The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | How Do Conservatives Connect With Black Voters Who Distrust Them? Star Parker Has the Answer

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, says more conservatives can learn how to reach the nation's black community, which so often views the Right with suspicion. She sat down with The Daily Signal Podcast at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention and discussed her decades of work on welfare reform, her efforts to help inner cities during the Trump administration, and why the Right needs to fight the environmental, social, and governance movement, or ESG.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, June 5th. I'm Tyler O'Neill. I sat down with Star Parker, the founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. And we discussed the state of Black America today and the opportunities that conservatives have to reach out to black voters who often distrust them automatically. So we sat down at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. and Starr is herself actually a member of the board of NRB. So here's our discussion. Listen to it right after this.

Want the inside scoop on what's happening here at the Heritage Foundation? Check out Herd at Heritage and all new show replacing the Heritage Events podcast. It'll feature cutting-edge analysis and thought from leading experts in and across the conservative movement. And of course, the Heritage Foundation's premier events and programming brought straight to you. Check it out at heritage.org. podcasts. This is Tyler O'Neill. I'm managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm joined by Star Parker, founder of the Center for Urban Education and Renewal and a syndicated columnist who frequently writes for us. It's an honor to have you here, Star. Thank you. It's an honor to be with you.

And I'm so glad that Heritage Through the Daily Signal runs my nationally syndicated column. This is just incredible place to get our insights out. And I just enjoy every time I see it there. Thank you. Well, I want to just go talk immediately about Cure and your work there in pushing for education and renewal in urban communities and kind of responding to a lot of the negative ideas that are out there promoting the welfare state and other issues like that. Well, you know, the reason I founded Cure and began this work that's now in Washington, D.C., working with the political class, in particular the conservatives to remove all barriers over poverty. We want the government out of charity. I mean, all of it, HUD, HHS, labor, all of these areas to where we see the weaponization of race, focused by the left, and then entrapping people into poverty through this great society

that was developed in the 60s. The reason that I'm in this work to dismantle is because I had believed all those lies of them. the left. I understand deep down inside why they built the welfare state and what they intend to do with it, to paganize and build a totalitarian country out of America. I believe their lies. I got caught

up in this rhetoric we're hearing today that America's racist so don't mainstream. I got caught up in this rhetoric that you're poor because others are wealthy. I got caught up in this rhetoric that now we're promoting even with the Palestinians to say that you know, your problems are somebody

else's fault. You don't have to think about these things. We have built out a great society that you can live in and enjoy. And I did live there for a while. I got caught up in a lot of criminal activity and drug activity and sexual activity that landed me in and out of abortion clinic after clinic and then end up on welfare. I got caught up in the smoke of the fires after the 60s rioting and all these other areas that we're still seeing today. But I also, at a certain point, got born again, I accepted the Lord as my Savior, and turned my life around. So I know the value of God over government. And when I was then invited to work on federal welfare reform after the 92 Los Angeles riots, during the Los Angeles riots, Rodney King riots, same thing happened then.

That's happening now, that every time somebody's upset, you have these demagogues and these race hustlers out there that are increasing the volume and the tensions for those that are most vulnerable and just cannot figure out for their own selves what is really going on, the next thing you know the city is a fire. And that's what happened during the King. But during Rodney King, so during Rodney King, though, I began to speak out.

I had not only gotten born again, got a college degree and started a business and it was running successfully in L.A., I then started speaking out about what was really broken because I had lived that welfare lie. And it made national news. My hero Rush Limbaugh caught it, did a report on it.

Next thing I know I'm hearing from Jeb Bush, who had just become the governor of Florida and said, hey, I want to make some of these reforms. What would you think that I should be thinking about? Then Pat Buchanan, I mean, the whole world at that time during the 90s, as the GOP was preparing for welfare reform, were calling and contacting me because I mentioned my story, what I just told you. And in that, not only was I invited to participate in messaging out on general welfare reform, I was actually invited to speak at the National Welfare Reform. I was actually invited to speak at the National Convention because we were successful. It was number eight on the contract with America and I got to check the box in front of the country. But what happened during all of that discussion, a lot of the rhetoric and tension that we're hearing today, you know, well, what should we do?

And even from good people, they're saying, okay, what do you do when somebody, everything in their life is busted? You know, Cure during the 2020, so-called Summer of Love and the peaceful protest, we went directly into some of of our most distressed zip codes, including in Minneapolis, where this began, after George Floyd, with billboards, with beautiful black woman on one of them, beautiful black male on another one that said, tired of poverty, are you really tired of poverty? Now, these neighborhoods, everything's broken. Their schools are broken, their families are broken, their communities broken, everything is run by government, so there's just nothing there for them to get another

message. So we had to do go billboard route. So we put up under billboard, are you tired of poverty? then finish school, take any job, get married, save and invest, give back to your community. We put a little success sequence address on it because that's what we all know as the success sequence, and then we put a little proverb on it, proverb 410. Do you know BLM demanded that Clear Channel tear those boards down, bring those boards, they told them, bring them down or we'll burn them down.

So they took the only little messaging that this community could have. So anyway, I divert because now we're coming through welfare reform. And after we were able to finish that beautiful opportunity, and we're all patting ourselves on the back where you're too young, remember all this time, under the leadership of Newt Gingrich. I've read about it. You got to read about it. But what we noticed also is that, you know, the women were taking the jobs.

We thought they had capacity. We knew that they could do it and get out there and work, and they did, and they were being very successful. In fact, I heard from one lady, she said, you know, I used to hate you when you were all over TV talking about why you were going to change our welfare, but you should see the way my little boy looks at me now when I get up and put on my little uniform.

I mean, I heard from all the best, but anyway. But what I also knew is we didn't reach down into the communities like where just in 2020 we did our billboards. That still was a reality. In 96, when we did all this, it's still a reality today. So during that time, that's why I started cure. I said, you know, we just told five million women, nine million children at that time, that we had trapped in 4,000 housing projects across the country what they should not do.

We told them they should not just sit on their talent, on their gift, on their purpose. They should start investing in their own lives. We're going to put time limits on you and we're going to put work requirements on you. But how do they get into the success sequence? So that's why I started Cure, to work with the clergy that are serving in those communities, the clergy on the right, not the clergy that we hear from, everybody has a Reverend Hunter their name that's out there telling people how horrible the country is. But there's a clergy on the right.

We looked at a lot of the data that was coming out of Barna and Pew and Gallup and saw that there is a center right in Black America, maybe 6,000 churches out there to where the pastors have a biblical worldview, and they represent about 10 million African Americans who've been telling posters for years. We're evangelicals. We're conservatives. But they didn't vote that way. So we went to start rounding up their pastors. They're socially conservative.

They really believe the gospel. They believe the gospel. But they're trying to sort through. They don't trust the Republican Party. They didn't trust the Republican Party. I don't even know that they trusted the messaging of capitalism. And when they think about economics, and most voters vote their economic values, not their religious values. So we knew that they needed education.

So I decided I'm going to round them up and find out who they are and build out an educational program for the clergy so that the good guys can get their work done. Congress and add more good guys because once the lights come on with these clergy, then they would send more good guys instead of 100 progressives and a black caucus that's trying to destroy their community and keep us all out of Florida. Well, you also worked with the White House Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives under the Trump administration. Could you speak a little bit about that work and about that administration in particular in the turbulent years we've seen since?

Well, that was incredible opportunity because, as you know, well, for a forum and Heritage took a major lead in welfare reform and this was an incredible opportunity then moving into the when Bush came to town because this is after Bill Clinton and the Bush came to town. The work was continuing

but Bush brought a faith-based initiative with the work which meant that now you're going to put the churches on welfare as you would moving the women on. So the thing totally collapsed but what didn't collapse was an interest to still work with those that were most broken and vulnerable in our society. You fast forward

now, and I'm skipping over a lot of folks, and I know that, you know, I hope that they are not. In fact, I think, no, after Bush, we didn't have the White House. So now we're going into the Trump administration, and he made a declaration during his campaign that he was going to fix our inner cities. And then he asked black people, well, what do you have to lose? Now, they didn't majority vote for him. In fact, at that point, he got about 8, 9% of black, African-American American vote. But he kept with that commitment to fix the inner cities. He said he wanted to do it. And so he retired Geron, oh, now this is, okay, John Smith, to lead that effort inside the White House. In the meantime, Senator Tim Scott was working on Opportunities on Initiative.

This is something conservatives remember from a long time ago because Jack Kemp tried to do similar activity to say, why don't we focus attention only on those broken zip codes? But Bush didn't want to even try to identify them, and Trump did. So what happened in this opportunity for me to be on that task force that Geron had developed to fix the inner cities, to focus time and attention for the Trump administration on the other cities, Tim Scott worked to get an opportunity zone initiative into the tax bill. And this initiative had a different focus than what Jack Kemp had because Jack Kemp was working with government. This one was working with the economic engine of our society, saying if you plant money in any of these zip codes, you can, get a capital gain relief. And so business love to get around taxes,

so we begin to see some momentum there. But it was a very exciting time. The challenge was that by the time Treasury came up with the rules, the business community was too through, and then the left had already labelled it out as gentification. They had already changed the meaning of the word gentification. If you look it up now, it just says white people trying to take black people's property.

So it kind of scared the black community to say, you're not coming in, I'm broken zip codes. But it's really funny because how Trump got even those zip codes, He asked every governor in the state, hey, I want to know what your broken zip codes are. Yeah, yeah. Guess how many governors said, no, not one. Not even the program. They all gave them the broken zip codes.

And so now that's how we know that there are 8,700. It seems like a lot. But when you look at all of our society, it's manageable. And it's manageable because now we just have pockets. Like, for instance, I was just in Ohio making a discussion about this and how they can fix their state. They're not even 400 in their whole state. so it's doable. It's like really, I mean, because, like, for instance, we talk all the time about Baltimore, and we talk all the time about Chicago. We talk all the time, oh, my God, yeah, but if you down,

get down into the weeds of it, you find out, no, it's not all of Chicago that's broken. It's just a few little zip codes. Baltimore's not all broken. People go there and say, wow, this is kind of beautiful. No, it's just a few little zip codes. So when we look at poverty and that way, yeah, it all is. Detroit. It would come back because they focus time and tension just on those few little zip codes. So that's what Cure does. We look for pastors. that are in those little zip codes and try to build the Nehemiah moment. Do you want to fix this? Everything is broken.

We're number one in everything ill in the country, and there's an insistence from the progressive left that we become the nemesis of this society. Is that what you really want? And if you don't want that, then help us build. Help us rebuild the three seeds that built this country. Christianity, those principles, virtues of capitalism, and the rule of law in the Constitution.

Yeah. So how can conservatives, you know, listen and say, speak with the black community more in a way that encourages trust, that rebuilds. Because what I cover a lot of like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the demonization of the right and conservatives in particular among many of the black communities and among many of the Democrats and liberals who are explicitly messaging to them, terrifying them about how every Republican has a clanhood, you know, in his closet. And that messaging is really hard to get around.

What advice do you have? Well, they can come around cure because that's specifically the role that we believe we play in the conservative movement. We only and exclusively and very focused look and address matters of culture, race, and poverty. So we do many policy summits in these zip codes. We do a national summit where we bring all of our pastors out to Washington, D.C., and they have two and I have days of, I don't want to call it, indoctrinationist education, and actually heritage sends over its policy experts. In fact, heritage policy experts come on my weekly show.

I have a weekly television show through Cure. It's called Cure America with Star Parker. So the more the conservative movement helps us, then the more that they're going to help get that message into that community. Not that there are not other things that they can do, but I can't think of anyone that has the same model that we do. And we work with not just your policy institute, all the information gatherers where we're kind of like preaching to the choir.

We're kind of like the evangelist to go into these zip codes with the messaging from, you know, Heritage's closet, if you will. We do do some of our own study that's more focused and specific to the issues of race and poverty. We just finished one called the weaponization of race and how it hurts America. And so we've been talking about that. We have an annual tome that goes against what the Urban League has done every year, the state of black America.

We even named it the state of black America and they sent us a state. cease and desist from their lawyers, big, a huge law firm in D.C., so I was like, you know what, we better, I'd rather than fight Goliath, let's just change the name. And I like the new name anyway, the state of black progress, because it's a lie that blacks are still stuck in the 60s. When you look at black progress, especially through the lens of what Israel is doing, now celebrated at 75th, I looked at the 75. When we look at the 75 years of blacks, we have been incredibly successful in this society. When you think about only one in five is poor right now. When you think about during the Trump administration after the tax bill, we not only saw

record low unemployment rates like everyone was talking about, we saw for the first time in the history of this country more black people making over $75,000 a year than making less than $25,000 a year. This was unprecedented. Never in one front page did it make except the Wall Street Journal, and it was below the fold. So we have many, many success stories. One of our bigger challenges, though, in the success stories and the state of black progress. As much of that employment is in government. We're building big government, whether it's teachers, correctional officers, post office, employee. If it's not city, it's county.

If it's not county, it's state. If it's not state, it's federal. And this is a real challenge to have that much power in government in one community of people who, all of the progressives that they send to Washington have rooted their ideas and their agenda in revenge. This won't work out for the country. And that's one of the things that we're trying to expose right now. Well, I think it hardens me to hear how much you're working with pastors, and I think of Tocqueville's Democracy in America discussing the importance of civil society, and it would be

amazing to see more of those jobs that are taken by government and where blacks are, thank God, succeeding to have more of a civil society focus. Is that a shift that we can see? I think the government workers have a different attitude. about life and the free market and private sector. So what we really need to see are more African Americans in the private sector and appreciating the benefits and the virtues of capitalism and a free market society. And the generation that Planned Parenthood has killed off,

those are the ones. 20 million blacks dead to abortion philosophies have just not worked for us. There were only 20 million African Americans alive during the civil rights error. So, you know, when you balance it between this, this is not good. you think about the four S's in life, everybody struggles, then you're sustained, then you're successful, then you're significant, but you can't kill off the significant generation. Those folks that have been killed through abortion would be the 40-year-olds today that would be moving the baton toward entrepreneurship and growth.

But, you know, innovation and other areas and investment, but we're getting that messaging out there and does need to be out there. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned DeTugville, because remember when he opened the democracy of America, he asked three fundamental. questions about America. He said, can you guys atone for what happened in your history? Is that a possibility? And I think that the answer is yes, if we deliberately look to do that, because there are challenges that have been concentrated in certain communities and the most vulnerable are hit by these promises of government that is unfulfilling, and they shouldn't

be doing that work in the first place. He also asked a question about, you know, this model. said, can you really blend altruism and ambition, you know, when we look at the market? And that's one of the reasons that I think libertarianism doesn't work well enough. When you take out the moral component of the altruism, then we get away from the discoveries that DeToglio wanted us to look to. And then remember the third one was, okay, so you got, you set out to build this city on a hill and you ended up in a republic, you know, where you have a, you know, you have this representative government. Is this going to work? And, you know, 200 years later, kind of worked, but we're in real crises right now trying to discover which we're at the fork in

the road. Are we going to be biblical and free or are we going to be secular and status? In fact, now pagan and status because they're not only expanding government and government's role in every American's life, but paganism has taken a hold in trying to replace, you know, God's influence in people's individual lives. So there are big challenges for the country as a whole, but I think that when we strengthen the weakest link, which has been trapped in these. failing communities for a long time, we'll see some real successes. And that's why, you know, I'm encouraged as you can hear by the role that cure plays in the bigger story and the bigger picture of pushing conservatism back into the discussion. When you repeat that Tockville question,

and I think it really gets at a heart of what a lot of, you know, a lot of white people these days, one of the reasons why critical race theory, and I know you're not specifically focused on that, but why this ideology is resonating is because I think a lot of white people feel deep down that we haven't reconciled fully with our past and that there are still, you know, those sins to atone for, and they're going for reparations, they're going in probably what you would say is exactly the wrong direction. But what is the right direction? How do you answer Tocqueville's question?

We remove the barriers of government. You know, it's really interesting. And when you said CRT, no, this is not a specific focus area because this is where school activity is. So it's more local discussion. It's a leaf on the tree. At Cure, we're looking at the root of the tree, and that root is in a firm of action policy.

Dr. King, if you look at his, I have a dream speech, and everyone points to, you know, his messaging about content of character versus the color of your skin. I believe that no Christians should put their skin color before Christ. When you look at that speech, though, it's in three parts, or their nation. It's in three parts. The first party speaks to the country. But he doesn't try to overturn the country.

He speaks to a country that he wants into, an appreciation for the role of African Americans in this society, a free society. He believed in the values of that society. He wanted repentance and revival. But what we moved into as a country was instead of just desegregation, there was just influence in the society. the left, the progressive left, the force integration. And when you move from desegregation, which is just remove barriers so we can be free, but now you're into this force integration mode, it corrupts our schools, it corrupts our colleges, it corrupts our corporations.

That then grew out of those affirmative action programs, all this multiculturalism. Next thing you know, you have multiculturalism and extra emphasis on race in every space. then we're in DEI. Well, diversity, equity, inclusion. You know, left is so clever. They love to play around with definition of words. Actually, the definitions are really innocent. I mean, you think about diversity, we all want diversity.

In fact, most of us now live in very diverse communities, and we have diverse friendships, and I'm not talking just ethnically. I'm talking about every area of our life, the things that we do together and play together and worship together in other areas. When you think about equity, equity is an economic term. This is not a divisive term.

Scripture, in fact, in Proverbs, the very first proverb he talks about, you know, you pursue this wisdom for justice, for equity. And then, of course, inclusion. You know, it is a lie that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. Sunday morning is the most integrated hour in the world. We just get to choose who we want to worship with and how. You know, I keep telling people, okay, if you just want this one, you know, kind of church, who's going to be in charge of music and the time clock? Because things differed, variety of churches that we have, and then what people are.

personally want in their lives. So we focus more on that DEI and that affirmative action error to say, let's remove these barriers because now DEI has not only led us to ESG because it's just a progressive pagan playground that we have now all this LGBT. It's all coming out of that moment in our history in the 60s where we got diverted from desegregating our society so men can live free to forced integrating our society to where it's just about division and and and and and and and demagogues have gotten and taken of course so it's a long answer to your short question where the answer is let's patiently pray and wait for the Supreme court

decisions on a firm of action and I believe what's going to happen is same thing that happened when they overturned row and we became in a dobbs world where activity now is in the states well once that activity is back in the states we will then be able to dismantle California we had taken our firm of action programs out a long time ago but nation we need a national decision at our union United States Supreme Court that this is inconsistent with freedom in the Constitution to segregate people into categories to progress them ahead of whatever they're trying to do in these affirmative action programs that have taken on lives of their own. That's the root of the tree. And what's fascinating is to see someone like Governor Ron DeSantis already doing that in his

state and other states now saying maybe we can do some things even though it's kind of a national law. Maybe it's even in anticipation that the Supreme Court is going to rule just within the next couple of weeks and we're going to see which way we're going to go. Are we going to live free men regardless of your ethnicity, regardless of your past, or are we going to live, you know, just totally governed by government to tell us who we need to associate with and when and why and how and we get to pick winners and losers? And then one more point I want to make because you mentioned the word reparations. There is a big difference between restitution and reparations. Restitution, if I err against,

against you. The Bible says, I might even have to pay you sevenfold. But that's you and me. This is not about group thing. This is about restitution. You repair and you do it in the moment. I've even had to say to some friends, sometimes you do it on behalf of others. I have a cousin who got really rude with a waitress one day and I had to, I apologize to the waitress because that was not necessary and an apology was in order and I did, you know, restore because I get an extra tip. But on reparations, we're talking about a generational error that landed us in a civil war. I think we paid, many paid the ultimate price. This was a rebirth, as Abraham Lincoln reminded us. This is a new opportunity. In the second inaugural address. In the second inaugural, everyone needs to

reread that. There are some sin that are so egregious. They're just so, flagrant, that there's nothing you can pay except to say I'm sorry. And to say this country didn't say they're sorry to God. Remember one of the things that was asked during that time, we got both sides here praying to God, well, who's, God are you on our side? Well, no, we don't know where God is going to come down when there's a big crime against humanity except on the side of his truth and his love. What we have to do as a society to reconcile ourselves around these pagan progressives who are now forcing us in discussions of reparations, what we have to do is say, we've already done that.

A lot of blood was shed. Sometimes you just say, I'm sorry, and you start over again. And we had that opportunity in that Civil War. And I'm just not going to be pulled into now trying to divide this country to say, who owes whom what? this is an impossibility for us to even want to do. How do you put a figure, whether it's $2 million, now I heard it's $5 million, now I heard it's, hey, I did the calculation in California

since my residency is still there to see, okay, they're saying if you lived here this long and you did all these things, their means test would have me get about $700,000. I'm like, oh, really, why are you even thinking that how do you put a figure on what my great-grandfather went through? there's just no way to repay.

All you can do is say, I'm sorry, and the others to say, I forgive you. This is a forgiving moment for us, and we allow ourselves to get there. I really think that we can push the pagan progressives back into the corner that they belong in. Well, it's inspiring to hear your answers to all these questions, and I look forward to hopefully working with you more in the future and hearing more from I like my column in your... Oh, we do. I know, I want more.

I want more. I like my column. I like my column everywhere. Is there anything else you'd like to add maybe about what you've been seeing here at NRB and where you see the country is headed? Oh, NRB has been fabulous. In fact, I'm on the board here. I'm also on the executive committee. So, you know, full disclosure that this is the biggest opportunity we've had to bring

communicators, Christian communicators from around the world. We have over 4,000 here. Owners of the radio stations, owners of the television stations, owners of the print, owners of the everything. I mean, your broadcasts. The whole enchilada when it comes to communicating with publics, when you have a society like ours where 100 million people still get them go to church on Sunday morning, these are the people that speak to their lives. And they're not necessarily political lives. Most of the people, people that of the evangelical world, they get up and go to church on Sunday morning and tell their

kids to behave all week and we're going to go to Bible study on Tuesday. Most of them are looking at their life in terms of eternity. Do they participate in electoral? Of course they do, because they understand the responsibility that comes with a free society, especially the way that the founders developed ours. President Garfield said, if you have corruption and recklessness and governance, because you tolerate it, we gave you elections. And all those are crime for term limits.

It's like, we gave you term limits. we gave you elections. And so it's a participating opportunity that we have here in America. I think we'd like to see more participation from the evangelical in the primaries, because this will then help us make sure that the candidates, especially on the conservative side of the aisle are conservative and have a good heart for what needs to be done towards freedom and freedom, limited roles of government and consistency with the founding of our country.

but we still have that opportunity. So this umbrella is those discussions, and there are a lot of discussions going on, including that Governor DeSantis spoke for, what, 40 minutes and couldn't even get through all of his sentences because they kept standing up, giving him major ovation. I mean, it's like, okay, the guy is, you know, a lot of people say, well, he's really stiff.

Well, he's a soldier. We could tell he's a soldier, you know, because he's very trained by our military. But Trump was also here. speaking and promoting. I'm getting there. Oh, I'm getting there too. Yeah, oh, no, I'm getting to the difference in the two.

So you got a soldier in one place where he is just in the audience and they're into everything that he's saying. And then you also have the media itself who are entertaining the other candidates, including President Trump. I don't think he came in person, but he was certainly here via video that people were hearing the messaging and the reminders even of what he did during his administration that are of value to this evangelical world. And there was such appreciation for what he did, including the court. This is the main place that people are very appreciative that are here at this particular

conference. This is an annual conference. So people that might think, well, it was a political. No, it was not political. This is annual, whether we're election season or not. This is, but other candidates were also speaking in because it's media. You have every voice of every one that touches into the evangelical Protestant world. here. So there were many a candidate's voices heard. It was really interesting, some that didn't come, but you're right, those two

major candidates spoke into this conference, and so going into the 2024 primary season is going to be electric, I believe, because you have such electricity on policy. And one of the appreciation I have, even though the media is coming after

both of these leaders and potential one will come out in the head of the primary. Who knows? I mean, I'm watching a good Kentucky Burr, Derby, you never know. One of other horses might come forward. And there are so exciting people in there. I've got great friends in this. Tim Scott just announced.

Amazing friend. And what he did for the Opportunity Zone Initiative and on tax reform, and what he did even to unify the country around some real tragedies like what had happened in South Carolina, where then Governor Nikki Haley brought down that flag. Let's forget all of what happened during that season

that Republicans were being demonized, but yet had real control and were moving forth some ideas amidst a very dark time in the way that the main media were addressing our issues. But what we have this time is a lot of opportunity because we have a lot of bright candidates is to get down into the weeds of policy and principles. And this is something I don't think that the left can compete with because they only want one, two things. paganism and progressivism, which is big government. So it's going to be nice. It's going to be, I was very surprised to see the outpouring of standing ovation and a love toward Governor DeSantis, even though he was very powerful on many of the issues that the folks

care about here, but also for those that are saying, but Donald Trump delivered, and we really appreciate that as well. Well, thank you so much for taking the time with me, Starr, and pray that the conference is great and the future is bright. And my conference coming up in October with Cure. Yeah, so if any of your audience wants to help us deliver that conference, we're hoping for that Monday night to actually have a presidential forum ourselves, not a debate, just a forum only and specifically on issues of culture, race, and poverty.

And that will be at the press club in Washington, D.C. So we're hoping that we'll be able to get that budget so that all of the candidates will get there so that we can ask them in a very quiet forum what their eyes. are given plenty of time to talk only on issues of culture, race, and poverty. And that's through cure, and people can find it through curepolicy.org. Okay, wonderful. Well, that was exactly what I was going to ask. Oh, yeah, curepolicy.org.

But that's one project that if anyone is hearing this and says, you know, I kind of like to help and help big on this one project. I think that we can really make the discussions and the case for conservatism in our society. It's really needed because, as you mentioned earlier, the Republicans have been so branded with terms of racism that it has metastasize. And it's going to be hard to ridden it out. Can you get healed from cancer out in the fourth stage? Yes, you can. But it's a lot easier at the first stage.

We didn't do it in the first stage. We lost our way when the 60s were having great debates and the candidate was Goldwater. So what we need to do is recover ground and get to the place where Ronald Reagan was able to build that country. into one idea, which is America, an American patronism, and you had anyone from any background of all ethnicities saying, we like him, and we want to heal our country. We need that moment again. Thank you for listening. That was Star Parker, founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. If you appreciated this podcast interview and the many interviews that we have brought to you

over the years, please feel free to leave a five-star rating. and review, we read all of your feedback. And be sure to check in here on this podcast this afternoon for our top news edition, where we bring you the top news of the day for your evening commute home right around 5 o'clock. So thank you. Have a great Monday. And we'll see you right here in this podcast feed for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Shrinco. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras.

Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.