How Do Americans Find Common Ground and Move Forward Together?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns ongoing efforts “to find a better way to embody the love of God in public life, offering hope for unity and a moral framework to move forward in a divided world.”

As part of that ongoing effort, President Dallin H. Oaks, Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was invited to speak at the Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. The date was chosen because it was the eve of Constitution Day on Thursday, September 17. 

Professionally, President Oaks “regarded the United States Constitution as a model for a diverse people to achieve self-government.” He joined others in believing that “our history to teach that ‘Creating common ground is a key purpose of the Constitution.’” He continued by stating, “The Constitution requires us to deal constantly with people who disagree with us. It compels a divided people to build coalitions that allow them to act together for the common good.”

Early in his remarks, President Oaks emphasizes that he was speaking for the United States Constitution and not for any political party or pressure group. He spoke from his experience as “a law clerk to Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, … 15 years as a professor of law and … 3.5 years as a justice on the Utah Supreme Court.” He was also speaking “from 42 years as an Apostle of Jesus Christ, responsible to study the meaning of the divinely inspired principles of the United States Constitution.” Here is President Oaks’ explanation of the inspired principles in the United States Constitution.

What became the United States was founded and built by people of different nationalities, ethnicities, and beliefs. Its unifying purpose was not to establish a particular religion or to perpetuate any of the diverse cultures or tribal loyalties of the old countries. Our founding generation, whom we honor in this 250^th anniversary, sought to be unified by a new constitution and laws. That is not to say that our unifying Declaration and initial Constitution or the then-current understanding of their meanings were perfect. The history of the first two centuries of the United States showed the need for many important changes, such as voting rights for women and, particularly, the abolition of slavery. New laws had to ensure that those who had been enslaved or disadvantaged would have all the conditions of freedom.

Many different groups – political and cultural – needed to participate to resolve the diversities that had separated us. These different groups, included scholars, cultural, civic, and religious organizations, all of which are represented in today’s gathering. Speaking for my own Church, the U.S. Constitution is of special importance to our members. We have a revelation that identifies the Constitution as divinely inspired. This does not mean that every word is inspired, but that it is based on inspired principles. First, is the principle that the source of government power is the citizens – what is often called popular sovereignty. Second, is the division of delegated power between the nation and its subsidiary states. A third inspired principle is the separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Fourth, is the cluster of vital guarantees of individual rights and specific limits on government authority such as in the Bill of Rights. Fifth, we see divine inspiration in the vital purpose of the entire constitution, which is that we are to be governed by law and not by individuals. Our loyalty is based on the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to particular office-holders.

In his closing remarks, President Oaks called for all Americans to become peacemakers. He used the example of the Church of Jesus Christ’s helping hands program in which volunteers in yellow shirts help in clean up efforts after natural disasters and other humanitarian projects worldwide. “In the process, relationships are formed people-to-people that would be impossible by institutional declarations.” He continued:

There is an important lesson in the “helping hands” experience. It is an effort that brings peace to people who are in distress. But it also teaches us the power that comes when individuals put aside their differences and work together to find common ground. When our volunteers bring help, people in distress do not ask for their beliefs. Likewise, the volunteers help everyone, not just fell believers. Why? Simply because deeper moral needs about safety and family and hope take center stage. What is important is giving help and getting help, people-to-people. This is the way to united people who face a common problem. Peacemaking involves finding common ground. A minister who seeks to heal a troubled marriage or resolve a personal controversy is working for peace. Young men and women are peacemakers when they forgo the temporary pleasure of self-gratifying activities and involve themselves in service projects and other acts of kindness. Persons who seek to reduce human suffering and persons who work to promote understanding among different peoples are also workers for peace.

People of goodwill, compassion, and a desire to understand and help one another are at the core of peacemaking and fairness for all in the constitutional process of achieving freedom and unity, as difficult and slow as it is. It is all about trying to understand the deep needs, the deep commitments, on both sides and then to forge solutions that yield peace and fairness for all.

President Oaks closed his remarks with a prayer for all: “I pray to our Heavenly Father for His blessings upon us that we will all seek to be peacemakers.”

 

 

How Do We Protect the Constitution from Sharia Law?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the creep of Sharia law in the Unitd States. The Sharia-Free America Caucus is helping to preserve the U.S. Constitution beyond Washington in the 120^th Congress. Pedro Rodriguez explained the news in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

The caucus, which has previously raised awareness of the controversial Islamic rule known as Sharia law and pushed legislation to protect the U.S. Constitution from it, is looking to work with state leaders to codify legislative efforts.

Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith told the Daily Signal that the Hoosier State could be a potential partner for the caucus, saying that he would “100 percent [be] all in on this.”

Beckwith said the idea to partner with the congressional caucus to protect his home state from a foreign law that enforces female genital mutilation and creates a hostile environment for those of other religions is not just his personal desire, but one shared by his Indiana constituents.

“I’ve gotten so much support, not just from Republicans, but also Democrats who see that the rise of Sharia is a problem,” he continued.

However, Beckwith explained that people need to raise awareness of what the law entails. “Islam is not just a religion; it is a political and military ideology,” Beckwith said.

During his phone interview with the Daily Signal, Indiana’s lieutenant governor referred to some uninformed constituents as people who don’t realize the extent of the threat posed by Sharia law, adding that it “will destroy our Constitution.”

“Hoosiers are people who are normally reactive to things instead of being proactive,” he said. “But we don’t have the luxury of being reactive here – we have to understand the issue. Raising awareness will be important.”

One roadblock to defeating Sharia law in America, Beckwith continued, could come from Democrats aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, whom he called “useful idiots for Sharia.”

He cited the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 as a prime example of “what the red-green alliance will look like,” adding that, at the time, the Islamic revolutionary forces used socialist propaganda to secure sufficient public support to overthrow the government. The revolutionary forces then turned around and suppressed the same crowd of people who lifted them up, especially women.

“The only difference between Islam and the [Chinese Communist Party] is that Islam will hide behind a false religion to build a military ideology,” Beckwith said. “We saw it sine Muhammad immigrated from Mecca to Medina; they immigrated, populated, and dominated.”

Despite the potential backlash, the lieutenant governor said he believes that “it’s in the realm of possibility” that Indiana will follow Florida and Texas in standing up to the Islamic rule. “I see an appetite for it,” he concluded.

The idea might have support with state lawmakers. Previously, Indiana state Rep. Andrew Ireland told the Daily Signal that he is ready to work with colleagues to solidify the push in the Indiana Statehouse….

Why Are Judges Ruling Against Election Integrity Laws?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns election integrity laws and judges who are determined to strike them down. According to Hans von Spakovsky, a judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, struck down a Texas voter ID law for the fifth time last week. 

[Federal District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos’s] 2014 rebuff of the original version of the Texas law made it clear that she believes all voter ID laws are based solely on the desire to discriminate, not improve the integrity of the election process.

Now you know why the plaintiffs went shopping to her federal court to bring the statewide challenge.

In 2014, Ramos ruled that the law discriminated against minority voters – ignoring clear evidence that this is not the case. Minority turnout had actually increased in the 2013 state election, the first election held with the new ID law in place.

What makes Ramos’ latest ruling so odd is that the amended law not only followed all guidelines set out by the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals, it also contained provisions that Ramos herself had found acceptable as an interim remedy for the November 2016 election.

Adding a new wrinkle, Ramos also ruled unacceptable a provision Texas adopted that has been part of federal law – and never challenged – since 2002.

Here’s why Ramos’ decision is likely to be reversed.

The original Texas law required voters to present a government-issued photo ID, and the state to provide a free ID to anyone who did not already have one. Ramos ruled this provision was discriminatory, and a split 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld her views on the discriminatory effect claim.

But the 5^th Circuit remanded the case to Ramos, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support her conclusion that the legislature had a discriminatory purpose in passing the law. Most importantly, the 5^th Circuit held that, since the vast majority of Texas voters could meet the ID requirement, Ramos would have to tailor her remedy to rectify only the discriminatory effect on the very small number of voters who could not meet the ID requirement.

By throwing out the entire law, Ramos has blatantly ignored the 5^th Circuit’s directive.

The 5^th Circuit also found acceptable the section of prior Texas law that allowed “forms of identification like utility bills, bank statements, or paychecks.”

In 2016, when the litigation was remanded to Ramos, she approved an interim remedy (agreed to by the Obama Justice Department) that would allow voters who showed up at the polling place without an ID to still vote in the general election if they:

1.     Signed a declaration that they had a “reasonable impediment” that prevented them from getting the free photo ID; and

2.     Presented a “valid voter registration certificate, a certified birth certificate, a current utility bill, a bank statement, a government check, a paycheck, or any other government document that displays the voter’s name and address.”

In other words, the remedial law had a safety valve where individuals without an ID were still able to vote.

This list of documents is identical in part to a federal requirement (Section 303(b) of the Help America Vote Act) that has been in place since 2002.

That provision requires that any voter who registers to vote by mail must, the first time they vote, show state election officials an ID such as a “current and valid photo identification” or “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter.”

The voter ID law amendment adopted by the Texas Legislature this year implemented the language from the Ramos-approved interim remedy and the 2002 Help America Vote Act almost word-for-word.

Now claiming that the law as amended is discriminatory, Ramos dismissed her prior approval of these same requirements as not a “binding determination.” …

 

Will Americans Vote for the Constitution or For Revolution?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns groups who wish to dismantle the United States and rebuild it to fit their designs. They believe that they are allowed to use violence or any other means to achieve their “noble” goals of equality, fairness, and welfare. Victor Davis Hanson discussed this problem in an article published in The Daily Signal. Victor Davis Hanson: The Radical Left Wants to Destroy America and Rebuild It

We often associate leftist movements, anarchists of the 19^th century, Jacobins of the 18^th century, Marxists, Bolsheviks, Symbionese Liberation [Army], the Weather Underground with violence.

And the argument that they use is, we are for mandated equality and fairness and helping the underprivileged, and therefore to achieve those noble ends, which were morally and intellectually superior to those on the conservative side, we’re allowed to use any means necessary. And any means necessary is what’s happening right now

Hasan Piker is always in the news. He’s the multimillionaire podcaster, second-generation Turkish immigrant who just recently led a cheering crowd in a song, whipped up the crowd, mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk. …

Remember, he’s also told us that 9/11, we essentially deserved it. It was our fault, 9/11 was. He’s not unusual right now on the Left.

Angie Nixon is a radical socialist, and she won the Democratic primary Senate campaign, and she will be in the runoff for Florida’s junior senator. She said recently that ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were slave catchers and t hat they were targeting black people, no different than people in the Confederacy, and that the U.S. government was trying to kill blacks.

She doesn’t understand that under the auspices of DEI, which continues affirmative action, that blacks have [been] given preferential treatment based on past transgressions that the majority of the country felt needed to be addressed.

No one is trying to kill young back people, much less the government. If you look at the murder rates, the statistics make her completely unbelievable….

Then we have another luminary in this new radical extremist movement, Abdul El-Sayed. He’s running now. He won the nomination in the Michigan senatorial race. He will be running against Mike Rogers for the Senate. He said … that he follows Sharia law. He was caught in a hot mic saying that we should not celebrate the death of the supreme leader, [Ali] Khamenei, in Iran.

Remember, [Khamenei] had just ordered 40,000 of his own people to be slaughtered, that were protesting. And he said, “My constituents wouldn’t like that.” …

When he tried to attack a fellow Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman, he said, ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message. That’s almost a blatant call to kill him and then to use that violence to intimidate other people….

We’ve had four occasions now when the Secret Service shot at potential and actual Trump assassins. We’ve had Hollywood stars. We’ve had people like Robert DeNiro, Kathy Griffin, Shakespeare in the Park in New York, celebrity cooks, and Snoop Dog.

They’ve said they’ve all tried to compete in imagining to use an audience through public media and social media whether they should kill Donald Trump, whether they should burn Donald Trump, whether they could decapitate him, whether they could throw him over a cliff, whether they could blow him up….

For three years, the FBI, a rogue agency under James Comey and then later Andrew McCabe, cooked up the Steele dossier, which was a complete fabrication, and tried to take out a Republican candidate for the presidency. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was all based on a lie.

We were told in 2020 that a laptop with incriminating evidence, which the FBI had in its possession and had verified it as Hunter [Biden] laptop’s possession, it was his property with all the incriminating information on it, was cooked up by the Russians. Fifty former CIA and intelligence authorities swore on the eve of the election that the Russians and Donald Trump were colluding. It was a complete lie….

We had four prosecutors, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith. They all made up charges…

Over 20 states tried to take a Republican nominee off the ballot for the general election so the voters wouldn’t even have a chance.

I’m not even gonna get into the social media where the FBI was partnering with social media to squash stories they felt were prejudicial to Joe Biden.

What we’re witnessing is a revolutionary movement, as I said, and we have people who are celebrating the death of their opponents. They’re dreaming of how to kill their opponents.

They’re praising people who murder. This is the starkest choice in November that we’ve had in a midterm election in my lifetime.

There is a vast gulf, a huge chasm between what the Democratic Socialists are advocating and what traditional conservatives are trying to maintain.

If they win, we will see the beginning of a destroyed border, and we will return to 12 million people within a four-year period crossing unaudited. We will see a war on fossil fuels, even as we were the greatest producer of gas and oil in history.

We will see biological men green-lighted to compete in female sports. Antisemitism will be the trademark and anti-hatred, not anti-Israelism, hatred of the only democracy in the Middle East.

We will see a full-fledged return of diversity, equity, inclusion, prejudice and bias.

What we’re talking about is a revolutionary group who often is telling us, “If you elect us, you will not recognize the United States as you’ve known it. We must destroy it and rebuild it along socialist and totalitarian designs.”

Remember that when you go in [November], and vote for somebody who says, “We are not ashamed of what America is. We’re the greatest nation in the world, and we’re the greatest nation in the world because of our traditions, our Constitution, our protocols, and we have nothing to apologize for.”

What Is Happening with Birthright Citizenship?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns birthright citizenship, a topic that is once again in the news. President Donald Trump is trying to do all that he can to stop foreigners from coming to America and particularly those who are coming only to have a baby on American soil

Trump lost his first case at the Supreme Court when the court ruled in June that babies born on American soil have birthright citizenship. The loss did not stop Trump, who “issued two new executive orders seeking to limit avenues for birthright citizenship in the United States.” In her article in the Deseret News, Lauren Irwin explained the new orders as follows. 

The two orders appeared to try to find a way around the court’s ruling that struck down his previous executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship all together.

After receiving the setback from the justices, Trump vowed to change the constitutional guarantee another way.

He was accompanied by White House deputy chief of staff for policy Steven Miller in the Oval Office as he signed the new executive orders: one that puts limits on birthright citizenship for children of embassy employees and another on birth tourism.

Scholars are divided about whether his orders will be allowed to go into effect and advocates are questioning the legality, just as they did in January 2025.

But what do Trump’s orders actually say, and will they fail legal scrutiny like the last one?

The birthright citizenship executive orders

The first order, titled “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” looks to exclude babies born to employees working for foreign governments, meaning embassy or consulate staff who aren’t U.S. citizens.

The long-standing rule was that children born in the U.S. to accredited ambassadors or diplomats didn’t receive birthright citizenship because their parents are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction – which was the key question before the Supreme Court. However, Trump’s order covers a broader number of people, not just diplomats.

Trump’s new order expands the ban on birthright citizenship to all foreign government employees living in the United States.

The order raises legal questions because the Trump administration argues those people aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States under the 14^th Amendment, but others argue that the diplomatic exception was a very narrow avenue to deny birthright citizenship to begin with and cannot be expanded.

The order also targets children of members of foreign terrorist groups and babies whose parents are engaged in “fraudulent activity” to gain citizenship in the country.

The second executive order, titled “Ending Birth Tourism,” directs the secretary of state and the secretary of homeland security to deny visas to anyone suspected of engaging in birth tourism.

While the exact scale of birth tourism is unclear and the number of children born to foreign nationals in the United States was less than 10,000 in 2024, the order is looking to end or limit the practice of pregnant women who say they’re coming to the U.S. for another reason in order to give birth so their child can receive U.S. citizenship under the constitutional guarantee….

Trump’s order will likely face legal challenges, but still, it targets a very small number of children born in the U.S. annually, since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 3.6 million babies were born in 2024.

Trump said when signing the orders that people were building businesses around birth tourism and birthright citizenship.

“They’re buying their way in, and we’re not going to let it happen,” he said, adding, “We look very heavily at denying visas to people that we have reason to believe are coming here for that purpose.” …

Scholars are divided over whether the courts will allow Trump to amend birthright citizenship and birth tourism.

It’s potentially legal to expand the category of foreign diplomats not being included but it also would give them significant immunity from U.S. law, Amanda Frost, a University of Virginia law professor, told Reuters….

The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups filed a motion last week asking a federal judge to block the enforcement of the two orders.

They argue Trump can’t circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling since the justices already confirmed the 14^th Amendment guarantees and the specific “subject to the jurisdiction” language.

Since the administration deliberately narrowed the language of the birthright executive order, courts will have to decide if the foreign government employees and birth tourists fit within the historical framework of the jurisdiction clause.

 

 

What Did John Adams Say About Defending Constitutions?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns communism, Democratic Socialists of America, and the youth group of the Democrats. Daniel McCarthy recently shared his thoughts on this topic in an article published in The Daily Signal. 

The Democratic Socialists of America don’t like being called communists….

Yet, however the group self-identifies, its agenda is openly revolutionary.

It plans call for, among other things, abolishing the United States Senate and making the executive branch and the Supreme Court subservient to the House of Representatives.

Like many a revolutionary organ, the DSA acts as a party within a party, and it increasingly represents the youth wing of the Democrats….

Yet DSA’s ideas are remarkably old-fashioned – so old, in fact, they were refuted by John Adams in 1787.

That was the year he began publishing a multivolume work called “A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America.

It was so long ago Americans still spelled “defence” with a “c.”

The book refers to “constitutions,” plural, because Adams hadn’t seen the new U.S. Constitution drawn up in Philadelphia that year.

He was actually defending the state constitutions against French intellectuals who insisted they should be more radical.

That was just two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, with all the murder and mayhem it would bring.

The old French versions of today’s DSA schemers condemned bicameral legislatures for the same reason Mamdani’s and AOC’s fans do now: Their idea of “democracy” called for centralizing power in a single body.

No checks, no balances, and certainly no federalism – the whole nation was to be personified in an omnipotent unitary legislation.

Adams, who had been one of the first American revolutionary leaders to call for independence from Britain, was no enemy of popular self-government.

But pure democracy would be as bad as any other kind of centralized despotism – so he defended the “mixed” constitutions of the states, almost all of which had separate upper and lower legislative chambers and divided legislative, executive, and judicial power.

The federal Constitution was drawn up on the same principles – and combined them with a division of powers between the states and national government.

A glance at how the Constitution has performed for the last 239 years, compared to the chaos and bloodshed that engulfed revolutionary France once the proto-DSA types started getting their way there, shows who was right.

But DSA, not content with dreaming of an end to capitalism, wants to end constitutionalism as well.

Revolutionary parties, like Russia’s Bolsheviks, have often had such farfetched goals – the point isn’t to achieve them so much as it is to wreck whatever already exists.

DSA’s first step is to radicalize the Democratic Party, making previously outrageous ideas like packing the Supreme Court seem mild by comparison to the Democratic Socialist program. Abolishing the Senate may be politically impossible, but de-legitimizing it is a way to delegitimize obstacles to centralized power – not just the Senate itself, with its equal representation for all states, large or small, but the very principle of federalism.

 

… DSA wants to make the whole country like California, only worse. That’s their idea of democracy – the socialist version.

It’s the revolutionary French version as well, and it’s as un-American as anything can be. Yet it’s a magnet pulling the Democratic Party hard to the left.

Notoriously, DSA has a disproportionate number of members who are highly educated but low-paid or unemployed.

Like the Marxists of the last century or the French philosophes of the century before that, they’re sophisticated enough to seem like they know what they’re talking about, if you haven’t learned how disastrous their ideas have proved to be in practice.

But American education doesn’t teach much about the horrors of communism or France’s Reign of Terror.

Radicals occupied the educational establishment early on, and now they’re reaping political rewards for the ignorance they’ve fostered in the public.

According to recent Cata Institute polling, Generation Z – Americans between ages 14 and 29 – favors socialism over capitalism by 53% to 45%, though the “Democratic Socialist” label polls less well.

Despite having “democratic” in its name, however, DSA doesn’t need majority support to bring about revolutionary change for the worse: A motivated minority is enough when the majority is unaware of its danger.

 

What Is the SAVE Database?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns election integrity and clean voter rolls. According to an article written by Fred Lucas and published at The Daily Signal, the federal government – the Department of Homeland Security—has a database to help identify dead people and noncitizens who are registered to vote. The program is the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. 

Using the SAVE database, twenty-five states have “identified hundreds of thousands of dead people and noncitizens registered to vote.” However, only ten states “have fully processed the voter data through the … SAVE database.”

SAVE is primarily used by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to verify eligibility for government benefits. The Trump administration made it available to states to cross-reference voter registration data.

So far, 25 states have cross-checked more than 68 million voter registration records through SAVE and found 28,000 noncitizens and 400,000 dead people registered to vote. As more states finalize the process, the number will likely grow.

Among just those 10 states that completely process their voter data through the SAVE system, they found more than 10,000 noncitizens and more than 360,000 dead people on the voter rolls, according to DHS.

A DHS memo says, “These states are serious about ensuring that only US citizens vote in US elections.”

Georgia, in using the SAVE system, found that 2,540 noncitizens had at some point registered to vote. It also found 42,776 deceased people on the rolls….

Several other of the 10 states that completed the process corroborated the numbers referenced in the DHS memo.

Ohio identified only 769 noncitizens on the voter rolls, but 59,774 dead people were listed….

North Carolina’s review determined 34,622 deceased people and 1,599 noncitizens were on the voter rolls….

In Texas, the nation’s second-most populous state, there are 111,573 dead people and 2,296 noncitizens on the voter rolls, according to DHS.

Louisiana had 15,231 dead people on the voter rolls, and 419 noncitizens, according to DHS….

Alabama, using the SAVE system, found 33,165 dead people on the rolls, and 465 noncitizens, according to DHS.

Missouri had 10,660 dead people registered to vote, and 1,112 noncitizens. Kansas has 10,197 dead registered voters and 449 noncitizens on the voter lists, according to DHS.

Idaho had 4,328 dead people on the voter rolls and 49 noncitizens.

Should Americans Worry About Democratic Socialists Winning Elections?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns socialism and “the recent rise in democratic socialists winning primary elections.” In an article published at the Deseret News, opinion editor Jay Evensen wrote the following: 

I’ve been around long enough to see how most long-term political plans eventually crack and disintegrate under the harsh heat of reality. So, I try not to get too worked up over the recent rise in democratic socialist winning primary elections, or over the movement’s supposed aims, which sound closer to Marx than to Jefferson or Madison.

But those who hope a post-Trump future might revert to the calmer political days of our youth may be disappointed. The far left seems to be on the rise to compete with the far right.

And while that rise is still small, if politicians don’t stem the fearsome rise in the national debt, a possible economic collapse and the chaos it could cause might bolster all kinds of radical ideologies….

Democracy has a way of taking the sharp edges off radical ideologies, eventually. The MAGA movement benefited from a charismatic leader, which the far left currently lacks.

A Gallup poll last year found a majority of Americans still feel favorably toward capitalism, but support is waning.

As I said, that trend could accelerate if the economy collapses under the weight of the national debt and its annual interest payments, which already exceed the nation’s military budget.

Samuel J. Abrams (professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute) agreed with Evensen in his column for Deseret News. “… Evensen is right not to panic [about] the recent string of democratic socialist primary victories nationwide.” Why young Americans are turning to socialism | Opinion – Deseret News

This is all true, but there is a deeper story that must be told as to why these radical ideologies have begun to win and why these politicians have been able to organize so effectively. It begins with the question of why so many young Americans are drawn to them.

The answer can be found in a book published a quarter century ago by a late mentor of mine – Seymour Martin Lipset. Writing with Gary Marks, Lipset wrote “It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States” and asked why America, alone among industrial democracies, never developed a serious socialist movement.

The socialists trying to reshape the Democratic Party

The answers Lipset and Marks offered were partly structural – our two-party system and winner-take-all elections punished third parties – but they were also, crucially, experiential. So many Americans lived capitalism’s promise and positive realities.

America’s workforce saw real mobility for themselves and their children and an individualist, antistatist creed ran deep. Moreover, Americans were formidable joiners – as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville decades earlier – and they were deeply embedded in churches, lodges, unions, clubs and neighborhood associations that gave them belonging, status and voice without any need for a revolutionary party to supply it.

Lipset and Marks argued that socialism did not fail in the United States because Americans read the right rebuttals to Marx. Rather, it failed because the conditions present nationwide never let it take hold. This points to the uncomfortable truth of 2026: Almost every immunity Lipset and Marks identified in their book has now degraded – particularly for young adults.

A misunderstanding of market economics

Start with young Americans’ lived experience of markets and capitalism. In cities where socialism has gained political traction – Chicago, Seattle, New York and San Francisco – many younger Americans are living through soaring housing costs, shrinking opportunities and dysfunctional markets. Their frustrations are real.

This mistake is not in recognizing the problems but in misidentifying their causes. Too often, however, they are seeing the consequences of regulation, restrictive zoning and poor governance as if they were failures of capitalism itself.

That confusion is hardly surprising. Most young Americans have never been taught how markets create prosperity. Significant numbers graduate from college without taking a single economics course….

A lack of strong social structures

Moving beyond economic systems, Lipset and Marks would point to the recent real decline of associational life as a major cause of socialism’s ascent. Theorists from Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke to Robert Nisbet and Richard John Neuhaus have long marveled at Americans’ art of association. Lipset understood that these institutions kept radicalism marginal by meeting fundamental human needs for fellowship, purpose and recognition.

Those institutions have been hollowed out, and young adults are the loneliest Americans on record. They may be digitally connected and habitually online, but few join congregations, civic clubs, scouting or recreational leagues. They are not merely under-informed; so many younger Americans are isolated, under-formed, unattached and without a social core….

What can be done?

If we consider this framing, it radically changes how we think about this so-called socialist surge. If the problem were socialism as an ideology itself, the answer would be rebuttal with more op-eds, more education and public-focused work, and more warnings about Venezuela and countless failed states. But reason and evidence alone do not persuade or work on people whose initial attraction was rooted less in ideas than belonging.

If the problem is formation – and that certainly appears to be the case – the real answer is to rebuild what once formed young Americans into confident, connected participants in a free society.

That means teaching economics so that graduates understand scarcity, trade-offs, incentives and the astonishing record of market economies, along with their real failures. It also means rebuilding our social associations where young people find the belonging they now seek in ideological movements like the DSA….

Finally, I should note that Lipset’s title contained a quiet warning that his admirers sometimes miss. Socialism didn’t happen here in the past tense because a particular America existed: prosperous, mobile, religious, fraternal and thick with institutions that formed citizens and demonstrated capitalism’s promise in daily life. That America was not an accident, and its immunities are not permanent as we see now – our nation’s immunities to socialism were built and then regularly reaffirmed.

Evensen is right that we need not fear the socialists. What we should fear and then fix is the loneliness and disconnection as well as the ignorance that make socialism feel like an answer for so many young people. Restore formation, purpose, community, and belonging and this socialist impulse will fade the way of every American socialist movement before it did.

  

What Are the Threats against America?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns threats in America that go “beyond the familiar divide between Democrats and Republicans.” According to Ben Shapiro in his article published at The Daily Signal, there are “two ideological movements – one on the far left, one emerging on the populist right.” The two movements “share a willingness to undermine the principles that have long defined the American experiment.” After opening his article with the quoted information, he explained as follows. 

On one side stands the Democratic Socialists of America, whose influence within the Democratic Party has grown dramatically. This is no longer simply a debate over tax rates or entitlement programs. The party’s activist wing has become increasingly hostile to the ideas that have undergirded th3e country for 250 years: freedom of speech, religious liberty, private property, free markets and the belief that America is an exceptional nation worth preserving.

The political consequences are no longer hypothetical. Democrats have a realistic chance to regain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Competitive Senate races across North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Alaska, and Iowa underscore how narrow the margins have become. If Democrats were to reclaim both the House and Senate, the ramifications would extend far beyond the next two years.

The federal judiciary is the clearest example.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are both in their late 70s. Should vacancies arise while Democrats control the Senate, the ideological balance of the court could shift for a generation. A new liberal majority would influence constitutional interpretation on everything from executive authority and religious liberty to economic regulation and the administrative state. At the same time, Democrats would accelerate confirmations throughout the federal judiciary, leaving an imprint that would outlast any single administration.

Those stakes make recent developments on the right especially consequential.

Tucker Carlson has spent recent weeks floating the idea of launching a third political party, arguing that Republicans and Democrats are effectively indistinguishable on issues of war, spending and finance. He portrays America’s two-party system as little more than a single political establishment masquerading as democracy.

That argument ignores the most significant policy differences in American politics. Republicans and Democrats remain sharply divided over taxation, judicial appointments, regulation, free markets, energy policy, and the proper role of government. Pretending those distinctions no longer exist requires overlooking the very issues that define modern elections….

[Carlson’s] current rhetoric politically [is] significant even if no third party ever appears on the ballot. Republicans already face the historical disadvantages of defending Congress during a president’s midterm. Voices on the right openly rooting for Republican defeats only increase the likelihood that Democrats, increasingly influenced by their progressive wing, will gain power.

Following the nation’s semiquincentennial, the debate should return to first principles rather than political personalities.

For 250 years, America’s strength has rested on enduring ideas: constitutional government, individual liberty, private property, free enterprise, religious freedom and peace through strength. Those principles have survived wars, economic crises and political upheaval because each generation chose to defend them rather than discard them.

The greatest challenge facing the country may not come from a single ideological movement but from competing factions that, despite their differences, are increasingly willing to abandon those foundational principles. If the United States is to thrive to its 300^th anniversary, its 500^th and beyond, it will depend not on charismatic personalities or political factions but on whether Americans remain committed to the ideals that made the republic possible.

 

What Is the First Freedom and Why Is It Essential?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is that “religious freedom undergirds the very existence of America.” President Dallin H. Oaks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints authored an essay about the First Amendment, moral absolutes, and why the Constitution was created for a religious people. The essay was published at the Deseret News and was adapted from an earlier address given at Chapman University School of Law. 

Here is a note from the Editor: The centrality of religious freedom to the revelatory nature of America’s founding is why we’ve curated seminal selections on this first freedom in honor of America’s 250^th anniversary. These essays highlight the critical role faith played and continue to play in living out the inherent truths of the Declaration of Independence.

The first provision in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution is what many believe to be its most important guarantee. It reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

For almost a century, the First Amendment’s guarantee that the United States shall have “no law (prohibiting) the free exercise (of religious)” has been understood as a limitation on state as well as federal power. The guarantee of religious freedom is one of the supremely important founding principles in the United States Constitution, and it is reflected in the constitutions of all 50 of our states.

As noted by many, the guarantee’s “pre-eminent place” as the first expression in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution identifies freedom of religion as “a cornerstone of American democracy.” The American Colonies were originally settled by people who, for the most part, came to this continent for the freedom to practice their religious faith without persecution, and their successors deliberately placed religious freedom first in the nation’s Bill of Rights.

So it is that our federal law formally declares: “The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States,” So it is, I maintain, that in our nation’s founding and in our constitutional order, religious freedom and its associated First Amendment freedoms of speech and press are the motivating and dominating civil liberties and civil rights. Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable and important to our free society and therefore deserve special legal protection.

Our nation’s inimitable private sector of charitable works originated and is still furthered most significantly by religious impulses and religious organizations…. Religious beliefs instill patterns of altruistic behavior.

Many of the great moral advances in Western society have been motivated by religious principles and moved through the public square by pulpit-preaching. The abolition of the slave trade in England and the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States … were driven primarily by individuals who had a clear vision of what was morally right and what was morally wrong. In our time, the Civil Rights Movement was, of course, inspired and furthered by religious leaders.

Religion also strengthens our nation in terms of honesty and integrity. Modern science and technology have given us remarkable devices, but we are frequently reminded that their operation in our economic system and the resulting prosperity of our nation rest on the honesty of the men and women who use them…. These standards and practices of honesty and integrity rest, ultimately, on our ideas of right and wrong, which, for most of us, are ground in principles of religion and the teachings of religious leaders.

Our society is not held together just by law and its enforcement, but most importantly by voluntary obedience to the unenforceable and by widespread adherence to unwritten norms of right or righteous behavior. Religious belief in right and wrong is a vital influence to advocate and persuade such voluntary compliance by a large proportion of our citizens.

Others, of course, have a moral compass not expressly grounded in religion….

My final example of the importance of religion in our country concerns the origin of the Constitution. Its formation over 200 years ago was made possible by religious principles of human worth and dignity, and only those principles in the hearts of a majority of our diverse population can sustain that Constitution today. I submit that religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the influence of religion in our public life without seriously jeopardizing our freedoms.

The founders who established this nation believed in God and in the existence of moral absolutes – right and wrong – established by this Ultimate Lawgiver. The Constitution they established assumed and relied on morality in the actions of its citizens. Where did that morality come from and how was it to be retained? Belief in God and the consequent reality of right and wrong was taught by religious leaders in churches and synagogues, and the founders gave us the First Amendment to preserve that foundation for the Constitution.

The preservation of religious freedom in our nation depends on the value we attach to the teachings of right and wrong in our churches, synagogues and mosques. It is faith in God that translates these religious teachings into the moral behavior that benefits the nation.