Virtue Is Key To Preserving The Republic

Summary

Federalist Radio Hour
Episode: “Virtue Is Key To Preserving The Republic”
Date: July 14, 2026
Host: Matt Kittle
Guest: Ned Ryan, CEO of American Majority and producer of “The Threat of Liberty: Keeping Our Republic”

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the central thesis of Ned Ryan’s new documentary, “The Threat of Liberty: Keeping Our Republic,” arguing that virtue is the foundational element necessary to maintain and renew the American constitutional experiment. Host Matt Kittle and Ryan discuss the erosion of public virtue, the role of religion in undergirding a republic, the dangers of progressive ideology, and what conservatives must do to “keep” the republic for future generations, especially on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Centrality of Virtue in the American Republic

• Virtue and the Founding

  • Ryan asserts that America was founded on virtue and its endurance depends on it:
    • “A republic cannot endure without virtue.” — John Adams (27:15)
  • The founders, including Adams and Washington, insisted that public virtue stems from private virtue, which flows from religion (27:41).
  • Ryan stresses that religion—specifically Christianity in its Trinitarian sects—was America’s “first political institution” (27:41).

• Virtue’s Decay & the Role of Progressivism

  • Ryan argues that progressives deliberately undermined America’s historical narrative and virtue through education and propaganda:
    • “It’s not a mistake that our younger generations do not know the true history of this country.” (03:44)
  • The result: a generation disconnected from the nation’s origins and the concept of instinctive patriotism (03:44, referencing Tocqueville).

2. Tocqueville, Observers of America, and the Power of Self-Governance

• Ryan and Kittle reference Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of American society:
  • Tocqueville saw faith and liberty as intertwined, and was surprised to see religion as a foundational political institution (06:27).
  • They compare Tocqueville’s amazement to modern immigrants and visitors who find America differs from its negative depiction in foreign media (07:25–08:02).
  • “He came to study the prison systems… became so fascinated by it that he actually stuck around for nine months, traveled 7,000 miles…” (08:02)

3. The Rise and Impact of the Administrative State

• The expansion of government since the Wilson era (10:13) and the waves of increased federal power under FDR and LBJ have, according to Ryan, hollowed out family and community institutions:

  • “The state coming in… undermined and gutted the family, the local institutions, local charitable institutions… point[ing] responsibility towards the government.” (10:42)

• The administrative state is described as a habit “very hard to break” (13:24).

4. Marxism, Critical Theory, and the Battle of Belief Systems

• Ryan delineates the clash between the American founding philosophy (“rights from a transcendent creator”) and the critical theory/Marxist view (“rights come from the state”):
  • “We are in a conflict between two belief systems…” (15:07)
  • “Everything that you’re seeing playing out… is a conflict between two very different belief systems. And one of them is going to win out.” (15:07)
• He criticizes the infiltration of Marxist thought via higher education, tying it to anti-Semitic trends and the rise of the far left (18:34).

5. Grassroots Strategy & Political Action

• Ryan details American Majority’s efforts to build grassroots Republican strength, particularly in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina (38:13):
  • “If we hold the White House in 28… you could see 25 to 40 House and electoral votes move into red states.” (35:24)
• He sees the current goal as moving swing states into solid Republican territory, thus reshaping future electoral and legislative maps (38:13–39:00).
• Ryan emphasizes the importance of data-driven campaigning and the need to out-organize the left for House control in 2026 and beyond (41:11).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the progressive capture of education:

  • “Most of the 20th century and 21st century in regards to American history and political history has been nothing but progressive propaganda.” — Ned Ryan (03:44)

• On self-governance and virtue:

  • “The idea of a self-governing republic ultimately comes from the individual governing himself or herself… The better we govern ourselves, the more freedom there will be because there’ll be less need for laws.” — Ned Ryan (27:41)

• On America as an experiment:

  • “This experiment in self-government is actually a blip in the broader scheme of recorded human history. They knew how fragile this was.” — Ned Ryan (21:57, from documentary trailer)

• On present political and cultural challenges:

  • “Are we going to tolerate ourselves to death?” — Ned Ryan (33:53)
  • “Politics is not our salvation. At the same time, someone’s political views are going to win out in the political arena. It better be ours.” — Ned Ryan (15:07)

• On the urgency of renewed patriotism:

  • “We have to get people to believe in something again… You go back to the founding principles and you renew them again… Be good stewards of it.” — Ned Ryan (43:07)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Virtue and the Founding’s Central Role – (03:44–06:27, 27:15–27:41)
• Tocqueville on American Institutions – (06:27–08:02)
• The Rise of the Administrative State – (10:13–13:26)
• Competing Belief Systems/Marxism’s Spread – (15:07–17:21, 18:34)
• Documentary Trailer – (21:37–23:00)
• Virtue’s Religious Foundations – (27:15–31:02)
• Comparing Rome and America – (31:02–33:42)
• Political Strategy for GOP – (35:24–40:16)
• American Majority’s Grassroots Plans – (38:13–42:28)
• Restoring Faith and Patriotism – (43:07–44:31)

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The episode presents a passionate, historically-rooted argument: the survival of the American republic is inseparable from public and private virtue, which the hosts and guest tie to religious faith and deliberate citizenship.
• Progressive dominance of institutions and the import of critical theory/Marxism are seen as existential threats; the challenge is described as not merely political but metaphysical and moral.
• Conservatism’s key task is not only to win elections, but to reawaken public virtue through education, grassroots organization, and a return to the founding principles.
• Ned Ryan’s work through American Majority and his new documentary are positioned as crucial resources for this renewal.

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For more:

• Watch the documentary: threadofliberty.com
• Join the ongoing discussion: americanleviathan.com

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Closing Thoughts:
The Federalist Radio Hour’s exploration of virtue, history, and strategy offers a stirring rallying cry for those concerned about the future of the republic—urging listeners to become “good stewards” and active defenders of America’s constitutional legacy.

Transcript

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[Ned Ryan]

No, absolutely. Great to be back with you Matt. I appreciate the opportunity.

[Matt K.]

No, I appreciate the time. I know you are one of the busiest working fellows in America, particularly as we get closer and closer to the all important midter terms. And that is, that is part of what this conversation is all about. Because really where we go from here is the premise of this powerful documentary. Let's begin at the core here and the idea here is all about virtue. And as we celebrate 250 years of this exceptional country that was founded on virtue, it seems to me that the inheritors of this blessing, this constitutional republic, a republic, if you can keep it, according to Benjamin Franklin, walking outside that hot, hot building in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. But it seems that this generation, much of it anyway, has lost that thread. What do you think?

[Ned Ryan]

I agree, and I think it's been intentional. I think we can make a pretty strong argument that the education systems, if you can even call them education systems, have been dominated by the left, by progressive leftism that has no real desire or intent to have an honest conversation about the founding, about the republic, about what makes a republic thrive and makes it strong. I would argue, Matt, just not only research for this documentary and there's a companion book that's going to be coming out in a few weeks. American Leviathan, Restoring Our Republic. My previous books, I grow more and more convinced that most of the 20th century and 21st century in regards to American history and political history has been nothing but progressive propaganda. So to say that it's not a mistake that our younger generations do not know the true history of this country, and that's one of the reasons we did this. We feel very strongly that there needs to be a rebirth of instinctive patriotism, which is what Tocqueville mentions in his great work, Democracy in America, which we kind of use as a backdrop for telling of this story. And by instinctive patriotism, we mean the inborn love of country. But you cannot love your country if you do not know where your country came from, what your country's about. And I think it's obviously been deeply intentional that once progressives gain hold of our education system, the real story of America and the founding of the republic and why we have the constitutional republic and all of the inspirations for it, and how our founders viewed human nature and the role of government is antithetical to progressives and how they view human nature and how they view government. So of course, all of this one thing leads to another. And if you have younger generations actually fully understanding the constitutional republic and the Founders, they're going to have really strong questions about progressives view of government and governing and human nature. So we find ourselves in an interesting situation. But I want to say one thing and then I'll let you ask the next question, but virtue. Alexis de Tocqueville came, young Frenchman, nobleman, 1830s. And he made some pretty astute observations. And he also, it was Interesting. Tocqueville was a very astute observer of the young American republic at the time, but also kind of very prophetic. So the observations he made when he came, obviously the American republic's great ability to repair her faults. He was kind of surprised to find that faith and liberty were not antagonistic towards each other. They were in fact intertwined. And he kind of had this startling revelation that the first political institution of America was actually religion.

[Matt K.]

Yes.

[Ned Ryan]

And then, you know, obviously he looked at the Republican, realized they've got an issue with slavery at some point, that that conflict is going to have to be solved. And then he also talked about the soft despotism that could be a threat to the future freedom of the American people. And so we just wanted to tell the story first of all, to let you know, to, to really inspire people. It's the 250th anniversary of the greatest experiment in human flourishing, of human freedom. And then also just have a real conversation about, you know, where do we go from here?

[Matt K.]

Indeed. And this documentary does raise all of those critical questions, it seems to me, as you take a look at Tocqueville and, and what he saw and how amazed he was with this experiment back in the 1830s. He, he now seems like to me, or I think the, the foreigners who have come to this country for the FIFA world.

[Ned Ryan]

Yes.

[Matt K.]

Soccer, for the World cup, they, they remind me of Tocqueville because, you know, we see and they see over and over again a very dishonest and corrupt media telling us over. And of course the, the leftist and the institutions that they control telling us over and over again how horrible America is. Then you have these people thousands of miles in countries far flung, and they get here and they're like, this isn't the same country I thought it was. And that's Tocqueville, I think, had the same experience, although obviously without TikTok.

[Ned Ryan]

Right. So the, the funny part about Tocqueville is he came to study the prison systems in America and became so fascinated by it that he actually stuck around for nine months, traveled 7,000 miles and wanted to try and better understand why is this experiment working? You know, why is this self governing Republic still flourishing 55 years later and just traveled the country interviewing people, observing the townships and the self governing that was taking place. And then of course goes home and writes democracy in America. But yeah, same thing. He became fascinated by this country and decided, I'm sticking around for a while and I'm going to travel 7,000 miles and to experience more of it and try and get a better understanding of it. And yeah, you could absolutely. You can absolutely see the correlations between Tocqueville and today's Freddie from Germany as he's going around going, what is this. What is this amazingness? Well, it's called the. The American Republic and the American people.

[Matt K.]

Good old Freddie. Can you imagine if Tocqueville had ranch dressing to contend with? Oh, my God.

[Ned Ryan]

Or Bucky's.

[Matt K.]

Or Bucky's. Exactly. Or. Or beer at. Well, I suppose he had beer at the ready anyway. But yeah, I mean, and what we have seen over time, as you wrote in Leviathan, this is something that has been happening in multifaceted ways. But you go back to the Woodrow Wilson era, when you begin the rise of the administrative state and how. How expansive the. The federal government became. And then you. You get to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who used a crisis as all good Democrats, the government even more so. And then his protege and Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Great Society. I mean, you have had a hundred and what, over a hundred years of the administrative state experiment. How. How much is that injected into the. The issues and the problems and the division that we experience in this country?

[Ned Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, again, I argue 1912. The 1912 presidential election, with the victory of Woodrow Wilson, I would argue is the beginning of the administrative state. And you just mentioned three massive sledgehammers. The first wave, the second wave with fdr, the third wave with lbj. No, I think it's completely restructured and reshaped our society and culture. And Elon Wurman, who's a constitutional law professor at University of Minnesota.

[Matt K.]

Yeah, yeah, he's been on the show.

[Ned Ryan]

Yeah, he's in the documentary. He makes the point. The problem with the state coming in, these social welfare programs that obviously the administrative state and, you know, the New Deal and Great Society all promoted and pushed and turned into a reality, really undermine and gut the family, the local institutions, local charitable institutions, because it turns away people's responsibility from each other, from. From families to their parents, from. From neighbor to neighbor and point it towards the government. And he said, you know, the whole entire experiment of the American republic in many ways is based off, you know, these local institutions and the family and the administrative state and the various iterations as it grew and grew and grew, have absolutely gutted and hollowed out those things that really were the beginning and basis of the free American republic. And so one of the overarching themes, and again, we called it the threat of liberty. Matt, it's amazing to Me, all the various inflection points that we face as a country where we could have failed, in some ways we probably should have failed. And every generation at that moment decided they had a moral obligation to the experiments. And we're still an experiment. I mean, this is one of the things where everybody's. This is one thing that frustrates me about the left. And again, they have various motivations who rant about the Founders not getting it perfect on every last front, including slavery. You go looking for perfection among imperfect people in an imperfect world. At the same time, what the founders put in place was an incredible thing the world had never seen. It's the first ever rights based republic in which the people are sovereign. And every generation at these major moments, whether obviously we declare independence and then we have to fight the greatest empire in the world or the Civil War or, you know, this, this era that I think we're in right now, where we have to decide, do we think that we are going to hold onto this threat of liberty and renew it in the face of an administrative state and bureaucratic state, or are we going to let it go? And so we're just. We wanted it to first of all inspire people at the same time challenge people again. Every generation has that obligation. You know, we have an obligation to the generation that came before us. And I think even more importantly have an obligation to the generation that comes after us. And I think it's entirely dependent upon what we, this current generation, decide to do if our future generations are going to experience, you know, the blessings of liberty and freedom and prosperity, all these things. But I think we've, we've got real challenges. The administrative state, the bureaucratic state is Paul Ray, who's another one of the guests out of Hillsdale. The problem we have today is a lot of this has become habit. And habits are very hard to break.

[Matt K.]

Yeah, bad habits in particular.

[Ned Ryan]

Exactly. So the question is, do the American people have political will, political courage, enough knowledge to say this is worth the fight to break these habits and to restore once again, what I believe we need to do is truly representative government?

[Matt K.]

Well, I quote him a lot because he is one of my favorite presidents. And he was an absolute, the right man at the right time, certainly in Ronald Reagan and his famous quote about freedom never more than one generation away from extinction. And I think that is what your documentary is really warning about. But as you look back in the documentary and as you, and as you have written extensively about, a lot of this has been driven from an old German school of yes, it was actually imported here. One of the worst things to ever be imported into the United States of America or Western civilization. And that's the whole reign of critical theory. That's where your Marxism comes from. That's where your socialist communist ideals are really expanded. Obviously you have Marx and Hagel before that with, with the whole idea of Marxism turned into communism. But the critical theory school, yep becomes the, the massive launching point for these Marxist revolutions that have been and continue to play take place in this country. What did all of that do to virtue? What did all of that do to this thread?

[Ned Ryan]

So I, I tell people, and I'm doing this more and more because I think a lot of people don't want to really maybe wrestle with this, but we're all people of faith. Everyone, we, we, our finite minds cannot even grasp the extent of our own galaxy and universe. So no perfect human knowledge said. So at some point we all have to take something on faith. We all are people of faith. There's a certain faith system in which we, we live our lives in order. We have presuppositions and biases. We are in a conflict between two belief systems. Obviously the belief system that the founders transcendent creator, natural inherent rights, that government is meant to secure those rights and take none of them away, and a belief that imperfect human beings should never consolidate power. And then on the other side you've got this, this mentality that the state is the giver of rights. There is no transcendent creator. The government and state give you rights as it deems necessary to the benefit of the states. And they believe that through this process of an all powerful state, human nature in the here and now can reach perfection. The end of history, the apotheosis of mankind. And so I want to remind people, everything that you're seeing playing out, whether you choose to admit it or not, is a conflict between two very different belief systems. And one of them is going to win out. And this is what frustrates. I'm an evangelical Christian. One of the things that frustrates me so much is when evangelical Christians do not engage in the political arena like they should. Politics is not our salvation. At the same time, someone's political views are going to win out in the political arena. It better be ours. And if it's not ours, somebody else will. So I think we're in that situation where antithetical to the founding, to the founding beliefs, the values, the documents, everything is this, this progressive, collectivist, Marxist socialist thought that has really gained traction in this country over the last however many decades. It is antithetical to who we are as a people. And the question is, are enough Americans awake to realize what is taking place and say this, we will not abide by this. And I don't know, I think that's, that's one of the great questions that, that confronts us today.

[Matt K.]

It is absolutely antithetical to the survival of this constitutional republic and representative democracy as we know it. They, of course, the Marxists use democracy as a bludgeon. They have no idea what that ultimately means. You know, they, they have pushed and pushed this for such a long time. But you see the rise of this and it should be extremely alarming to every American. But to see the Zoran Mandanis of the world, the communist New York mayor and the people that he has endorsed, you know, winning elections in the state of New York, other so called democratic socialists. You can take democrat right out of there.

[Ned Ryan]

Exactly.

[Matt K.]

They're just socialist, Communist really. But this is, this is their moment. They, they want to turn this moment, as they say, into a movement. How concerned are you, given what we have seen in the polling where we have Gen Z talking about how socialism seems pretty cool to me, of course, not having an understanding of history, but how concerned are you about this movement?

[Ned Ryan]

Yeah, I'm glad that Trump is taking a pretty strong stance on this, but I think a lot of people like, oh, it's just gonna, you know, it's a fever dream that'll burn out pretty quick. My comeback is a couple different things. One, if you've had indoctrination centers of higher learning, that's what I call colleges and universities for decades dominated by leftist socialist thoughts that are this poisonous cocktail of crt, dei, bds, the boycott, divestment, sanction, which is a genocidal movement. You end up injecting future generations with very un American anti Semitic thought. Those generations eventually come off the college campuses into the greater society and they start running for office. The other thing too is our broken immigration system. Why on earth are we tolerating ourselves to death? You know, Mondami's family, they're immigrants into this country. We're allowing people to come in and hate us and hate us who have nothing in common with this culture, with the society, with this very unique nation and constitution. But I will also throw this in. I quoted a communist the other night on Fox News and G. William Domhoff, who was part of the Communist party back in the 1970s, wrote in Ramparts magazine that it was time for the Communist party to stop running as a third party and actually go inside the Democratic Party and start running in primaries and showing up conventions. Because a party is what people say it is. And the people who say what it is are those that win primaries and show up at conventions. And so you can kind of see kind of those three things all taking place over the last, call it 50 years to get us to this very point. And so I think it's a very serious threat. I don't think enough Americans are fully in tune to what's going on. And so I think it's one of those things and my solution to this, Matt, in the short term, political power to force the UN American left into unconditional surrender, because that's the only way you get back to normal. Like there's so many different institutions and structures that are in place right now that that's going to take a long time to unwind. Right. The left's march through the institutions, the long march was very successful. And so you're not going to undo that anytime soon. And the way that you kind of put a stop to this and really send them out to the wilderness, really over the next three election cycles. And I would love to talk to you about my vision for the next three election cycles if we can pull it off.

[Matt K.]

I want to talk about that. As a matter of fact, you and I have talked about that on a number of occasions and American Majority is on the front line of that effort. We're going to get into that in just a bit. Our guest today is Ned Ryan, conservative grassroots activism expert, founder and CEO of American Majority. They are indeed engaged in the heavy lifting of bringing the next wave of conservative leaders into the force of politics. He is also producer of the powerful new documentary the Thread of Liberty Keeping Our Republic that. If you don't mind, I'm going to play the trailer for that right now. As a matter of fact. Yeah, let's, let's do that right now.

[Ned Ryan]

The founding of America makes you believe in Providence, if you don't already. Nearly 5,000 years of recorded experience said free people could not sustain self government for long. Every republic had failed. The framers of the Constitution took a

[Matt K.]

trip through the graveyard of past constitutions.

[Ned Ryan]

The twelve tablets of Rome, the Athenian constitution, what we have of it. They looked at everything.

[Matt K.]

Their aim is to outdo the glory of Greece, outdo the glory of Rome.

[Ned Ryan]

And if they failed, what would happen? They would be hung as traitors. This experiment in self government is actually a blip in the broader scheme of recorded human history. They knew how Fragile. This was the transformative thing about the Declaration, was this idea that everyone is born with rights. Rights don't come down from on high. They're not granted to us from a king.

[Matt K.]

Our system of tripartite government, Bill of Rights, checks and balances. It almost doesn't exist anywhere else.

[Ned Ryan]

I'm Ned Ryan. Join me as we trace the threat of liberty and ask the most urgent question of our time. Can we save the Republic?

[Matt K.]

Well, that hits you where it, where you live, doesn't it? It's. It is available now. You can find [e-mail] you have some excellent guests, some of my favorite people, some of my favorite constitutional scholars, some of my favorite historians. Yep.

[Ned Ryan]

No, I was thrilled. You know, one of the first guys I talked to was Victor Davis Hanson and said, hey, I've got this idea. I want to do a documentary, celebrate the 250th. Would you be a part of it? And, you know, Victor said, sure. And he was helpful. Roger Kimball, who's Criterion, and then obviously the publisher of Encountered Books, which published My American Leviathan, helpful in getting Larry Arne and Paul Ray and Wilford McClay, and then obviously Rachel Bovard of CPI. And then we got Anastasia Bowden, Steve Simpson of Pacific Legal Foundation, Colleen Sheehan out of Arizona State, she was great. Elon Wurman. And so we just got this, this group of people together. And honestly, Matt, it'd be, you know, I don't want to go too much detail, but the origination story of this is we kind of had a different vision at the beginning and then realized we've only got about 80. It's an 85 minute documentary. How are we going to actually tell the stories as best we can?

[Matt K.]

Oh, I bet that was almost impossible to be able to call through all of that because you, not only do you have, you know, this great rich history that you're talking about, you have, you know, to talk about what we need to prescribe, what we need to save this thing.

[Ned Ryan]

We did about 20, I want to say it's about 23 hours of interviews, which you have to compress into 85 minutes.

[Thumbtack Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Ned Ryan]

So there's a lot of footage, which, by the way, I don't want to confuse people. If you want to watch the documentary, go to threadofliberty.com if you want to have a continuing conversation about the documentary, we're doing it at my substack, american leviathan.com. we're going to start showing bigger clips, Matt, of some of the stuff we had to cut And I'll tell you a couple funny stories. One was we went to Hillsdale. We interviewed Dr. Arne, Paul Raid, Bill McLay, and I'm interviewing all of them. And I asked Paul Ray, I said, obviously, we are trying to discuss the history of republics and why they fail. That was basically my first question. 21 minutes later, he stopped his answer. And I just remember sitting there going, oh, my gosh, this is fascinating. He just stopped and looked at me and I was looking at him like, oh, you're dumb. Because. Yeah, I was like, oh, my gosh, that was so fascinating. I wish you would have kept going. But. And we use maybe 90 seconds of that. Yeah, so there's some big clips that I think people are going to find fascinating. We just didn't have the space or time to fit into the documentary. So it's going to be an ongoing conversation. American Leviathan.com. but to watch the documentary, go to threat of liberty.com.

[Matt K.]

well, underpinning it all, as we talked about at the outset of our conversation, is virtue. And I want. I want. And I know, I know you discussed this, but I want to. John Adams, who, you know, just like every other American, just like every other human being, he. He had his. He had his issues. He could be cranky sometimes, but he sure was a very bright guy. And we're so fortunate that he and his cousin were involved in the early portion of the founding of this country and the great revolution that took place. But John Adams, as Edward Salzberg writes in the Fulcrum, understood a truth that feels even sharper today. A republic cannot endure without virtue. When he wrote to Mercy otis Warren in April 1776, Adams warned that public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue. And public virtue is the only foundation of a republic. I think those are some of the most powerful words ever written about self governance. Yes, but you cannot have self governance without virtue. And you cannot have self governance without. With a king giving you his right or his right to. To self governance. Self governance comes from God. And that is what is so lost today. That was so ever present in the founding generation, I think.

[Ned Ryan]

So I wanted to make sure we addressed and we address it towards the end of the documentary. This idea of without virtue, republics will fail. And the founders for all, for the most part, were pretty clear on this across the board. Even if, you know, we can question Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, what they actually believe. But they were deists. They did believe there was a creator. They believed that there was a transcendent creator who had who had created us,

[Matt K.]

create the earth and something bigger than themselves.

[Ned Ryan]

Something bigger than themselves. And so, but, but John Adams, especially George Washington, are very clear that virtue comes from religion. And, and I just want to remind people, some people just want to skip a few steps in that, in this, this argument. But I want to make it clear, go back to Tocqueville. America's first political institution is religion. Adams, Washington. Virtue comes from religion. Well, what is the dominant, dominant religion at the time, in 1700s and 1800s in America? It's various sects of Christianity. Yeah, right. It's, it's Baptists, it's Anglicans, it's the Puritans, it's the Methodist, Quakers, you name it, Catholics in Maryland. But they're trinitarian sects of Christianity. So it doesn't, it's not that many steps to get to. They talk about religion. Religion is important for virtue. What is the religion of which they speak? It's Christianity. And I think one of the things that nobody, a lot of the current generation does not want to wrestle with, you know, the laws of nature and of nature's God. We are endowed by our creator, divine providence, all of these things. Well, if there's a divine creator, a transcendent creator who has given us these rights, we might have an obligation to them and there might be consequences to this creator on how we use those rights, good or bad. There might be eternal rewards and punishments. They strongly believed in that in the founding generation and even some, and I can't remember which founder it said. But even if you didn't truly believe in that, the idea of eternal rewards and punishments is a very powerful motivating factor, especially for politicians. I'd like to see more of that today, by the way, but you talked about self governance. This is another thing that I think we've lost sight of. And again, it goes back to virtue. The idea of a self governing republic ultimately comes from the individual governing himself or herself. And the more an individual governs himself or herself based off this idea of a transcendent creator that we might someday have to give an accounting to helps us to govern ourselves better. The better we govern ourselves, the more freedom there will be because there'll be less need for laws. Like you're going to have peace and prosperity one way or the other. You're going to have it because people are virtuous. And the more virtuous they are, the more free they are. But if they cannot be virtuous, there will be more laws and structure to try and enforce peace and prosperity, but in the end you'll find yourself less free. And so the solution to that in the founder's mind was there must be virtue, and from that comes religion. That religion is Christianity. And so I really wanted to address that because I tried to juxtapose it mad against the moss myra of the Roman Republic. And the mos myarum is the ways and traditions of the ancestors. And it was how the Roman Republic kind of ran itself. It was kind of like British common law, unwritten but understood and understood there were obligations to it. That's how the republic kind of ran itself. But there was no enforcement mechanism. Rome's gods and religion, there was no enforcement mechanism to the mos maiorum. And so you get to Mario Sola and Caesar and they go, it's really just a gentleman's agreement. We no longer agree to it. And then all sudden the republic blows up. And so I was trying to juxtapose that a little bit the Roman Republic versus the American Republic, and go, hey, this Roman republic, which by all measure was one of the most successful republics in the past, eventually failed because of this. And so the question we have today is what do we believe? Where does virtue come from? What is an enforcement mechanism? So, you know, it's one of those themes I'm going to try and explore a little bit more on the substack.

[Matt K.]

Yeah, well, I think that this is a very interesting way to phrase it. I think that's a great way to phrase it. Unwritten but understood. We have to write everything down, unfortunately, in this country, because we do have people that need to follow the steps of the shampoo bottle or get a message saying, don't grill your food in your garage. We have experiences with that every Thanksgiving, of course, or it for that matter. But, you know, but that's, that's it. These traditions were passed along and, but, you know, and, and, and you have the creation of this, this country. It, it doesn't just come from, hey, we're mad about the Stamp Act. You know, we're, we're, we're mad about, you know, the, that we have no representation in, in parliament. It comes from a long history of a country of self governance from the Puritans all the way through the founding generation that was made over time. And I think what you are driving at with this documentary and everything we're talking about is we have lost that. I want to go for the other end of the spectrum here in terms of my profound quotations. I just did John Adams, one of the more profound Things I've ever read from any human being. And then there's Stephen King. I've read a lot. I've read a lot of his books, been entertained by his horror. I am horrified by his politics. But Stephen King in the book the Green Mile. The whole idea behind it is this man is accused of murdering two twin girls children and he is not the killer, but he is sentenced to die for their death. He has a deep spiritual connection. It's pretty clear throughout the book. And he tells the, the warden or the prison guards at one time that their love killed these twin girls and they didn't know what that meant. When you see in the movie and in the book, it's played over that the girls huddled together when they were being abducted by a very evil man. They could have separated, but they stayed together because of their love. I say all of that by way of will. Our love of liberty. Liberty's undoing in the Marxist way.

[Ned Ryan]

That's a great question. I've been thinking a lot about this over the last several, many weeks and months. Are we going to. I guess I'd frame it a little bit differently. Are we going to tolerate ourselves to death?

[Matt K.]

Good point, good way to express it.

[Ned Ryan]

We, we are a very generous people. We are very kind, loving nation. At some point we need to understand what time it is and understand the stakes. And this is what concerns me, that some people are going to wrap themselves, you know, tie themselves in knots about how we can't do that, be, you know, unconstitutional. And I think I'm coming to the conclusion if the, the end is lawful, the means to achieve that lawful end are also lawful. So we had better wake up to the reality of real politic. And this is what concerns me. Left playing for keeps. Matt, you can see that this is politics is their religion. And the problem with the right, and it's a good problem. I just want to be clear. The problem with the right is politics is not a religion, but they're playing for keeps. And I think a lot of people on the right are like, oh, I'm not sure we're, you know, we should do that. It'd be too mean. Well, I think it's time we have to, you know, like going back to the indoctrination centers. I'd love to cut all federal funding. I'd love to cut off all student visas. I'd love to really aggressively after the endowments. I think there should be a moratorium on immigration until we actually figure out how we do this correctly. I don't think There's a whole lot of stomach for that on the right. And that concerns me because we will lull ourselves to sleep because we will tolerate ourselves to death.

[Matt K.]

Yeah, I think that's a very good way to put it. Let's face it, though, as we've seen the battles in Trump 2.0, there are too many people on the right who aren't on the left. The right, they're pretending to be. And, and, you know, that's it.

[Ned Ryan]

But, but, but. So it goes back to what I want to talk about a little bit. The 26, 28, 30, 2030 elections. Yeah, here's my decision. First of all, we have to keep the house in 26. It's gonna be a dog fight. I think we've won enough of the redistrict battles to give ourselves a legitimate chance to hold on to the House by seat or two would be great. You know, I want to. And we're already doing this. You have to reshape the battleground map. You have to make the left path back to power that much harder. Florida's not on the battleground map anymore and used to be. Why is that? Well, it's because there's 1.5 million more registered Republicans in the state than Democrats because work was put into the underlying numbers. So voter reg, absentee ballot universes. If we hold the White House in 28, and I actually feel more optimistic about 28 than I do 26. Just to be clear, you hold the White House in 28, what happens in 2030? It's called the census. And if you do the census correctly, you have a citizenship question. Remove the differential privacy algorithm, actually continue with the mass deportations, which, by the way, need to accelerate. If it's done correctly, you could see 25 to 40 house and electoral votes move into red states. Okay, so this leads me to that upgrading period of time. If this all happens, and I think we've got a legitimate chance of this happening, you get to 2032, 2034, 2036. And if you have gotten such political dominance on the right that you've sent the left into the political wilderness, guess what happens next? You get the opportunity to upgrade red state senators, red district members. And I think if you do this correctly, you could look not only at a generation of Republican dominance, but hopefully a generation of actually turning the Republican Party into a true conservative party, not one that has too many corporatists and neocons and chamber of commerce types. So that's where I'm headed. That's what that's what we're doing with American Majority Am Action pack all those things. It's one thing to say you believe all these things that we've discussed, but it's another thing to actually put it into action and go, okay, in reality, what is this going to look like to save the Republic? Well, it's going to require a lot of hard work. And one of the things I only have so much time in the day, but one of the things I know I can do pretty well is this organizing, this focus on, I think, the most important numbers to give our ourselves a shot at restoring the Republic.

[Matt K.]

Yeah, you absolutely did and you have done it for a long time now. American Majority was a key player in swing states across this country in 2024. So I know what the Republican Party is, is saying I don't always have a great deal of confidence in what they're doing, but give us a sense of what American Majority is doing, where you will be, what it's going to take and the specifics on the grassroots efforts that you have in 26. And then as you, I know you keep thinking about 28. You're already planning for that now.

[Ned Ryan]

Yeah, we're in six different states right now in key House districts. You know, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina are three of the states. Those are the three states that I think we've got a shot at taking off the battleground map by 28. I mean, Arizona, we're already up 320, some maybe 330,000 more registered Republicans. You know, we get to 450 and I realize about a third of the state, a little more than a third of the state's registered independent. But if we get to 450 on the Republican partisan registration in Arizona, I think we take it off the map. Nevada Democrats used to dominate us with 100,000 partisan registration advantage. I think we've got a legitimate shot of doing that by 28. North Carolina, we're already up in the lead 10,000 plus we were down 600,000 in 2016 to give people perspective. But we're focused this year in House districts. So we're doing the voter registration, we're doing absentee ballot generation focused on really key House districts in these states. Those three states, plus Minnesota, Wisconsin, we're doing Virginia seven as well, building towards can we somehow keep the House. And again, I think there's some structural advantages on our side in this midterm up against the weight of history. But I think we're going to have more money than the left. Elon's Back in the game. Trump's putting a lot of money in. People have had questions. I've heard the figure that he's committed to. It's significant. RNC has outraised the DNC by a significant chunk. We're going to have decent amount of money. We've got better candidates. They put a lot of socialists up. If we can hold onto the House for a seat, by a seat or two, I like our chances to move ahead in 28 and 2030. So that's what I'm focused on right now, voter regen. And then we get into the, you know, when ballots drop, we'll be doing the same absentee ballot chase, early vote push, which it's basically a series of targeted harassments to get people to return their ballots or vote early. And then we in 27, just keep building, building, building on those fundamental underlying numbers of voter reg and ballot universe. And hopefully by the summer of 28, we'll have managed to take one, if not all three of those states off the battleground map. And then you move 33 electoral votes, Matt, into the red column. And at that point, it's very, very narrow path for the left to win the White House back.

[Matt K.]

It is, but with the House at stake, what also is at stake is impeachment theater and the Trump agenda.

[Ned Ryan]

Investigations.

[ZipRecruiter Advertiser]

Yes.

[Matt K.]

Just, you know, if, again, sometimes I worry about the Senate, but then Democrats run Graham Platner and, and some other folks, and then I feel a little bit better. But, you know, Susan Collins is, I guess, the better of the deal. She's not going around being accused of raping anybody, first and foremost, and doesn't have a Nazi tattoo on her chest.

[Ned Ryan]

Both great starting points, right? Both great starting points.

[Matt K.]

Exactly. Great starting points. I can't say definitively, but I'm pretty sure Susan Collins does not have a Nazi tattoo on her chest.

[Ned Ryan]

I'm pretty sure you're correct.

[Matt K.]

But, but all of that said, I mean, you guys have, you've, you've got to ramp it up. The Republican Party has to ramp it up. The other grassroots groups out there, are you all working together? What's the communication like?

[Ned Ryan]

Let's say I'm communicating and educating, in close contact with people that are architects of the overall land coming out of Trump world, let's put it that way. Okay. One of the things that I'm trying to do is, is gently as possible, and sometimes doesn't come off as gently as possible, but trying to help other grassroots organizations on the right elevate their game. I mean, this so so one of the things I want to be clear on, Matt, is this, what we do is probably the difference of four points. So you have to have quality candidates, they have to have a good campaign, all these things, but four points. And I think this is going to be the, the thing that is going to come down to probably handful of House seats and each one of those call it maybe a thousand votes or less, and that's what's going to decide the majority. You got to be firing on all cylinders. You have to be focused. The, the stuff that we do is very data driven. It's very targeted. You have to be firing on all cylinders to make sure you're executing a very good plan on this front. And I think 24 showed me there's a lot of work still left to do do, even though people are showing more willingness to do it, which is a good sign. Yeah, I, I think there's, there's more work to be done. Hopefully people continue to refine their abilities in 26 so that come 28, we are all just pranking on, on doing the exact right work.

[Matt K.]

Absolutely. Well, I know that it is a difficult job, but I know it's been a labor of love for you for a long time and you've, you've, you've made an impact. You've made a difference on that front. Let's. Yeah, it all boils down to the documentary, what you are talking about here. The threat of liberty, keeping our Republic that involves just all hands on deck in saving the Republic in the short term and then saving the Republic and making it worthy of saving in the long run. And that's at the heart of this documentary and I think the heart of the work that you do.

[Ned Ryan]

I appreciate that. I was reminded again of another since we've been quoting John Adams and he said that the revolution was really won in the 1760s in the hearts of the people by the pamphlets. And all the materials are being written about natural rights and all the injustices that were being conducted against the American colonists. That's one of the things I'm trying to do with the documentary is plant the seeds again. Like I said earlier, the rebirth of instinctive patriotism. You've got to get people thinking about what do you believe, how much do you believe it? How deep down do you believe that this is worth fighting for? Is your obligation to the experiment there? And those generations that we discussed through this documentary, they found it somewhere deep down inside the political will and courage to hold the thread of liberty and say, I'll pass this to the next generation. And to have that, though, you have to believe in something. And so it's like we have to get people to believe in something again. And the way you do that is to renew. And Wilford McClay makes this point. How do you renew and restore the republic? How do you renew all of these feelings again? You go back to the founding principles and you renew them again and bring them to the forefront and remind people this is what you've been given. Be good stewards of it. So my hope is we'll get the ball rolling on this, people. Watch it, be inspired. But threadofliberty.com, it's free. Go watch it, people.

[Matt K.]

Here is to a rebirth of virtue.

[ZipRecruiter Advertiser]

That's right.

[Matt K.]

Thanks to my guest today, Ned Ryan, conservative, grassroots activism expert, founder and CEO of American Majority, and producer and narrator of the powerful new documentary the Threat of Liberty Keeping Our Republic. We'll be back soon with more on the Federalist Radio Hour. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.

[Ned Ryan]

I'm a good man, Got no kids in the.