Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss The New York Times being the scum of the earth and Graham Platner’s secret life.

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Like most everyone else in the nation, I have been following the drama-filled campaign of Democratic candidate Graham Platner. Everyone calls him the Nazi-tattooed Senate hopeful from Maine. He’s a champagne socialist who pretends to be one of the “working-class” because he runs an oyster farm and once worked as a bartender, when in reality he had a pretty posh upbringing.

And while all of these things are unsettling to some degree, unfortunately, in our political climate, lying about your background doesn’t really move the needle that much with voters. All the negative coverage in the world isn’t going to stop some from voting for him.

Still, when I heard on Thursday that a major story was going to break from the New York Times about the secret life of Platner, I was waiting with bated breath to find out what new horrors would be unveiled. But as the story captured the political world’s attention, I couldn’t help but be enraged.

The New York Times, which once labeled my column “far-right,” published allegations from a former girlfriend of Platner’s detailing years of abuse. But instead of doing the story any justice, they sanitized it. They added hedged phrases like “nobody could corroborate,” despite the woman providing detailed diary entries and witnesses who backed up her statements.

There was way less evidence in the public hanging of Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh, which the New York Times willingly participated in. But of course, those of us on the right know why the Times did what they did to this story. Platner, despite all of his serious character flaws, is one of them. Kavanaugh is not.

The New York Times once again proved why Americans have largely demoted elite media: they simply aren’t trustworthy.

And while that was upsetting, there was something deeper irritating my soul.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss America’s 250th birthday and why it’s so important that we don’t screw up the celebration.

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We might as well get straight into this. The celebration for America’s 250th birthday is extremely disappointing. I’ve been trying to stay as positive about it as possible because I want this to be a national unifier, something that brings the country together and makes us excited to be American again. However, last week’s debacle over artists canceling on the America 250 concert and the Trump administration’s decision to turn it into a Trump rally is concerning.

I’ve been captivated with Trump since he rode down those golden escalators. I’ve watched just about every one of his political rallies once they began livestreaming them. But even I don’t want to watch Trump talk for 90 minutes, telling the same jokes and bloviating about his administration’s supposed wins for the country.

That’s not the point of the celebration. We are supposed to be uniting the country. And whether Trump supporters like it or not, the reality is that half the country loves him and half the country wants him dead. So watching another one of his speeches isn’t going to draw large swaths of Americans from all walks of life.

It’s June 3. There isn’t much time before July 4. Still, if they act quickly, there is a way to salvage this and turn it into something that could captivate Americans. I saw a lot of people online complaining about the original lineup being filled with has-beens, which I think is a little unfair. We all know how polarizing the Trump administration can be, and the left is extremely violent. Not only does it not make sense for headliners to put their careers on the line for this, but it could be a fatal decision if a far-left agitator becomes activated to strike.

Still, someone (I think it was Matt Walsh) asked why they didn’t get talented, regular, no-name artists to perform at the concert. And that got me thinking: We have a president who ran a successful reality show. Why not lean on his expertise in that arena and create an “America’s Got Talent”- or “American Idol”- type contest that is livestreamed nationwide to find talent for the concert?

The way I see it working is to put out a massive casting call to all 50 states. They could broadcast the auditions to ramp up the national buy-in and allow Americans to vote on their favorite artists. Each state sends a winner to perform at the concert. That gives enough talent to produce a great show and helps unify the nation, solving both problems.

I am sympathetic to the cause. I understand how hard it is to put on something like this, but I can’t support just giving up. And that is exactly what it seems to be when a concert turns into a Trump rally.

If you read my post for Memorial Day, you know I feel like our nation is dying. Americans are desperate for normalcy. We are searching for a reason to forget the oppressive economy, the Iran War, and constant negative news cycles. America’s big birthday is the perfect opportunity for this, but we are wasting the potential.

We have very few chances left to resurrect the patriotism needed to carry on another 250 years. With our country so divided, it’s imperative that we do this. The left believes that American culture is based on ideas. The right believes that it’s based on heritage. Not only are these two things incompatible, but neither is fully correct.

Take Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s girlfriend as the perfect example. Brianna Menard descends from Michel Branamour Menard, founder of Galveston and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. This would make her a 6th- or 7th-generation Texan. For all intents and purposes, her ancestry makes her Texas royalty. However, her political views are insane.

Brianna is a far-left vegan whom her great-grandfather would likely disown if he were still alive today. She’s dating a man who claims that the Virgin Mary was pro-choice, that kids should be allowed to chop their body parts off for the transgender ideology, and has made statements like “God is non-binary.”

He supports strict gun control and a bloated, out-of-control federal government that should control everything from healthcare to local education. None of this is compatible with a healthy country. We learned during the COVID-19 pandemic that the more power Americans gave the federal government, the worse our lives got.

In short, his ideas (which Brianna supports) are terrible. And yet, by the right’s “heritage” definition, she is an authentic American.

I think two things can be true at once. America has an immigration problem, both illegal and legal. They’ve come over to our country, refused to assimilate, and gained power through our electoral system. In this case, the right has the correct idea that we shouldn’t allow this to happen. This power should only be accessible for those with blood, sweat, and tears fertilizing our land. However, we have another just as equally toxic problem in that there is a large portion of “heritage Americans” who are just as harmful to our way of life, like Brianna and Talarico.

There is no simple solution to either of these. Immigration is arguably the easiest one to tackle, but it would require mass deportations and/or forced assimilation, which the courts and Democrat-controlled cities make virtually impossible to do. But how do we get the heritage Americans who no longer believe in the legacy that their ancestors left behind to buy back in?

The answer is certainly not another Trump rally. Most of these people are conditioned to scoff or have some other visceral reaction to his voice. Nothing he says will sway their minds, which is why it’s so important we resurrect the concert with something that everyone gets excited about.

For lack of a better term, we are going to have to trick them into celebrating this year. Country music made a comeback, even with the left, because our national culture accepted it. There is no reason why we can’t make patriotism “cool” again.

I think the reason I feel so let down by this is that I desperately want my children to grow up in the country that formed me. I want them to see their neighborhood adorned with American flags, Main St. with red, white, and blue covering every lamppost, and their community celebrating as one people. There is so much that disconnects us, forcing us to pick tribes. America 250 shouldn’t be a part of that.

Whether my idea of a reality show audition is feasible or not, there has to be something better than a political rally. We deserve more than that. Our forefathers gave us the greatest country ever formed, and we owe their sacrifice and boldness to celebrate the last 250 years with a hope-filled promise for the next.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This weekend, I ask you what you have done to honor the sacrifice of our fallen.

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Memorial Day is coming up, and it has me reflecting on a great many things. Of course, at the top is the ultimate sacrifice our military members make when they lay their lives down in the service of our country. But also, what have we done to honor that sacrifice?

Every year, veterans remind everyone that this holiday is a somber celebration of our dead. While it’s nice to say “thank you for your service,” what they really want is for us to remember the fallen.

Somewhere around 1.1 million U.S. military personnel have died in wars and military conflicts since the American Revolution. These lives ended in service of a cause greater than themselves.

There’s this pretty viral X account, The American Cultrist, that has ramped up its patriotic postings as we build toward America’s 250th anniversary. One stopped me in my tracks. He posted photos from the 1976 Bicentennial parades. The streets were overflowing with people vying for a chance to see the marching band come through. There were hot air balloons decorated with the stars and stripes, and flag banners lined the streets.

I’ve been searching for something like this to take our girls for Memorial Day this weekend, and haven’t found anything that comes close to matching the grandeur.

Pat Buchanan wrote “Death of the West” in 2002, saying, “In half a lifetime, many Americans have seen their God dethroned, their heroes defiled, their culture polluted, their values assaulted, their country invaded, and themselves demonized as extremists and bigots for holding on to beliefs Americans have held for generations.”

I saw this quote on my timeline the other day and thought it was the perfect explanation for how the 1976 Bicentennial parade pictures made me feel. The reason I can’t find the equivalent of the parade is that we’ve allowed our culture to die.

We like to blame our elected officials for the decline, but it’s really our fault. We know our country is dying. We can see it every time we step outside our doors, and yet the elected officials responsible still receive an 80 percent approval rating.

Take Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for example. The man has governed over the replacement of Texas residents for over 11 years. In that time, the state has become home to the largest Indian and Muslim populations in the U.S. Our communities are broken. The school systems have become leftist indoctrination camps. The Texas Way is being held together by a few of us who still believe. But for the most part, it’s on life support. And yet, he’s won every Republican gubernatorial primary since 2014.

This is happening all over the country and has been for decades.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss one man who is looking to provide more than just nostalgia for families at dinnertime.

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I’m obsessing over this guy, Tim Sparks, in Pennsylvania, who is buying up Pizza Hut franchises and remaking them into the image of the old Pizza Hut, the one we all loved. Everything is modeled to look, feel, and taste as it did in the 90s.

While a part of this is definitely a hit of nostalgia that is needed as our world grows more chaotic, and it’s true that every generation looks back to their childhood, craving the innocence that has been lost, I think there is something here that is more profound than just kitchy booths and classic lamps drawing me in.

Sparks was interviewed by the local CBS news station about the decision to bring back Pizza Hut’s old glory. Of course, he mentioned how excited customers were to see the red cups, booths, and salad bar back in commission. But he said that after the allure of nostalgia wears off, he notices families putting down their phones and connecting. Sparks said this is what is driving him to own more than 80 locations, with plans to buy more.

“If we can get them in here as a family, they do tend to put their phones down and actually have conversations and speak with each other. I’m not gonna tell you I know how to fix the world, but I do think that family is a good place to start,” Sparks said.

The outlet pointed to other franchises, like Burger King, bringing back old packaging as the reason for Spark’s success with Pizza Hut. But as I said, I think it’s much more than that. It’s not every day you hear a CEO say that he wants to help fix the world by strengthening the family bond. The thrill of nostalgia may bring them in the door, but that isn’t enough to get them to put down their safety blanket (their phone) and actually talk to each other.

I think families are desperate for reasons or ways to disconnect from our world and reconnect with each other. But there are fewer and fewer options provided by corporations to do so.

In a perfect world, and I’ve written about this many times, families would rekindle the tradition of eating dinner together around the table every night. Even with our crazy schedule, we make it a point to close our night with the table set and a family meal. It’s the best time to rewind the day with your children, learn about their troubles and triumphs, and coach them through whatever is weighing them down.

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But not everyone is doing this, and I don’t necessarily fault them for it, even if I wish they would make the compromises to ensure this happens. In our modern world, it’s more likely than not that both parents are working. This typically means 8-5 at their first job and 5-10 at their second job, taking the kids around to their activities and doing homework. Dinner is an afterthought. It’s either on the go after one child goes to volleyball and the other soccer, or everyone is grabbing a plate and running off to their rooms to finish the rest of their homework before bed.

Because of this, most families are in survival mode, just praying they get through another long week without crashing out. And some might argue that children have too many activities, and they’re probably right. I’ll be the first to admit that when we signed up for volleyball, basketball, and soccer in the same season, I thought it was a good idea until I realized that at least two days a week we wouldn’t get home until 9 pm. Still, even on those nights, we ate dinner together as a family. And while I know it is possible, it’s hard, which is why most families opt for the easier way.

I’m used to private equity firms buying up everything I love in this world and making it worse. You can’t go to a family-owned grocery store, dentist office, or pediatrician anymore because, like locusts, these firms have located green pastures and sucked them dry.

Everything feels sterile and devoid of humanity. You are no longer part of a loyal customer base that needs to be courted and tended to like a member of the business’s family. Instead, you are just a number on a profit margin spreadsheet.

This makes what Sparks is offering so unique. He could have created a Frankenstein’s monster version of Pizza Hut nostalgia to sell to the masses and probably make a bundle doing it. But his interview made it feel like he understood that families are in desperate need of care, and he’s giving it to them in the best way he knows how: food.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This weekend, we will discuss the Mother’s Day tradition of actually spending time with your children.

Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with your friends and family! And if you’re one of those friends or family members, you can sign up to get your own copy every week right here.

I wanted to join in on the Mother’s Day discourse this week, but didn’t because if you read Tuesday’s newsletter, you would know that I was dealing with quite the Spelling Test issue. So, despite it being almost a week since the actual day, I have something I’d like to add.

A lot of mothers seem to hate Mother’s Day, which I can sympathize with to an extent. They claim it carries a heightened obligation to enjoy whatever their husbands and children have planned, even if it is farthest from what they want to do. In all fairness, it does, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Some moms explained that they combat this by allowing their husbands to book a hotel. Not for the family. It’s an overnight staycation just for the moms to enjoy. They post videos of themselves in robes doing their skincare routines while waiting for their room service to arrive. This is bliss, they tell everyone.

“I don’t have to put my kids to bed or answer any questions. I get to eat my food without sharing it. No one is coming up and interrupting my shows. I’m not breaking up any sibling fights or cooking anyone meals.”

I don’t begrudge them their relaxation. Being a mother myself, I’ll be the first to admit that getting a break every once in a while is a must. Being the chauffeur, chef, schedule-keeper, and emotional regulator of the home is taxing. The toll is seen in our messy buns and tired eyes.

However, Mother’s Day isn’t really about mothers when your children are little. I know. I know. The name of the holiday literally has “mother” in it, but just bear with me so I can explain.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss walking the hard road with our children.

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There are so many moments as a parent when I have flashbacks of when I was younger. I’ve lived long enough now to have experienced similar situations from both sides of the equation. This week, I had one of those moments with one of my daughters.

Our schedules have been insanely busy between sports, end-of-the-year activities, and traveling, so some of the typical weekly routines have fallen by the wayside. One of those, which I am not exactly proud to admit, is ensuring that the girls finish their homework and study for their tests. I’m not hands-off by any means. I stayed on top of the so-called important subjects, like math and science. Still, my daughter’s weekly spelling list was the farthest from my mind.

All of my girls make straight As and read well above grade level. I honestly hardly ever think to ask them if they’ve studied for their spelling test or practiced their words. Two weeks in a row I received an email from the teacher about spelling. So I did what any parent would do and asked if she could retake the tests in hopes she could redeem herself.

I was on her all weekend.

“Have you studied your spelling list?”

“How many times have you written those words?”

“Are you ready for the make-up tests?”

On the way home from school Monday, something told me that I would have to take a more active role in this. I had asked my daughter again if she was prepared for the spelling tests scheduled for Tuesday. Her response left me doubting whether she had even looked at the words, much less memorized them.

Much to my dismay, when I started quizzing her, the results were nowhere near what they needed to be. With the two tests combined, she needed to correctly spell about 43 words. She missed more than half.

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We spent hours working on this. Writing the words three times each. Verbal quizzing. Taking a mock test. Grading it. Repeat.

At one point, I looked over to the other side of the table after yet another failed attempt at a perfect score to see little tears quietly dropping from her cheeks. I hadn’t yelled at her or made derogatory remarks. It was just pure exhaustion and disappointment leaving her body.

Everything in me wanted to give up. I wanted to hold her and tell her that none of this matters anyway; AI is taking over, and who cares if you can’t spell simultaneously? Spellcheck is going to fix that for her! But that’s not what she really needed, and I knew that, so I pushed these feelings aside and helped her soldier on.

We worked until she spelled every word correctly, verbally and in writing. She was finally ready. I congratulated her on pushing through, told her we would take one more test in the morning before school just to refresh her memory, and then sent her to bed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I stayed up for hours thinking about her. I hated seeing her cry. I remember living through these moments as a kid and crying just like she did. It can weigh on your self-confidence when you study and still don’t make the grade you are looking for.

I almost talked myself out of retesting her in the morning, but ultimately decided that while that would be easier on my heart, it’s not what would best prepare her for the test.

When morning came, I let her wash her face, eat her breakfast, and put on her uniform before I reminded her about the final quiz. She looked a little apprehensive but didn’t refuse. She ripped another piece of paper out of the notebook and sat down.

Accompanying.

Accumulate.

Conscientious.

One by one, I listed off the words as she quietly wrote them down. We had this part down to a science. When I asked her the last of the 43 words, we both looked at each other hopefully. She handed me the paper back, but I had a feeling she was going to do well, so I told her I wanted her to grade it herself.

At the end of the first list, she looked at me, beaming. A perfect score. She wrote 100% at the top of the page and flipped it over to prepare to grade the second test. When she was done, she wrote another big, fat 100% at the top of the page.

“I DID IT!” she screamed at me.

We started high-fiving each other and jumping up and down. Then she pulled me in for a tight hug and laid her head on my chest. Tears were rolling down her face again.

“Thank you, Momma,” she whispered.

I wiped her face and pulled her back into me. I told her how proud I was of her and how much I loved her.

As parents, we often have to force our children to do hard things. This whole experience had little to do with teaching her how to spell these words, but letting her know that the consequence of not doing the work didn’t make it go away. Instead, it caused her to do twice the work in less time. It also taught her that she was capable of doing it, even though it seemed like she would never get there. She did.

And sometimes the best thing we can do for them in these moments is to remember what it was like when we were their age, experiencing the same emotions, and quietly walk the hard road with them.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This weekend, we discuss when Gavin Newsom apparently decided he didn’t want to be president after all.

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Did you hear that the South has risen again? California Gov. Gavin Newsom seems pretty upset about the Virginia Supreme Court ruling against the unconstitutional gerrymandering state Democrats pushed through in April. The map would have shifted Virginia’s delegation from a 6D-5R split to something like 10D-1R.

Democrats spent the last two weeks patting themselves on the back for erasing Republican representation in a purple state. They claim Republicans started this fight. Republicans blame New York Democrats for firing the first shot. Regardless of what triggered this all-out fight to control House district maps, the Virginia Supreme Court poured water on all of the Democratic Party celebrations Friday, prompting Newsom to post an insane attack on the GOP.

“Confederate states are rushing through rigged maps to erase Black districts off the map. If this doesn’t make you angry, it should,” he posted.

One might assume that his post has nothing to do with Virginia, but the timing is too coincidental for that to be true. He is likely upset that after Republican-held Southern states began erasing racially biased House maps (making it more favorable for the House GOP), Democrats’ best chance at closing the gap was for Virginia Democrats to win their court case.

Still, instead of being honest about it, he is effectively calling Republicans racists for removing so-called black districts. There is no other way to explain why he’d use the term “Confederate states” if not to invoke slavery and the Civil War.

And the low-hanging fruit debate would be to call out the hypocrisy of forcing states to create race-based districts in the first place. But I’ll leave that alone. Because what’s more interesting is that Newsom has been very clearly and publicly running for the Democratic presidential nomination for the better part of the last four years.

Newsom has been nothing if not calculating.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This Wednesday, we discuss how the U.S. higher education model is broken because it doesn’t uplift American students.

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There is a video circulating right now of students from an elite international prep school in El Salvador, Escuela Americana, celebrating their acceptance to top U.S. universities, including Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, Notre Dame, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Tufts. There were about 13 students featured in the video, and each student was accepted into an average of 3 U.S. colleges and universities.

Watching it on loop was probably not the wisest decision I’ve made recently, as it just further radicalized me against our elite institutions. I’ve heard horror stories from friends and acquaintances about their children not getting accepted into their top school, much less their so-called safety schools. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill students either. We are talking about kids who played multiple varsity sports, chaired clubs, logged significant volunteer hours, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and scoring highly on the SAT and ACT.

And I know that the ivory tower is going to scream down from its balcony, claiming that international students face steeper odds at the schools that matter most, like the ones mentioned in the video. They’ll argue that it’s hyper-competitive for all students, not just U.S. citizens, and that, actually, the acceptance rate for international students is lower than that of Americans.

And if this is the case, if it’s so competitive that our elite American students are not getting into college because there just simply aren’t enough slots, why then are we accepting international students at all? Why not save the availability for exceptional American students?

But when you start traveling down that road, it’s hard not to conclude that the institutions built on the backs of Americans no longer care about us. They don’t care about the Jacob Smiths or Elizabeth Jones of the world who have done everything asked of them and deserve one of those slots. It all comes down to money and lack of patriotism.

International students make up about 6 percent of total U.S. higher education enrollment. Their higher tuition rates generate a disproportionately larger share of tuition revenue for many colleges and universities compared to U.S. students. It’s become a BILLION-dollar industry. They use this money to bolster their endowment funds and fund pet projects. And they do all of this by hiding behind the national average enrollment of 6 percent, when in fact most of the colleges and universities highlighted in the video have a much higher percentage of international students than the national average.

For example. International students make up about 22 percent of the total student enrollment at the University of Michigan. At UPenn, it’s 32 percent. At Northwestern, it’s 27 percent. In some U.S. colleges, this number exceeds 50 percent, such as at Northeastern University in Boston, where international students make up 64 percent of the total enrollment.

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I’m a mother, and while I am still years away from college applications, I can’t help but see this video and worry about what it will be like when that time comes. The number of enrolled international students in the U.S. has effectively doubled since 2001. What will the number be when my daughters go to college?

Later came the realization that the best chance an American kid has for guaranteed U.S. college acceptance is for his parents to move to another country, become a citizen, and then apply as an international student.

Similar to the DEI acceptance policies (that marred U.S. higher education for years), the international status would bolster their chances.

How much do you have to either hate this country or be apathetic to the plight of American students to allow this to happen?

For generations, we’ve told our children that the path to success is paved through a college education. Work hard in high school, get accepted into college, finish your degree in a sought-after field (STEM, medical, law, etc.), and the world is your oyster. Except that’s hardly the truth anymore.

The first step is to fight against international students for college admission. But even if you win that battle, the war isn’t over. Next comes job hunting after graduation. Then you, as an American who made it through the college gauntlet, are forced to fight for the few positions available in your field against the growing number of H1-B visa holders. The business world doesn’t see you or your citizenship as worthy of anything. Instead, they see international applicants as the better option for their bottom line.

This phenomenon is radicalizing.

The knee-jerk reaction is to tell Americans to forgo college. “They are merely indoctrination stations anyway. You’d be better off in the trades.” And for some, this is true. Owning your own plumbing or electrical business is perfectly respectable and can yield a successful income.

But the trades aren’t for everyone. So we are essentially telling the exceptional that it’s just tough luck that you were born in an era where we don’t reward that sort of thing. “Have you tried livestreaming?”

The future is bleak for our children, and it doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. In fact, when I looked at the video’s comment section, whenever someone pointed out that the best option was to deny all international students so Americans would get their slots, the original poster seemed confused about why they would even suggest that.

“US schools should not accept foreigners,” one comment stated.

“I don’t get that take. I am honestly curious to know why people believe that’s the right approach. Considering: Foreign student tuition is a lot higher. Going to US college does not solve legal immigration route for the student. Admission is merit based. Why shouldn’t they?” the original poster responded.

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“Why should a public school such as UCLA, UMich, Univ Wisconsin, Univ of Texas, UVA accept any foreigners? The domestic residents of such states and the other citizens of USA have a moral super-priority right to such resources. Just because the foreign nepo baby is paying slightly more money is not an intellectually rigorous answer,” the commenter responded.

And they are right. U.S. higher education is the path to success in America. The ability to enter into that should not now or ever be unconditional. It should prioritize American students first and foremost. If other countries want to educate their students, it should be rare for them to send them to the U.S. These are American institutions that should be used at the pleasure of American students.

I’m trying very hard not to be an isolationist. It’s not a healthy way to live, and I know that. However, there is merit to the argument that we should look out for Americans first. And if we have colleges and universities that can’t financially survive without millions of dollars in international student tuition, then they deserve to fail because they have sinned against our country and its citizens. Every day that goes by, when another story like this comes to light, only serves to harden this for me.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This Saturday, we talk about our culture, the family, and how conservatives have failed.

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Whenever I read a study that shows people on the left are getting married less than the right, I’m not really shocked. If you’ve been paying close attention to the “culture wars,” you could see this coming from a mile away. The left, which controls the levers of our entertainment and media, is largely not buying into the foundational aspect of starting a family: marriage.

Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies released a report May 1 on a study showing that the marriage divide in America isn’t just about class. It’s also about culture. Wilcox opined about a debate between progressive activist Harry Sisson and conservative commentator Isabel Brown at the University of Virginia. While one would assume neither were going to agree with much, Sisson made the case that the left actually does want the traditional life of marriage and children in the same way conservatives do.

And while that may be true in Sisson’s case or anecdotally within his friend group, the IFS study shows a massive divide between what Sisson sees and reality.

From Wilcox on the IFS study’s findings:

I think it’s actually a good sign that Sisson believes so deeply that, aside from radical voices on the left, his side has a positive view of marriage. It shows that there is at least some hope for this world. However, he cannot ignore the glaring problem that he represents a growingly small portion of the left that believes in marriage and the benefits it provides for children.

My long-time readers know that I view marriage as the greatest blessing of my life. My husband is strong, protective, and compassionate. But it’s more than just what I get out of the deal. As I said in my Tuesday newsletter, our children benefit from growing up in a home where they know, without question, that their parents love each other and will never leave the sacrament they entered into.

Living this example has created the foundation through which their lives grow. Our marriage and the values we instill through it ground our family during our hardest moments and joyful triumphs. If the world is spinning around them, they know without worrying that there is a safe landing to come home to.

But our modern world does not feel the same way. While Sisson claims it’s only radical voices demonizing traditional life, he seems to be willfully ignoring the reality of our digital world.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss my recent trip to Sonoma and what it reminded me about marriage and family.

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I spent the last five days in California with my husband. One of my friends invited us to her wedding in Sonoma, and we decided to extend the trip on the backend into a mini vacation for the two of us. Having four children, each with activities that constantly control our schedule, plus both of us working, means that getting away just the two of us isn’t something we typically have time for.

What always surprises me when we get away like this is the adjustment period. I have a hard time letting go of the daily schedule. I have our days planned out so that each girl gets what she needs and where she needs to go. It’s often a divide-and-conquer situation, but they always have one of us there at their event for support.

I noticed this weekend that the well-oiled machine I’ve built is like a security blanket. I rely on checking those boxes to feel like each day has ended successfully. Without it, I feel like I am dropping the ball on something. This is probably why my husband has an easier time giving in to the relaxation of the vacation than I do. He had to keep reminding me to let go.

“Everything is going to be fine.”

This week was a great reminder that not only is he right that everything was truly fine, but also that he and I work in a beautiful balance with each other. While the schedule might be “my thing,” there are others he is in complete control of and worries about way more than I do. Still, he has this incredible ability to let go of that stress and live in the moment, which is much more difficult for me.

That’s why, as parents, it’s so important to take time away from the schedule and remember those parts of our relationship that can be lost in the day-to-day running of a family. It’s the relationship before we were blessed with our children that has to be nurtured.

I think we were lucky that the first two days were travel- and wedding-related, because having that helped create the distance I needed between me and my precious schedule.

Every time I travel to California, it’s hard not to marvel at its beauty. The areas outside of LA and San Francisco truly hold some of the most beautiful scenery our country has to offer. The Sonoma/Napa Valley area of the state reminds me so much of Europe, especially in the springtime because everything is so green and alive.

My husband and I both like a good bottle of wine, so naturally we scheduled several winery tours, which ended about how you’d expect. The trip consisted of eating delicious foods, paired perfectly with the different wines, and staring out at the rolling hills and mountain range that separated us from reality.

Outside of the obligatory “look how beautiful this is” conversation that took place at every location, we spent our time reliving earlier parts of our relationship and talking about what we want for the future. It was in these moments that any distance that had formed because of our busy lives melted away. It’s not like we ever mean to disconnect from each other or let the days blend together, as we do. It’s just a natural situation that most married couples with children find themselves in.

My husband has always been my protector. It was nice to relive those moments when we were just kids (I met him when I was 19) and to listen to him tell me the stories that are etched in my memory, but from his perspective.

One in particular is of the night I knew I would marry him. I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way about me because we weren’t even dating at the time. I knew he cared for me because it was hard not to see, but there was no reason to assume he felt as deeply as I did. But for the first time, 15 years later, I got to hear him tell the story from that night and explain how he had acted and responded to the situation because he knew he already loved me.

He told me how he knew he wanted to protect me for the rest of my life and how it shaped him. We talked about how he felt when we got married and when I told him I was pregnant with our first daughter, how those feelings he felt that night were similar to the ones he had felt two years earlier with me. He was going to love and protect her for the rest of her life.

It’s a relief to know that the memories that I hold on to in my heart were also moments that he cherished too.

So much of being a good parent rests on how happy your marriage is. Your children are calmer and less anxious when they know their parents are in love with each other. It gives them a sturdy foundation to land. Every once in a while, it’s important to reconnect. It doesn’t have to be over copious amounts of wine in Sonoma. Although I’d highly recommend it.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

Heard It Through The Grapevine

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss the fight we must have to protect our country.

Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with your friends and family! And if you’re one of those friends or family members, you can sign up to get your own copy every week right here.

Two posts placed right next to each other on my timeline perfectly summed up the realities plaguing Western culture, to the point that I haven’t stopped thinking about them since. X has a feature that lets you bookmark posts so you can go back to them later. Within seconds, both had made it into my “work” folder. I thought maybe I’d opine on them for my column at the Daily Caller, but later decided this would be better for my Saturday Substack.

In fact, originally, I was going to write about my daughter’s experience as a freshman at prom, but here we are.

A prominent conservative commentator, Jesse Kelly, warned the GOP and corporate America that there is no way they have a “grasp on the simmering anger Americans have for this country being taken over by foreigners.”

“I’m warning both entities now: You have no idea. Get on the right side of this issue quickly,” he said.

Then, right under Kelly’s was a post from an Australian podcast host, Jake Rattlesnake (what a name), quoting a clip from a UK-based radio show, Leading Britain’s Conversation (LBC), where host Tom Swarbrick discussed a disturbing case out of England about a 15-year-old British girl who was raped in Leamington Spa park by two Afghan asylum seekers in 2025.

The little girl recorded the attack on her phone, which was played during the court proceeding, but was never released publicly for fear it would incite riots. At one point, she is reportedly heard screaming for help from a woman walking by, saying, “HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME! THEY ARE GOING TO RAPE ME!”

Rattlesnake commented on Swarbrick reading parts of the transcript, saying, “It’s absolutely baffling to me how every British man is not a complete far-right-wing lunatic at this stage.”

While the two men were talking about seemingly unrelated topics, the sentiment about how unchecked migration into Western countries has radically changed the trajectory of the native population in unimaginably negative ways is the throughline here.

If you read Wednesday’s newsletter about Ms. Rachel’s wild anti-border views and the deadly repercussions that follow when you allow illegal immigrants unfettered access to your country, you know there is a laundry list of examples of kids in our country dying at the hands of this ideology. (As a side note, I should’ve started this with a warning for Shauna D. that they’ve once again allowed me to publish my newsletter despite her objections to the truth.)

Just like in the UK, our kids are being lured into dark areas to be raped and murdered by people who should never have been allowed to enter our country. And while that alone is worthy of a revolution for sure, to add to this societal destruction, and to fully grasp what Kelly means when he says about the anger Americans are feeling right now, it’s important to talk about our replacement.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss Ms. Rachel’s mask.

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There is always something behind the eyes of soft-spoken women that instantly triggers my fight-or-flight instinct. I don’t know if it’s because all of the women in my family are outspoken and never pretend to be daisies. Or if it’s because most of the supposedly tender females I have come across in my life have turned out to be emotionally manipulative and deceitful.

Either way, the rise of Ms. Rachel, the popular children’s content creator, is extremely confusing to me. It seems obvious that an insidious radical lingers behind her supposedly gentile, preschool tone. Still, millions of normal parents who don’t see themselves as staunch conservatives or liberals continue to consume her content. Worse, they let their children’s brains and emotions be regulated by her message.

I don’t begrudge them of their naivety. I sometimes crave the time before I knew everything I do about how our culture or government works. Life would be simpler that way. However, I do wish that they would see Ms. Rachel the way I see her. To me, she is a pawn being used to sugarcoat left-wing ideologies in a consumable way.

At first glance, she seems sweet. Everything about her appearance is purposefully designed to disguise the truth. If you saw a picture of her without knowing anything else about her, you would assume that she was normal. But she’s far from that.

In fact, she holds extremely radical views, from pushing anti-semitic and pro-LGBTQ episodes on her channel to her anti-border exceptionalism. What started as an educational sing-along for little kids is now a platform of 19 million subscribers to which she peddles her political views.

The first problem is the age of her audience. Ms. Rachel’s viewers are toddlers and preschoolers, meaning around ages 2 to 5. At this stage, their brains are still developing fast and are easily manipulated. They are unable to think critically or understand complex topics such as borders, war, or identity politics. They think in simple, concrete ways. They believe what adults tell them, especially adults they see as friendly teachers on screen.

So when Ms. Rachel sings songs or plays games that align with her political views, the kids absorb her ideologies as part of their daily routine. The brand loyalty built on cute songs makes it harder for parents to walk away, even if they disagree.

Her recent activism on the ICE Dilley detention center in Texas is another example. In March, she made video calls to children held there with their families. She posted clips on her channels and called for the center to close. She told reporters she is political because she believes care for children does not stop at a border.

The videos show her singing with detained kids and highlighting supposedly poor conditions. But not once did she mention that their parents bear the blame for the situation these children are in. None of these children would be in a detention center if their parents hadn’t entered the U.S. illegally.

Nor does she seem to care about the effects of illegal immigration on American children. Jocelyn Nungaray was only in the 6th grade when two Venezuelan illegal immigrants lured her away. She was sexually assaulted, tied up, strangled, and her body dumped in a shallow creek under a bridge.

Twelve-year-old Dereon James Robinson and nine-year-old Mikhail-Lee Smith were riding bicycles on a sidewalk when a drunk driver veered off the road and struck them. Both died at the hospital. Eri Otoniel Roblero Perez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was charged with two counts of felony DUI resulting in death, among other charges. One of the family members described holding one son as he bled to death.

Eight-year-old Arya Cruz Acencio, the daughter of a U.S. Marine, was killed after a drunk driver hit the family’s car in a head-on collision. Brayan Josue Alva-Rodriguez was an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who had multiple arrests related to drunk driving and had a deportation order that the Biden administration had ignored.

Rachel Morin, a mother of five children, was raped and brutally murdered while jogging on the Ma & Pa Trail in Maryland. Her body was found stuffed in a tunnel drain. Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was sentenced to life without parole.

The list sadly goes on.

But even without the death toll to grapple with. As an educator, Ms. Rachel should understand the hardships American students face, as their teachers are forced to accommodate English language learners (non-English-speaking students) when creating lesson plans. Everything has to be slowed down to accommodate these students, leaving American citizens to sit through repetitive lessons that hinder their success.

None of this is compassionate for anyone involved. And yet, Ms. Rachel, with her theater kid smile and bright pink shirt, tells our children that this is all they deserve.

Ms. Rachel has the right to spew whatever nonsense she likes, and parents can choose to allow it into their home if they want. However, it strikes me as incredibly deceiving to dress these harmful ideologies up with nursery rhymes and fake smiles. It’s almost as if she knows that no parent in their right mind would sit their children down to watch an hour of her spewing her political views, if not for the educational mask she uses to hide her true intentions.

I am so put off by her that when parents innocently tell me that their children are obsessed with Ms. Rachel, I make a mental note not to let my children do playdates at their house. It’s not that I believe they are intentionally trying to indoctrinate my children into performative compassion that will eventually kill our society. It’s just that I know at the end of the day if they aren’t willing to protect their children from this, then they are incapable of protecting mine.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

Heard It Through The Grapevine:

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss the rise in the American ostrich, willingly sticking their head in the sand.

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I think it’s pretty interesting that in the span of a couple of days, both Vice President JD Vance and Justice Clarence Thomas have said in their own way that Americans cannot sit out of this upcoming election cycle.

Thomas delivered a rare public lecture at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday, critiquing progressivism as an “existential threat” to America’s founding principles and urging Americans to engage more deeply in self-government.

“I think if we don’t stand up and take ownership of our country, and take responsibility for it, we are slowly letting others control how we think and what we think,” Thomas said.

“If you want it to have trust, if you want to correct what you think is wrong, then get up and do it ... If you think it’s losing confidence, then you get up and you participate. You don’t sit on the sidelines,” he said.

Similarly, Vance echoed themes of civic engagement, encouraging supporters — particularly younger voters — not to disengage over policy disagreements but to get more involved, make their voices heard, and help “take the country back” through political participation.

“I’m not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. What I’m saying is: Don’t get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved, make your voice heard even more. That is how we ultimately take the country back,” Vance said at a Turning Point USA event April 14 in Georgia.

“But here’s fundamentally the issue: When you see a politician, or you see a political movement, or you see an administration that isn’t doing what you want it to do, I think you have two choices. You can say, ‘Oh, to hell with those people,’ and check out of the process. Or you can say, ‘You know what? I’m going to get more involved. I’m going to make my voice heard even more. I’m going to pressure that administration to do exactly what I want them to do because they got my vote, they earned my vote, but they can’t take it for granted,’” Vance said.

I think the point is that both men see the writing on the wall, not just for the 2026 midterms but more broadly.

The first year of Trump’s term seemed to be going full speed ahead on enacting our voter mandate. DOGE was uncovering fraud. The military was getting back in shape again. The mass deportation operation was happening unapologetically. And our cultural issues from pardoning January 6ers to kicking men out of women’s sports were being dealt with. However, at some point, it seemed that the momentum had shifted. The cracks in our armor started to show.

A lot of people in my life are pretty disappointed with the Trump administration right now for one reason or another. I have MAHA moms who are upset with the lack of action to clean up the nation’s food supply, among other issues. I have young men who felt like the Iran War was a mistake. People are asking why the Epstein file cover-up continues, or why the administration seems to be softening on amnesty and mass deportations for illegal immigrants.

None of these people regret voting for President Trump in 2024 and have told me outright that even with everything they know now they’d vote for him again because Kamala Harris should never be allowed in the White House. Still, the disappointment they feel with how Trump has tackled 2026 is making them rethink ever participating in the election process again. In short, they’ve become blackpilled.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I was sent a graph about birth rates that sent me down memory lane to the day 15 years ago when my husband and I got married.

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Apparently, we aren’t supposed to worry about birth rate declines in younger women because the trend shows they are making up for it in their later years. However, the graph The New York Times shared doesn’t even begin to tell the full story.

At first glance, the graph suggests that declines in American birth rates among younger women are offset by older women having more children, supporting the idea of a temporary postponement of motherhood, with a full catch-up as these women age.

Paul Novosad, founder of Development Data Lab, called the NYT graph a “felony-level chart crime” because it created a misleading visual impression of balance and recovery. When he replotted the data to show changes in the actual number of births by age group (rather than percentage changes in rates), the supposed recovery is nowhere to be found.

Since 2007, the number of U.S. births to women aged 15–19 has dropped by about 320,000. Births to women aged 20–24 have declined by around 552,000, and births to women aged 25–29 have fallen by roughly 326,000.

According to the NYT, this decline is nothing to worry about because older women are having more children and will make up for it in the end. Except they don’t. In fact, the gains in older age groups are far too small to offset the losses.

For women aged 30–34, the change has been near zero or only modestly positive. Women aged 35–39 saw a gain of roughly 80,000 births. Those aged 40–44 had an increase of about 37,000 births, while women aged 45–54 had an increase of just over 6,000.

Overall, there is a gap of more than one million births between the declines seen in the 15–29 age groups and the modest gains in the 30–54 age groups.

Lower birth rates among women in their 20s and early 30s in recent generations are only partially compensated for later in life. This is leading to the obvious effect that we see in our communities. An entire generation of women is experiencing drastically smaller family sizes than their older cohorts. This is not a temporary shift but emblematic of a massive societal problem.

It is impossible to overstate how devastating the plummeting birth rates among American women truly are. For decades, the narrative in media and policy circles has been that the decline is simply postponing motherhood and not permanent. Even now, the NYT is trying to sell the same old drivel in hopes that women don’t wake up to the fact that our society has led them down the path to a sadder life.

There is a deeper cultural hollowing-out that can’t be seen on the graph. Families are the backbone of a healthy society. When young Americans delay or forgo having children, communities become less cohesive simply because they are no longer passing down the values and traditions that connected generations. Why would a childless adult volunteer at the local Little League concession stand if they don’t have children? These types of civic engagement that held neighborhoods together are eroding because adults have fewer stakes in the future.

A society that treats children as optional lifestyle accessories rather than the central purpose of adult life has lost its way.

The most common excuses I see among my friends who have chosen to delay building a family are the cultural shifts driven by modern feminism (budding corporate careers) and relentless economic pressures that make family formation feel impossible.

Blaming this on the feminist girl boss is probably the easiest way to make sense of this phenomenon. Popular culture celebrated this archetype while portraying early marriage and childbearing as traps that would derail ambition. But it was really more than that. Not only were you told that you would sacrifice your career for children, but it was framed as giving up on your life.

I remember being asked snarky questions on whether I actually wanted to finish college or if being a mom was more important because it was easier than succeeding in the corporate world. They asked me in a way that made it clear that motherhood was the option that only losers chose.

Growing up, there was a lot of propaganda placed on my generation against teen pregnancies. As a mother of four daughters, I think it’s pretty obvious that I wouldn’t want any of my daughters to be pregnant at 15. However, the effects of telling millions of young girls that getting pregnant would be the worst thing that could happen to their lives can clearly be seen in Novosad’s graph above. It takes a serious amount of deprogramming to break free from that thinking.

The result was a generation of young women internalizing the message that their 20s must be devoted to building their resumes. Changing diapers was for the women who had nothing to offer. Birth control and abortion provided the path to enforce this delay, but the cultural script supplied the motivation.

The economic fallout of this messaging is now swallowing my generation alive, and it’s not slowing down for younger women. It’s become the norm for households to rely on two incomes because wages stagnated while the cost of having a family has skyrocketed. Every generation has dealt with inflation, recessions, or depressions. But ours has been seemingly never-ending.

Families are forced to rely on both parents working in order to achieve a middle-class lifestyle. Home prices and childcare costs, coupled with the rising cost of living, create the perfect trap. Having children now feels like a luxury. Whereas, for the countless generations before us, having children was simply seen as a natural progression of life.

And we can sneer at them and blame feminism or their coffee orders, but that does nothing to help. In fact, it turns them off from ever wanting to pursue a traditional family.

If we ever want to reverse this trend, it’s incredibly important that we stop pretending that postponing children is costless. We need to teach young women that motherhood is a noble and honorable life path. It doesn’t prevent you from reaching your potential, but is in fact the greatest thing you can do in life. And our political policies should be focused on uplifting the family.

I got married at 22, much younger than most of my friends, but on trend for my family. My husband and I had four girls before either of us turned 30. We received a lot of backlash for our decision to settle down. But looking back now, even through the hard times and everything I know about life, it was the best decision we have ever made.

We feel like the lucky ones. Our lives were blessed exponentially with each child that came into our family. Nothing about having children prevented our worldly success. It’s made us more driven and focused. We value community and legacy, and we strive to pass down our traditions to our children.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com.

Heard It Through The Grapevine:

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I’ve been thinking about the midterm. I see the writing on the wall. We have time to fix it, but we have to act now.

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There was a time not too long ago that I didn’t know much about the political world at all. I had checked out from the political process. I had four young daughters, and my days were consumed with raising them. The closest I got to politics was voting in the presidential general election every four years, only to be disappointed when Barack Obama won twice. Then 2015 happened, and Donald Trump rode down those golden escalators. Simultaneously, I was given a spreadsheet on the new sex education curriculum at our local elementary school. My oldest daughter was the only one in school at the time, and although we sent her to private school, I knew it wouldn’t be long before this material made its way to her.

I didn’t know at the time that what I was reading in that pamphlet was transgender and far-left sex ideologies, but I knew it was insidious. It was the moment I began to wake up to the realization that, while I didn’t care about politics and the culture wars, they cared about my children and me.

I watched Trump’s 2016 campaign religiously. I didn’t vote in the primary that year because I still didn’t realize what was at stake, but by November, after school drop-off, I took my three younger daughters and waited over an hour in line to cast my vote for Trump. He spoke to my soul.

Trump called the Bushs out to their faces for being frauds and for the disastrous global wars they pushed on our country. He talked about how the establishment had sold out American workers when they made it acceptable to move major manufacturing hubs out of the country for cheaper labor. He promised to do something about illegal immigration and the crisis Obama had let fester at our southern border. Everything we had been talking about for years around the dinner table had become a major component in his campaign.

The night of the election, I couldn’t sleep. I was glued to the election results. Every poll indicated that we didn’t stand a chance. Hillary Clinton would become our president whether we liked it or not. Still, something inside me felt that it wasn’t over and that Trump would win. And he did.

For the next eight years, I defended him to my friends and family who demonized his governance. I was called every name in the book for my support. I lost people I loved because I refused to give in to the mainstream narratives about him. When he was almost assassinated in 2024, I knew he’d win. Biden had ruined our country, and Kamala admitted she’d be a continuation of his governance. The stars were aligning again. We had another shot to reclaim our country.

As we approach the midterms, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that controlling the wild monster that is our federal bureaucracy is harder than anyone could imagine. The moment we cut the head off one snake, three more show up.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss American citizenship and whether that has any meaning.

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When I am writing my newsletter or my column for the website, I typically put on my headphones and listen to a podcast. I don’t know why it helps me formulate my thoughts into a coherent message, but it does. Last week, instead of a podcast, I listened to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court over the birthright citizenship case currently being decided. For the first time in a while, it did the opposite. In fact, the entire exercise was frustrating beyond belief.

I don’t want to be a doomsday pundit who claims that the case has already been decided. Still, it feels pretty clear to me that a majority of the justices seemed inclined to vote in favor of upholding the idea that anyone born in America, regardless of the circumstances, is an American citizen.

Justice Alito seemed to be one of the few Supreme Court justices who was worried about the ramifications of allowing such a broad interpretation of American citizenship. He asked the lawyer arguing for the challengers, Cecillia Wang, about the meaning of “not subject to any foreign power” and whether it could exclude children born in the U.S. to foreign nationals, including those whose parents entered illegally or whose home countries impose obligations like military service. Something like this seems like an obvious issue that would create a potential divided allegiance between their parents’ birth country and the U.S.

Wang’s response throughout her arguments was that case precedent and common-law tradition established near-universal birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil, with narrow exceptions only for children of diplomats.

I couldn’t figure out what was more depressing to me: the fact that the highest court in the U.S. was filled with judges who seemingly agreed with her or that there were citizens in my own country who would actively fight for this to be true.

And then, as if God was giving Americans a preview of what is to come, two days after the Supreme Court heard the birthright citizenship case, DHS arrested two children of illegal immigrants and their parents.

Two US-born siblings, Alen and Ann Mary Zheng, were accused of planting a failed IED at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Their parents, Qiu Qin Zou and Jia Zhang Zheng, illegally entered the U.S. in 1993 and were served deportation orders in 1998, but remained in the U.S. until their children reportedly tried to bomb a U.S. military base.

According to the left, Alen and Ann Mary are U.S. citizens, despite Ann Mary being arrested while returning from a trip to China (her parents’ home country) and her brother, Alen, supposedly still being in China. It’s insanity.

Americans often talk about the U.S. as if it has magic soil that automatically transforms a person’s soul into a liberty-loving U.S. patriot. I think this is because we love this country so much. Its unique formation ignites a sense of pride and optimism found nowhere else in the world. But this is exactly why we have to be more honest with ourselves about what it actually means to be an American citizen.

Our first step is to admit that there is nothing in the soil that automatically turns a Chinese, Mexican, Iranian, or British citizen into becoming an American. It’s not magic. It doesn’t possess the power to end allegiances to other countries.

When Trump started the war in Iran, Iranians living in the U.S. flooded the streets. The pictures of the demonstrations went viral, showing a sea of activists draped in Iranian flags. It was American blood being spilled for their cause, and yet they weren’t celebrating drenched in the stars and stripes, but the green, white, and red. When ICE went into Minnesota to crack down on Somali immigrant fraud, again, Americans didn’t see our flag but the Somali flag being flown in support of the accused. And in Los Angeles, when ICE began immigration raids, it was the Mexican flag.

Yet the children of every one of these protesters waving foreign flags would automatically be considered U.S. citizens despite their parents’ clear allegiance to a foreign country. And it’s clear their parents would not be raising these new citizens to honor and uphold American values or laws. Their true identity has nothing to do with where they were born, but rather with the principles instilled in them by their parents.

This is what Wang and her cohort are asking SCOTUS to rule in favor of.

Whether they know it or not, they are arguing for the complete destruction of our country. And as an American, I am being asked to sit back and take it.

Being an American isn’t the soil I walk on, even though I see it as my birthright. It’s the values that bind us together, the heritage. It is the character forged by common principles, not mere residency. Our country can only survive if each generation internalizes the habits passed down to us by our ancestors. That internalization happens at the family table, in bedtime stories, and in the moral formation parents provide. It can never be transcribed by simply being born here.

We are a welcoming country. Some of our greatest citizens were immigrants from other countries who actively chose to embrace American ideals. Their success was earned by cultural transmission. When immigrants fail or refuse to pass on that heritage, their children may grow up physically present in the U.S., but they are undoubtedly spiritually foreign. And that’s how we end up seeing American citizens (on paper) taking to the streets professing foreign grievances.

Birth is incidental. We are blessed to be born into the long line of Americans. Those who come here seeking a piece of this crown should face a hurdle that requires more than mere physical presence, but rather an actual allegiance to the legacy they seek to be part of. If we don’t have this basic requirement, there is no point in asking the meaning of American citizenship because, without allegiance, there is no value.

Sometime this summer, SCOTUS will hand down a ruling that will fundamentally change the meaning of American citizenship. I don’t have high hopes that it will protect the U.S. from harm. But I know that I will never stop fighting for my country and the legacy that I am responsible for protecting.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com. While I can’t always respond, I do try to read them all! The community we are building is one of my favorite parts of this experience.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss the importance of suffering.

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I Want You To Suffer

We are coming to the end of Holy Week, where we celebrate the Passion of our Lord. Christians all over the world participate in some sort of abstinence this week in order to sacrifice in memory of His suffering. I am coming to the end of a seven-day fast. I’ve had no food since last Sunday at dinner time. I won’t break until Easter Sunday when we celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

This is the longest I have gone without eating in my life, and today I am struggling to continue. The physical effects of not eating can be felt in every movement I make. While my mental capacity was at a peak Thursday, by Friday morning, I felt slow and mentally clouded.

Despite this, I won’t give in. Suffering is an important part of life. It’s something our modern world works to prevent as much as possible.

I’ve been thinking about the purpose of this fast all week long. My hope was that I would gain some sort of mental clarity about what God wants for my life. But the overwhelming lesson that keeps coming to mind is that God wants us to suffer for Him.

Suffering has such a negative connotation. We avoid it at every turn. Part of this is because our human nature begs for ease. But we are called to do hard things. This doesn’t mean that we are supposed to put ourselves in situations to purposefully cause us pain and heartache. However, when there is a cross for you to bear, you should willingly take it and carry it.

I’ve had chronic joint pain my whole life. We have never found the root cause, so I just live with it. For decades, I would take daily pain relievers like Tylenol or Advil, until eventually I gave myself a stomach ulcer. I had to stop looking for relief from the pain in order to heal. Doing this completely changed my perspective on suffering.

I know it may sound crazy to say, but once I stopped looking for a way to numb the pain and embraced the suffering, I finally started feeling relief. I still take an occasional Advil when the pain is too much for me to handle. But for daily relief, I turn to prayer. I’ve even begun thanking God for the chance to use this suffering for a good greater than myself.

Suffering, whether it’s loss, pain, hardship, can be a hard thing to understand. It’s easy to wonder why a loving God would allow these things to happen to us. But He is not asking any more of us than what Christ or our Blessed Mother went through — some of the worst moments of my life paved the way for the greatest joys I have ever experienced.

When I finally woke up to the idea that pain can be used for a greater purpose, that maybe I don’t see the reasoning behind it now, but eventually I will, I began noticing all the ways in my life that I avoid doing the hard things just to make my life easier.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss the importance of fighting for our heritage and shared culture. If we don’t, our children will have nothing to inherit.

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Defeating The Hoard Of Invaders

I recently stopped a Muslim development from happening here in Texas. It was one of those rare moments in politics where unrelenting pressure eventually broke the dam of special interests, forcing elected officials to bend to the will of the people.

I was interviewed about the development and why I felt so strongly about fighting against it. I didn’t really understand why I felt so passionately about it at first, but as I gathered my thoughts, I was overwhelmed by the reality of what had happened.

It had nothing to do with the color of their skin. Their culture is incompatible with ours. I knew they weren’t going to assimilate into that community. They were going to completely change the fabric of that beautiful Texas county. When residents reached out to alert me to the situation, something deep inside me knew that if I didn’t no one would, and their lives would never be the same.

I’m a ninth-generation Texan. My family can trace our lineage back to before the American Revolution. We have fought in every American war. We tamed these wild lands and helped build the greatest nation in the world. Our culture still reflects the grit and defiance needed to accomplish this task, but a large percentage of our citizens have fallen asleep and forsaken our birthright. Even worse, our elected officials, the ones tasked with upholding our interests above all else, abuse this complacency.

My whole life, I’ve sat back helplessly watching our governors and representatives import socially incompatible people, completely reshaping the communities that I once loved. If you live in Texas, you know exactly what I mean. Everyone likes to point to Epic City, the Muslim development in North Dallas, as the pinnacle of this, but it’s been going on a lot longer.

At one point in the interview, I was asked how Texas has changed over the years. I told her that it’s important to understand how I grew up. My small town was a community. If you have ever watched a movie about Texas football and Friday Night Lights, that’s a good description of my childhood.

My town would close down on Friday nights for the football game because everyone came, whether they had kids playing football or not. Local restaurant owners would shut down until the last quarter, then reopen to serve the kids, players, and families coming to celebrate after the game. Main Street was decorated for Christmas and Easter. There were nativity scenes and crosses on display in shop windows. Then, when Christmas and Easter came once again, the entire town would close. It was an idyllic way to grow up because, as an adult, I understand that there was complete community buy-in. I felt it when I was younger, but I wasn’t able to articulate what that meant. It was simply our way of life.

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None of that is happening anymore. Very few towns are capable of committing like this now because too many people who don’t understand our values and social fabric are moving in. There are entire subdivisions that don’t house a single native-born Texan. You go to your local grocery store, and the items are marketed to foreign populations. You hear foreign languages more than you do English. It’s disorienting.

If you’ve been on X recently, you might have noticed the algorithm change where American users are being exposed to Japanese users due to Grok’s instant translation. We write in English, and it’s displayed in Japanese and vice versa.

We are finding out more and more that the Japanese love American culture. They uphold our values and support our fight against mass migration. Americans, in turn, have expressed love and admiration for Japan.

The exchange punches straight through the narrative that Americans, especially Southerners, hold racial resentment against outsiders. We are actually very accommodating to people who respect our culture and values. As long as they want to live like us, we are welcoming.

But that’s not what’s happening in Texas and in so many other states across the country. And it’s progressing at such a pace that it feels like our land is being stolen out from under our feet and being given to people who don’t care to understand what it took to tame it. And it’s more than that. They don’t admire us for it.

I am raising another generation of Texan women. I am fighting for their chance to grow up with the same society and community that raised me. I wish I didn’t have to be the one, but there aren’t enough people standing in the gap. As I mentioned before, our elected leaders are largely responsible for selling us out, but at the end of the day, it’s really our fault.

The older generations thought they could vote for conservatives and that would be enough to protect our state. We are only just realizing that the folks running our states are all the same. They are bought and paid for by special interest groups. They know the majority of Texans are too consumed with their lives to pay attention. We are living in a hell of our own complacency.

I was able to save one county from this fate, but 253 others need to be defended. The people are going to have to rise up against the cultural erasure of our heritage. I am bound and determined to turn the tide. I love this land so much. My family’s blood rests in its soil, and our future generations will lord over its growth.

Texas is a uniquely beautiful place that is worth preserving. If my generation doesn’t fight for her, there will be nothing left for our children. Letting that happen feels like accepting death.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com. While I can’t always respond, I do try to read them all! The community we are building is one of my favorite parts of this experience.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we talk about how important it is to model the type of marriage you want your children to choose for themselves.

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Swapping Places With Your Husband Isn’t For The Faint Of Heart

This is one of those rare weeks where my husband is taking on the brunt of the work at home while I cover CPAC for the Daily Caller. I work from home most days. As most of y’all know, my husband travels a lot, and there aren’t often times when he gets a glimpse of what my life is like when he is away.

But on Thursday, which is our craziest day of the week, he had to handle it all by himself. It was particularly chaotic for him as there were three soccer games, an after-school playdate, and our oldest had basketball practice, which is about 30 minutes away. He had to get help, but I couldn’t be there for him.

He got another mother from one of the girls’ teams to take one daughter to her game. He is the coach for one of our daughters, so he attended that game. My mother took our youngest daughter to her game. And our oldest daughter ended up having to skip practice because there was no way to get her where she needed to go without another driver.

I was able to meet them for dinner after everything was said and done. The girls were all in their soccer uniforms, sweaty and happy from the wins they secured. My husband smiled as I walked up. He ordered food for me when he knew I was on my way. It had arrived the moment I walked through the door. He also looked happy but exhausted.

There was a moment where our eyes locked across the table, and we just smiled at each other, knowing what each of us was thinking.

“This is what it is like when I’m out of town, I bet,” he said.

I just smiled and said, “Yes, it’s not easy, but we manage.”

“No, it’s not,” he responded, grabbing my hand, squeezing it tight.

The girls were smiling, watching this quiet conversation take place. I noticed that on the way home and while we finished our jobs to get ready for the next day, the girls were practically gliding around the house as they did their chores. It makes them happy to see us love each other.

It’s important for them to see him acknowledge the sacrifices we make when he is gone. It’s a form of love that’s hard to explain to them without this, but it’s so important for them to see it because I want them to find a husband who will do the same for them.

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Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, I discuss the contempt I have for a husband who shames his wife online for his own benefit.

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Man Whores Out His Pious Wife For Clout

Before I get into what I want to talk about today, it is very important that I first tell you that I believe there is redemption through Christ waiting for all of us. We all fall short of sanctification, and through His mercy and sacrifice, we have the opportunity to come back from our sin.

That said, sometimes your testimony should be saved for small-group discussions rather than posted online. A husband is going viral right now for essentially slut shaming his wife on the internet under the veil of professing her radical transformation from promiscuity to biblical womanhood.

Right off the bat, as I read his post, I couldn’t help but think how insane it is that her husband is airing her past on the internet for the world to see. I made a mental note to somehow explain to my girls that they should be looking for men who will protect them, not use them for clicks or online clout.

“My wife was formerly promiscuous. I was a virgin,” he said. “She was then radically born-again. Committed to church, evangelized constantly, Puritan books in her bedroom, prayer journals, grief over past sexual sin, etc.”

The post goes on and on about how she regrets the sexual sins of her past and how she’s worked to be the best mother and wife. The reaction to him telling this story is exactly what you’d imagine. His comment section is full of men asking why he would essentially call his wife a whore on the internet, and women being disgusted by his words.

While talking about this with one of my friends, she mentioned that this woman might have been an OnlyFans prostitute, which would make a lot of sense considering her husband talked about her having multiple partners. So I started doing a bit of digging. Her husband mentioned that she had previously professed her “testimony” in public. I figured there would be a record of it somewhere online. After finding it and reading the entire thing, I am even more disgusted by the husband’s decision to talk about her past this way.

The way he wrote about her made it seem like she had wild college years. She went clubbing and hooked up with random men every night. That was the picture he painted for the audience, but the truth was actually quite heartbreaking.

Yes, she admitted to being an OnlyFans-type cam girl for about 4 months of her life when she was around 18 years old. However, she had been systematically groomed and raped since she was at least 16, but I think this actually started around age 15. Older men would lure her in with drugs and then sexually use and abuse her.

Her parents divorced when she was only 3. She was exposed to pornography at a very young age and then by 15 was sneaking out of the house to go to raves out in the desert, where she met older men who would give her drugs and alcohol.

“At a very young age, I was exposed to lots of sexual immorality such as pornography and crude, sexual talk. This soon led me to get enslaved in the sin of indulging in pornography as young as 11 or 12 yrs old and this continued for many years,” she said.

“At 15 years old I became VERY rebellious. I was promiscuous, jumping from relationship to relationship, smoking, sneaking out at night, lying to my mother where I was going, drinking, and partying,” she wrote.

While she, of course, made the decision to follow that path, her parents were nowhere to be found. Why are they letting their teenage daughter sneak out of the house? The first time that happened would be the last time.

A lot of parents with wild children will claim that some kids are just born unmanageable. “I did everything right, and they strayed on their own.” This isn’t the truth. It’s just something they tell themselves to soothe their shame. We have a duty to protect our children physically and spiritually. This clearly wasn’t happening for her, and it began with their decision to get divorced.

Divorce is the ultimate killer, destroying nuclear families under the guise that children will be happier if the parents are happy. But in reality, all children of divorce walk away with deep-rooted scars, and the worst cases turn out like this girl.

This wasn’t some story about a wild teen, but rather a hurt little girl desperately searching for a family after her parents broke it into pieces. They didn’t provide one at home, so she turned to the world. She found sin and wore it as a shield, but it was poisoned. She was dying from the inside out long before she almost overdosed at age 18.

Now she’s finally found God, a husband, and children. The redemption and family she has been looking for all of her life is now hers. But she can never move on from this because her husband uses it as part of his so-called ministry. He tells the world his wife used to be a whore, but never once mentions that in reality, she was left unprotected by her parents and used by evil men who wanted to abuse her until there was nothing left. She will always be the (former) prostitute.

And I understand that some will read his post claiming that the hate he is receiving is unwarranted. “He’s showing God’s forgiveness!” But I would like to know: if the wife was so willing to have her “testimony” shared in public, why did she try so hard to scrub the details from public view that I had to use a special website to fix the broken link just to read about her life?

My girls will grow up to understand that a good man will shelter you. They will pray for your protection, provide a life that uplifts your soul, and give you a home where you can calmly raise your children. He won’t use you like this. He won’t humiliate you in front of the world for his benefit. Instead, he will fight for your honor and get justice for those who wish to besmirch your character. This is what real men who love their wives do for them.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to goodlife@dailycaller.com. While I can’t always respond, I do try to read them all! The community we are building is one of my favorite parts of this experience.

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