The next generation of liberals is out there. We’re building the onramp.

Our governments are failing us. They have become corrupted and short-sighted, falling miserably short of fulfilling even their most basic responsibilities. As our needs go unmet, our livelihoods are undermined by a litany of invasive state activities that exist not to benefit us but to enrich powerful interests at our expense. Autocrats dodge accountability under the law or even use it as a weapon against their enemies. Our deeply dysfunctional political institutions are to blame. They consistently deliver only one result: broken promises. We will not tolerate more of the same. The government must be restored to its essential role as a purveyor of the public interest, based on the consent of the governed, and no longer be subject to the exploitation of lobbyists and the political class.

Prejudice is as old as time, yet it has never ceased to be irrational and morally repugnant. Today, it remains powerful as demagogues exploit age-old bigotries for their own political purposes. We clearly see these politicians and pundits for who they truly are: cynics who weaponize ignorance in their quest for power. In the face of their deceit, we repeat truths. Immigrants are not our enemy. No racial or ethnic group is inferior. Men are not entitled to lead, nor are women required to follow. Each person should be judged solely on their own merits, not their immutable characteristics.

We reject the dogma that markets can do no wrong, but we also reject the far more pervasive dogma that the state is benevolent. It is far from it. We have endured the burden of its agenda of artificial scarcity, and we know full well that the political actors who control it do not have our best interests in mind. We stand steadfastly against both the cronyist economic order we live under and those who wish to revive long-tried and failed statist economic ideas. In place of this system, we endorse a dynamic free-enterprise economy where competition is abundant and prosperity widespread.

Those who worship at the altar of the state look to the government to cure all ills. They imagine using its power to force people to embrace the “correct” lifestyle. These are the bedroom regulators, the religion mandaters, the speech censorers, and the virtue enforcers—among many other titles. Their ideas about what the “right” life is are always changing, but they have made a grave mistake. The state is not our God. It is not our moral leader nor the arbiter of truth. It exists to follow our will and serve our needs, not to assert dominion over us. Your personal decisions are yours and yours alone to make and ours to tolerate.

The world is full of imperialist and chauvinist states eager to exploit every weakness in their relentless pursuit of control. In these times, the world’s free nations can no longer afford to be feeble. The religion of appeasement—a worldview characterized by constant retreat and self-hatred—is impressed upon us by a seductive narrative spun by foreign-funded propagandists. We must no longer be fooled by these delusions. Isolationism is a recipe for war, and we will not embrace it. But while rejecting this dark path, we remain vigilant against the warmongers—those who promote reckless and costly unilateral action. Our cause is an enduring peace, and we are resolute in its pursuit.

We reject the vicious lie told by pseudo-intellectuals and the conspiracy-deranged that academics, scientists, and journalists are the enemy. We know well that our true foe lies not in those dedicated to the pursuit of truth but rather in those who seek to contort reality to further their own agenda. We also strongly oppose the relativistic notion that the world is not bound together by facts and that all things are merely “matters of opinion.” We believe in one unifying truth and commit ourselves to its impartial and rigorous pursuit, even when its nuances clash with our preconceived notions.

The existing system is failing. No message that tells people that their lives are better than they see or believe will succeed—nor should it. We must do better. Populist rage is, in and of itself, reflective of a failure of existing institutions to address real problems. Despite this, the populist movements of today do not offer us a better future; they offer aggressive regression and destruction. However, the angst, anxieties, and frustrations they tap into are real, and we will not ignore them.