focus on the risks of AI would miss it for what it actually is: the greatest opportunity for America to surmount the challenges that have emerged across the past fifty years. A year ago, Vice President Vance laid out four pillars: establishing American AI as the global gold standard, removing obsequious regulatory barrier, eliminating ideological bias, and creating a pro-worker growth path. He declined to sign the summit’s international declaration pontificating on AI. Critics called it reckless - a repudiation of the international order. A sign the Trump administration was “unserious” and unsupportive of pro-human AI. Rather than pen meaningless documents, the administration built a blueprint: the clearest articulation of “Why AI” in the world.

The blueprint has been put into place. But the hardest work - putting the plan into Action - is just beginning.

Winning the Stack, Not Just the Benchmark

From a Silicon Valley perch, it’s easy to forget the lives that Americans actually live: they do not have limitless access to safe autonomous taxis or a paved path to prosperity. Just like any other technology, turning AI innovation into tangible benefits for Americans is accompanied by challenges; but if we let the challenges of electrical fires or internet crashing hold us back from embracing technology, America would lay lightless and disconnected while the rest of the world passed us by.

The Vice President was clear in Paris: “The United States is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way.” On the surface, this is true. American frontier models remain the best in the world. Our highest-end models score six percent better on selected benchmarks than the highest-end Chinese alternatives. American data and benchmarks remain the baseline upon which competitors, including Chinese frontier AI, develop their own systems. But six percent is not dominance. It is a lead; a lead that narrows when you look at what’s beneath the software.

The Vice President spent part of his speech discussing the importance of the AI stack: everything we need to unlock tangible security and economic impacts from AI. This includes the models, data, and hardware, as he outlined, but it also includes the physical layers: the energy and infrastructure, the supply chain of raw materials, and the basic and advanced manufacturing required to build AI and deploy it for the gain of Americans. The US leads on the IP-heavy layers at the top of the stack. We are significantly disadvantaged in the physical layers beneath them - and those are the layers that matter most when AI systems start producing real-world effects.

The numbers are stark. America’s energy generation is roughly a third of China’s - and in 2024 alone, their capacity grew by 500 GW compared to our 48.6 GW. Only 12 percent of global rare earth production comes from the US, compared to 70 percent from China, which also controls nearly 90 percent of global refining. In total manufacturing value added, the basic manufacturing layer, China exceeds the US by $2.5 trillion. And while we consider advanced manufacturing to be the final bottleneck for the Chinese, China actually leads America in total output at the 7nm wafer process and above. While the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has began producing the highest-end 4nm wafers in Arizona, which China has not publicly demonstrated in volume, our total expected 2026 production of leading-edge chips will represent only 10 percent of global advanced chip production. This may seem like a barrage of statistics, but it’s the raw truth. We have the world’s best models; but once the AI stack requires you to build things, America is disadvantaged at every layer.

It’s not enough to build the best AI software. Real progress comes in the world of atoms. The question that should keep policymakers up at night is not which country’s model scores highest on a benchmark, but which country has an AI stack that can physicalize AI’s impact: manufacturing autonomous systems, scaling deployment at speed and low cost, and rapidly building and powering the data centers to run it all. On that question, the competition is closer than the headline numbers suggest; in most physical areas, we are behind.

The administration understands this. The next step for American AI dominance is controlling the entire AI stack: not just the models, data, or AI applications, but production of AI-specific hardware, building the best energy production and infrastructure, and developing resilient supply chains for the raw materials that undergird the AI industrial revolution.

Building Behind the Line

To the administration’s credit, the past year has been one of systematic execution. On day one, the President rescinded the Biden-era AI executive order and the onerous Biden Diffusion Rule. In July, the AI Action Plan formalized ninety federal policy positions across three pillars: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading in international AI diplomacy. Three accompanying executive orders supercharged work on AI exports, data center permitting, and ensuring that federally procured AI was maximally truth-seeking, not bound to ideological bias. In December, an executive order set the groundwork for a national AI policy framework to preempt the patchwork of state-level regulations that threatened to fragment the American market. American AI companies cannot compete globally while buried under fifty different domestic compliance regimes.

On permitting, the Council on Environmental Quality has worked to streamline National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for priority projects. The bipartisan Simplify Permitting and Enable Efficient Development Act (SPEED Act) passed the House in December 2025 and awaits Senate action. The administration must continue with these projects: Make America Build Again.

In the world of infrastructure, the administration’s Stargate initiative has mobilized up to $500 billion in private investment for AI data centers and the energy to power them. The US Investment Accelerator can identify partners and deploy government capital through direct investment, subsidization, and tax incentives in the areas of the stack we’ve identified as critical. Private capital is often better suited for effective development; the government’s role is to attract it through deregulatory action and streamlined application processes, not run American AI through top-down bureaucracy.

Supply chain is one of the least discussed elements of the administration’s AI strategy, and Pax Silica has rung true as a winning solution to our issues. Launched in December 2025, it brought together America and its allies around a shared commitment to secure the full technology supply chain. If the twentieth century ran on oil and steel, the twenty-first runs on compute and the minerals that feed it. Pax Silica is the administration’s answer to a world in which China controls 70 percent of rare earth mining and 90 percent of refining: an alliance structure designed not for diplomatic signaling or the proliferation of meaningless Memorandums of Understanding, but for the hard work of ensuring the physical foundations of the AI revolution are built by America and our trusted partners.

Pax Silica was a strident first step. But supply chain resilience requires further effort: more bilateral critical minerals deals through the State Department, structured US off-take and financing through the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and a hard look at whether the archaic Minerals Security Partnership needs restructuring or replacement. Organizations like the DFC and EXIM have begun breaking ground on closing America’s critical mineral deficiencies, announcing Project Vault’s strategic minerals reserve as a unique policy lever to support the American supply chain as a buyer of last resort. Whether it’s the rare earth magnets that power autonomous vehicles or the actuators that allow robots to empower Americans in the jobs of the future, America has begun building the world’s most important pieces of technology at home. Less MOUs, more mending.

Silicon Valley is not always best at determining what products will actually change Americans’ lives. America has routinely underinvested in the foundational areas of technology that are not aesthetically impressive, but are crucially important nonetheless. The Trump administration is breaking this pattern.

Truth-Seeking AI

The Vice President’s third pillar, eliminating ideological bias, was quickly turned into a point of mockery for his European audience. The Paris speech referenced AI image generators depicting America’s Founding Fathers as racially diverse or declining to produce content based on ideological filters. The examples were easy to dismiss - an amusing oversight from tech companies kowtowing to cultural pressure. The underlying point, however, was not.

AI will always carry biases of various kinds. The goal is not a theoretical consensus or false neutrality, but truth-seeking AI: systems that give Americans straight answers, allow users to understand the biases embedded in the tool, and teach people how to engage with AI critically. If Americans cannot trust these systems, adoption stalls and AI’s potential goes unrealized.

Indeed, truth-seeking AI goes beyond “wokeness” or political mercuriality; it is the foundation for pro-human AI. How can we trust AI that lies to us, or misrepresents its intentions? Effective use and deployment of AI requires robustness. Truth, more than any other principle, is essential to realizing the benefits of AI.

The AI Action Plan and accompanying executive order addresses this through a cross-cutting priority requiring trustworthy systems free from ideological bias. But the deeper investment is in AI education: teaching Americans not just to use these tools, but to think clearly about them. Truthful AI is the first step – a thoughtful population is the second. The Presidential AI Challenge and the AI Education Task Force are early steps, and a clear marker of how seriously the administration is taking training the AI-empowered America of tomorrow. A country that leads in AI development will have financial success; a country that leads in AI literacy will have prosperity.

Cybernetics, Not Replacement

The Vice President’s mention of a pro-worker growth path was the most forward-looking element of the Paris speech and remains the area where the stakes are highest. Vice President Vance was right that AI will make Americans more productive, more prosperous, and more free. But for most Americans, that’s still a promise, not a paycheck.

The administration has not been idle. Executive Order 14278, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future,” set a target of one million new active apprentices per year. In August, the administration delivered America’s Talent Strategy: a framework built on industry-driven training, upward mobility, streamlined systems, outcome-based accountability, and flexibility. The Work Pell Grant, created through the One Big Beautiful Bill, extended Pell eligibility to short-term credential programs for the first time, unlocking a new funding stream for the kind of training that actually leads to jobs.

These are serious policy tools. The question is whether they will be deployed at the scale and speed the moment demands.

Here is the problem in plain terms: Americans are sold a dream of white-collar jobs that are decreasingly meaningful, going into debt for careers that do not fulfill them, while critical industries are creating high-quality, economically stable jobs without the workforce to fill them. Nearly 40 percent of the nuclear workforce is expected to retire within the decade. The Navy needs 100,000 shipbuilding workers; only 5,000 are certified for nuclear-grade welding. TSMC Arizona created 4,500 new positions and struggled to hire for them. Eighty-three percent of aircraft maintenance technicians are expected to leave the workforce within ten years. These are not hypothetical gaps. They are the bottleneck standing between the administration’s reindustrialization vision and reality.

The Talent Strategy’s emphasis on industry-driven approaches and apprenticeship expansion is exactly right. But the execution vehicle matters. What Americans need is not another federal program they have to navigate; they need a package: training with guaranteed employment, transparent timelines, and a clear path from enrollment to a career that pays better than the median four-year degree.

The right frame for this is cybernetics: the art of empowerment, augmenting man with machine to accomplish more than either could alone. This is the Trump administration’s answer to automation anxiety. Not replacement, but enhancement. Not coding bootcamps, but industrial workforce development in the specializations that actually build the AI stack: semiconductor manufacturing, nuclear power operations, industrial cybersecurity, grid maintenance, robotics and automation, shipbuilding, and avionics. These are jobs that provide meaningful salaries, do not require a four-year degree, and offer the kind of career stability and dignity that the white-collar economy has increasingly failed to provide.

The Talent Strategy provides the policy architecture. The Work Pell Grant, Perkins V, and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provide the funding authorities. What is still needed is the operational vehicle: public-private partnerships that connect industry workforce needs directly to training institutions, guarantee job placement for graduates who meet performance standards, and market these careers with the kind of branding that makes young Americans want to sign up. Early cohorts should be visible - not another quiet grant program, but a flagship that shows Americans how technology will improve their lives.

A country that builds the best AI but cannot staff its semiconductor fabs, wire its data centers, or maintain its nuclear fleet has not won the AI race. It has built an engine without a workforce to run it. The administration has the framework. Now it needs to operationalize it at a pace that matches the ambition.

What the Next Year Demands

Looking at 2026, we need to take stock of what the Trump administration has accomplished and be resolute about what challenges remain.

The infrastructure investments are flowing. The regulatory environment has begun to be cleared. Pax Silica, the AI Exports Program, and the Technology Prosperity Deals are building the international architecture. The full AI stack, from minerals to models, is now the organizing framework for American technology policy. These are real achievements. The world scoffed at America’s “naive vision” a year ago.

Who’s actually delivered?

But America’s position in the AI race is more precarious than the headline numbers suggest. Our models are whiskers away from China’s, despite our advantages in chips and talent. We are likely to create AI systems that unlock real security and economic impact around the same time. When that moment arrives, the primary concern will not be benchmark scores. It will not be a tenuous vision of superintelligence. It will be which country has an AI stack that can physicalize that impact at scale. The US must create what we might call stack sovereignty: an AI stack that is resilient to exogenous factors and highly controlled and influenced by the United States.

Achieving stack sovereignty means continuing to remove regulatory barriers, deepening allied supply chain partnerships, and deploying capital - public and private - to build across every layer of the stack. It means making bets that take years to pay off: securing critical mineral supply chains, closing the manufacturing gap, building energy capacity, and developing the workforce to run it all. These are not the kinds of investments that generate headlines. They are the kinds that determine whether a country leads a technological revolution or merely participates in one.

The Vice President was right in Paris: this is about opportunity. But seizing that opportunity requires building in the world of atoms, not just bits. The administration set the terms a year ago. Now it must build the future those terms demand.

Ryan Hassan is a writer and researcher focused on the philosophy of science and technology, American reindustrialization, and national security. He writes for Pirate Wires, is a research fellow with Build American AI, and a New Science Fellow.

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In addition to actions taken abroad, President Donald Trump has started 2026 with three bold domestic policy messages. In a single week, Trump called for a cap on credit card interest rates, a $200 billion order to buy mortgage bonds, and a ban on institutional investors in single-family housing. These announcements are welcome news, given that Americans still face persistent economic pressures at home and have been starting to lose confidence that the administration is focusing on these issues. Yet for the Trump administration to effectively address the cost-of-living crisis, they won’t be enough. To truly deal with affordability and calm domestic worries, the administration should propose a comprehensive package that addresses three areas: healthcare, housing, and transportation. Some solutions will take years for the effects to materialize, but by taking concrete steps now, the administration can show its commitment to making working families’ lives less stressful.

To begin, healthcare costs have been outpacing inflation since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, even as Americans’ life expectancy has declined. The average American family spent over $14,570 annually on healthcare, with some spending even more than on housing due to high premiums or lack of coverage.

These sky-high costs are, as American Compass’ Oren Cass has argued, a symptom of the financialization of the American economy. So far, the solution being considered – expanding the ACA subsidies — falls short. While the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies have helped some afford insurance premiums, they function as an expensive band-aid that keeps a fundamentally inefficient system intact.

To directly take on healthcare costs, there are three ways the admin can take immediate action. First, the Federal Trade Commission must scrutinize and, where appropriate, block private equity acquisitions of essential healthcare services. As the Bull Moose Project noted in their recent report, private equity ownership of oncology care has demonstrably increased costs while reducing care quality. Studies show PE-backed oncology practices charge 30-40% more for the same treatments, while patient outcomes deteriorate as physician autonomy disappears. When profit-maximizing becomes the focus of cancer care, patients literally pay the price. The administration should impose a moratorium on PE acquisitions of essential medical practices and require divestment of existing holdings that demonstrably harm patients.

Second, the administration should enforce and expand price transparency for health services. The administration should mandate all-in pricing for standard procedures instead of sticking with a byzantine system that obscures costs until after care is provided. Patients need upfront, binding price quotes for elective procedures, just as they would demand and receive for auto or home repair. This transparency can encourage genuine competition among providers and empower consumers to vote with their feet.

The third action is to reduce regulatory barriers preventing nurse practitioners and physician assistants from practicing to the full extent of their training. Most Americans require primary care easily provided by nurse practitioners, but scope-of-practice laws create artificial shortages that drive up costs without improving outcomes. States that have modernized these laws have seen increased access and lower costs without compromising quality. The administration can promote these reforms, allowing people to see a nurse practitioner for a relatively minor issue without spending hundreds in a doctor’s office. These three reforms attack the structural problems of consolidation, opacity, and artificial supply constraints that make healthcare too expensive.

Healthcare is not the only expenditure that has been rapidly increasing. Housing affordability has reached crisis proportions, with young families unable to buy homes, and renters increasingly spending more than half their income on shelter. The Trump administration has made some attempts at fighting this, like adopting the new Vantagescore 4.0 credit score model, a tri-merge which gives lenders a more complete look at the credit histories of home buyers (as opposed to only seeing one or two scores, which can hurt purchasers).

But those efforts have not been enough. The average 30-year mortgage payment remains near 30-year highs at ~$2,210. Some of the housing costs are due to the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates high to fight inflation, which also raises mortgage rates. The Federal Reserve’s lowering of interest rates will be a short-term boon for families, but the general limit has been a lack of supply in major metropolitan areas.

This has been the result of decades of restrictive zoning laws that have artificially constrained housing supply, particularly in the high-demand metropolitan areas where jobs are concentrated. Rules such as single-family zoning mandates, minimum lot sizes, and arbitrary height restrictions have prevented the construction of the diverse housing stock America needs. The administration can incentivize zoning reform by conditioning infrastructure and urban development grants for legislative efforts to allow housing. States and municipalities that eliminate exclusionary zoning practices and streamline their approval processes should receive preferential treatment for federal housing assistance.

Equally important is the streamlining of permitting processes for housing construction. Currently, developers face a maze of federal, state, and local approvals that can delay projects for years and add hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs passed on to homebuyers. The administration should establish fast-track permitting for housing developments, particularly those that include affordable units, and encourage a review process that coordinates the various agencies involved in environmental, transportation, and utility approvals.

The third pillar for affordability must be transportation, where American families face mounting costs for their cars. The average household spends over $12,000 annually on transportation, with auto loans and maintenance consuming an ever-larger share of family budgets. Auto financing has become expensive, with average interest rates near 7%, resulting in monthly payments that strain household finances for five to seven years. Worse, the used car market, which was traditionally where working families and young Americans have bought their cars, has seen prices surge 41% since 2020, while subprime lending proliferates with interest rates exceeding 15%. The administration should direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to crack down on predatory add-ons, such as overpriced warranties and gap insurance, that dealers use to inflate profits.

Additionally, vehicle maintenance costs compound the problem, especially for newer cars. As cars have more digital features, manufacturers increasingly use their technology and parts to monopolize repair services, forcing consumers to pay for expensive dealership repairs for routine maintenance. Independent mechanics cannot access diagnostic codes or replacement parts, eliminating competition.

In fairness to the auto industry, this is not a unique problem. From smartphones to tractors, manufacturers have increasingly designed products to be difficult or impossible to repair, forcing consumers to replace rather than fix items and locking farmers out of maintaining their own equipment. To resolve this issue, one policy the administration can implement, widely supported by Democrats and Republicans, is to champion the “right to repair.” Five states thus far have passed right to repair bills, and dozens more are considering their own. The administration should champion comprehensive federal “right to repair” legislation that requires manufacturers to provide repair manuals, diagnostic tools, and replacement parts to independent repair shops and consumers. This is helpful for consumers and small businesses, as it allows them to compete with the manufacturer for repair services and reduces environmental and economic waste. Such a policy helps everyday Americans and is a perfect example of a policy that empowers individuals against corporate overreach.

These policy changes will take time to work, but they address the structural factors that have forced working families to pay more to an increasingly concentrated corporate America. President Trump has already taken steps on some of these concerns, but these efforts have thus far been piecemeal and should instead be part of a comprehensive agenda to make an impact on the rising cost of living. Critics will argue these policies interfere with free markets, but the current system is hardly free. It’s been rigged by decades of policy choices that have favored corporate incumbents and entrenched interests over consumers and small businesses. These proposals are far from radical interventions but are instead a correction that allows the market to truly compete. The policies outlined here offer concrete action for everyday Americans. If the administration wants to ensure its political mandate survives the midterms, it should have the will and focus to pursue them.

Heberto Limas-Villers is a co-founder at a geopolitical advisory firm called SkySeal Global and a Fellow at the Bull Moose Project.

Last month a federal circuit court panel in Washington, D.C. upheld the Department of War’s ban on individuals who identify as “transgender” from being members of the U.S. military. The idea that a court must be involved in the armed services respecting biological reality is strange to observe. There are many reasons why the military filters applicants through medical and character checks, and subjects those accepted for service to lifestyle expectations that private employers are barred from enforcing on civilian employees. In placing individuals under arms on behalf of the nation, military commanders need to rely on the ability of the troops to endure hardship and use force honorably. Critics lambast such character requirements as discriminatory precisely because modern activists entirely miss the point of what the armed forces exist to do: protect, defend, preserve, and conserve a nation of ordered liberty.

The War Department is an institution, and institutions are not morally neutral. Yet a myth has pervaded in Western discourse for the better part of the last century that militaries are somehow “apolitical”. Though seemingly altruistic on the surface, this belief is ahistorical and defies the realities of what military forces do. The 18^th Century Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz noted in his seminal work titled On War that armed combat is the continuation of policy by other means.

“The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.”1

The U.S. government recognizes this condition, categorizing national power into four categories: Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic. Marketing efforts to cast all military action as defending freedom fall apart when you consider that most military deployments in American history have been in fact ordered for geographic expansion, or to achieve effects desired as part of the policy agenda of the administration in power at the time. Consider the overthrow of the Hussein regime in Iraq and the Gaddafi regime in Libya, as well as ongoing U.S. involvement in Ukraine. None of these campaigns defended the U.S. Constitution, or liberty at home. In fact, as my generation of veterans spent sands in the hourglass of life in Afghanistan and Iraq—allegedly to protect our fellow citizens from radical Islam—the U.S. and our ‘allies’ imported its loyal adherents at a rate that outpaced the body count of insurgents our forces rightfully eliminated by unimaginable orders of magnitude. Whatever those wars were about, they clearly weren’t for defending the Constitution or protecting American liberty.

War is not neutral, and neither is the purpose of a military force. The oath says it all: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same”. One must make a moral claim in order to defend and protect the constitutional order, a framework imbued by Christian worldview that asserts state defense of moral ontology in order to respect and enable ordered liberty. Put simply, one cannot embrace Frankfurt School ideologies and their neo-variants of our time and simultaneously embrace American exceptionalism and constitutionalism. Fidelity will be to one or the other. Militaries throughout human history have either defended or overrun the people of their group, tribe, state, and nation—depending upon to whom loyalties were placed, enforced, and obeyed by those who wield the tools of sanctioned violence. This is what made so important the cultural trend of the American military toward conservative thought historically.

Operationally and culturally, military organizations defy the basics of conservatism as linked to the principle of subsidiarity. In contrast to that philosophy in which power is best administered locally, military institutions operate through a hard, top-down, centralized power dynamic that assimilates individuals into a collective mindset through which they are conditioned to obey without question. Yet throughout most of American history, the majority of American troops personally identified with conservative political ideals. Those ideals were reflected in the culture, creeds, doctrine, and orders passed down the chain of command. It was not because military members actively wanted the force to be a Republican agency, but because you must love traditional American values and the basics of truth in order to be willing to potentially die in defense, or conservation, of them.

The Clinton administration leveled the first major assault on truth-based moral ideals by forcing an end to the ban on homosexual behavior by military members. The Obama administration finished the job by forcing an end to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, over the objection of the armed service branches. Obama’s next move was to push for full acceptance of so-called “transgender” military members, a move blocked by the first Trump administration. The Biden presidency aggressively forced transgenderism, abortion travel funding, and overt support of radical social activism into the military and cracked down on expressing concern or dissent. Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, declared the armed forces full of right-wing extremists and directed mass indoctrination as well as a purge of conservatives by the tens of thousands. With the military management class fully in the progressive corner, Democrats, for the first time in decades, held the White House and did not initiate a major reduction in forces.

We have been subjected in recent weeks to a narrative that the Trump-Hegseth Pentagon is issuing unlawful orders, a narrative first established by Democrats during President Trump’s first term. Those involved in crafting this myth found an ally in then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who openly bragged about acting as a brake in the chain of command. Joe Biden laid claim to progressive ownership of the military shortly before starting his term as president, saying America’s armed forces would remove Donald Trump from the White House if needed. He echoed that philosophy later stating that Second Amendment supporters would “need an F-16” in order to challenge government edicts restricting firearms ownership. This parallels a growth in hard left-wing activism that I observed by military officers during my final years of military service. This trend was so strong that then commanding general of the U.S. Army’s famed 82^nd Airborne Division Christopher LaNeve rewrote history in an official ‘pride month’ letter to the forces under his rule.

“From the founding fathers of our nation through the Global War on Terrorism LBGTQ+ [sic] service members have fought with pride to defend our rights and freedoms.”

LaNeve is now a three-star and works as the senior military advisor to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. President Trump recently nominated him for promotion to full general as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. How can we trust that a man who will deal so openly in activist fiction will protect the American way and train our soldiers to do the same? On that note, how can we trust that military members who cheered the assassination of Charlie Kirk believe in—and will defend—virtue, free speech, and truth? If you can get the military to reject reality and basic decency, then you condition its members to merely follow whatever orders are given—with total disregard for whether they are in accordance with defending, preserving, protecting, and conserving the United States.

Many commentators speak of such instances in fatalistic lament, but the issue is of strategic importance for the continuation of ordered liberty. A military caste that holds itself unaccountable to the chain of command when Republicans are elected to the White House is one that departs from the tradition of what the late political scientist Samuel Huntington called Objective Civilian Control.2 Such is an institution divorced from the mission of defending, preserving, and conserving the founding American values from which our homeland’s ordered liberties are protected and continued.

The military must be remade into a conservative institution. This has nothing to do with partisanship. It has everything to do with the institutional purpose of the world’s most powerful armed force in history. There is no such thing as neutrality. The Department of War will either protect, defend, and help conserve the nation, or it will become an active partner in its destruction.

Dr. Chase Spears (U.S. Army, Retired) served for 20 years in military public affairs. Among other pursuits, he enjoys writing about a wide range of topics, including civil-military relations, communication ethics, and policy. Chase holds a Ph.D. in leadership communication from Kansas State University. He can be found on X at @drchasespears.