How Americans Reclaim the Public Square
The mic is yours.
Beneath the roar of manufactured narratives and partisan theater, something authentic stirred in the heart of Texas. Far from the sterile fog of think tanks, ballrooms packed with lobbyists, donor-sponsored panels of poll-tested talking points, and the echo chambers of cable news, citizens gathered, not for applause or posturing, but to reclaim a birthright long trampled by a ruling class drunk on its own power and impunity.
A quiet revolt emerged in Dallas, in a room full of veterans, small business owners, scholars, clergy, farmers, and free thinkers who came not to celebrate the system, but to indict it. They came to launch The National Conversation, a defiant stand to reclaim what remains of a beloved but betrayed American Republic.
The message? Simple, seismic, and deeply American: The mic is yours.
In that declaration lies the buried truth of a nation on life support; if speech is no longer free, neither are its people. This wasn’t a conference but a reckoning of something older and more vital: a town hall in the truest sense. The kind Tocqueville might recognize where citizens gather to assert what was always theirs speech, conscience, and agency.
The American people have been reduced to mere spectators and pawns in a managed democracy where elections are rituals and policy is dictated by an entrenched partisan duopoly of the permanent managerial class, whose only true allegiance is to itself.
The fraudulent left vs. right paradigm has served its purpose: distraction. But beneath the surface, the policies remain indistinguishable: endless wars, open borders, economic sabotage, censorship, surveillance, and overall cultural decay shepherded by a uniparty moving in lockstep toward globalist consolidation. This is not a representative government but a managed decline, justified with platitudes, enforced through fear, and sustained by lies that dissent is dangerous and debate obsolete.
This was the undercurrent of The National Conversation launched in Dallas, not as a protest but as an act of resistance: The time has come for an alternative, not merely in politics but in principle.
Spearheading the initiative is Col. Douglas Macgregor, forged in battle, intellectually uncompromised and unafraid to speak uncomfortable truths. His opening salvo was not a speech, but a declaration of separation: “This movement will forge the path toward the creation of a new political home…. The uniparty has had its time. We believe in the Constitution, we believe in sovereignty, and we believe in putting Americans first.”
What Macgregor outlined was not a campaign, rather an ultimatum that defends national borders, civil liberties, and cultural coherence while remembering the nation is not a platform for abstraction but a home to be protected.
The Dallas gathering was rich in perspective and sincerity, bringing together voices the entrenched bureaucrats of the swamp had worked tirelessly to silence—not because they are extreme, but because they are honest, and honesty is feared more than opposition. Channeling the words of great Dr. Ron Paul: “Truth is treason in an empire of lies”.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, a constitutional scholar of rare integrity, warned that the erosion of civil liberties no longer sound alarmist, but rather prophetic as we live the Orwellian nightmare in real time.
Natalie Brunell challenged the illusion of economic freedom in a fiat-driven economy. Her call for financial sovereignty was more than economic theory, it was a rejection of monetary servitude disguised as stability.
George O’Neill Jr., a steady and seasoned voice for national renewal and decisive anti-war stance, was joined by leaders from the energy, agriculture, finance, and tech sectors. These are not corporate mouthpieces, but builders ready to dismantle the parasitic structures that have hollowed out our economy and reconstruct one that serves the American people, not the global elite.
Representatives of the Holy Christian Orthodox Order of St. George reminded attendees that persecution of Christians, especially in the Middle East, has been met with silence from the same ruling class that lectures on tolerance. Doc Pete Chambers, an Orthodox Christian himself, a decorated Green Beret and candidate for Governor of Texas, reminded the room that the oath to defend this country does not expire when the uniform is folded away.
And in perhaps the most telling sign of the event’s significance, authors and journalists of true integrity like this magazine’s own Curt Mills, Scott Horton, and Rachel Blevins, figures exiled from mainstream platforms for speaking inconvenient truths joined in the discussion. The crowd was diverse, not demographically but constitutionally and intellectually, signaling not only the spiritual undercurrent, but a civilizational one. Citizens tired of being audience members in a political drama that no longer entertains, much less represents.
My role, as Executive Director, was not to direct, but to listen. The atmosphere was unfiltered, conversations raw, emotional at times, and necessary. No handlers. No scripts. No donors whispering from behind the curtain. Just Americans who are disillusioned but not defeated, charting a course beyond the collapse.
At the private dinner, I told the group:
We are not here to tweak the system but to challenge it… From the ranches of Texas to the factories of the Midwest, from our veterans to our youth, from farmers to engineers, America is waking up. The political theater is over. What comes next is real, raw, and righteous.
What happened in Dallas was not a conclusion, rather it was the first breath of a movement long overdue; movement that does not belong to pundits, billionaires, or bureaucrats, but to disenfranchised citizens, and it is coming to cities, communities, and digital spaces across the country where the politically homeless, the silenced, the sidelined are gathering. This time, they will not be ignored.
So we say again, unapologetically: The mic is yours. Speak freely. Think clearly. Lead boldly. And above all, stand for America without fear.
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