You have to understand the underpinning of what made America America—it's not just about the politics. And what made America was the fact that we were founded by a Christian country. Yes, it was largely British Christians, there's no question about that, but the point being is that Christianity was the source of that moral underpinning.
And by pushing Christ out of the public square and bringing in so many people who have no connection to Christ whatsoever, no background in Christianity, from non-Christian cultures, you see that all the time today. They were able to dilute the moral fabric of our country by diluting the cultural fabric of our country, by diluting the spiritual fabric of our country.
This is what got us into the situation we are in, and if we're simply going to keep complaining about the news of the day or whatever's happening on the surface level, then all you're doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
You can't have that, and so that's what you see in Gen Z. There's a split in Gen Z where there are folks who want radical change. Some folks want the populace. They want the return to Christianity. They want the return to the real thing, uncompromising, authentic Christianity. Not making apologies for our faith. Not making apologies for Jesus Christ. Not making apologies for Western civilization and Christendom. Not making apologies for who we are and what we believe. No other group does this. You only hear Christians do it for some reason.
But you never heard Fulton Sheen do that. You never heard Fulton Sheen sit there and apologize for the United States of America, apologize for what we believe, apologize for believing in Jesus Christ. No, he said, this is who we are. This is what we believe. This is why we believe it. This is the way that the United States was built and founded upon. And if we're ever going to fix things, this is the way we get it back. This is the way, the only way, that we get it all back. So, folks, that's what we're here to do.
But the reason that you see so many Gen Z people very well dressed, they're very well put together, they're trim, they're fit, the men, the women, it's because they're taking themselves seriously. This isn't the burn-it-down generation. They're the build-it-up generation.
Charlie Kirk, my dear friend, and Zoran Mamdani are very similar in age when you think about it. They're both in their young 30s, and they both were involved in politics. But they had two radically different solutions to the problems of the day. One was an anti-white, anti-Christian, and he became the mayor of New York City. He wants to burn it all down. He has envy and hatred in his heart, and the other was Charlie.
Look at the example that Charlie set. He built a parallel institution, a counter institution, Turning Point USA. He got married. He had two young kids, wanted more, and he was showing that you can build, that you don't have to give in to the nihilism of the day. You don't have to give into the relativism of the day of saying that there's no point to doing anything.
And Charlie was a huge fan of Fulton Sheen. Huge fan of Fulton Sheen. He shared Fulton Sheen stuff with me all the time, and if you watch some of those clips where Charlie would be, particularly the ones where he was speaking at churches, I think that's where you really saw a lot of the things that he said would line up with a lot of the presentation and the rhetoric of Fulton J. Sheen.
And so we have to understand this is what the young people want. They want a way out of the morass. They want a way out of the malaise. An uncompromising commitment to Christ is absolutely the way to get there. They see that, and they're thirsty for it. They're yearning for it, and it's why I sit there and say, this isn't the path of the lukewarm. Christ said, I taste something that's lukewarm. I spit it out. Christ did not accept the lukewarm.
We cannot be lukewarm patriots. We must be full-throated, full-bodied American patriots, with Christ tattooed on our hearts.
