President Trump spent Sunday morning walking the grounds of the city he is determined to fix. He started at Lafayette Square, the seven-acre park sitting directly across from the White House. One detail from the reporting stands out. The plan calls for 47 trees, one count for each number of his presidency. He is the 47th president of the United States. It is a small touch with a clear message. The 47th president intends to leave a visible mark on the capital, right outside his own front door. The Washington Times reported on June 28, 2026, that Trump toured sites tied to his broader makeover of the nation’s capital, starting with the park outside the White House. The paper said he began the morning inspecting Lafayette Square, the seven-acre park directly north of the White House, before moving to another site tied to his D.C. plans. The beautification effort traces back to May 2025, when Trump signed an executive order aimed at restoring the square and improving the public space around the executive mansion. The Washington Times said that order covered restoring fountains, upgrading infrastructure, and raising the tree count to 47, the number that now makes the landscaping plan a presidency marker. That last number is the political signature in the landscaping plan, because it matches Trump’s place in the line of American presidents. The report also places the park visit inside a larger capital-improvement push, which makes the Sunday inspection more than a casual walk outside the White House gates. The details are concrete: fountains, infrastructure, trees, and the public space directly across from the executive mansion. That is why the story feels different from normal Washington chatter. It is about the visible condition of the capital, and Trump is tying that condition to his presidency. The Washington Post reported the same 47-tree goal, citing people familiar with the matter and placing the detail inside Trump’s hands-on interest in Lafayette Square and its redesign project. The outlet framed the tree count as a deliberate nod to Trump’s 47th presidency, rather than an ordinary landscaping decision made by park staff. It also reported that Trump personally inspected the renovations that morning, an account relayed through the White House and the press pool after he visited the site. For now the 47 trees are the plan, not finished work. The news is the goal, the symbolism, and the president showing up in person to check on a visible project outside the White House. That kind of detail is why this story has legs. It is small enough to notice and clear enough for everyone to understand. The Washington Post angle also explains why the tree count became the hook: the landscaping number is easy to dismiss until you remember how often presidents leave their marks on the White House grounds and the capital around them. Here, the mark is being reported as intentional, visible, and tied directly to the number 47. Lafayette Square carries more history than most parks in America. The National Park Service says the seven-acre park sits directly north of the White House. The NPS says the land has been used as a race track, a showplace for caged animals, a graveyard, a slave market, a soldier encampment, and a site for political protests and celebrations. The park was planned by architect Charles Bulfinch in 1821 and later named for the Marquis de Lafayette, the French ally of the American Revolution and the first foreign guest of state to stay at the White House. The surrounding area once included homes tied to vice presidents, members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, naval hero Stephen Decatur, and former First Lady Dolley Madison, which gives the square a deep Washington footprint. The NPS also notes that the area was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. So the square Trump is reshaping carries real history. He is putting his stamp on ground that has stood at the center of American life for two centuries. That history is why the park matters beyond landscaping. Lafayette Square has been a front-row seat to power, protest, ceremony, and public memory since the early republic. When the area changes, people notice, because it sits in the camera shot every time the country looks toward the White House. The park had already appeared in his capital plans before Sunday’s inspection. Earlier reporting from the Washington Times on June 17, 2026, said Trump planned permanent fencing around Lafayette Square. That earlier report put the park inside a larger debate over White House security, public access, and whether the nation’s capital should look cared for or neglected. Seen together, the fencing report and the new 47-tree detail show the same instinct from two angles: protect the space, improve the space, and make the area around the White House look like it belongs to a serious country. You do not have to agree with every design choice to see the pattern. Trump keeps treating the physical condition of Washington as part of the job. Put it all together and the picture is simple. Even the park across the street from his office is being pulled into the America First restoration of the capital. The fountains, the infrastructure, the fencing, and yes, the 47 trees. A president who shows up on a Sunday morning to inspect the work himself is a president who means to finish it. The post President Trump Wants 47 Trees Across From The White House appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.

The godfathers of so much that excelled about British rock in the decade that followed their original 1976 demise – Gillan, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Black Sabbath – perhaps the greatest gift Deep Purple bequeathed the world was to help bring forth the exquisite talent and indomitable spirit of American singer Ronnie James Dio.The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 249, in May 2018 Before Ritchie Blackmore worked with Ronnie Dio, the guitarist had envisaged what eventually became the first Rainbow album as little more than a side project; a one-off solo escapade inspired by Purple’s rejection of a new Blackmore piece he titled 16th Century Greensleeves – the kind of stomping pomp-rock hauteur that Purple had once considered their music fortress, but now, in the wake of the white-soul groove Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale were more keen on exploring, was distinctly old hat.As Blackmore said in 1983: “I left because I’d met up with Ronnie Dio, and he was so easy to work with. He was originally just going to do one track of a solo LP, but we ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks, which I was very excited about.”Or as Dio would later put it: “I was always a dreamer type of kid. I immersed myself into fantasy situations by reading science fiction and things that would let my imagination run somewhere. I think there’s a tremendous kinship between science fiction and the mythological era, and I applied all of that to my lyrics.”Well he did after joining up with Blackmore, anyway. Before that, Ronnie Dio occupied a lot of different musical spaces – and times.Rainbow in Los Angeles, 1975 (Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images)The only child of a poor immigrant Italian family, Ronald James Padavona was born in Upstate New York on July 10, 1942 – although for most of his career he insisted he’d been born in 1949. As the newly installed frontman of Rainbow, he may have been ballsy enough to stand in front of thousands and conduct musical lightning, but Dio the fledging rock star didn’t like Rainbow fans knowing he was already 33 by the time he’d been given the opportunity to do so.Mainly it came down to respect, such a vital component in the self-esteem of Italian-American culture. Ronnie Dio was a man with impeccable manners, generous with his time, funny and kind. Unless you showed him disrespect. He never forgive Ritchie Blackmore for not giving him equal billing in Rainbow. Still furious years later, he told me how “when we first got together it was agreed the group would be called Ritchie Blackmore And Ronnie James Dio’s Rainbow. But when the first album came out, there it was: ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’! What was that about?”Raised as a Roman Catholic, Ronnie James Padavona’s real religion was music. He had already learned to play bass, piano and trumpet long before he knew he could sing, and joined his first band, the Vegas Kings when he was 15. Showing the same gritty determination to lead by example that would characterise his whole career, he’d soon swapped the bass for a microphone as the group metamorphosed into first Ronnie & The Ramblers and then Ronnie And The Red Caps; hit YouTube and you can still find young Ronnie fly-me-to-the-moon-ing in tux and bow tie.Unlike learning to play an instrument, it just seemed to be something that was there immediately – a gift.Ronnie James Dio on how he found his voiceThere was no denying that incredible voice, though. Singing just came naturally. “Unlike learning to play an instrument, it just seemed to be something that was there immediately,” he told me, “a gift”. Playing the trumpet gave him an edge, he recalled. “Partly to do with knowing how to breathe, partly to do with the fact that the trumpet has its own voice, its own way of phrasing.”By the late 60s he’d also changed his name, after a notorious mafia figure, Johnny Dio, “because it sounded cool”, the band becoming Ronnie Dio And The Prophets. It wasn’t until ’67 and the summer of love that he grew his hair, stopped shaving, started smoking dope and formed his first rock band, the Electric Elves – later shrunk to Elf.Ronnie James Dio (left) and Elf, circa 1972 (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)On stage Dio would stand there banging a cowbell, the band pulling out all the stops with covers of Black Dog, War Pigs, Aqualung… or when the mood took them and the audience demanded hits, he’d give them Lennon’s Imagine, The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love… anything to keep the party going and the paid gigs coming in. Until the band began writing their own stuff.“It was the first band we had which tried to make it with its own original material,” Dio told me. It was also the first time the singer really got noticed, when Elf was signed to a new record label formed by English rock goliaths Deep Purple. Ian Paice and Roger Glover produced Elf’s first, eponymously titled album, and in 1974 they were invited to support Purple on a US tour.So far, so good. What’s less known is how much closer – in loose-lipped style – Elf were to original good-time Gillan-era Purple than to the kind of medieval metal of Dio-era Rainbow.“The kind of songs I wrote in Rainbow all had a more Renaissance-style aspect to them,” Ronnie would tell me. “Ritchie and I had always seen Rainbow as being musically a meeting between heavy rock and heavy classical sorts of themes. What I wrote wasn’t poetry, but it was written to say something more than ‘Baby I love you’.”Ronnie was originally just going to do one track of a solo LP, but we ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks.Ritchie BlackmoreListening to tracks like Self Portrait from their 1975 debut Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, you could hardly argue with that. Described by Blackmore as like “a cross between Bach’s Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring and Hendrix’s Manic Depression”, Dio clearly means it when he sings lines like, ‘Paint me a picture of eyes that never see/With flashes of lightning that burn for only me’.Contrast that, though, with Black Swampy Water, the opening track of the third and final Elf album, Trying To Burn The Sun, released the same year: ‘Uh, back in the wood/Where it’s good/Well I saw me a child/She was wild/Like a lady going all out.’ This was set to a good-timey Stones/Faces barrelhouse groove. It’s a great, fun track, actually, well sung, well played, but about as far from Bach as Turner and his Overdrive.Rainbow in Los Angeles, circa 1975 (Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns)Yet it was Elf – minus guitarist Steve Edwards – that Blackmore co-opted to play on that first album. Indeed you can hear the Elf steamroller going full pelt on classic Rainbow tracks like Man On The Silver Mountain, and you can hear how much wiser-time soul they injected into the dreamy Catch The Rainbow. But that was Ronnie Dio. Someone who’d learned to roll with the punches and always knew exactly what he was doing.Doug Thaler was the keyboard player in the Electric Elves from ’67 until a car crash in ’71 that left guitarist Nick Pantas dead and Thaler in hospital for months. He recalls a pre-fame Dio as “someone who was always very driven. He had been trying for success for a lot of years before he finally got his break with Rainbow. By the time Elf got their deal with the Purple label, Ronnie had already released half a dozen singles on half a dozen labels. He was very frustrated. I think he was worried he’d missed his chance.”Thaler confirms that it was only after Dio began working with Blackmore that he developed his penchant for writing about there being ‘no sun in the shadow of the wizard’, as he did on Rainbow classics like Stargazer. “He only became a heavy metal guy after he’d spent time touring with Purple and started in with Rainbow. But Ronnie was a great guy. He was one of those people that if he met you in a club he’d remember your name for the rest of his life. He was a great guy to hang out with, a guy’s guy.”On stage, Dio took the same highly personal approach to building his relationship with the audience.Ronnie was a great guy. He was one of those people that if he met you in a club he’d remember your name for the rest of his life.Doug Thaler As he told me: “When I stand on stage and sing, I like to imagine I’m looking into the eyes of every single person in the audience, that I’m singing specifically for them. And when I’m introducing a song, I never shout, I simply speak to them as though we were having a private conversation. "Partly, it’s because I’ve always hated frontmen that simply shout and leer at an audience, treating them as though they were one big blob. I’ve always thought that was so rude. And mainly it’s because I take what I do very seriously. Don't get me wrong, I like to have fun up there. But I really do mean every word I sing or say. And I want people to know that.”Rainbow in 1977 (Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns)It was the second Rainbow album, though, Rainbow Rising, that catapulted the band into the annals of rock history. Released in 1976, just weeks after MkIII Purple’s final show in April, and featuring what is now considered the quintessential Rainbow line-up – all Dio’s former Elf sidemen replaced by rock veterans, drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey – Rainbow Rising set the benchmark by which heavy metal albums would be judged throughout the rest of the 70s.Certainly it was one of the best albums Dio would ever sing on. “Yeah, I’d agree with that,” he said nonchalantly. Unfortunately, with the line-up fracturing again (neither Bain nor Carey survived the cull) before the recording of a follow-up could begin, the band’s potential was never fully explored.“It was a shame, but that’s the way Ritchie liked to work, in order to keep things fresh,” Dio told me, straight-faced. Then once the tape recorder was turned off, what “an asshole” Ritchie was.People still tell me how surprised they were when I left the band shortly after. The truth is, I was kinda surprised myself.Ronnie Dio“People still tell me how surprised they were when I left the band shortly after. The truth is, I was kinda surprised myself,” Dio joked years later. As he confessed: “Ultimately, it was Ritchie’s choice, yes. But it was also mine, in that I knew I couldn’t give him what he wanted. "The answer lies in what the band did after I left, which was singles like Since You’ve Been Gone. It’s a great song and it was a big hit for them, but it’s not one I would have written or sung with them. It was mainstream pop-rock, and that’s where Ritchie wanted to go. If I’d wanted to go there too, then I’m sure we could have continued working together. But I didn’t.”The irony: that a straightforward, chorus-heavy rock'n'roll belter like Since You’ve Been Gone would have fitted ‘whoa-yeah-mama’-era Elf like a velvet glove wrapped around an iron fist. Yet another strand of the Deep Purple family circle left to tantalise the ‘What if…’ brigade.The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 249, in May 2018

Former President Joe Biden spoke at the Maryland Democratic Party’s Fight Back and Win Summit in Baltimore — and after shouting and mumbling through his remarks, he appeared to have some difficulty finding his way off the stage. Biden’s typical speech patterns have not changed much since he left the White House in early 2025, as he alternately addressed the crowd calmly and raised his voice to a shout, at seemingly random intervals. WATCH:

Just a few weeks after our nation’s 250th anniversary, Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic “The Odyssey” will hit theaters. The conservative movement can learn something from Odysseus, the “man of twists and turns,” nearly three millennia after the poem was composed. As colossal as the poem’s story is—being stretched over 10 years and encompassing the entire Mediterranean—“The Odyssey” fundamentally tells the story of home. The most important lessons to be learned from it are domestic. The poem centers on Odysseus, the long-suffering king of puny Ithaca, who is trying to return home following 10 years fighting in the Trojan War. Odysseus’ journey to reclaim his throne lasts a decade. Meanwhile in Ithaca, a fatherless generation has crowded out his heir, Telemachus, and vies for the hand of his wife, Queen Penelope. In order to return to his land and defend his home against usurpers, Odysseus must contend with giants, raging winds, and the wrath of the god Poseidon. At every turn in the poem, Homer depicts a vision of home, though these often turn out to be false homes. Three of the best-known, perverted portraits of domestic life in “The Odyssey” can tell us what true homecoming means and what sort of man is worthy of it.  In one of the most atmospheric scenes of the entire poem, Odysseus weeps on the shores of Calypso’s island, where he has been captive for seven years. Calypso, a nymph, has enchanted Odysseus and kept him prisoner as her “husband” for seven years. Homer provides two images that evoke domestic life, saying (in the A.T. Murray translation) that “A great fire was burning on the hearth,” as Calypso sang sweet songs. Despite the domestic feeling of this scene, both images undermine true homecoming. The fire does not warm Odysseus’ own hearth, and the songs are not Penelope’s. Despite Calypso’s cosplay as his wife, Odysseus weeps. Absent from his own hearth, wife, son, and throne, the king cannot rule as he knows he must. This is domesticity without duty. He is a king become a slave. At another point in the epic, Odysseus recalls the story of when he and his crew come upon a cyclops. Even where monsters dwell, there were “well-watered meadows” where “vines would never fail.” Once again, the scene feigns peace and prosperity, but reality is far crueler. The one-eyed monster seizes Odysseus and his crew, for their bones are delicacies for cyclopes. It is a hilarious perversion of the hospitality that ought to be offered to strangers. The Phaeacians, Odysseus’ great ally at the end of his journey, feed the wayfarer; the Cyclops feeds on the wayfarer. In the third portrait of perverted domestic life, Poseidon forces Odysseus and his crew to the seductive home of the witch Circe. After a toilsome journey, Circe’s facade of welcome draws in the crew. All but Odysseus are so swayed by the prospect of comfort that they let their guard down when offered wine, and Circe swiftly uses her magic to turn them into swine. Even Odysseus falls eventually and stays with his men a full year “feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine.” Homer depicts clearly what happens when home-bound men willingly forget their way. They give up their defenses against evil. They glut themselves on expedient things. Ultimately, they become pigs. After a year, Odysseus and his men finally recall their duty and confront the witch. But because they have been so long spellbound in her house, passage requires a unique retribution: Odysseus is forced to descend to the underworld and confront characters from his past before he is allowed to leave the island. In the end, he makes the journey and leaves Hades unscathed, ready for more adventure. The conservative movement in America has seen versions of each of these stories. The Biden years were Calypso’s island. While trapped there, conservatives in government were told constantly by the administration that progressivism was the true homeland. Politically, conservatives were largely blocked from the exercise of power. Progressives are cyclopes, seeing with one eye and devouring American families with anti-human policies. Thankfully, in 2024, the cyclopes were blinded, and conservatives escaped out of the darkness. In recent months, though, conservatives themselves have been to blame, like Odysseus’ crew, who were turned into pigs in their complacency. We are resting easy in the comfort of power. Failure to pass the SAVE America Act constitutes a dereliction of duty comparable to Odysseus’ year in Circe’s hall. But if we are the heroes of our own story—as we should be—we can push through the long, winding journey home. There is hope for the conservative movement, though it has drunk some bad wine and answered the call of certain sirens. The widespread interest in Nolan’s adaptation of the ancient epic speaks to the same underlying need as Telemachus’ zeal for his father’s return. Younger Americans, and Gen Z in particular, have seen enough of the “new way.” Young people are beginning to see through the “suitors” of American culture who try to usurp rightful rule and thought. Progressive leaders have brought more harm than good, and they certainly did not inspire unity. Like Telemachus, those who are tired of a void in the American way of life have gone in search of older things. Conservatives hold the answer: a hearth warming one’s own home and a song for one’s own children. Odysseus made it home. If we chart the right course, conservatives will too, under a rosy-fingered dawn. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

America at 250: Lincoln's Reminder That God Judges Us All

On Thursday's The Moment show, MS NOW host Katy Tur gloated over some MAGA members deciding to defect from the pro-Donald Trump movement as she had on reporter David Noriega to discuss a piece in which he depicted some Trump supporters as "cult-like" and in need of a support group to recover. Tur played up the notion that a substantial number of Trump supporters were switching sides as he she introduced the segment: Katy Tur Gloats Over 'Cult-Like' MAGA Members Defecting pic.twitter.com/mPQO97NO3S — Brad Wilmouth (@bradwilmouth) June 27, 2026 What once seemed unbelievable is now starting to be believable. The MAGA faithful are leaving the movement. We've seen that happen in a number of high profile cases recently, and it's true for many of the president's hardcore supporters who are disillusioned and let down by what they say were empty promises and conspiracies. After playing a clip of a former Trump supporter explaining why he has been disappointed in the President, Tur brought aboard Noriega and introduced the word "cult" into the conversation: "Joining us, MS NOW reporter David Noriega. I want to show that billboard again: 'Thinking of Leaving the Movement?' It's almost like, 'Thinking of leaving this cult? We can help you.'" Before conceding that MAGA overall is not a cult, Noriega began: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Look, when I found out that there existed a support group for people who were leaving MAGA, I was very skeptical because I've reported on cults before, and this group adopted a lot of cults language -- deradicalization language. He added: And MAGA is not, in fact, a cult. It is the prevailing political ideology of the United States, right? It's a -- it's a -- it's a political movement. And voting for Donald Trump does not mean that you belong to a cult. But what I learned from talking to these folks that you see on the screen right now, or what I was reminded of rather, is that there are corners of MAGA that are in fact, very cult like. The MS NOW reporter then introduced a clip of an ex-MAGA woman who claimed that Trump supporters want to stop women from voting: NORIEGA: So I want to play a little bit of the interview that I did with one of the people in that group. Her name is Stephania. She and her husband were very evangelical. They were part of a very tight knit church community, and that led her, led them as a couple down some dark internet rabbit holes. Listen to this. STEPHANIA MESSINA, LEAVING MAGA: I became heavily indoctrinated into tradwife culture. Household voting was something myself and my fellow tradwives in the church. We were all absolutely fine with household voting and that. NORIEGA: So, just to clarify, for people who don't know, household voting means a woman does not vote. MESSINA: So the Save Act, in essence, is to take that right away from women. Noriega then added:  So, just to clarify, the Save Act does not say disenfranchise women, but it does make it much harder for women who get married and change their names to vote. So some people in that movement actually do see it as a back door to -- to household voting, as they refer to it. As the two discussed misinformation believed by MAGA supporters, Tur jumped in to hint that the COVID lab leak theory is not credible in spite of all the reporting to the contrary. It took until near the end of the segment before it was revealed that the support group Noriega spoke with only has a few dozen members. Transcript follows: MS NOW's The Moment June 26, 2026 2:51 p.m. Eastern KATY TUR: What once seemed unbelievable is now starting to be believable. The MAGA faithful are leaving the movement. We've seen that happen in a number of high profile cases recently, and it's true for many of the president's hardcore supporters who are disillusioned and let down by what they say were empty promises and conspiracies. RICH LOGIS, LEAVING MAGA: You know, I had believed that when Trump ran that he would be somebody who would be different as an outsider, I -- I think that he was correct in pointing out a lot of the flaws of our political system. It just turned out, unfortunately, that he didn't try to solve those or remedy those ills, that he exacerbated them. TUR: Joining us, MS NOW reporter David Noriega. I want to show that billboard again: "Thinking of Leaving the Movement?" It's almost like, "Thinking of leaving this cult? We can help you." DAVID NORIEGA: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Look, when I found out that there existed a support group for people who were leaving MAGA, I was very skeptical because I've reported on cults before, and this group adopted a lot of cults language -- deradicalization language. And MAGA is not, in fact, a cult. It is the prevailing political ideology of the United States, right? It's a -- it's a -- it's a political movement. And voting for Donald Trump does not mean that you belong to a cult. But what I learned from talking to these folks that you see on the screen right now, or what I was reminded of rather, is that there are corners of MAGA that are in fact, very cult like -- TUR: Yeah. NORIEGA: -- right? You know, everyone who voted for Donald Trump in the last election -- TUR: No, that's not what you're saying. NORIEGA: Exactly. And there are specifically online cultures -- subcultures that are closely aligned with MAGA that are, in fact, very cult like. So I want to play a little bit of the interview that I did with one of the people in that group. Her name is Stefania. She and her husband were very evangelical. They were part of a very tight knit church community, and that led her, led them as a couple down some dark internet rabbit holes. Listen to this. STEPHANIA MESSINA, LEAVING MAGA: I became heavily indoctrinated into tradwife culture. Household voting was something myself and my fellow tradwives in the church. We were all absolutely fine with household voting and that. NORIEGA: So, just to clarify, for people who don't know, household voting means a woman does not vote. MESSINA: So the Save Act, in essence, is to take that right away from women. NORIEGA: So, just to clarify, the Save Act does not say disenfranchise women, but it does make it much harder for women who get married and change their names to vote. So some people in that movement actually do see it as a back door to -- to household voting, as they refer to it. So this group exists to provide support for people who are extracting themselves -- not just deciding that they're going to vote for somebody different, but actually extracting themselves from these parts of the MAGA movement that are, in fact, very sort of totalizing in the way they dominate someone's worldview and someone's social and family life, right. And what they talk about is that leaving those groups can be as hard as leaving a cult. There are exit costs that involves, you know, jettisoning important personal relationships, relationships with people as close as your father or mother or your children or, you know, one degree further out, your church, your social community. And what the people who founded this group decided to do was say, "Well, look, okay, so MAGA is a community. Let's give these people a different community that they can turn to. TUR: Is it just a handful of people? Do you have numbers on there? NORIEGA: They told us that it's several dozen. You know, it's -- so that makes it a small group. But I think its significance is the resonance that it has with people. And what some of these folks that I met with told me is that they have realized that more people in their lives than they realized were kind of teetering on the edge in this way and needed something that they could perceive as an exit route, right? Especially because -- and this is another thing I talked to them about -- when you've been convinced for many years of a certain truth, and all of a sudden you're presented with a situation where you're questioning that truth -- and again, not just an opinion, not but -- but like a whole, a fully self-contained and coherent sort of truth -- TUR: Worldview. NORIEGA: -- worldview that tells you that the 2020 election was stolen, that COVID, you know, wasn't real, or at least that you, that, like -- I don't know exactly what they believe about COVID. I don't exactly remember. But -- TUR: It wasn't as dangerous as people said -- NORIEGA: Yeah. TUR: -- or it was manipulated in a lab or made by Fauci. NORIEGA: Exactly. And one thing that was interesting is that a lot of them had these moments of kind of questioning or even awakening when, for whatever reason, they were caused to diversify their media, right? So one of them was shown a PBS documentary on January 6th by her new husband, and she was like, "Hang on a second -- is this stuff true? Like, did this happen?" And they said, "Yes, in fact, it is true." And then you can sort of feel your world crumbling beneath you in that kind of situation, your identity. And that's what a group like this is for. TUR: And it's more possible now because there's so many information silos where you don't actually see what happened on January 6th. You're not privy to those images and the reporting because you -- you live in a very specific, very contained and very tightly controlled algorithm. David Noriega, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate the reporting as always.

America is in a dire generational predicament. A day is coming — soon — when Gen Z, a generation known for distrust and disillusionment, will be deciding whether this experiment called America is still worth saving or if we’ve earned our place in the ash heap of history.On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace addresses 23-year-old Ben's question that no older generation wants to look at: What happens when the older generations are gone and Gen Z takes over?His response is one of the most honest, chilling, and ultimately challenging things he has ever said on air. “Given what the American left wants to do to us as a people and how obvious they are making it, if systemically we have deceived our own people so much and we have disappointed them and gaslit them so much that an entire generation emerges that pulls the plug on our side, then we will deserve at that point whatever we have coming to us,” says Deace bluntly. “It'll be sad, it'll be tragic, but it is what it is.”Even so, he isn’t panicked in a worldly sense.“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. There's only one perpetual kingdom. … Every generation, every nation eventually gets its tombstone in the ash heap of history,” Deace declares.“I try to be as honest as I can possibly be, but you know, I can't fix everything. Not by a long shot. So if the end result of this is that your generation has just been so systemically lied to that you tap out and the result is that the Democrats and the left plant the flag, that would suck. But would we sit here and say that's necessarily undeserved?” he asks.“I know it's deserved right now,” co-host Todd Erzen chimes in.But despite the betrayals and gaslighting, Deace believes sticking with Trump and the current MAGA movement is the only realistic option right now, even with all its flaws.“Hear where we're coming from, and then you decide for yourself if you think we're right,” he says to Ben and other Gen Zers.“A lot of you young men aren't married yet and don't have kids yet, and so you're not thinking yet in terms of 20-, 30-year increments,” he explains.“It's not that I don't see the betrayals that you're bringing to my attention. It's not that I'm unaware of the gaslighting on several fronts. It's not that I think Donald Trump tiptoes between the raindrops,” Deace continues.“It's that there's not another army for me to go serve in. There's not another alternative for me to go enlist in to punch back at the spirit of the age that wants to end my way of life before I can pass it on to my kids and grandkids.”The older a person gets, he explains, the more he or she begins to realize how little time there really is. Becoming a parent and then a grandparent especially puts things into perspective.“Your time starts getting shorter for the mark I can really leave for [children and grandchildren] and what I'm going to leave behind and what messes I'll leave them to clean up that I could have confronted myself,” says Deace.“There's not another army for me to go in and enlist in. The only meaningful opposition in America and in the West of the spirit of the age is Trump and his movement.”Want more from Steve Deace?To enjoy more of Steve's take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.