But in the first term we pushed through constitutional amendments to expand gun rights, to eliminate racial distinctions, and to enshrine in law the principle that Americans are individually responsible for their own support—not the government. The Thirtieth, Thirty-First, and Thirty-Second Amendments are her real legacy.
We had come through two decades of hardball against us and we didn’t hesitate to play it ourselves. We could have pretended the prior 16 years didn’t happen—that the left had not eliminated the filibuster, tried to rule by decree, packed the courts, and ignored the Bill of Rights. Some folks wanted us to do that, to return to normal.
But “normal” was not just clearing the slate so as soon as some new liberal Caesar comes along they can do it all over again. No, they changed the rules, and they were going to pay for it. And they did.
I’d be happy to live in a world of handshakes and smiles and bipartisanship, but the liberals killed that unicorn. We drove its horn into their hearts.
David Chang (Conservative Media Host)
The Thirty-Second Amendment was very simple in its text but earthshaking in its implications for the country and society. It reads:
Each American shall be presumed to be responsible for the financial support of himself or herself, and for his or her dependents, and Congress shall make no law providing for such support for more than a minimal period of no more than three months during their lives, and in modest amounts necessary to preserve life, unless such person has paid into, and is eligible to participate in, a system of social insurance for such support, is truly and demonstrably physically or mentally unable to support himself or herself, or is injured in the service of this Nation.
Upon its ratification (with the final necessary state being Tennessee) on April 2, 2028, the Thirty-Second Amendment completely upended the progressives’ vision of the role of government. The effect of the Thirty-Second Amendment was dramatic. During the second term of the Obama administration, one American in every 6.5 was receiving food stamps. Now, the food stamps program is completely dismantled, as are all cash payments to able-bodied adults. Only Social Security was protected—that would be reformed separately later.
Repealing Obamacare was a big step, but the Thirty-Second Amendment was a true watershed. The Thirty-Second Amendment represented what I like to call a “core argument” because it was something all conservatives could rally around. You could be gay or be uncomfortable with gays, or be a believer or be an atheist, you could like abortion or hate it, but you could all get behind the Thirty-Second.
Now, we had a clear statement that the role of government was not to support its citizens except in the narrowest of circumstances—that this was an individual responsibility. We expect you to work. If you make stupid choices, we expect you to work harder
Progressives wanted to try to give you everything, but they could never give you dignity. That’s what we give you, and we do it by letting you stand on your own two feet. And, of course, we cut out of the budget most everything else that couldn’t be justified under one of the federal government’s enumerated powers in the Constitution.
We didn’t take power for power’s sake. We had ideas, and the liberals hated that.
The federal government today is a fraction of its old size, much cheaper, and since it does so much less there is significantly less opportunity for graft and rent-seeking. Most Americans think this is great. Liberals, of course, think we’re worse than the Nazis.
Jerome Timms (Republican Congressman)
One of the first things President Marlowe did was sign the minimum mandatory sentences repeal bill, but then she went further and ordered a mass review of all federal drug sentences. She pardoned thousands, including my mom. My mom finally came home after seven years in jail. Our family was back together, but for many other families it was too late. They were broken forever.
Until President Marlowe came along, presidents had rarely used their pardon power, and only after long, bureaucratic investigations. Why take a political risk if you pardon someone who goes and commits another crime? But President Marlowe didn’t care about the risk to her at the polls. She cared about doing what was right. She didn’t just release people willy-nilly—these were nonviolent offenders—but she took a risk no liberal ever would to try and put families and communities back together.
Then President Marlowe came to the community, but what I noticed was that she hardly said a thing. She sat in a school auditorium filled with local people and listened. It was supposed to go an hour. She stayed for three, just listening.
Hillary never listened to us. She, and all the liberals, talked at us, like she was our savior there to throw us some crumbs. President Marlowe was humble. Then President Marlowe signed off on school choice and I ended up at a magnet school. I worked my way into Harvard and Harvard Law with a scholarship for poor kids with good grades.
I remember how one day, my mom took the Obama photo off our wall and put up one of President Marlowe.
Becky O’Hara (Secretary of Education)
Becky O’Hara is cleaning out her office, but unlike her rival during her first school board election race nearly three decades ago, it is because O’Hara was victorious. She’s leaving as the Department of Education itself is closed down, its duties returning to the states where they always belonged.
She points to a framed photo still hanging on the wall of her and the group of parents who took over that suburban Maryland school district about 28 years ago and launched her career as a conservative education reformer.
We were just regular folks, normal Americans, taking an interest in their government. I was a housewife, but the people who ran things thought I was nothing. They thought I didn’t matter. They thought they could just ignore us. They thought we were nothing.
They thought wrong. In America, you’re only nothing if you let yourself be nothing.
Tamara Hayes Smith (Professor/Activist)
Decades ago there had been a kind of consensus, bipartisan status quo inside the Beltway. There were minor changes at the margins, but both sides generally resisted radical change that would kneecap the other side. Under Obama and Clinton, that changed.
Progressives did not seek to simply beat conservatives in a few elections but to utterly destroy them by using all of their political and cultural power. The constitutional conservatives came into power in the 2020s not knowing any other way to be besides ruthless, and they acted to alter the playing field permanently with aggressive lawmaking, appointing extremely conservative judges, punishing liberal institutions, and even amending the Constitution in dramatic ways.
Conservative were interested in destroying progressivism, and they largely succeeded. Liberals learned that if you try to kill the king, you better succeed.
Barry Sawyer (Radio Host/Political Prisoner)
One of the first things President Marlowe did after being sworn in was pardon Sawyer and everyone else convicted under the censorship laws. Then the president appointed him to the Fairness Commission—with orders to shut it down.
You should have seen their faces. I was public enemy number one to these bureaucrats one day and the next day I am their boss. There were over 1,000 federal employees at the Fairness Commission, and they would have added several thousand more in the next year if the Democrats had won the election.