Tag Archive for: Public Opinion

Young Men Are Becoming Increasingly Religious, Polling Confirms

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Newly released polling data has confirmed what many pastors and churchgoers have long suspected: young men are bucking the cultural trend of declining religiosity and returning to the church in droves. A Gallup survey released Thursday revealed a remarkable surge in young men saying that religion is “very important” to them, with data from 2024-2025 showing 42%, a 14-point increase from 2022-2023.

The poll found that the phenomenon happening among young men aged 18-29 is not happening among their female peers, only 29% of whom said that religion is “very important” to them (a figure that has stayed roughly the same since 2020). The upward trend in religiosity is also largely not occurring among other age groups, with the exception of men aged 30-49 (who saw a five-point increase over the same timespan) and men aged 50-64 (who saw a three-point increase). Notably, the numbers mark a clear reversal from the beginning of the millennium, when young women led young men in saying that religion was “very important” to them (52% vs. 43%).

As reported by The New York Times, college students like Mason Gubser likely epitomize the changing attitudes of many young men in their approach to faith. Gubser told the Times that he had become dissatisfied with a life centered on constant phone scrolling. “All my entertainment is right here in front of me, but there’s no fulfillment from that,” he said. “I wanted something new and something traditional and something that felt holy.”

Gubser, now 21, eventually found the Catholic center on the Texas A&M University campus, where he became Catholic two years ago and is now engaged to be married. “What I was really looking for, and still am, was purpose,” he remarked. “The church definitely provides that.”

The surge in religion among young men is likely driving upward trends in different segments of Christianity, particularly Catholicism. Data acquired from 140 of the country’s 175 dioceses “saw a 38 percent increase in Easter converts across U.S. dioceses relative to last year.” In addition, Orthodox churches are also seeing increases in both attendance and membership, which reportedly is being driven by young men. Another sign of a potentially budding revival are sales of Bibles, which saw a 22% spike in sales in 2024 and are currently seeing an explosion in the sales of high-end versions.

David Closson, who serves as director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, sees the new Gallup data as highly significant.

“The new Gallup data is striking, particularly because it reverses a long-standing trend,” he told The Washington Stand. “For decades, young women have been more religious than young men, but that gap has now flipped. One factor appears to be political realignment. The report itself notes that much of the increase is concentrated among young Republican men, suggesting that broader ideological shifts are influencing religious engagement.”

“At the same time,” Closson continued, “we should not ignore deeper cultural dynamics. For years, young men have been told that traditional expressions of masculinity are problematic or even harmful. In that context, it is not surprising that some are gravitating toward faith communities that offer a clearer sense of identity, purpose, and moral framework. For many young men, church provides structure, accountability, and a vision of ordered freedom, all of which can be especially compelling in a culture that often feels unmoored.”

Clossen further noted that cultural factors are likely key to understanding the differences between the religious movement of young men and their female counterparts.

“The divergence between young men and young women also raises important questions. While young men are showing renewed interest in the importance of religion, young women’s numbers have remained flat and, in some respects, are at historic lows,” he explained. “That suggests we are not simply seeing a general religious revival, but a more targeted shift that may reflect differences in how young men and women are responding to cultural pressures and expectations.”

As for the church, Closson posited that the current moment “presents a significant opportunity. The data suggest that many young men are open to deeper conversations about meaning, truth, and faith. Churches should be ready to meet that moment with serious teaching, intentional discipleship, and a robust vision of biblical manhood that emphasizes responsibility, service, and spiritual leadership. At the same time, the church must not lose sight of the need to engage young women thoughtfully and faithfully, ensuring that the message of the gospel speaks clearly and compellingly to both men and women in a rapidly changing cultural landscape.”

Joseph Backholm, who serves as senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at FRC, observed that the new Gallup data points toward an inevitable cultural yearning for the eternal. “I think young men are discovering that materialism doesn’t have the answers to the questions they’re asking,” he told TWS. “A life without rules or meaning creates chaos, inside of us and around us. Secularism has an obvious appeal because it offers the opportunity to do whatever you want, but it doesn’t work because everyone does what they want. What was supposed to make everyone happier actually makes everyone more miserable, and secularism can’t explain why. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that young people are turning to church in an effort to understand the world as it actually is.”

“Young men also might be drawn to religion as a form of rebellion,” Backholm elaborated. “The Left has been waging a war on men for a while now, so it’s possible that young men are being drawn to religion as a way of rebelling against everything on the Left. If that’s true, that might be part of the reason young men are more religious than young women. Secularists like women better than men. As a result, women like secularism more.”

Still, “It’s also true that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world and Jesus is drawing us to Himself,” he reflected. “We live in a war between truth and lies, but Jesus promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. While we see evidence of the war all around us, we shouldn’t be surprised when we see the truth advancing in measurable ways. Over time, that’s the only possible outcome.”

“Lies are eventually exposed as such,” Backholm concluded. “It often takes longer than we prefer, but lies do not endure because they cannot endure. The world was never going to just descend into universal secularism. We need to be confident that the truth is true, and right now, it seems young men are discovering this in a new way.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Strategists Warn Dems’ Anti-Trump Message May Imperil 2028 Chances and Hand Party to Socialists

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Top strategists in the Democratic Party are going into panic mode as the party spirals further into a political identity crisis. At issue is the fact that the Democratic Party, almost as a whole, has centered its messaging and policy on opposition to President Trump, who cannot run again for a third term, precipitating what’s likely to be a catastrophic problem for Democrats in 2028.

Jim Messina, who served as a campaign manager to former President Barack Obama’s successful 2012 reelection effort, told Axios this week, “You can’t win a presidential election on opposition alone.” He posited that anywhere from 85% to 90% of Democratic voters will be motivated in November’s midterm elections by opposition to Trump, while only perhaps 10% to 15% will be voting in support of actual Democratic Party principles and policies. “We cannot rely on that same calculation to win in 2028,” he warned.

David Plouffe, who was Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and a senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris and her failed 2024 campaign, similarly suggested that capitalizing on Trump’s unpopularity is not equivalent to running successful campaigns. “If your opponent turns the ball over five times in a football game, you’ll almost certainly win. … That doesn’t mean you played a great game,” he said. “Democrats for the next decade have to be able to win elections in what are now red states in neutral and even challenging environments. That is the test. And anyone who thinks we are ready to do that is spending too much time inhabiting a political world that does not exist.”

Since Trump’s return to the White House in January of 2025, Democrats have scored numerous wins in special and off-year elections. Former congressional members Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill were elected governors of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, while self-declared socialists Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson were declared the mayors of, respectively, New York City and Seattle, and union leader Taylor Rehmet flipped a Texas congressional district blue for the first time in decades.

It’s true that Trump’s approval rating is underwater: according to the latest Harvard-Harris poll, the president’s approval stands at 46%, while a recent NBC News poll placed his approval at 44%. Both polls, however, also recorded an underwater approval rating for Democrats, lower than the GOP’s approval rating. Nevertheless, Democrats and Republicans are tied in a hypothetical generic ballot matchup for November’s midterm elections. Regardless of how Democrats perform in the midterms, they will have to contend with their years of anti-Trump messaging in 2028, when he will not be an opponent.

Without a coherent non-Trump-centered platform, Democrats risk empowering a growing but unpopular socialist wing of the party in 2028. While some Democrat-aligned organizations and strategists have advised moderating the party’s policies and shifting messaging to a middle-of-the-road position, others are coalescing around socialist-aligned candidates such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a protégé of avowed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Such socialist overtures have not been relegated to Mamdani’s and Wilson’s victories in deep-blue metropolitan hubs nor to far-left 2028 pipe dreams: Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have both recently introduced socialist-aligned legislation to significantly increase taxes on wealthy Americans in order to offset taxes for low-income individuals and households.

Recent surveys have shown socialist policies gaining ground among the Democratic base, but still largely alienating Republican and Independent voters. Late last year, an Economist/YouGov survey found that most (44%) of Americans hold an unfavorable view of socialism, but a third (33%) support the ideology. The majority of support for socialism came from Democrats, 62% of whom said that they would embrace the ideology, compared to only 27% of Independent voters with a favorable view of socialism. Meanwhile, a more recent Fox News study found a record 38% support for socialist policies, again driven by Democratic voters.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

92% of Venezuelans are ‘Grateful’ to Trump for Maduro Capture

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Ordinary Venezuelans’ opinion of America and of President Donald Trump are flying sky-high after a U.S. raid captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. In a recent poll of 1,006 Venezuelans by the polling firm Encuestador Meganalisis, more than 90% said they were grateful to Donald Trump and wanted the United States to become Venezuela’s principal ally and sole trade partner.

When asked in the Spanish-language poll, first reported by Breitbart, whether they were grateful to Donald Trump, 92.2% of Venezuelans surveyed said “yes,” compared to 6.3% who said “no.” The stunningly one-sided result (a ratio of nearly 15 to one), at a time when Trump’s popularity is underwater in most domestic polls, speaks volumes about Maduro’s unpopularity with ordinary Venezuelans.

For comparison, the most popular American in the fourth quarter of 2025 was Morgan Freeman, and even he only boasted an 88% approval rating, according to YouGov. Trump enjoys greater popularity among Venezuelans simply for taking out Maduro.

Nearly 3,000 years ago, King Solomon reflected that, “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2). Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro vividly illustrates this proverb. So hated was he by his own subjects that an overwhelming majority of them felt grateful to a foreign head of state whose military raided Maduro’s compound in their own country and violently captured him.

Whatever residual goodwill Maduro may have enjoyed after suppressing dissent and suffocating the economy likely evaporated in 2024, when he stole an election in a ruling so obviously fraudulent that many other nations in the Americas refused to recognize him as a legitimate ruler.

Venezuelans did not even restrict their overwhelming positive feelings for Trump alone. When asked, “Do you agree with the U.S. becoming the principal ally and only provider of products for the Venezuelan state?” (Meganalisis’s translation), a stunning 90.6% said “yes,” while only 7.3% said “no.” Venezuela’s socialist regime has cut off trade relations with the U.S. while improving its relationships with ideologically aligned countries like China and Cuba. Apparently, a super-majority of Venezuelans dislike this arrangement.

Even the remnants of Maduro’s regime, led by his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, have wasted very few tears on their previous boss and seem perfectly content to work with the American regime that captured him. Here was a boss who inspired no love among his subordinates. He controlled the government through fear. And, once he was arrested and taken to the U.S., he no longer inspired fear.

Yet Maduro’s capture does not mean that Venezuelans are free — not by a long shot. In the same poll, 66.9% said Maduro’s socialist party, known by Venezuela’s distinctive socialist philosophy, “Chavismo,” still governed the country, while only 14.1% said Venezuela was under the control of the United States.

Accordingly, 83.5% of respondents believed they could be detained for publicly criticizing Chavismo, although few of them trusted the party. When asked which Chavismo leader they trusted most, 90.9% of respondents answered, “none.”

This makes Trump’s popularity among Venezuelans even more striking. Venezuelans have not yet seen a marked improvement in their own lives. Yet they are still grateful to Trump for capturing Maduro, suggesting their praise is solely dependent on their loathing of Maduro.

The poll, like the Maduro raid, offers instructive lessons for Americans regarding the benefits and limitations of pinpoint raids on foreign dictators. On one hand, it now seems clear that removing a single dictator is insufficient to topple his entire power structure. Thus, it may not be an effective means of total regime change. But it could make an unreasonably conceited regime more open to American interests.

On the other hand, there seems to be little risk that raids sniping hated dictators will generate anger towards America in that country. If anything, a dictator’s subjects may gladly welcome his removal, even if it does not directly bring them freedom.

These are important lessons to remember when America considers ways to help protestors in Iran and elsewhere obtain political freedom. Of course, the larger question is whether the U.S. military should engage in surprise raids on foreign soil at all; that is a constitutional question which foreign opinion polls cannot answer.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Study: Charlie Kirk’s Murder Fueled Religious Revival among Young Americans

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The assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had a significant impact on the nation, fostering discussions on the link between dehumanizing rhetoric and political violence, prompting the White House to investigate left-wing domestic terrorist groups, and inspiring a Christian revival among broad swaths of the population. Now, a new study is examining that revival, its extent, and its impact.

According to a survey conducted by the Barna Group, nearly one fifth (18%) of American adults reported that they became more spiritually active following Kirk’s assassination, while 5% said that they became more politically active and 6% said that they became both more spiritually and more politically active.

The spike in being spiritually active was most pronounced among younger generations and practicing Christians, the Barna Group noted. Among adults of Generation Z, 22% reported becoming more spiritually active, 7% more politically active, and 6% both more spiritually and more politically active. The share was almost identical among Millennials, with only 2% more reporting becoming more spiritually active. Among practicing Christians, 30% reported becoming more spiritually active and 10% reported becoming both more spiritually and more politically active, while only 3% reported becoming just more politically active.

“It is remarkable to see the impact of a widely known public figure, and the fact that tens of millions of Americans were inspired to take action as a result of his death,” said Barna Group CEO David Kinnaman in a statement. “There has been some discussion about Charlie Kirk’s passing as directly responsible for a surge in church attendance,” he observed. However, Kinnaman pointed out that younger Americans (especially Generation Z) were already returning to church and becoming more religious in the months preceding Kirk’s murder, which the Barna Group chief suggested may have fueled or accelerated that Christian revival.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, noted, “In recent years, Charlie had emphasized the importance of faith before political activity, and in his death that message landed with those who respected him.” Backholm continued, “I also think there’s an understanding that he was murdered, not because of his political positions, but because he was engaged very directly in a spiritual war. This clearly became about more than politics and an encouraging number of young people are seeing this and they want to engage in the spiritual war that inspires our political wars.”

Nearly half (47%) of Americans, including a majority (71%) of practicing Christians, said that they believe Kirk’s death will continue to have a positive impact on Christianity among younger generations, but survey respondents were less optimistic on other issues. Only about a third (34%) of polled adults said that they believe the ability to have civil political conversations will improve in the years ahead, while a similar share (33%) predicted that the ability to have civil political conversations will continue to deteriorate. Less than 30% said that Kirk’s assassination will foster cooperation between conservatives and liberals, while over a third (35%) anticipated a negative impact. The Barna Group noted that Generation Z “respondents were particularly likely to expect negative impacts on political cooperation (45% negative vs. 29% positive), American politics broadly (46% negative vs 33% positive), and civil discourse (43% negative vs 32% positive).”

“Practicing Christians held markedly different views,” the Barna Group observed. In addition to anticipating a positive impact on Christianity among young Americans, a majority (53%) of practicing Christians said that they expect Kirk’s murder to yield a positive impact on civil political discourse. Nearly half (49%) also expected Kirk’s death would have a positive impact on politics in the U.S. and nearly as many (44%) anticipated a positive impact on the relationship between conservatives and liberals.

“It is a cliché that young people are the leaders of tomorrow because it’s true. We need future leaders who understand what time it is and the spiritual nature of our political conflicts,” Backholm told TWS. “The first responsibility of Christian adults is to disciple young people in our sphere, particularly those in our homes. Charlie was especially good at reaching young people, but he is by no means the only one capable of doing that, and now we all have to pick up the mantle.”

“Every person is on a unique spiritual journey, so there is no one way to activate people spiritually. And some people aren’t interested in the truth and can’t be activated until hearts are changed,” Backholm cautioned. “But there are always people who are seeking the truth as well, and pointing them to the truth requires us to live lives that demonstrate God’s ways are better while also being able to communicate why rebellion against God’s plan for humanity causes so much pain,” he continued. “Reality will always be on our side because God made the rules; we just need to make sure our words and lives consistently demonstrate the beauty and superiority of God’s plan. If we do, people will be interested.”

In the weeks following Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA hosted a memorial event for their slain leader, attended by President Donald Trump and members of his administration. Renowned neurosurgeon and former Trump administration official Dr. Ben Carson marveled at the “revival” inspired by Kirk’s Christian faith. “Get on board of the revival that is coming. We are not going to be able to stop it. You see evidence of it right here in this stadium. We’re all going to be a part of it,” he urged pastors.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “the movement Charlie Kirk led and started and gave fuel to was about politics, but not only about politics.” He then delivered a synopsis of the Gospels, recounting how sin entered the world and how Christ suffered, died, and rose again in order to free mankind from that sin. “Because He took on that death, because He carried that cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from Him. And when He returns, there will be a new Heaven and a new earth, and we will all be together. And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love,” the secretary declared. Vice President J.D. Vance, a longtime friend of Kirk’s, also spoke. “The evil murderer who took Charlie from us expected us to have a funeral today. And instead, my friends, we have had a revival in celebration of Charlie Kirk and of his Lord Jesus Christ.”

Kirk’s widow and now his successor as CEO of TPUSA, Erika, made international headlines for her own Christian witness. “Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the Lost Boys of the West, the young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live, the men wasting their lives on distractions and the men consumed with resentment, anger, and hate,” she recalled of her husband’s work and mission. “He wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. That young man, that young man,” she said, visibly emotional and choking on tears. “On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they [do] not know what they do.’ That man, that young man. I forgive him.”

“This past week, we saw people open a Bible for the first time in a decade. We saw people pray for the first time since they were children. We saw people go to a church service for the first time in their entire lives,” Erika said, in reference to the spiritual impact her husband’s death had on the nation. “To those of you out there who just made that decision and took the first step toward a spiritual life, I say thank you and welcome. One day I hope you look back and realize it was the most important decision of your life. Because it is,” she continued. “All of you who are already believers, it is your job to shepherd these people. Do not take that lightly. Water the seed of their faith, protect it, and help it grow,” Erika urged. “Choose prayer. Choose courage. Choose beauty. Choose adventure. Choose family. Choose a life of faith. Most importantly, choose Christ.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Dem Congressional Candidate Believes Men Can Give Birth: A Reflection of the Party at Large?

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Tennessee Democratic District Representative Aftyn Behn (D) believes men can give birth. Now, she’s running for a congressional seat.

Her opinion became apparent during a 2020 episode of her podcast “Grits.” She followed up her use of the term “birthers” by stating that “men and women … can give birth.” As Breitbart summarized, “She made the comment before discussing a book by pro-abortion feminist Jenny Brown called Birth Strike, which argues that women should refuse to have children as a way to collectively bargain with the government and achieve their political aims.”

Behn has also openly supported transgenderism for children. She called the Supreme Court ruling in the United States v. Skrmetti case, which upheld a Tennessee law protecting minors from sex change drugs, a “gut punch to transgender youth and their families.” As she further stated, “This 6-3 ruling only emboldens the far-right’s relentless attack on transgender rights, pushing us further into a dangerous future where politics — rather than science — dictates the lives of our most vulnerable.”

The list goes on. In 2023, Behn said she previously “ran on an unabashed progressive campaign platform of standing up for trans kids and standing up for reproductive access,” emphasizing that she will “never compromise on values of abortion access or trans kids.” Similar sentiments have been made toward support for drag queens who have encouraged children to attend their “shows.”

After a trans-identifying individual opened fire at Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023, a Christian elementary school, she directed her sympathy not to the victims of the shooting, but to trans-identifying people. As she put it, having a “partner” with “a trans son” allegedly made the aftermath of that deadly shooting “incredibly upsetting for us. In the wake of the Covenant shooting, and the disclosure that the Covenant shooter was trans, I was pulled into a chat with other trans organizers and activists across the state that were fearful of their lives.” Reportedly, this shooting motivated her to run for political office to fight “every day” for “protections for trans kids and our trans communities.”

“Remember,” she posted on Facebook, “you come for my trans community, I come for you.”

It turns out, Behn is an example of what the Democratic Party looks like these days. And it’s left many conservatives wondering: how might this affect the upcoming 2026 midterm elections?

According to a recent popularity poll conducted by NPR/PBS News/Marist, roughly 55% of American adults said they would vote for a Democrat in the midterms if they were held today. In contrast, only 41% said the same about Republicans. As The Washington Stand previously reported, “The 14-point lead is the largest Democrats have held since 2017, in the first year of President Donald Trump’s first term.” And yet, this same poll that found a majority in favor of Democratic candidates also found that Democrats are, by and large, the ones blamed for the recent government shutdown, which now marks the longest in U.S. history.

So, why the support for a party that was blamed for the shutdown and, many argue, hold to highly controversial opinions? Matt Carpenter, director of Family Research Council’s political arm, FRC Action, answered this question in a comment to The Washington Stand.

“Despite being historically unpopular,” he said, “the Democratic Party can depend on their base to be enthusiastic to vote. This is not unusual. Typically, the party out of power benefits from their base being highly motivated to turn out. Add to this their recent successes in the 2025 elections, and the Democratic Party base believes congressional majorities are within reach. So far, neither an unpopular agenda, nor a dysfunctional and leaderless party, have dampened the enthusiasm of the Democratic base.” On the other hand, he added, “Republicans in Congress … have the blame (fairly or not) for voters’ sense that the economy is not strong, the added burden of actually governing and making difficult decisions, and the political reality of needing Democratic support for almost anything to pass the Senate, where they hold a bare majority.”

This is the current political landscape, and as Carpenter argued, “The greatest predictor of an election outcome is incumbency; the next greatest is redistricting.” When it comes to the potential outcomes of the 2026 midterms, Carpenter found it important to understand what’s starting to shift now that will likely have ripple effects into the future. “So far,” he said, “this cycle we have 46 members who have announced their retirement from Congress — 38 in the House and eight in the Senate — and a mid-decade redistricting fight between blue and red states. This means the advantage of incumbency will be missing in 46 races, and for those running for a seat in the House, there’s a good chance their district has been redrawn — or could be redrawn — to reflect the partisan leaning of their state government.”

“Aside from incumbency and redistricting,” he continued, “campaign fundraising is the next most important factor, generally the side that raises the most money prevails in close races — this is especially true in the Senate.” Carpenter summarized the roadmap for Republican success: “For the GOP to retain their majorities in Congress, they will need to retain as much of their advantages in incumbency, redistricting, and fundraising as possible, because the Democrat base is fired up to vote. So far, the advantages in all three seem to give the Democrats an edge.”

He acknowledged that the midterms are 11 months away, “and a lot — including how motivated each party’s base is — could change between now and then.” That said, he gave some advice for Christians and conservatives who want to be forward thinking. As he put it, “The most important thing a Christian can do is pray and then make a plan to vote. Studies show that when someone makes a plan to vote, they are almost guaranteed to vote. That means checking your voter registration status, finding your precinct, knowing when the polls are open, choosing when and how you’ll vote, and — most importantly — researching the candidates and initiatives on your ballot so you know how you’ll be voting.” All of this can be done through FRC Action’s website.

“Once you’ve done all that,” Carpenter added, “talk about the issues coming up in the midterms with your church small group, and like-minded friends, neighbors, family, co-workers, etc. In other words: encourage others you know to also make a plan to vote.” Carpenter highlighted a sober reality: “Unfortunately, studies … show a great degree of apathy among Christians when it comes time to vote. There are millions of Christians who believe, wrongly, that their vote doesn’t matter, or won’t count, or they don’t take the time to research the candidates. They miss out on the opportunity to vote for leaders who will stand up for the values they care about.”

To push back against those with this mindset, Carpenter concluded: “Proverbs 21:1 says, ‘The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.’ Every believer should pray for conviction and wisdom in stewarding their vote and then share what they are learning with those around them.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Republicans Gaining Ground in Key Elections in Historically-Blue States

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November of 2024 saw tens of millions of Americans unite to send President Donald Trump back to the White House, flanked by a Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives. But the Novembers of 2025 and 2026 are likely to see the nation’s political divisions on full display in both off-year elections and the looming midterms.

While New York City seems poised to elect a socialist Muslim to the office of mayor, the state of New York may side with a Republican in the governor’s race next year. According to the Manhattan Institute, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is statistically tied in a hypothetical 2026 gubernatorial race against incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul (D), although the Republican maintains a slight advantage at 43% against Hochul’s 42%. When paired up against Hochul’s deputy, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado (D), Stefanik’s lead increases considerably, 43% to Delgado’s 37%.

Stefanik’s spokeswoman Bernadette Breslin touted the poll’s results in a press release this week, saying, “This marks the first time in decades that any potential Republican gubernatorial candidate (and in this case, the likely nominee) is polling ahead of a Democrat incumbent Governor, even before any official announcement.” Breslin continued, “Kathy Hochul and single party Democrat rule have failed New York[,] making it the most unaffordable state in the country with the highest taxes, energy, utility, rent, and grocery bills [—] making it unaffordable to raise a family, work, and start a business.” The Stefanik spokeswoman added, “New Yorkers of all political parties are hungry for new commonsense leadership after decades of Hochul’s failed single party Democrat rule. Elise Stefanik and the people of New York can and will win this righteous fight to Save New York.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter cautioned, “Polling this far out from 2026 is interesting but needs to be taken with a grain of salt. While it’s true in recent cycles we’ve seen New York move to the right, and Governor Hochul has remained unpopular for most of her term, New York is still a difficult state for any Republican.” He continued, “A year is a long time for a campaign. A lot can — and will — happen between now and then. Lee Zeldin came as close as any Republican to winning the Governor’s race in New York — certainly in my lifetime — so Stefanik, or whomever is the GOP nominee, must know they have a shot.”

The “blue wall” may crack much sooner in the neighboring Garden State, where a Republican is within striking distance of the governorship. According to an Emerson Polling survey published this week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli is statistically tied with Democrat Mikie Sherrill. Ciattarelli is polling at 48% support and Sherrill at 49%, with only two percent of voters undecided. However, Emerson Polling noted that the undecided two percent lean toward Sherrill when pressed, pushing her to 50% support and leaving Ciattarelli just shy of 49%. Ciattarelli was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2021, when he significantly outperformed polling expectations, although he still lost to Democrat Chris Murphy by less than four percentage points.

“New Jersey has a history of electing governors from the opposition party once their incumbent governor is term-limited. It remains to be seen if Democrat Mikie Sherrill can buck this trend and follow Democrat Governor Phil Murphy,” Carpenter observed. “There is no doubt: of the two gubernatorial elections this year, the one in New Jersey is the closest. Republican Jack Ciattarelli almost defeated incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy in 2021, running way stronger than anyone or the polling suggested, and he seems to be running a strong campaign this time around as well.”

In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger is leading her Republican gubernatorial opponent, incumbent Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, by 10 points (51% to 41%), according to the latest numbers from Roanoke College’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research. Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Ghazala Hashmi holds a narrower two-point lead over Republican John Reid (42% to 40%), but incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares is leading Democratic challenger Jay Jones by nearly 10 points (46% to 38%), following the publication of text messages Jones sent a colleague in the House of Delegates in 2022 discussing killing then-Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert I and wishing his children would be shot and killed.

“If those guys die before me I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves,” Jones texted of Gilbert and other Republicans. “Three people, two bullets,” he continued, claiming that no matter who the other two figures were in the scenario, if Gilbert were an option, then “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. … Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.” The Democratic nominee for attorney general also suggested that Gilbert and his wife should have to watch their children be shot and killed due to the Republican’s position on Second Amendment rights. When Republican Delegate Carrie Coyne, who Jones was texting, questioned the Democrat on his comments, he doubled down. “I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes.”

The vast majority (80%) of Virginia voters reported to Roanoke College that they were familiar with Jones’s text message scandal. Early voting has been ongoing in Virginia since September 19, but 87% of those polled who already voted for Jones said that they would have voted for him anyway, despite the violent rhetoric of his text messages, which were published in early October. Only one percent said that they would have changed their vote.

“Virginia also has a historical pattern at the gubernatorial level: they tend to vote for governors from the opposite party of whomever won the presidential election in the previous year,” Carpenter noted. “This trend has been upset in past cycles, as the state has trended bluer since 2013,” he added. “But the Democratic ticket certainly took a hit once Jay Jones’s vile text messages came to light, and no other candidate running on the Democratic ticket called for him to drop out. There is a real chance Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares defeats Jones on Tuesday.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Woke,’ ‘Weak,’ and ‘Out of Touch’: The Crisis of the Democratic Brand

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The summer hasn’t done much to break the heat that Democrats are feeling from voters. The party of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is about as popular as a rush-hour traffic jam, according to the latest surveys. Unfortunately for Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), time hasn’t helped the dismal approval ratings — nor, most Americans would point out, has the party’s supposed “self-reflection.”

In the eight months since Election night, Democrats have spent countless hours and dollars on meetings, strategy sessions, focus groups, and autopsy reports only to turn around and ignore the lessons they teach. “Woke,” “weak,” and “out of touch” was how one survey described the party that paid for the poll. With the GOP eating into the once-impressive margins that Democrats enjoyed with Hispanics, the working class, and white men, Schumer and company are looking at a pretty dismal approval rating — just 35% across those key demographics.

Equally as frustrating, there’s little to no hope in the base that things will change. Asked how optimistic they are about the future of the party, dejected Democrats have all but resigned to their fate in the political wilderness. Only 35% think things will turn around in the future — an almost 20-point drop from the 57% last July. Much to Jeffries’s and Schumer’s displeasure, congressional Democrats are taking a severe beating in the polls. A late June YouGov/Economist survey found a sharp drop in Americans’ approval of their House and Senate members: a -32 favorability rating, compared to -15 when Donald Trump took office in January.

And while insiders are quick to call these results “striking,” they’re just as quick to dismiss them. “Americans have a pretty sour view of everyone in Washington right now,” Democrat pollster Matt McDermott rationalized. But, he rightly pointed out, “It’s important to note that the favorability of the opposition party has never been a reliable barometer for midterm results. Voters don’t need to like the ‘out’ party to vote for change — they just need to be fed up with the incumbents,” he observed. “I see parallels in the current climate. Trump’s presidency (or second presidency, in this case) has mobilized a lot of anger and opposition.”

Republicans might be tempted to cheer the opposition’s fall from grace or draw premature conclusions about how this could impact the 2026 elections — but they shouldn’t. The reality is, Donald Trump will always be more unpopular in the Democratic base than Democrats themselves — and he, not Jeffries or Schumer — is what will motivate them to turn out in the midterms. To think that the base’s exasperation with the Left will keep them home is to underestimate their general hatred for the president. Once Trump is gone, the party will have a real crisis on its hands. Without the president to drive the protest vote, Americans will be forced to evaluate Democrats on what they actually stand for. And that’s where the party’s tenuous hold unravels.

“Part of the problem for Democrats is that there is little consensus about what exactly the party stands for in concrete policy terms,” David Walsh vents in the Boston Review. Or maybe the problem is that people do know what the Democrats stand for — radical gender ideology, open borders, DEI, abortion until birth, the “global intifada,” and general lawlessness — and reject it on its face. That, more than anything, is what’s given rise to a quiet countermovement in the Democratic Party, a growing determination to give voice to the marginalized — but more broadly appealing — centrists in the base.

Fed up with the off-putting narrative driving the Democrats’ messaging, the party’s “middle” is hosting events like WelcomeFest to bridge the gap that voters see between Jeffries’s Squad and the average American. “In the wake of their 2024 loss,” Jeremiah Johnson writes in The Dispatch, “a significant portion of Democratic leadership seems to believe that what the party really needs is to change the messaging. They need more aggressive PR, better catchphrases, more viral stunts. They need to go on more podcasts!” Sure, he agrees, a better messaging strategy might help. “But the core thing that held Democrats back in 2024 wasn’t PR strategy. It was the party’s beliefs and policies. If Democrats want to win the kind of large and durable majorities that will allow them to really govern, they’re going to have to rethink those policies.”

He’s referring, of course, to the party’s insistence on clinging to fringe views that reject everything from the sanctity of girls’ sports to parental rights in education, legal immigration, and empowering law enforcement. “Democrats,” Johnson agrees, “continue to deviate from public opinion — afraid to denounce the 20 end of an 80/20 issue in the polls for fear of offending an interest group.” And, he continues, “Democrats do themselves no favors by not loudly condemning the excesses of wokeness, which are real.”

There’s a way to thread that needle, Johnson argues. “They can get visibly tougher on illegal immigration while still advocating for more legal pathways and the fair treatment of immigrants. They can focus on the LGBT rights that matter like non-discrimination in the workplace, non-discrimination in housing, and access to health care — rather than dying on dubious and unpopular niche issues like trans athletes in women’s sports. They can loudly denounce the excesses of DEI (such as mandatory diversity statements for technical STEM research) while preserving diversity and inclusion ideas that still make sense (such as honoring civil rights heroes like Jackie Robinson),” he reiterates. “They can advocate for intelligent police reforms while still taking a hard stance against public disorder, crime, and anti-social behavior.”

And yet, every time a Democrat attempts to moderate their stance, they’re later rolled, repentant, or ostracized. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) tested the waters on girls’ sports, suggesting it wasn’t fair for America’s daughters to lose titles and positions to men, only to retreat once the party’s woke overlords and fundraisers get their hooks in.

Or take Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the hoodie-wearing castoff who’s staked out a rational position on Israel, Iran, ICE, and immigration, and who’s become, in CNN’s words, “isolated” for agreeing with most voters. While he’s tried to embrace a practical view on some of the Democrats’ biggest messaging liabilities, his effort rarely goes unpunished. Even now, the party’s growing frustration with his independent thinking is helping to fuel a bitter primary race in Pennsylvania, where Fetterman’s overall approval is still a +4 positive at 41%.  Ironically, Republicans, who’ve grown to appreciate his ability to break with the Left, give him even higher marks: 45% approval. “My values haven’t changed,” the senator wanted people to know recently. “But I think in some cases, I think our party’s values have changed.” Instead of seeing Fetterman as a senator who can help Democrats reach voters, he’s become a pariah.

Even Fetterman’s suggestion that the party at least sound more civil while pushing these outlandish agendas was ignored. “I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them ‘Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes, or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb? I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?’” Fetterman asked.

“I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that,” he lamented about Democrats.

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter could only shake his head at the party’s refusal to adapt to the cultural and political winds. “The problem is much deeper than a facelift on their advertising and an update to their talking points,” he told The Washington Stand. “The Democratic Party’s base wants their leaders in Congress to double down on opposing President Trump and the Republican Congress wherever they can. This places the Democratic Party in a desperate position,” he warned. “They can try to stanch the bleeding among key demographics by moderating in some places and risk their base turning on them — or they can lean into the anger of their base and watch their numbers continue to decline among men and working-class voters.”

At the end of the day, it’s their choice. “To win votes, you can’t have wildly different views from the public,” Johnson underscored. “That’s a lesson Democrats seem to have forgotten.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Two Polls Reveal Public Support Is Growing for Prayer, Chaplains in Schools

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As some states struggle to display the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, recent surveys indicate that a majority of Americans support teachers leading students in prayer, specifically referencing Jesus Christ.

Conducted from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024, the Pew Research Center surveyed 36,908 American adults about these key issues. The findings, released on Monday, revealed that “just over half of U.S. adults (52%) say they favor allowing public school teachers to lead their classes in prayers that refer to Jesus,” with 27% expressing “strong” support. Conversely, 46% either oppose or “strongly” oppose the practice, with notable variations across states.

Support is particularly high in Southern states. Mississippi leads with 81% in favor, followed by Alabama and Arkansas at 75%, Louisiana at 74%, and South Carolina at 71%. Most Midwest states also back the practice, with approval rates ranging from 53% to 65%. However, Pew noted, “In 12 states and the District of Columbia, more adults say they oppose allowing teachers to lead their classes in prayers that refer to Jesus than say they favor it.” Sixteen states remain relatively neutral.

Beyond geographical differences, the data also showed political divides. As the Christian Post reported, “With the exception of North Carolina and Georgia, the states where support for explicitly Christian school prayer was the highest voted for Republican President Donald Trump by double digits in the 2024 presidential election.”

There was also a distinction between what the researchers dubbed “generic” prayer versus “Christian” prayer. “Nationwide,” Pew added, “a slightly larger share of Americans say they favor allowing teacher-led prayers referencing God (57%) than favor allowing teacher-led prayers specifically referencing Jesus (52%).”

In a similar vein is another survey, conducted by the Associated Press (AP) NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Of 1,158 U.S. adults, they found 58% believe “religious chaplains providing support services in public schools should be allowed.” According to the poll, “Republicans are more likely than Democrats to think religious chaplains providing support services in public schools (70% v. 47%), teacher-led prayers (60% v. 29%), and mandatory school prayer periods (49% v. 27%) should be allowed.”

AP went on to note, in relation to its findings, that while “about 6 in 10 U.S. adults say that religious chaplains should be allowed to provide support services for students in public schools … most do not think teacher-led prayer or a mandatory period during school hours for private prayer should be allowed in public schools.”

These findings raise the questions: What role should prayer or chaplains play in public schools, and will these survey results make a difference in policy? Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand, “For too long, the Left has dictated a narrative that said prayer and recognition of God must be pushed out of the public square to secure the ‘separation of church and state.’ This is a false narrative, and it’s good that more Americans are rejecting it.”

In his own analysis, Joseph Backholm, FRC’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, observed that the regional and political differences in Pew’s poll align with broader religious trends. “More religious parts of the country are more comfortable with the idea of prayer in schools,” he told The Washington Stand, while “Democrats, who are generally less religious, are less inclined to want prayer in schools.”

On the concept of chaplains in schools, Backholm noted their value, drawing parallels to their role in the military. “It’s helpful to be counseled by people who share your view of reality,” he said, suggesting that “children in school would benefit in the same way” by receiving guidance that reinforces common values.

Looking ahead, Backholm expressed skepticism about whether these poll results will lead to policy changes. “I’m not sure these poll results will make any difference in what happens in schools,” he said, “but it is further evidence of how awkward our current one-size-fits-all education system is.” For Backholm, “it’s further evidence that we do not generally share the belief that we are one nation, under God, or the idea that we are obligated to submit to His plan for humanity.”

Ultimately, he asserted, this is all “because we don’t agree on those things,” nor do we “agree about what the outcome of education should be.” What that means, Backholm explained, is that “putting everyone in the same system guarantees conflict, and we’re seeing plenty of that. But having chaplains does seem to be a way to recognize and honor those differences.”

As debates over religion in public schools continue, these surveys underscore a growing openness to faith-based practices in education. And as Del Turco concluded, “It’s encouraging to see that Americans are increasingly recognizing the need for God in the public square, including in education.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Majority of Dem Voters Disapprove of Congressional Democrats

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For the past several months at the very least, President Donald Trump has dominated headlines. His populist economic and immigration policies, conflicts with federal courts, and interactions with foreign governments have captured the public’s attention for weeks on end. But despite the Democrat-led outrage against the president’s most controversial agenda items, blue voters are significantly unhappy with their party’s leadership.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, most Americans (70%) disapprove of congressional Democrats’ job performance, while only 21% approve. However, a majority (53%) of Democratic voters themselves disapprove of congressional Democrats’ job performance, compared to only 41% who approve.

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter explained, “Lately the Democrats have been on the wrong side of many of the so-called 80%-20% issues, but one issue Democratic voters and the American general public agree on is a strong disapproval of how Democrats in Congress are handling themselves.” He continued, “Unfortunately for Democrats in Congress, their base of support and the public at large agree on this point for different reasons.”

“The American people gave Trump a second term, with the first national popular vote win for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, and a Republican Congress, to fix the border, enforce immigration law, tackle the cost-of-living crisis, bring some sanity to college campuses, end the pernicious gender ideology, and halt pro-abortion extremism,” Carpenter recounted. He continued, “The Democratic base is positioned diametrically opposite the Republican president and Congress on this agenda and want their elected representatives to do more to resist this agenda — which is incredibly popular among the average voting American.”

Carpenter concluded, “The Democrats in Congress are in a true catch-22. It would not be surprising to see some of the older Congressional Democrats announce their intentions to retire rather than run for reelection given their predicament.”

An Associated Press/NORC poll last month found that Democrats don’t have high hopes for their party’s future. Only 35% of Democratic voters were “optimistic” about the party going forward, compared to 36% who were “pessimistic.”

Some Democrats are disappointed with their elected representatives for not doing enough to oppose Trump and his agenda, despite Democrats introducing an attempt to impeach the president again and lobbying vociferously against his mass deportation program. But others are disenchanted with their party’s emphasis on policies and issues that, according to voters, are too extreme or too niche. A New York Times/IPSOS survey in February found that the majority of voters, including Democrats, consider the party to be out of touch with the priorities of most of America. Only 13% of Democrats, for example, listed LGBT issues as a top concern, while most voters reported that the emphasis the Democratic Party lays on LGBT issues is disproportionately high.

The Democratic Party was also found to be out of touch on economic issues. The overwhelming majority of Americans listed inflation and the economy as their top concerns, alongside health care and immigration, which aligned more closely with priorities voters ascribed to Republicans, while voters believed the Democrats’ top priorities to be abortion, LGBT issues, and climate change, none of which were issues voters considered important. A prior Gallup poll found that even though Democratic voters were more likely to rank abortion as a top issue than were Republicans or Independent voters, more Democrats cited the economy as a major concern.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Like what you’re reading? Donate to The Washington Stand! From now until June 30, your gift will be doubled to fuel bold, biblically-based reporting.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Liberal Media Is in Its Death Throes — What Will Replace It?

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The slow, painful death of the liberal media is hard to watch … okay, not really. Once again, the liberal media has lost all credibility, but haven’t we been here before?

It seems the apparatus of far-left talking heads and “journalists” has a zombie-like ability. The same reporters and news operations keep suffering fatal blows to their journalistic integrity, and yet they manage to struggle on as ratings — and credibility — fade away.

Take just this week, for instance. The Washington Post gleefully published a report that Israeli soldiers fired on Gaza residents waiting to receive humanitarian aid and killed more than 30. If the story sparked your skepticism, you may have better news judgment than many D.C. reporters.

This glaring lie — and the anti-Semitism that it and other lies like it help fuel — are not even surprising from the media class that is frantically grasping at the last shreds of its credibility. Meanwhile, in a move of incredible audacity, CNN’s Jake Tapper is now promoting his new book on the cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental health decline. Polling shows that most Americans could see Biden’s decline with their own eyes. Collective memory and the magic of video tape shows us that Tapper helped lead the charge of that cover-up. In fact, he once lambasted Lara Trump on air for daring to question Biden’s mental fitness. Lara Trump was not the only one to receive such treatment from Tapper.

Now, Tapper is being widely mocked on X and the new crop of center-right podcasts that have gained more political influence — and usually viewership — than cable news shows.

MSNBC saw a plummet in support after President Donald Trump’s election, though they have begun to recover in ratings, if not in credibility. The network axed a handful of anchors, including the notoriously bombastic, and often racist, Joy Reid. Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has taken a slot, which is so far a major flop as ratings plummet and MSNBC scrambles for relevance.

Tapper, Reid, and Psaki are the three horsemen of the liberal cable news apocalypse and the perfect face for this downfall. Tapper represents the hollowness of established cable anchors. Tapper has been in the business for decades and fails to perform the first function of a journalist: holding the powerful accountable. Reid symbolizes the liberal anti-white racism and anti-man sexism that has spread like a cancer through the Democratic Party and helped push an entire generation of young men into the arms of Trump. Psaki symbolizes cable news’s incestuous relationship with the politicians they are supposed to hold accountable. Psaki covered up Biden’s mental decline and was rewarded with a cushy anchor slot. On these shows, there is little room for real thinkers or diversity of thought, only rightly programmed Democratic messengers.

CNN’s Abby Phillips has managed to create a show relevant to the news cycles. Clips of her show regularly go viral, but they usually involve Scott Jennings blistering some poor Democrat. Despite how it helps prop up her show, Phillips never looks overly pleased.

We know from history that communist and totalitarian regimes cannot survive long without propaganda. China has state-owned media, as do North Korea and others.

To build its secular, communist takeover of the U.S., the far Left needs a media propaganda machine (state-owned media) to repeat lies and slander opposition. During the Biden administration, that apparatus grew sizably. The White House leaned on social media companies with great success to silence dissenting views on COVID and other topics. Shadow-banning of conservative viewpoints of all kinds became commonplace on social media. Those who did not toe the line of the LGBT agenda were accused of “hate speech” with a serious tone and deplatformed or demonetized. But the apparatus came crumbling down as the lies about COVID, the vaccine, the Russia hoax, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and more were exposed.

We have a biblical paradigm for this familiar cycle. False prophets, purveyors of the lies of the age, haunt the halls of wicked kingdoms, from the Pharaoh’s magicians in Exodus to Ahab’s 400 false prophets in 1 Kings. In our time marred by evil, do not be surprised when false prophets are found in places of influence.

What does this all mean? The far Left has a problem. Over the last five years, they have seen the credibility of the most reliable propagandists gutted all while media increasingly moves online. More importantly, it means you should expect in the next decades direct attempts to censor dissent and clamp down on internet freedom. Remember, state media shuts down opposition and propagates lies. This will likely be done by weaponized terms like “hate” and “fascism” and “far-right extremism.”

For now, liberal media is on its back foot. But political battles are only won temporarily. You can be sure the liberal media and their puppet masters are scheming about how to regain their power, both through rebuilding their operation and by silencing their opponents.

A false regime can’t thrive without propaganda. Keep exposing the propagandists. Stand up for free speech and against censorship. And the rest of us have a chance to have our children grow up in a free country.

AUTHOR

Casey Harper

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Like what you’re reading? Donate to The Washington Stand! From now until June 30, your gift will be doubled to fuel bold, biblically-based reporting.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Liberal Pollster Warns Lefty Activist Group to Focus on Hill GOP and Gov’t Corruption, Not Trump and Musk

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Liberal activists should focus their attacks on congressional Republicans and perceptions of widespread corruption in government instead of the policies and actions of President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, according to a Democratic political research firm.

The firm analyzed responses from participants in four focus groups consisting of swing voters and those who are not strongly committed to either of the major political parties. The analysis suggests the intense focus of Democrats in Congress and the mainstream media on Trump and Musk is at least somewhat out of step with the most important group of voters, especially in midterm elections.

“For these swing participants, their views on Trump and Elon are complicated and still forming. Trump retains some inoculation on corruption issues. His longstanding ‘drain the swamp’ rhetoric combined with the way he’s messaging DOGE through the framework of ridding waste and corruption gives him some credibility,” Impact Research (IR) said in a memo first made public by a liberal activist group, End Citizens United.

End Citizens United frequently commissions IR for political polling and data analysis. The firm boasts on its website that “we’ve flipped more Republican-held congressional seats over the past ten years than any other polling firm in the country.”

“Likewise, while participants had real concerns about Elon’s role, they were ill-formed, and they saw some positives from his cuts. They are not positive towards either person, but candidates should note that only utilizing corruption framing against Trump and Musk will present some barriers,” the IR memo continued.

Instead of the chief executive and the man leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the deepest-ever government-wide anti-corruption investigation, liberal activists should, according to IR, aim their energies at Capitol Hill Republicans, who have a razor-thin House majority and only a modest edge in the Senate.

“However, members of Congress are ripe targets for corruption messaging — voters view all (nameless) politicians as corrupt, focused on self-enrichment and gaining power. They attach a lot of the problems facing the country to these ills, and while they are not necessarily able to articulate specific examples of corruption, they are certain that corruption is rampant in Washington,” the memo said.

Significantly, the IR analysis says voters view Democrats and Republicans on equal terms on the corruption issue, even though traditionally GOPers devote much more time and political capital to condemning waste, fraud, and abuse than do Democrats, who in the past, while ignoring such concerns, have put far more emphasis on the alleged benefits of big federal spending programs.

“Participants view Washington’s culture as the corrupting influence — it is a disease that infects both parties equally. Even as Republicans have taken control of Washington, participants are no more likely to fault them for it than Democrats who they see as weak, ineffective, and self-interested,” the IR analysis stated.

In addition, the IR analysis pointed to the increasing irrelevance of critiques of Trump and Musk as threats to democracy.

“In past cycles, ‘threats to democracy’ was a motivator for the base and persuasive to swing voters. While all participants agreed that our democracy is under threat, there was much less clarity about what that means than in the past. Participants struggled to define what a threat to democracy is,” the analysis explained.

By contrast, the corruption issue, according to the analysis, “is both a salient issue and universally defined as politicians looking out for their own interests and against the interest[s] of the people. We should push hard on taking on corruption and should be mindful that just talking about democracy broadly without specific definition does not have the same intuitive meaning for voters.”

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand the focus group results are no surprise, given recent history, particularly with regard to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“There’s a reason why the Senate’s anti-insider trading bill is called the PELOSI Act — she’s the poster child of congressional insider trading and one of the most prominent congressional Democrats,” Carpenter said. He further noted that “there is no doubt the American public is cynical about the work of Congress. Many of their concerns about politicians using their influence to enrich themselves is, unfortunately, justified. This is fuel for the populist sentiment that has propelled Donald Trump to the presidency twice.”

Carpenter is skeptical that Democrats heeding the IR memo will enjoy complete success. He contends that “left-wing groups will have difficulty making the case to voters that it’s only Republicans who trade on insider information or otherwise use their positions to gain wealth for themselves.”

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Party That Woke Broke

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Democrats have been wallowing in the despair of last November’s elections for months, unable — or maybe unwilling — to crawl out of the pit of public opinion they find themselves in. “It’s hard to win if you don’t know why you lost,” Axios’s Alex Thompson observed. But it’s even harder, some would say, if you know and do nothing about it.

To most people, the solution to the party’s problems is simple. After a year of losing ground with virtually every demographic — men, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, young people, Independents, suburban moms — the polling all points to Democrats being completely out of step with everyday voters. So why not just abandon the extremism Americans rejected? For the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the answer is much more complicated.

The crisis facing Democrats isn’t about their identity; they have one. The crisis is that they can’t moderate their ideology — or embrace it — without severe consequences. As National Review’s Rich Lowry put it, “The reason Joe Biden won in 2020 is he didn’t seem like a progressive, and one reason that his party lost in 2024 is that he governed like one.” For Democrats, ideological extremism is their kryptonite and their lifeblood. It’s what excites the base and repels the populace. In other words, it’s a recipe for long-term political disaster.

And yet, in several instances, the Democrats who’ve tried to soften their positions or build a temporary bridge to sanity have been beaten back into conformity. After the election, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) dared to say he didn’t want his daughters to play sports against biological boys — like 80% of his country — only to turn around and vote against his girls three months later. “I was just speaking authentically as a dad about one of many issues where I think we’re just out of touch with the majority of voters,” he explained to the angry mob in November. “… I stand by my position.” Or at least he stood by it until the time came to act on it, Americans learned.

But lately, even the barest hints of compromise are punished. Look at the hysteria over Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who needs increased security simply for voting with Republicans to stop a government shutdown — something his own party argued would be a disaster for hard-working families a month earlier. For sticking to that position, there’ve been furious calls for his ouster and a leadership mutiny in party ranks.

Then, there’s California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who tested the waters earlier this month with his whiplash comments on Title IX. Sitting down with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk on his podcast, the governor was asked about the issue of trans-identifying athletes in girls’ sports. To most people’s surprise, the progressive replied, “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that.” He emphasized his point by adding, “It’s deeply unfair.”

Newsom, who, by his own admission, has been a “leader” in the “LGBTQ” movement, encouraged his party to admit that a lopsided playing field is cause for concern. He said, “We’ve got to own that. We’ve got to acknowledge it.” His sudden openness to a broader discussion was met with horror on the Left and deep skepticism on the Right — a perfect illustration of the conundrum facing Democrats.

As California Family Council President Jonathan Keller pointed out on a recent episode of the “Outstanding” podcast, “He’s trying to set it up in such a way that … he’s going to look like he’s a moderate.” But frankly, Keller said, “I’m not positive that’s actually going to be an effective strategy from him. I think what it may be effective in doing is getting him destroyed in the primaries,” he said, referring to the root problem for Democrats, which is that what wins primaries is the same thing that loses general elections.

In Newsom’s case, even an insincere shift to the middle is next-to-impossible to pull off, thanks to years of activist baggage. As Kirk wrote after the interview, “I’m under no illusions about why I was invited: Gavin Newsom wants to run for president in three years, and he thinks that talking [to] conservative figures like me increase his recognition, help him present as a centrist, and cast him as a champion of the Left in a time when the [L]eft has no real leaders. … We shouldn’t fall for this… ” he warned. “[A]nd fortunately, swerving to the center won’t be that simple for Gavin. … He knows his current record can’t win him the White House, and so he’s trying to rewrite what that record is.”

Polling proved the governor’s flirtation with rationality didn’t help his case. Of 1,000 California voters, only 24% said the podcast helped them see Newsom as more moderate, while 17% insisted it made them less likely to see him as a moderate. A majority, 59%, said it made no difference. Americans are not so easily fooled. A few soundbites does not a record make.

“Like the national Democrat[ic] Party and the legacy media,” John Nolte stressed, “Newsom has painted himself into a corner where the only way to survive is through the fealty to the 20 percent of hard leftists that make up the left’s base of activist and financial support. … With all their lies and lunacy in support of things like open borders and this transsexual nonsense, Newsom, Democrats, and the corporate media have alienated all the Normal People, probably forever. So that 20 percent is all they’ve got.”

The foot soldiers of the Democratic Party grasp the paradox. They’ve tried, unsuccessfully, for the last nine years to turn the heads of leadership to mainstream positions on things like gender, immigration, education, and energy. “I don’t want to be the freak show party like they have branded us,” one DNC member from Florida complained after the election when it was obvious the Left’s social radicalism had cost them every lever of power in Washington. “When you’re a mom with three kids,” she pointed out, “and you live in middle America, and you’re just not really into politics, and you see these ads that scare the bejesus out of you, you’re like, ‘I know Trump’s weird or whatever, but I would rather his weirdness that doesn’t affect my kids.’”

Others echoed her alarm. “The progressive wing of the party has to recognize — we all have to recognize — the country’s not progressive, and not to the far left or the far right. They’re in the middle,” said Joseph Paolino, a DNC committeeman for Rhode Island.

It felt like, at least from those comments, that the party was finally going to pivot. “This is basically a rebuild job from the bottom up,” former DNC Chair Donna Brazile emphasized.

But what happened when push came to shove? Against the pleas of their non-elite base, the far-left won even greater control of the party — electing woke, anti-gun, pro-trans, defund-the-police, ICE-abolishing, climate change-pimping DNC leaders in Chairman Ken Martin and Vice Chair David Hogg. To the everyday Democrats, who’d been “begging the party to ditch the radical Left,” it was an astonishing betrayal.

“The weaknesses of Democrats among non-white voters, particularly Hispanic and Black working-class voters, is pretty significant,” authors of a new book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” insist. “They’re sort of realizing this is a problem. On the other hand, they’re so invested in this whole vector of cultural issues. They’re worried about the blowback on social media and from the college-educated ‘liberalish’ voters who are increasingly a loyal base of the Democratic Party. Trump understood that and he played upon it. He continues to play upon it. He continues to get votes upon it. And the Democrats are oblivious to it.”

Not all Democrats, it seems. A growing chorus of disillusioned officials are starting to speak up about the continued reckoning that awaits the party in future elections. During snippets of his interview with NPR Monday, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) sounded outright logical in his assessment. “We can’t just resist. It can’t just be why we’re against Trump and what’s wrong with Trump. … The Democratic brand has been damaged. “

“When you ask people … ‘What do the Republicans stand for?’ They say, ‘Well, Make America Great Again. They want to cut the size of government, they want to give tax cuts, stuff like [that].’” Then, Suozzi said, when you ask, “‘What do the Democrats stand for?’ And I think the people are kind of scratching their head a little bit, they believe in, like, [abortion] and LGBT rights — which I believe in those things too — but I don’t know that you can build a whole party around that.” He talked about running on the border issue in 2024, and his consultants protested, arguing, “‘Well, Tom, that’s a Republican issue. I don’t know if you should be talking [about that].’ I said, ‘No, this is what the people of my district are talking about. We can’t ignore what the people are talking about.’”

Even longtime fixtures of the party are starting to reconsider the wisdom of pandering to a sliver of the country. Trusted Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel took on the misguided messaging of the current party earlier this month, urging local Democrats to beat the drum on “safe streets, strong schools, stable finances. Focus on those three things, and your city’s going to be fine,” he said on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “Less about the bathrooms, more about the classrooms.”

The party’s fringe had a fit, forcing the ex-mayor to clarify, “I wasn’t looking to have a fight on woke culture. I was looking to have a debate on the failure of eighth graders to read. I don’t think culturally that being not just into the generic woke debate is wrong politically. It’s also [that] the data is pretty clear that people think that’s all we care about.” And in the end, he admitted, “We sunk our party. We’re responsible for that. And we’re also therefore responsible for rebuilding it.”

So far, the Democrats’ only idea for rebuilding has been parading Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) around the country as the movement’s future standard-bearers. And, yes, CNN polling of the party’s voters did suggest that Sanders and the Squad leader “best represented the Democrats’ core values” — without asking if the majority of Democrats even supported those values in the first place. What they did question is if Democratic leaders are taking the party in the wrong direction, and a majority said “yes.” Either way, Lowry quipped, “If AOC is the Democratic future, the party is even worse off than we think.”

Most of us, FRC Action’s Matt Carpenter observed, “are used to seeing the Democrats operate as a tightly-knit team. For years, they moved in lockstep at the direction of their leaders toward the party’s goals,” he told The Washington Stand. “So it’s a curious thing to see them now rudderless, searching for leadership, searching for an issue to rally around, searching for support from voters and donors, and coming up short. The ground they gained over the years under the leadership of figures like Obama, Pelosi, and even Biden turns out to have left them stranded in the political wilderness.”

Making matters worse, Carpenter pointed out, “They just had their worst performance among minority voters maybe of all time. They are seen as the party of inflation, war, and obsessed with abortion and turning girls into boys and boys into girls. But that’s not even the worst of it for them,” he shook his head. “The worst part of it for the Democratic Party is that they’ve inculcated these ideas into their base. So they cannot retreat from their unpopular positions without watching their base become demoralized, or worse, angry.”

The reality is a painful one for a party in disarray, but Democrats are boxed in without a viable way out — at least for now. They’ve hitched their wagon to a radical, self-aggrandizing Left without looking behind them to see if anyone followed. Now that the wheels have come off, the sobering truth is this: they have no one to blame but themselves.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Record Number of Americans Think the Country Is on the ‘Right Track’

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For the first time ever, Rasmussen Reports released polling that revealed a positive increase in Americans who believe the country is on the “right track.” Roughly 47% feel this way — the highest it’s been in about two decades — leaving researchers at a loss for words. The question is this, “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice posed on Friday’s “Washington Watch,” “Is there a specific reason for the change?” If so, what could it be?

In September, 2024, only 28% of surveyed Americans felt the country was on the “right track.” Last year was also the first time since 2022 the number of pessimistic Americans fell below 70%. Even then, a solid 65% still believed America was on the “wrong track.” Concerning the most recent findings, Rasmussen’s chief pollster Mark Mitchell, who also joined Friday’s show, explained that a lot of what this data highlights is “an incredible environment out there for public opinion.”

“I never predicted anything like this would happen,” he said. As Mitchell went on to explain that the tide is turning in “this red team, blue team dichotomy,” politically speaking. “[R]ight now,” he explained, “it looks like … an existential crisis for D.C.,” especially for the “unelected powers that have been doing what they want. … [T]hey’ve lost the ability to control … and Americans are the happiest they’ve ever been.”

As for the “right” or “wrong track” discussion, Hice asked, “Is this purely political? Is it economic? What do we mean when we’re saying, ‘Is America on the right track?’” According to Mitchell, it’s simply an “additional measurement of happiness.” He pointed out that the question is intentionally straightforward, “and the reason it’s so powerful is just because everybody asks it” — most Americans care about the state of their country to some extent. “[W]e have so much history,” he added, “and the fact that [the positive results have] never been above 50% in all of our polling history is kind of sad, because you’d want, in a representative democracy, to try and maximize that number.”

With positive feelings at an all-time high, Mitchell continued to explain that Americans don’t seem to understand the scope of this change. Ultimately, “this could be a fundamental reformation of all kind of politics.” In fact, these eye-catching statistics come after President Donald Trump “received his highest approval rating ever, with 53% of respondents approving of his work to this point.” In addition to this, “70% of participants — regardless of whether they support Trump — agree that the president is doing what he promised to do.”

And as Mitchell pointed out, this also comes as many mainstream “news outlets … gaslit too much … pushed it too far and … completely lost their power.” President Trump, he stated, has “carte blanche in a way I don’t think any politician in my lifetime has.”

During the biblical worldview segment of Friday’s “Washington Watch,” Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview David Closson also weighed in on this topic. “[T]he way I look at it,” Closson said, “is I think this is … vindication or validation, so to speak, for the first month or so of the Trump presidency. … [T]he average American appreciates … seeing strong leadership in the Oval Office.” Even though “we’re still early in the first 100 days,” it seems clear that the findings coming out of Rasmussen likely reflect how a “lot of the policies and decisions that [the Trump administration is] making are resonating with the American people.”

If that’s true from a conservative point of view, Hice asked what it means from a biblical worldview. “[C]ertainly Christians’ understanding of the ‘right track’ would be different from someone else,” he stated. “[A]re we on the right track from a Christian or biblical worldview?”

“Well,” Closson responded, “that’s a deeper level question.” Ultimately, “as Christians, we don’t just say the nation is on the right track because of economic indicators or political power, or even cultural trends. … As Christians, we want the nation to be aligning with God’s moral order.”

Closson referred to Proverbs 14:34, which says that “righteousness exalts a nation.” As such, “for Christians … to kind of get excited that the nation is on the right track, we would want to see a nation where justice is being upheld. We would want to see a nation where life is protected, where religious liberty and the ability to live out our faith is protected, [and] where truth is promoted.” If America is to be “on track” biblically, Closson contended, then it’s going to be “where we see those things happening.”

He added, “[W]e want to see return to creation order.” But right now, “creation order is being inverted, [and] we’re seeing moral confusion … [and] moral compromise.” From a Christian worldview, those are “indications that a nation is on the wrong track.” However, Closson highlighted how when it comes to the Trump administration, it’s good to look “at the logic embedded in some of these executive orders.” For instance, Trump has signed orders “protecting life … [and] defining sex according to biology, according to creation order.” What’s most interesting about these developments, he suggested, is that “not only has there been a vibe shift” to conservativism, but that at the same time, “we are kind of getting back on track in a way that’s consistent with the moral order.”

As for whether America is on the right track biblically, Closson said the best thing to do is to pray. “I would just encourage … us to be praying for kings and for officials in high places, that we may lead a godly and dignified life in every way,” he said. “There’s a lot going on. … [And] President Trump and the folks that are around him here in D.C. and state legislatures … are getting very busy … introducing legislation.” As Christians, “[we should] be praying for all of our leaders to make decisions that honor God, promote human flourishing.

“[T]his is a great time to be praying,” he concluded, “because there’s so much to be praying about.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Poll: Majority of Americans Say Biden Is Worst President Since Nixon

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According to a newly released Gallup poll, Americans rate President Joe Biden as the second worst U.S. president since the 1960s, just barely above Richard Nixon.

The survey, released Tuesday, asked respondents to rate how 10 presidents from the last 60 years will go down in history. The presidents included JFK, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump’s first term, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, and Richard Nixon.

Just 6% of respondents gave Biden an “outstanding” rating, with 13% giving him an “above average” rating, 26% giving him an “average” rating, 17% giving him a “below average” rating, and 37% giving him a “poor” rating. Cumulatively, Biden scored a net positive rating of -35 percentage points — only Richard Nixon fared worse, with -42. Biden’s 37% “poor” rating was the highest of any of the 10 presidents in that category.

Overall, a majority of Americans — 54% — said Biden will be remembered as “below average” or “poorly.”

Under Biden’s four-year term, America has experienced a series of disastrous outcomes across a wide array of fronts.

On the economic front, a recent Economist report found that the U.S. currently ranks 20th in the world on a combined scale over the past year of gross domestic product growth, stock market performance, core inflation, change in unemployment rate, and government deficits. Despite this, Biden claimed last month that “we’ve entered a new phase of our economic resurgence.” He also stated, “I believe the economy I’m leaving at the moment … [is] the best economy, strongest economy in the world and for all Americans, doing better.”

But American voters did not appear to share the president’s enthusiastic economic outlook. After experiencing record-high inflation on food, gas, and housing prices and significant spikes in homelessness under Biden’s watch, almost 70% of Americans characterized the nation’s economy as “not so good” or “poor” in exit polls following the November election.

On America’s borders, a true crisis emerged after Biden reversed President Donald Trump’s border security policies shortly after taking office in February 2021. As a result, 10 million illegal border encounters occurred (compared to 2.4 million under Trump’s first term), child sex-trafficking more than tripled, and fentanyl trafficking increased, with over 250,000 Americans dying from fentanyl overdoses (an 80% increase since Trump’s first term). In addition, violent crime spiked significantly across the country under the Biden administration.

Regarding foreign affairs, global stability unraveled drastically following Biden’s decision to abruptly withdraw American troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, resulting in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers from a suicide bomber outside Kabul Airport and the deaths of an unknown number of American allies in the country (in addition to $7 billion worth of military equipment left behind, which the Taliban acquired). Six months later in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of approximately 80,000 Ukrainian troops and 200,000 Russian troops and a combined 800,000 wounded. In addition, approximately 12,100 Ukrainian civilians have also been killed, and there is currently no end in sight to the conflict, with North Korean troops joining the war in October 2024. A year and a half after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in October 2023, the terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, resulting in 1,200 Israeli deaths. This engulfed the Middle East in widespread conflict between Israel and the terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and others. The Iranian regime also launched direct attacks against Israel.

On the domestic policy front, Biden made highly polarizing and controversial issues the focal point of his administration, including completely unrestricted abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, the targeting of pro-life advocates and political opponents through the Department of Justice, the promotion of gender transition procedures for minors, and more.

“I think the American people are very kind to only give the outgoing administration the second worst grade of any administration since JFK,” Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, told The Washington Stand. “To my knowledge, the Nixon administration didn’t publish guidelines for biological males to ‘chestfeed’ their infants, subsidize abortion in the Pentagon, promote dangerous and irreversible gender transitions for minors, flood the country with millions of illegal aliens, and so forth. In my mind, Biden was the worst president since JFK and it’s not even close.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Public Trust in Government, Media, and the Church Has Fallen. Is There Hope for Change in 2025?

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With President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory and a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House, 2024 seems to be ending on a high note for conservatives. And yet, polls show that there is a significant lack of public trust in government. Not only that, but Americans are increasingly losing confidence in the media. What kind of obstacles or difficulties could this bring going into 2025?

Americans are navigating “through a rapidly evolving cultural and political landscape,” guest host Jody Hice said on Thursday’s episode of “Washington Watch.” Already, “there are certain … trends that reveal that we have both challenges as well as opportunities facing us.” As Hice explained, Americans seem to be going through a bit of a mental and spiritual crisis, with “Gen Z … bucking the downward trend of Bible engagement … [and] a troubling rise in things like anxiety and depression and suicide rates.”

Hice continued, “I look at 2025 right now on the horizon, [and there’s] no doubt there are many changes that are coming.” Most notably is the Republican control of the White House during “a time when overall confidence in government is probably at historic lows.” He asked, “Is there any way that we might see an increase in trust among the American people with the government?” George Barna, senior research fellow for the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, joined the conversation.

“Well,” he said, “there are a couple of ways of looking at that.” In one sense, it “could easily get higher because it’s so low right now. There’s not too much lower that it can drop.” However, Barna admitted that any increase in the trust Americans have in their government likely won’t come easily. “[C]an it get higher?” he asked. “Yes, it can. But it’s going to take some significant steps forward. One of those would be casting a compelling vision of the future for our nation, and describing ways in which everyone in government is going to work together to see that happen.”

“People are tired of the standstill in government, of all the obstacles that they’re seeing … the outrageous amounts of money being spent, [and] the debt that’s being piled up,” Barna noted. Many Americans “also have this perception that a huge proportion of public officials are corrupt. And so, if we want to change people’s sense of trust in their government, they’re going to have to address those issues full on. They’re going to have to see actual leadership skills demonstrated.” Hice agreed, stating how “that’s a big hill to climb in the current environment.” But beyond Congress, he added, trust in the media has dwindled as well.

In fact, Hice explained how this year saw a significant increase in people who relied on social media platforms for gathering information. With this in mind, he asked, “Is that likely to change or not change in the coming year?” According to Barna, it is unlikely to change. Rather, as he put it, “I think what we’re going to see is a continued movement away from traditional sources of media … toward independent media.” Barna argued that this is because mainstream media now comes across as more subjective and biased than before. So, Americans are “going to look elsewhere,” he argued, further asserting that this also explains why podcasts, for instance, have “skyrocketed in terms of their popularity.”

Barna added, “Is traditional media going to be able to win back their popularity and the sense of trust of Americans? I don’t really see that happening in the next three or four years at least, because people now have set their minds to the point where they’re saying, ‘I can’t trust them. There’s no reason for me to even listen to them.’”

There’s one more notable area where people seem to be losing trust, Hice observed. “I hate to even bring this up, but there’s also seemingly … an increasing distrust for churches, a lack of trust. What do you think this next year holds for the church? Is there anything that they can do to become a greater influence in our culture?”

“[I]t’s interesting,” Barna replied, “because when you look at what’s going on with churches, in some ways it’s very similar to what’s happening with government, where people have less and less trust in the leadership of their churches.” Additionally, he explained how many Christians “feel like they’re not getting real value from their churches. And as we’ve been evaluating that, one of the things that’s become clear is that, often, that’s because they feel they’re not being given practical advice, practical guidance — real, tangible value for their life. … [This] come[s] from preaching God’s word on a consistent basis and breaking it down for people so that they know how to apply God’s truth principles in their personal life.”

But if churchgoers feel that church is not serving them, the question becomes why is that the case? Barna contended that a lot of it boils down to how churches “evaluate their success in ministry … based on how many people show up, how many programs they offer, how many … people they’ve hired, how much money they’re raising, [and] how much square footage they’ve built out.” This is problematic, Barna argued, because “if you think about those five objectives that most churches in America consistently measure to evaluate their ministry effectiveness, one conclusion we can come to is … [that they’re] bound to fail as a set of measures.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because Jesus didn’t die for any of those. That’s not what His life, His ministry, [or] His teaching is all about.” At the heart of the matter, Barna contended, is that “we’ve gotten away from the Bible not only in what we’re teaching, but even in how we’re measuring success and impact in ministry. … [I]n the last five years … half of all adults in America attending a church at least once a month on average [has gone] down to roughly one third of Americans. That’s a huge drop in a short period of time. And … the reason is they’re not getting biblical value from churches.”

“Wow,” Hice sighed. “[T]his is an extremely important issue because the well-being of our whole culture ultimately comes down to the spiritual health of the culture, which ultimately obviously rests upon the health of the church.” Considering this, he asked, “What does the church need to do to get people to come back to church? What kind of changes need to be taking place within a church body to fulfill the mission that God has given them to do?”

According to Barna, it “comes back to the whole issue of worldview. Why is it that young people in particular would say that they often are struggling with fear, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts? … [I]t comes back to their perspectives about how life works. When you’ve got a young adult who doesn’t believe that there’s a God who’s all knowing, all powerful … merciful … just … involved and engaged in their lives, [and] when you’ve got generations of people who say that they don’t believe that there’s anything that happens after they die,” he urged that “it’s imperative that if … churches or families want to be uplifting [and] … a source of strength and hope and optimism, particularly for younger adults, well, then they’ve got to get back to God’s word.”

“[O]ur entire culture [is moving] in the wrong direction,” Barna warned, “and it’s up to churches and parents to raise their children up, to understand the truths of Scripture … to trust the Bible, to know God, to trust Jesus personally, [and] to understand that we’re sinners.” People must understand that “success in life isn’t by your material goods. … It’s not by your fame. It’s not by your popularity. It’s not even by feeling good. It’s about consistent obedience to God.” Another part of this issue is due to a lack of discipleship, he argued, and disciples who aren’t properly equipping themselves.

For anyone grappling with fear, anxiety, or depression, Barna concluded that “Jesus is the antidote. … The Bible shows us an alternative way of living,” and “the more that we can address worldview issues, the more that we can not only rebuild the church, but we can bring back a sense of life and hope and optimism to all Americans.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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