Since the 1960s, America has been experiencing generational transformations. It’s not by accident. Still, today’s youth are experiencing a crisis of hopelessness as adults feed into their fears, insecurities, and struggles.
I recently read a profound statement by Starbucks’ CEO, Howard Schultz. He noted that over the last year, he’s been on the road talking to the company’s employees, which he refers to as “partners.” He stated he was,
“…shocked, stunned to hear the loneliness, the anxiety, the fracturing of trust in government, fracturing of trust in companies, fracturing of trust in families, the lack of hope in terms of opportunity.”
Sadly, why aren’t other leaders picking up on this?
What he learned isn’t a surprise to many of us who have seen this coming for decades.
Mass divorce over 40 years and children raising themselves in isolation is bound to create lasting anxiety and social change. When a child learns they can’t rely on their parents to protect them, who should they turn to?
Many turned to politics to fix their problems. Academia has been all too willing to take advantage of this and indoctrinate several generations of Americans in Critical Race Theory and leftist ideologies.
When Democrats call common sense Americans “extremists” who believe God and the family have the answers to society’s challenges over the government, you know something is wrong.
Still, it’s so much worse than that.
If you believe in moral impartiality, the Left in the media, Washington, DC, the statehouse, and activist groups go into full gear.
They call moral impartiality white supremacy.
Yet, their false narratives undermine benevolence, moral culpability, and individual merit that provide people with dignity, respect, achievement, and social structure.
When society begins to show young people that they are disposable, what do we think will happen to them?
Young people commit suicide in America in far greater numbers than in the rest of the developed world. More kids are on antidepressants than ever before. Some are so socially stricken they can’t function in school or work. Consider this, young people today aren’t even motivated to get a driver’s license. That was unthinkable just a decade ago.
Did you know that only 30% of military-age young adults even qualify to join the military?
Where did this come from?
America was built on the idea that we all have an equal opportunity at the American Dream. It’s the idea that if one is willing to work hard, take some risks, and persevere through adversity, one can achieve great things.
Liberalism and progressivism (they aren’t the same, and I’ll cover that another time) have left tens of millions of people hopelessly lost. Promises were made that couldn’t be kept. In the 1930s, FDR created the New Deal. In the 1960s, LBJ followed it up with the Great Society. From 2009 to 2016, Democrats promised equity (meaning equal outcomes), and today Biden has pushed it further than ever.
The federal government is collecting record-high taxes. Yet, the $31 trillion national debt is hindering individuals and families. Inflation remains stubbornly high at 40-year record levels. People are more dependent on credit cards and debt. This can only mean more hopelessness and despair. Economists are warning that the problem may be long-lasting.
Ultimately, government programs have helped few people. Poverty is at an all-time high. Hopelessness reigns across much of America. Drug addictions are still crippling society, and fentanyl is killing Americans in far greater numbers than COVID ever did. In one part of Philadelphia, known as Kensington, people walk around like zombies as they are perpetually drugged up. Still, social programs make up over 65% of the federal budget. Defense is only 15%.
Corporations aren’t any better. What have they done to earn the public trust? Since 2009, America’s youth watched their parents work their rears off to try and make a home for them. Only to lose jobs for the sake of increasing corporate profits, struggle, and in too many instances, lose a home. Businesses taught kids that they couldn’t trust a boss or a business leader when the going got tough and that money was more important than people.
Most people under 25 today barely know what true prosperity and happiness look like. It doesn’t make matters better that schools are now acting like bullies in forcing gender issues on kids and telling young girls that biological boys who identify as girls are one of them. So much for feminism.
So, Schult’s discovery shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention for the last several decades. It’s the natural outflow of liberalism and progressivism.
While we must deal with the urgency of the youth mental health crisis, it’s not the long-term answer.
I’m beginning a journey to study Calvin Coolidge. He was a man ahead of his time. He understood that anything is possible when all Americans have hope and opportunity. He fought for women, black Americans, and equality. I’m inspired by his intellectualism and his embrace of America’s founding.
We need a president and leaders who will fight for America, not themselves. We need leaders who understand the founding era, basic economics, and civil liberties.
Here are just a few quotes from Coolidge I found inspiring:
“I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.”
“Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.”
“Democracy is not a tearing down; it is a building up. It does not denial of the divine right of kings; it asserts the divine right of all men.”
“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”
“This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.”
“Economy today is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.”
America needs hope, opportunity, and happiness.
Liberalism and progressivism cannot provide the mechanisms necessary to achieve that goal. Instead, it uses the power of government to constrain fundamental rights to collect more power.
The results are self-evident.
The question is, when will America wake up and see it?
The Conservative Era
