If You Want Young Americans to Fight Your Wars, Give Them Something Worth Fighting For

Today’s rant is sponsored by Ground News.

Lately, I’ve found myself asking a simple question when I read the news: what am I not being shown? Not because I’m trying to “both sides” everything—but because outrage is good for clicks, and clarity usually isn’t.

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I was sitting in the waiting room at NewsNation Tuesday night before doing a TV hit on Leland Vittert’s show about this illegal war in Iran. The person speaking before me was former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly—a man I’ll shamefully admit that, in my youth growing up in a Republican household, I once had some admiration for before fully realizing he was selling the Bush Administration’s lies in Iraq.

And he spent the better part of his conversation with my buddy Leland bemoaning what he called the “earbuds generation” of Americans—young people who supposedly aren’t interested in sacrificing for their country, who don’t want to serve, who don’t want to go fight in another stupid forever war in the Middle East.

Bill O’Reilly is 76 years old.

He is very much a part of what I wrote about this week: this generation of old men who are not going to be here to live with the consequences of their decisions, yet sneer down their noses at people who are sick and tired of being told the world has to work a certain way by men who have failed—generationally—to build a better America.

And that’s more or less what I said to Leland when it was my time.

Leland asked me if America is a force for good in the world. I told him I want it to be.

But I’m not sure that it is today.

And here’s the thing: if you truly believe that this conflict in Iran is in America’s best interest, then you should be encouraging the Trump administration to go in front of Congress and get a war declaration. You should be encouraging them to speak directly to the American people and articulate why this is in our national interest.

Because if you want a generation of young men and women to rise up and serve in the armed forces—to go overseas, defend American interests, keep people safe, and fight for our freedom, all the bumper-sticker stuff you see in those Army and Air Force ads—they’ve got to have something to believe in.

The kids you’re asking to serve need to know that when they come home, they’ll be taken care of. That they’ll be able to get a good-paying job. That they’ll be able to buy a house, start a family, take a vacation once in a while, retire with dignity, and live that American dream that more and more people are giving up on right now.

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You want to ask people to be selfless to defend their nation?

Then you’ve got to give them a nation worth believing in.

And Republican presidents—and frankly, far too many Democrats in my lifetime—have not done enough to protect the American dream. So people are giving up on it.

What they’re sick and tired of seeing is an old, rich, powerful, well-connected class of people—let’s call them what they are, the Epstein class—who protect one another. Who get away with destroying the economy, stripping people of their dignity, preying on little kids, and walking away untouched. People who know that no matter what happens in this country—good or bad—they’re going to come out the other side with more money, more power, and more influence.

Meanwhile, 70% of Americans are left holding the bag, barely able to keep it all together.

Give people—especially young men who are getting absolutely crushed in this economy and who were promised so much by Donald Trump in the 2024 election—something to fight for. Give them an opportunity to succeed. Give it to young women too, to be clear.

If you want people to believe that America can be a force for good, America actually has to be a force for good.

We can’t whore out our military to other countries. We can’t launch illegal wars. We can’t spend more money overseas blowing shit up than we spend making sure people don’t go bankrupt when they get sick.

There was a reason so many people stepped up in World War I and World War II to defend this country.

And it wasn’t just because of the evil we were fighting overseas.

It was because there was something here worth defending.

And I still believe there’s still something worth defending in America today. I really do.

I don’t think what we’re doing in Iran makes any sense. But there is something here—a soul, a heart of a people in this country—that’s worth fighting for, worth defending.

The problem is, a lot of people don’t see it anymore. Because a lot of people don’t feel it anymore.

They’re giving up on their American dream. On their community. On their country.

And the next generation of political leaders—whoever they are, whatever they look like—better be prepared to invest in this country if they want people to stop giving up on America.

P.S. If you ever read a headline and think “there’s more to this than I’m being told,” that’s exactly why I use Ground News. It helps you see what’s being covered—and what isn’t. Check it out here →