To celebrate three years of The Frank Forum, I figured I'd start an audio podcast.
Let's see what happens.
Catch Episode 1, wherein I go into the origins of this blog and the reason for the podcast, below:
A blog dedicated to the revitalization of America's distinct civic culture.
Some Positive News
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| Photo from X: @NYCMayor |
Unfortunately, I haven't time to write much of anything this week, as I'll be traveling.
I will, however, leave you with this X post from New York City's Mayor, Zohran Mamdani:
I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon.
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) February 26, 2026
I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City. pic.twitter.com/XnPbt0KXYU
I don't care what anyone says: collaboration between the Mayor and President Trump is a good thing.
On X, pollster Frank Luntz wrote the following: "If Zohran and Trump can work together, the rest of us have no excuse not to do the same."
Hard agree.
Anyway, see you next week!
Smoke, Drink, and Be Merry
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| Photo: @PintsO_Guinness on X |
There's no escaping the fact that drinking is, indeed, a "social lubricant."
Last month, Dr. Mehmet Oz - formerly known as "America's doctor" during his time on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and now Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - remarked that "alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together," adding that "there's probably nothing better than having a good time with friends in a safe way."
He said this in the context of the Trump administration's changing of the U.S. dietary guidelines.
In an article for NBC News, Aria Bendix writes that:
Whereas the previous dietary guidelines said alcohol consumption should be limited to one drink per day for women and two for men, the new ones simply recommend limiting alcohol consumption 'for better overall health.'
This looser, more ambiguous language regarding alcohol consumption is rather surprising considering that President Trump is famously a teetotaler, citing his late brother Fred's alcoholism as the reason he's always abstained from the sauce.
In a 2024 interview with podcaster and comedian Theo Von, Trump spoke in an uncharacteristically vulnerable way about Fred, saying that he was a "very handsome guy" who succumbed to his addictions. Trump reiterated his oft-repeated line: "No drugs, no drinking, no cigarettes."
What's more, people forget that at the end of former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's tenure in 2025, he issued the following Advisory: Alcohol and Cancer Risk. In it, the Office links alcohol consumption to "at least seven different types of cancer." Here is Dr. Murthy on Wolf Blitzer's show cautioning against even moderate use.
Even still, the Trump administration has decided to prioritize the adverse effects of social isolation.
At Healthsperien's "Action for Progress" conference in DC earlier this month, Dr. Oz remarked that "loneliness is a massive problem."
It's encouraging that the administration is - in a thoughtful way, and while also acknowledging the detriments of too much alcohol use - drawing attention to the benefits of social drinking, something that I've written about before.
Here's an excerpt from a National Review article I wrote with Joe Pitts in February of last year:
Up and down the ages, taverns, pubs, and dive bars have served as institutions where new friendships, romances, and even political movements have been set into motion. Alcohol is a social lubricant, not to mention that there’s something simply satisfying about drinking a cold glass of beer with friends, new and old.
From my own personal experience, the strongest community I've found here in Brooklyn has been at my local pub, and it's not even close.
And, while we're at it, I think we ought to entertain a more controversial idea: Cigarette smoking also fosters community, albeit usually short-lived.
In November of last year, I wrote a short blog post on a cigarette smoker meet-up that took place in Washington Square Park:
After giving the crowd some obligatory admonishments about how smoking is bad for you (blah blah blah), Terry started ripping stogies with a youthful and care-free swagger... Unfortunately, vices like smoking and drinking loosen people up, thus making them more amenable to conversing with each other.
A TikToker with the username @justpeers articulated the communitarian nature of cigarette smoking well:
"Cigarette smokers," she says "are the only people I've ever interacted with who give with no expectation of receiving anything in return."
That is, if one smoker sees another without a cigarette in hand, they'll offer them one from their pack with no questions asked, and with no expectation of immediate reciprocity. It's just the right thing to do. They look out for each other.
One comment to the video read: "'Can I buy a cig off you?' absolutely not pls take two."
We'll have to start asking ourselves which is worse: the risks of depriving ourselves of human interaction and the fulfillment that comes with meaningful social connection, or the risks of drinking and smoking?
I am, needless to say, no doctor, and can't advise one way or the other. The question, though, still needs to be asked.
Loneliness Is Not Gender-Specific
The loneliness epidemic has hit us all hard, regardless of our immutable characteristics: race, gender, ethnicity...
While there has been talk of a "male loneliness epidemic," I've largely - if not completely - steered clear of using the term, for, from what I've read over the years, both men and women have been impacted.
But, in the Left-wing outlet BuzzFeed - an unserious, clickbait-driven site that I honestly thought was now defunct - staffer Dannica Ramirez documents what the women of Reddit think about male loneliness.
While some of the responses were thoughtful, drawing attention to the fact that men historically have been hesitant to open up to their friends and be vulnerable - most comments were nasty, saying that the male loneliness epidemic is largely "self-inflicted," with one user writing that "about 85% or more of the men complaining about it do it to themselves."
Another Reddit user wrote that "It's evidence that even men think most other men are not a joy to be around."
One commenter, however, wrote that "loneliness is something we’re all really struggling with, regardless of gender."
That's exactly my feeling, too. From the data I've consumed - and, trust me, I've read a lot about this issue over the past few years - loneliness is an equal opportunity killer: it does not discriminate based on any single criterion.
Thus, combating loneliness and social isolation ought to be a gender-inclusive battle, wherein both men and women can take actionable steps to foster community.
The issue of loneliness need not be another point of division between the sexes; we have politics for that.
Let this be a joint struggle.
How Men Lose Themselves in Relationships
Men need the companionship of the fairer sex to go through life, but they also need friends, particularly of the same sex, who function as indispensable support systems.
My intention here is to address the role that men play in their own downfall when it comes to relationships, and what I've learned from my experience with dating.
Some men, it should be noted, are voluntarily stepping away from dating and marriage altogether due to financial and emotional concerns. They are, of course, free to make their own choices, and I would say the topic of conversation here doesn't much apply to them. Rather, I'm speaking to men who are lonely and looking for love.
This is what I personally believe they should do to give themselves better chances.
Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.
As a man who just recently turned 30, I've noticed many changes around me, especially in my circles. People start to have priority-shifts, different interests, and different goals. Life is no longer solely about careers, friendly get-togethers, and fun. Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.
This is all a part of life. Generally speaking, it's what most people want to do: get married, start families, live happily ever after, etc. This is all fine and good, though I see a major issue with how men change their personality and entire identity when they date.
Often when men start to date, their entire disposition changes: they neglect their friendships, hobbies fall by the wayside, and they make their whole personality about making their significant other happy. I vehemently disagree with this, and I'll tell you why. When someone meets you and takes an interest in you, they like you for who you are and the hobbies you have in life, whether that be reading, fitness, traveling, or whatever. So often men are completely willing to give it all up to make their wives/girlfriends happy. While doing this may come off as sweet and caring, it also shows that you have no backbone or structure and are willing to bend at any second to appease your partner at the expense of your friends.
Women do not respect that, and most often will find it unattractive (That's been my personal experience, and many others' I've witnessed). As a man, you need to be able to prioritize yourself and your needs in a healthy way, without being selfish. The truth is that there are some things that women will never understand when you try to speak to them about your issues, just as there are some things that us men won't be able to understand when our girlfriends try to speak with us about women-specific issues. This is why maintaining a good, healthy social circle is so beneficial: it provides us with a support system of like-minded individuals. Again, this is something women are phenomenal at, and men lack completely.
If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through.
I've also observed that tons of men are very afraid to live their life on their own. They feel the need to have a partner by their side every step of the way. They won't take time off and vacation alone, they won't go out and have a bite to eat alone, or basically explore life while single alone. All these things help you identify who you are, find what makes you happy, and give you stability to not solely lean on your partner as your entire source of happiness. If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through.
For whatever reason, tons of men just can't get this through their head, or perhaps they allow their partners to control certain aspects of their lives. Again, as a man, you have to be able to put your foot down and set standards and boundaries for yourself.
Men, after all, deserve happiness, dignity, and the empowering feeling of independence and self-actualization.
Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and
U.S. Air Force veteran.
Southern Italy and Amoral Familism
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Last week, I wrote the following article for RealClear Books & Culture:
It's a provocative title, for sure, but I doubt many southern Italians would disagree with the thesis.
In a nutshell: Americans are increasingly distrusting, not only of our institutions, but of each other, and societies that are typified by distrust - there is no better example than southern Italy - are stunted by the constraints of their own ethos. If America continues to abandon its Tocquevillian tradition, it will begin to look and feel more like southern Italy, and that's not a good thing.
From the article:
In our semiquincentennial year, Americans must look to southern Italy as a blueprint for what not to do. That is not to say that southern Italy is not breathtakingly beautiful (just Google images of Roccella Ionica, where my father was born), or that its inhabitants aren’t a good and decent people. It is to say, however, that their lack of institutional and neighborly trust, if adopted here, would further erode our country’s civic fabric.
Give it a read, and let me know what you think.
P.S. My friend, Madison, whom I met through her online series, Can it Third Place?, interviewed me for her Substack. You can read that here.
Credit for above image: Kaye, George Frederick, 1914-2004. Italian peasant women cook on open fires while transport passes on 5th Army Front, southern Italy, World War II - Photograph taken by George Kaye. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-05233-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22754865
Why Cultural Difference Matters
"Culture counts," writes Samuel Huntington in his widely-cited work, The Clash of Civilizations, "and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people."
This is indisputable. Our culture, whatever it might be, gives us a sense of greater belonging. Without it, we are nothing but a hodgepodge of free-floating, tetherless individuals.
Thus, when disparate cultures encounter each other, there is often tension and conflict. And tension and conflict do not create fertile soil for civil society.
In the U.S. and in Europe, unprecedented levels of non-Western immigration have fundamentally changed the cultural character and identity of Western countries.
In Governing, Alan Ehrenhalt highlights this phenomenon:
There's no doubt that places affected by heavy in-migration are losing a civic culture that once was their leading source of pride. Old-timers walk down their town’s Main Street and hear conversations in languages they can’t understand. They are exposed to culinary customs they had never experienced before and confronted with foods that taste strange to them. There are new and unfamiliar religious practices. All of this is unsettling, to say the least, and for some long-time residents, a source of profound anxiety.
That isn't to say, of course, that there aren't profound benefits to cultural mixing.
I was recently watching Concert for George, the live tribute to George Harrison from 2002. As a kid, I always loved the rendition of Harrison's The Inner Light, featuring Jeff Lynne of ELO on guitar and vocals, Anoushka Shankar on the sitar, and a traditional Indian ensemble behind them.
I would describe that as a remarkably successful encounter between the East and West. If you haven't already experienced it, you're missing out.
Not all inter-cultural encounters, however, result in something beautiful. In fact, most don't.
The reason for this is actually pretty simple: culture - which is defined by a people's norms, behaviors, traditions, and so on - vary from place to place. The West and non-West present us with two very different outlooks on life.
For instance, Huntington writes that "both Westerners and non-Westerners point to individualism as the central distinguishing mark of the West." Few will actually debate this. "For East Asians," Huntington continues, "success is particularly the result of the East Asian cultural stress on the collectivity rather than the individual."
Such different temperaments, which are so deeply rooted, make coexistence difficult, if not nearly impossible.
Some in academia have landed themselves in hot water for making such assertions.
In a December 2021 interview with the great Glenn Loury, University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Amy Wax asked the following about Asian students in academia: "Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?"
Wax was underlining the cultural difference between Westerners, who have a long tradition of maximizing liberty and individual autonomy, and non-Westerners, who are much more deferential and collectivistic.
In response to the interview, Theodore Ruger, then the dean of UPenn's law school, called Wax's remarks "xenophobic and white supremacist."
Wax, it should be noted, is Jewish and thus will probably not be welcomed at many so-called "white supremacist" meet-ups.
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| Amy Wax on The Glenn Show |
And YouTuber Nick Shirley, who in December of 2025 shed light on the rampant Somali fraud in Minnesota, hasn't had an easy go of it either. Shirley, who made no racial claims, showed viewers what a non-Western takeover of a great American state looks like. In the video, the Somalis of Minnesota are referred to, by himself and locals, as "close knit." That is, they are insular, hostile to outsiders, and unwilling to assimilate to their host country.
Shirley, in response to the video - which, to date, has accrued nearly 4 million views on YouTube and likely led to Governor Tim Walz suspending his reelection bid - was called a white supremacist and accused of creating "political propaganda."
The point: cultural difference is real, and calling it out is real dangerous.
To be clear, both Western and non-Western temperaments have their strengths and weaknesses. This is not a battle of the cultures. That's not something I care to engage in. The bottom-line, though, is that making the distinction and articulating the drawbacks of multiculturalism shouldn't be taboo.
Censorship on Reddit
Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech.
Over the past few years, we've witnessed the rise of censorship and partisan bias on social media. One of the most authoritarian of these platforms, that makes it their mission to censor any opposing views, is Reddit. Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech. I typically only use Reddit for advice from others on vehicle and mechanical information, or I'll look into things such as film and classic movies. Nevertheless, Reddit, which is driven by rage bait and partisan hostility, never ceases to recommend me hot-button political content, even if I never searched for it myself.
Anyone who uses Reddit or social media in general knows that all of these platforms are generally Left-leaning. They label most content by "Right-wingers" as misinformation, propaganda, or just completely fake. Reddit, more than any other site I've encountered, has taken this to a completely new level. If you're unfamiliar with Reddit, every category is a "subreddit." For example, Chevrolet is a subreddit (r/Chevrolet), Ford is a subreddit (r/Ford), personal finance is a subreddit (r/personalfinance), and many, many more categories of essentially anything you can think of. To further explain, each of these subreddits has a group of "moderators" who ensure that all the "rules" of the page are being followed. These are people who either created the page, were invited by existing members to moderate, or have applied through "mod recruitment" posts.
These groups of mods are essentially the police on these subreddits. Some are more laid back than others, but others can take it to a whole new level, especially when it comes to the political subreddits. Buzzwords like Nazi, racist, and bigot fly so freely on Reddit that they have essentially lost their meaning now. Anyone leaning more to the Right is immediately labeled any one of the terms mentioned. This is a blatant effort to censor, silence, and discredit conservative voices on the platform. The problem for Reddit's thought police is that they've overused those words so much they've been trivialized completely. I recently posted about having nationalistic views about America and how we should close our borders, help our own, and lift ourselves up rather than worry about the rest of the world's problems. Want to know what happened? Tons of people called me a Nazi-sympathizer, Hitler-sympathizer, and a racist. You're no longer allowed to apply common sense without being called names. You MUST bend your will to these people, or they will do their best to destroy you as we have seen with the attempted assassination on the President and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak.
With one simple search on Reddit's site, you can plainly see how any comments with Right-leaning bias are uniformly downvoted and the users themselves are attacked. In addition to this, the other users with opposing views will report you, which then notifies the mods and they then "silence" you. This can result in a temporary ban that lasts just a few days, or what's known as a "perma-ban," preventing you from engaging with the entire social media platform. The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak.
There was recently a video posted on Reddit of the Black Panthers of Philadelphia essentially threatening to kill ICE officers and any federal officers doing their best to enforce the rule of law. The video has since been removed. They were carrying rifles and shotguns in the streets of Philadelphia which, at the end of the day, is their 2A right that I feel very strongly about. But you can't threaten to kill federal officers or an officer enforcing the law. This video was posted in the subreddit "R/videosthatgohard" page. I posted a comment on this video stating that these are real threats and should be treated as such. The same group that hates the 2A and Republicans exercising it is now on the side of the Black Panthers openly talking about killing federal agents. My comment was removed from the page and cited for "harassment," and I was banned from interacting with the page for 4 days. Harassment for pointing out these threats should be taken seriously. But guess what, I'm on the wrong side of the political spectrum on Reddit, so what do they do? Silence me. We all remember when the Biden administration was sending FBI to the homes of people who were posting opposing views to the administration themselves. The videos were all over social media. It's okay to weaponize the government and enforcement agencies so long as it benefits the Left. If it happens on the Right, we see massive protests, riots, civil unrest, and so forth.
If that was enough to trigger a visit from police to these individuals' homes, shouldn't threatening federal officers' lives be cause for something, too? Nonetheless carrying guns with intent to harm officers enforcing the law? Sounds like major hypocrisy to me because, if I remember correctly, just a few years ago the Left was so against Republicans having guns due to the "insurrection" on January 6th, yet they continue to protest, burn down cities, and threaten to literally start a civil war. If it were up to me, free speech would be free speech and therefore should be protected, and law enforcement should have zero involvement until a crime is committed. Although, this all started with the Biden administration targeting Republicans and calling them "domestic terrorists." So, we must apply the same logic and rules to the other side.
Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and
U.S. Air Force veteran.
Making Friends in an Era of Isolation
Making friends is easy on paper, but often difficult in practice.
In Front Porch Republic, a publication that I urge all Frank Forum readers to check out, Dixie Dillon Lane penned a thoughtful piece on her trials and tribulations with making friends, particularly after becoming a mother.
"There’s only so much friendship-making you can do while both the adults in question are sleep deprived and the conversation is frequently interrupted by toddlers," she writes.
Forging friendships in a social vacuum with all else being equal is one thing, but reality is full of externalities (both good and bad) and encumberments that make socialization time-consuming and inconvenient.
Sometimes it seems like there just aren't enough hours in the day. We have jobs to work, families to tend to, and myriad other social obligations to fulfill. But friendship-making? For many of us, that ranks low on the priority list, and thus is frequently jettisoned from our daily objectives.
To forgo friendship-making, though, is a grave mistake. Friends are - or at least ought to be - constants in our lives. They keep us honest, make us laugh, and help guide us through hardship. They are indispensable soldiers in our social infantry.
Many of us, though, are consumed by work and are without many meaningful friendships. What, though, can be done?
Lane offers some good tips and tricks.
This one if obvious, but frequently overlooked: tapping into dormant, or rather, not-fully-realized relationships. These are friendships that you already have, but that need some cultivating.
Lane writes:
In the past several months, for example, a friend whom I’ve always valued but whose life has been somewhat different than mine has become my weekly walking partner, and through this we have discovered that we are truly kindred spirits in many deeply meaningful ways.
NYU Langone neurologist Joel Salinas, in an interview for the Washington Post, has called this "preserving what you have."
This is a light-lift and can be sparked by a text message.
Among Lane's other suggestions is to attend more live events and conferences:
Jetting off to a conference—much less a week-and-a-half in Spain—seemed extremely far from possible to me until my wise and confident spouse practically pushed me into it. I thought I should 'build community' by trying yet again to run another playgroup or host another big party or offer to watch other people’s kids; but those things didn’t work very well. Instead, life invited me to far-flung places and new professional roles. I’m very glad I finally started to listen.
This is advice I need to listen to more myself. I love to stay inside and read and play guitar. Going out can be a schlep. Not to mention the social battery it requires. It's so much easier to be safe and comfortable. Too much loafing in one's safe space, however, isn't healthy. Exposure to social environments - uncomfortable as they may be - is a necessary exercise. It develops your social muscles, keeps your mind sharp, and introduces you to new people, who might just become new friends.
This all, however, requires work and openness.
Again, you can read Lane's full article for FPR here. Take her advice.
Can Father Even Know Best Anymore?
The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright.
"I tried hard to have a father but instead, I had a dad." - Kurt Cobain lyrics from "Serve the Servants" on Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero.
I've always taken this lyric to be a line about Kurt Cobain's contentious relationship with his dad. Like so many in Gen X, Cobain was a child of divorced parents. His cohort was the first to experience the consequences of the liberalization of family law in the 1960s and 1970s. This line has long had me thinking about the genuine differences between being a father and being a dad. And, aside from mere preference and semantics, I think there is a difference.
The Cool Dad vs. Fatherhood
Around the time elder-Millennials were little kids, all of the cultural and family programming in our society moved from the fatherhood example best displayed in the classic TV shows, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, and The Andy Griffith Show, to shows that cast the father as incompetent and foolish at worst, and trying hard to be young, cool, and relatable at best.
Beyond that, it became cool to mock the prior model as well as the decade it was most associated with: the 1950s. Now, I have long been a defender of the 1950s and written about that often, but I haven't focused in on what has long been in my head.
Civilization needs strong fathers again. Not dads. We need moral lessons, wholesomeness, and fathers more interested in preparing their children for the world than being their best friend.
A dad that is your friend, he may spend time with you, he may even coach your little league team, and there is something to be said about this model, but two straight generations of "cool dads" are not cutting it. The Millennials have been slow to grow up and now Gen Z (predominately the children raised by Gen X) is.
What are we returning to, and why should we return to it? We're returning to father knows best. Why? Because society needs it and today's social and family statistics will tell us that new parents are older and older anyway, making the "cool dad" model more obsolete, and possibly ridiculous.
While on pro-natalist and national renewal grounds we should be very concerned about declining birth rates, there are some silver linings to older parentage. We have seen this before.
Older Greatest Generation Parents
There are only two ways to mature in life: packing in the years gradually, or packing in the experiences into a small number of years. The Greatest Generation had both of these features. Coming of age during the Great Depression and a World War, the generation both had to grow up fast and because of what was going on in the world delayed forming families, especially relative to the era.
Many returning GIs were well into their 30s before they became parents. My grandfathers, for instance, both WWII veterans, had seven children in their 30s and 40s between them. They had the life experiences and the necessary perspective that each generation since simply doesn't have. Not even close.
Younger Boomer Parents
A critique of what in my view is clearly the greatest generation may be, well... they raised the Boomers. How good of parents could they have possibly been? One, Boomers were set up incredibly well by their parents both from a familial perspective and a societal one. While the 1960s opened up considerable cultural rifts between who would be the elder-Boomers and their GI generation parents and elders, it is hard to find a Boomer that would have a critical word to say about this generation. Two, Boomers were the first generation to be mass marketed as a generation at all. In both childhood terms, and mass marketing terms. While their slightly older Silents were the beginnings of youth culture, Boomers got it fully and then began driving the culture and writing all of the narratives that are still with us today.
Boomers were also able to get married and have children in their 20s in ways their parents, and now their children, were not able to. It set them up for a long retirement, or at least a long post-raising their children period that has driven spending in the economy for quite some time, especially in housing. For instance, the median home buyer is 59 years old. Twenty years ago, it was 39. The same generational cohort (the youngest Boomers and elder Gen X) has basically been buying American homes for the near-entirety of the 21st century now. Housing sets the stage for so much second- and third-order decisions and spending too. If you have a house in the suburbs or a small town, you're going to buy more cars, and so forth.
Older Millennial Parents
While the Millennials flooded into the cities after college, chasing enough income to get their slice of the American dream, many have crashed into a wall of political turmoil and division, the college degree as an over-inflated and overrated status, and the incredible fatigue of being old enough to remember an America that was normal and having a childhood of expectations, but too young to really reap the rewards of a post-war, pre-9/11 America. But these days, Millennials are splitting from what this culture had pegged them as.
Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have.
Gone is the progressive archetype of the college-educated Millennials of a diversifying and "fundamentally transformed" America. Millennial voting patterns are not surprisingly following along the lifespan of their Boomer parents (started more liberal, becoming more conservative with age, and we'll see about the rest). In the last decade, the marriage and family gap in partisan voting habits has been driven by realigning Millennials getting married, taking on starter home mortgages, and having children. And for the married men with children, now a +20% Republican voting constituency, fatherhood, as opposed to being a dad or a cool dad, is taking on additional weight. Taking on the appropriate weight. Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have.
57% of Millennial dads say that fatherhood is a core aspect of identity. This is a good thing. Millennial dads also spend three times as much time with their kids as the previous generation. This is also a good thing. Although the quality of that time and the imparting of moral and practical education will be more important than the quantity.
It is very important that Gen Z follows this father knows best era, with preferably one more kid than millennials are having.
We can turn this whole thing around, and it will start at home, where all true peace and prosperity comes from. And, not everyone is going to be Ward and June Cleaver. That's not a reasonable expectation, especially if you know the radical opposite. But we can all pick up the slack a bit, and if we do, I think the country will be alright in the long run.
If this sounds like white pill optimism, well of course it is. But that lesson is a lot more constructive and productive than the man-o-sphere (who are almost always childless). If you're not a father today, I don't care to hear about your views on masculinity. The only exception I'll make to that rule is if you're a veteran.
The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright.
The country needs more dads in homes, even the cool dad is preferable to no male role model at all. And family law reforms and balancing could speed this one along quite a bit. If we have more dads in homes, we'll end up alright.
The country needs more strong fathers as role models, who are focused on imparting moral lessons and passing on heritage and the received wisdom from ancestors. And strong father role models understand that the head of this model is faith in God, the marriage itself, and then the children. And the kids will be alright if father knows best again.
Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson
New York Needs Another Ambassador to Loneliness
In November of 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed talk show host and former sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer as the nation's first-ever Ambassador to Loneliness.
I expressed my skepticism about the move in a November 9, 2023 post for this blog titled, New York's New Ambassador to Loneliness Is Who?
From the post:
At just 95 years young, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, an erstwhile sex therapist and talk show personality, has been appointed "ambassador to loneliness" by New York Governor, Kathy Hochul.I know what you're thinking: surely this must be an Onion headline, or perhaps something from Babylon Bee. But no, this is actually happening.So, will Westheimer, who told the New York Times last summer that she will "still talk about orgasms", be the person to cure our current societal malady of social disengagement and loneliness? Well, according to Governor Hochul, this is "just what the doctor ordered". What a joke...
In retrospect, I think I was far too pessimistic. While an honorary appointment was never going to be a panacea for tackling the loneliness epidemic head-on, the more people we have talking about this issue, the better.
What's more, I lambasted the move as yet another instance of the government taking what should be a bottom-up issue and thrusting onto us top-down policy solutions. But, you know what, I'm no longer all that opposed to top-down solutions. The loneliness epidemic is quickly turning into a loneliness pandemic, spanning the Western world. Therefore, it might just be kitchen sink time.
Dr. Ruth, though, didn't have much time to accomplish anything. She passed away on July 12, 2024, just months after her appointment.
Sadly, Dr. Ruth's passing didn't get much media attention, as the first assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, PA happened the following day.
Now, in 2026, New York still doesn't have an Ambassador to Loneliness. Upon further reflection, I think Governor Hochul might have been onto something. She, or whomever succeeds her, ought to appoint another one. Even if it's just an honorary position, it couldn't hurt. The Ambassador could be a prescriptive force, aiding New Yorkers with tips for ameliorating loneliness and fostering social connection.
In other news, it's worth noting - since no one else seems to be saying anything - that the nation still doesn't have a Surgeon General. Dr. Vivek Murthy, who served under the Biden administration, was the country's last leading doctor. January 20, 2026 will mark one year without a Surgeon General.
I've written about that, too, in an August 4, 2025 post titled, Laura Loomer's Idiotic War on the Office of the Surgeon General
From my post:
Surgeon generals, through their advisory reports, launch, what the late-Amitai Etzioni called, "national dialogues," or "megalogues." These are community- and country-wide conversations that, if executed correctly, can "lead to significant changes in core values."Case in point: it wasn't until Dr. Vivek Murthy's 2023 report, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, that we began to take the loneliness epidemic seriously.
The country needs leaders who will keep this issue top-of-mind and offer some much-needed prescription.
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