The Daily Signal - Why Families Are Key to Saving America

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

There are special-interest groups dotting the landscape in Washington, D.C., for just about any cause you could imagine. They’ve been quite successful, too.  But as Terry Schilling, a husband and father of five kids, surveyed that landscape, he saw a void. That’s why his organization, the American Principles Project, has embarked on a new initiative called the Big Family. It promises to put the needs of families first.  "You've got Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Business," Schilling says. "There are so many bigs, but there's no big family. And that's why we chose the name, Big Family. We want the family to be the big guy in the room when it comes to public policy."  Schilling joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” for a wide-ranging discussion about family values, the threats facing parents and kids, and how the American Principles Project is taking action.  You can listen to the full show below—including our letters to the editor and weekly good news story—or read a lightly edited transcript at dailysignal.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Nothing else is Rees. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, July 19th. I'm Robert Louis. And I'm Doug Blair. Terry Schilling is the president of the American Principles Project, an organization dedicated to advocating for the most important institution in America, the family. Schilling joins the Daily Signal podcast to discuss his group's efforts to protect the family against the left's anti-family agenda. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a young man who spent a semester making a massive American flag mural for his local.

High School. Before we get to today's show, Rob and I really want to thank you for your support for the Daily Signal. Each day the Daily Signal brings you the news that you can trust on the most important policy debates facing our country. We cut through the liberal media spin and provide honest, thorough, and responsible reporting on today's most critical issues. But we can't do it without the help of Patriots like you. Consider a tax-deductible contribution to the Daily Signal and help us build conservative momentum this year and beyond. Just visitdailysignal.com With your help, we can build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. Now, stay tuned for today's show coming up next.

We are joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Terry Schilling. He's the president of the American Principles Project. Terry, thanks for joining us in studio. Thanks for having me, Rob. Well, you have just launched a big new initiative. It's called The Big Family. Can you talk to us about the need for this, which, as a father myself and a husband, I certainly see it? But for our listeners out there who are wondering, why does the family need representation here on our behalf?

What is it all about? Well, in D.C., every group has a special interest arm. You know, you've got big pharma, big tech, big oil, big business. There's so many bigs, but there's no big family. And that's why we chose the name big family is we want the family to be the big guy in the room when it comes to public policy. We want politicians when they're passing a bill to consider how this is going to affect families first. We don't want them to think about how it's going to affect big pharma or big oil or any of those other special interest groups first. We want them to put the family first.

And we wanted a political organization that rivaled the NRA. You know, the NRA organizes gun owners in politics to protect the Second Amendment. But there's no one organizing families and parents in politics to fix our kids' schools or fix their education, get critical racier out of there. politicians respond to one thing and one thing only. They're re-elections. If they think something's going to hurt them, they're not going to do it. And if they think someone's going to help them, they're going to do everything they can to get it done. And that's the goal here is we want a formidable foe and a dependable ally that is advancing family policy with thousands of members across the country that are holding politicians accountable.

Now, when you announce this initiative, you outlined several challenges that families face on a day. to day basis or more largely just the trends that we've been seeing in our country. Can you outline some of those for our listeners? Well, the first big problem that we have as a country is that people aren't getting married anymore like they used to. They're pushing marriage off until their late 30s. They're going to school longer. And even when they do get married, they're not having kids like they used to.

Those two problems themselves are a death spiral for America. If we don't get people getting married and having kids again, we're not going to have taxpayers. We're not going to have workers to provide some. services and goods and tax dollars to pay for all of our retirements. So it's a very important thing. So that's, you know, you look at kids today. They graduate college. They have tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt. They find someone at college who also has tens of thousands of thousand dollars. They have a mortgage of student loan debt. They can't afford a home. They can't

afford kids. And we want to make it easier to get married, have babies, and protect your kids in school. So, you know, you've got the problem with the marriage rates and the birth rates. But really the most pressing thing right now is saving the kids that we currently have from all of this indoctrination that's going on in schools. And it's not, I know critical race theory is hot right now, and it is a huge threat, but it's not just critical race theory. It's the, it's the sex ed stuff. It's the transgender stuff. Like these schools are corrupting our kids and turning them against their parents. They're trying to, the schools are trying to insert themselves as the real truth tellers. the real authorities when it comes to what's right and wrong.

And it's a direct attack on the family. So we've got to start getting families involved, not just at the federal level, but at the local level, too. And that's another big problem we're going to solve. Well, let's talk about that. And I'd add to that, it's all those issues that you mentioned as a father of three, including two who are currently in school. I see it firsthand.

What I also see that is disturbing and I'm worried about is this move away from some of the teaching of civics and classic. education and these radical new ideas that they're trying to impart just in terms of math or English and all of the subjects that we experience in schools. But what can parents do about it? What advice do you have for them if they're listening right now and say, geez, I'm frustrated as well. How can I make a difference in my own community?

I ask parents when I talk to them when they come to me with concerns. First question I ask is, who is your school board member? They hardly ever know. and that's not necessarily on them. I mean, obviously they have the responsibility, no. But we have a system with our school boards and the elections around school boards that's meant to keep people from voting. You know, school board elections are usually held in the spring, early spring. They're not held when every other election is held.

It's meant to protect their interests. And what's happened is the school boards are now picked and chosen by the teachers unions. A school board is designed for parents and for the community to hold schools accountable, hold teachers accountable. But with the teachers unions basically buying off all of these school boards, those corrupt school systems are now protected from accountability and from parents. So, number one, find out who your school board member is. Find out when your next meeting is. Go to that meeting. But number three, vote.

Vote in your local election. And we're going to help out with that. This big family program. So we've had a lot of success in the first few days. We've had over 3,500 people sign up. I haven't even professionalized this yet with marketing. This is just going on shows like yours and talking to people. We've raised over $140,000, you know, all $100 and less.

And the thing is we're using that money. We're reinvesting it to this movement. And right now we're building a program where you will be able to plug in your address and find out when your next school board is what school board you're even in, who your representative is, and, you know, that's version one. And there's going to be other versions down the limit.

But the other thing is that you can give us your cell phone and we're going to send you a text message the week before your school board meeting and then the day of to make sure that you get. These school board meetings, four, five percent voter turnout in most cases. That's pathetic. That needs to change.

But that also is hopeful for us because we don't need to turn out 100 million voters. That's true. Right. We just need 60 in each of these races, you know, and we can really shift it. So we can totally do this. We just have to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. And we're going to make it easier for you to get the job done through this big family network.

Well, a quick follow up on that before we talk about some other issues. What are some of the ways that if somebody's listening, they can get involved and either sign up to support it or make a donation? So it's real easy. It's just www.savethefamly.ap. So we're American Princes Project and we're trying to save the family. It's really easy to remember. But sign up, you know, we're just asking people to chip in 25 bucks or more to help us grow this thing. Like we're not taking this money and putting in our back pocket.

We are reinvesting it into this movement. My dream is that we build this to a level that approaches the NRA size. You know, NRA has 5.5 million members. I'll be happy if I get 100,000. And we can do a lot of good with 100,000 members across the country. So I'm reinvesting every dollar I can into this. It's the most important fight of our lives. The family determines everything.

So, like, you know, if you want to get involved, you want to get engaged, you want to get these updates, you want to help us build this thing, which is really what we're trying to get people to do. Just go to savethefamily.APP, and we will put you to work. That's great. Thank you for doing it. We have had several people, whether it be Ian Rowe in New York or Hannah Smith in Texas who have run and won their races for school board. Just remarkable stories of individuals who weren't necessarily involved but decided as parents themselves that they would take action and take that step. So I think there's a lot of enthusiasm on that. And I hope that people will get involved and check it out.

You mentioned marriage earlier. I thought it was interesting. You launched this initiative around Father's Day. So many kids are growing up in homes today without fathers or with single parents leading the household. And it's difficult for kids. We know that if you look at things like the success sequence, you just don't have as great a chance to succeed in life if you don't have that situation. So for those who are out there, maybe in a marriage and struggling, why is it so important for a mom and a dad to be raising a family? So first of all, you know, everyone knows that kids are really difficult to raise.

Yes. That you need all the help you can get. And it's not, when it comes to raising kids, it's not quantity, although that doesn't hurt. It's really about quality. and when you think about how the family is set up, a mom and a dad, and it really just starts off as a girl and a boy, and they fall in love, and because of that love,

they pledge their lives of one another, they're willing to die for each other, and they're married now. And through that love, they create children, which is a really beautiful thing, right? Like, you could contemplate that for days or years even, like a love between a man and a woman,

and creates a new human being. A new human being that's going to change the world in an immeasurable ways. Like it's going to be someone's spouse, someone's best friend, someone's co-worker, someone's boss, someone, you know, it's going to change, that kid's going to change the world. But you, the most important thing is love. And that's why, you know, when you have single-parent households, like, first of all, single mothers, single dads, they are doing yeoman's work and no one should criticize them. You know, no one chooses to be a single mom or single dad.

They're in a situation that they can't help. They're heroes. They're trying to provide the love of both parents. But they're trying to do the work of two people. And it's not fair. And it comes out in the social studies, right? Like you look at all of the bad social outcomes. 76% of all teenage suicides are from fatherless homes without the dad in the present.

Like you can go on and on, like dropout rates. 72% of dropouts. no father in the home. There's actually, so out of the 27, and this is really grim, but out of the 27 last mass shootings in the country, 26 of them came from fatherless homes. That is, these kids are crying out. They are hurt.

They want their fathers. They want their mothers. They need their fathers. They need their mothers. And so it's just you can't replace the love of a father and a mother. And so I've got five kids. And do they destroy my house? Do they make my life more hectic?

Yes. But they're the best little monsters I could have ever asked for to enter my life. And, you know, they might not look like me, some of them, but they act like me, which is a bigger problem. So I don't know. I just think that there's something very special about this is where humanity begins, right, between a man and a woman, creating a new human life. And this is how it's always been. A new human being has never come about through any other way except for like the last 20 years when we invented all this fertility stuff. But it's just a natural course.

And it's a mystery for why a father's willing to die for his wife and children. It's a mystery and we can't explain it. Well, Terry, I totally agree with you about the joy that the kids bring not only to their parents but their grandparents and somebody around. I mean, they are just phenomenal. you talked about some of those statistics, and it brought to mind this concept, which since the left decided to get into social engineering and putting in place policies that, in some cases, discouraged family formation at the federal level. You go back to the 1960s in the Great Society. One of the things I so admire about the work you're doing is that you are doing it from a civil society perspective and really trying to encourage people at a level. side of government. So I just think it's important for us to remember that some of these policies

that the left champions aren't themselves pro-family. And I think a great example is that a Heritage Foundation President K. James, who talks about her own experience growing up in poverty and how she overcame that. So thank you for doing that. One related question to that, kids today have so much access to information with, you know, smartphones, with the Internet, and that allows them to access things that we, when we were kids, probably would have never come across. What are the steps parents should be taking to protect their kids? Well, first of all, you have to have filters. You have to have some type of protection.

My family, we use Circle. There's new technology coming out. I'm supposed to meet with a guy today about it. But they have technology that will actually block out the images. You know, this is the crazy thing. We have so much technology. We have technology that can recognize pornographic images or graphic explicit images and remove them from your website. There's no reason why any kids should get a smartphone without that technology enabled on it.

So number one, parents, you have to do your due diligence with this. But number two, you have to contact your representatives, not just at the federal level, at the state level too. These, especially Republicans. Democrats, I mean, they're kind of like a lost cause, although you should still let them know you want to protect you. your kids from porn online. But the thing is, Republicans, when you talk with them, they don't want to do anything on it. They don't want to talk about it. They'll tell you things. Like, we tried to pass a bill in Texas. We attached it to a broadband bill. It's a very simple amendment to that. And it said, you know, we're investing billions of dollars into broadband infrastructure. And we're

going to prioritize the internet service providers that have age verification and filters enabled. the Republican representatives killed that legislation because it's difficult to tell what pornography is and what it isn't. That's a garbage excuse. I mean, we do a really good job as a country of keeping explicit content off of the radio, off of television, off of cable even. I mean, I can't say the S word on cable or television. Like, this is nuts. We know what it is. We know what's explicit.

We know what kids shouldn't be watching. And I tell people this, you know, my 10-year-old daughter, my 15-year-old daughter, we're all Cubs fans. They can't go on to Draft Kings and place a $10 bet on the Cubs win the World Series next year. But they can go to a lot worse websites and get access to that. That's got to change. Everyone should be treated equally online. So you have to make your voices heard with your representatives. They don't hear from parents about this.

So it's not a priority. But once they start hearing from parents about it, they're going to take it more seriously. and we have to get it done. 1997, the Supreme Court, I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, they struck down the Communications Decency Act, which regulated explicit content online. And the Supreme Court struck that down with ACLU versus Reno. And they said that the Internet, you couldn't regulate pornography online

because the Internet was not as invasive as television or radio. You fast forward 24 years to the day, and it's the exact office. I don't know the last time I watched broadcast television, but I know I was watching TikTok last night with my wife. So we've got to update our internet. We've got to update our systems. We have to protect our kids because these videos, they're not your dad's playboy.

I mean, it's graphic, it's violent, it's deviant, it's disgusting. It introduces new terrible things that no one should know about. And they're using that to socially engineer your kids. You know, I read a study that, this is back in 2015, the average age of first exposure to pornography online was 11 years old. I mean, it's almost like child abuse to give your kids a smartphone. So, you know, make sure you have the filters. Make sure you have on-device filtering so you know what your kids are watching. But honestly, I wouldn't give your kid a smartphone until they're 16, until they get their car because they just can't handle it.

Well, you touched on a number of issues there. I want to take a step back from the Big Family Initiative. What are some of the other projects, the work you're doing at the American Principles Project? I know we've collaborated with you on a range of things. But I want our listeners to know that you're covering really a wide gamut of things from women's sports to big tech. Well, so our whole mission is to organize families in politics to save the country. And because of that, we've worked with you guys extensively on election. integrity. We have to make our elections free and fair. And if we don't, there's really no point in

trying to organize families and politics when the game's rigged. So that's been one of our chief concerns and priorities. Secondly, and this goes right back to the elections, is big tech reform. You know, big tech thinks that they're bigger than this country. They don't even have allegiance to America anymore. I mean, you're seeing corporation after corporation. Nike just a week ago said that they aren't an American company. They're a Chinese company for the Chinese. This is insane. They built everything here under our tax code with our workers. Like, it's crazy. So these big tech companies, though, they're censoring us. They're eliminating our ability to communicate political messages. And it's not just political messages. Like they're censoring information about

COVID-19 and treatments that work or don't work. All of it, is rooted in a pessimism in the American people. It truly is, Big Tech censorship is truly one of the most anti-American things of all time. Our founders set up a country where everyday people were in charge, where they told the leaders what to do. And Big Tech thinks that we're too dumb to be able to filter out bad information versus good information. I don't need Mark Zuckerberg and his team of faceless, nerdy bureaucrats, at Facebook telling me what information is right or wrong. I can figure that out myself, and so can the vast majority of Americans.

So the big tech censorship has been a major effort under our organization. And we were, you know, one of the first groups on that line, and it was very, very difficult because, look, I'm a free market guy. I don't want to regulate the free market. I want to regulate as little as possible, but this is an existential threat. And we're now working with a broad coalition, and there's a lot more politicians that are supporting it. And at the end of the day, that's a political question as well. They're eliminating our ability to communicate political messages and impact elections.

So that, you know, we can't organize families and politics. And Facebook censored our ads in Michigan. That's right. Well, let's talk about that for a moment because we have experienced censorship at the Daily Signal and the Heritage Foundation. In both cases, this was YouTube now, I'm talking about specifically, I had to do with the issue of transgender and one case of pediatrician advising parents and doctors not to give puberty blockers to young kids. I mean, to you and me, it's common sense. Right.

To these major tech companies, this is hate speech. And so in your cases, I remember the facts. It was these unnamed fact checkers in a sense working with the social media platforms who essentially said, you know what, Facebook, we're going to put a label on this and therefore restrict your ability to speak. Tell our listeners about that situation in Michigan. Well, first of all, we do know who they are. They are rabid, woke, progressive ideologues. Angie Holin is the chief editor of Politifact.

I appealed our case all the way up to her. Basically, we ran ads saying that because Joe Biden and Gary Peters support the Equality Act, which would allow for boys to compete in girls' sports simply by claiming to be a woman that it would destroy women's sports. Well, PolitiFact didn't like that. And really, what's really happening is with Facebook and the censorship is the partisan groups like human rights campaign and all the LGBT groups that partner with them, they then go find one of these fact checkers to shut the ad down.

Facebook has a really terrible system for shutting these ads down. You just have to get fat checked. Even if they come back and say it's mostly true, you still get your ad shut down because it's not 100% true. It's absolutely absurd. So they said that our ad, because we said that this would destroy women's sports, they said it was missing context. And when I asked them about that, they basically told me that I needed to include the alternative arguments from the left. That's not how campaign ads work. That's not how politics works.

It's called an argument. And I'm making an argument that this would destroy women's sports. And if they want to pay the money to produce their own ads, arguing against it. me? Well, then they have to do that. But basically, how this played out was Facebook not only subsidized the Joe Biden for president campaign, they subsidized the LGBT rights groups over me. Like, if the LGBT rights groups run a dishonest ad, which by the way, that's all their ads are. They're telling people that men can become women. That is a lie. And everyone knows it. But they would make me pay for ads to counter that. But they probably won't let me run those ads. And this is the problem with big

censorship is they're eliminating our ability to even oppose their egregious efforts. And Americans need to wake up. This particular issue on women's sports will come to a head at the Olympic Games. There is a transgender individual who's competing in one of the sports. Powerlifting. Powerlifting. Do you think that this is a moment where the American people will start to recognize, depending on what the outcomes are, that this is something. that they really do need to speak up, whether it be to their state legislature or school board, and they can't sit on the sidelines anymore. Well, you know, I've been really encouraged at all of the viral videos coming out from school board meetings.

You know, you have parents stepping up, you know, to speak up against critical race theory and the transgenderism stuff in schools. It's really encouraging. I mean, these parents are even, you know, in Loudoun County, a few of them were willing to be arrested, you know, to get their voices out there. So I am encouraged by all of that. I do think the American people, the American people are vastly with us, and I do see them starting to speak up. My hope is that, you know, this is an elite driven thing.

This is from the elites. This is from, you know, the people that run CNN, the New York Times, the universities. This transgender question is really being pushed on us by the elite, like the top 1% of Americans on the rest of us. The vast majority of Americans don't. When you tell someone, you know, a normal American, oh, well, this transgender woman wants to compete in women's sports, they're like, oh, well, let her compete. What's the problem? They don't realize that it's actually a transgendered male who thinks he's a girl. You know, it's just they crowd the language.

They confuse everyone. But I am very encouraged. You know, we're already seeing parents stand up. They need to do more. And they need to start unelecting people based on these issues. Let's talk. That's a good note to turn to some more political. questions. Number one, do you think Republicans, conservatives more broadly, are becoming more

comfortable talking about these social issues? I mean, for years, it seemed that political consultants told them to steer away from them. But now, I mean, poll after poll seems to indicate that, you know, leaning into them works in our favor. You know, it's the family stupid. It's the transgender toddler stupid. It's the drag queen's story hour stupid. You know, it's now becoming. mainstream in the Republican Party to oppose all of this craziness. And it's not just the, I mean, I don't even know of critical race theory counts as a social issue.

I guess since it's racial, racially based that it would count as a social issue. But yeah, parents and voters have always, voters have always been willing to speak up about these issues. But their leaders have been inept and have failed to deliver on really any promises. You know, and I think that's why the base embraced Trump so quickly because he just immediately started delivering on all of his promises. They took him seriously. I think the biggest hurdle that Republicans have to get over, you know, we all know

Democrats are evil and that they're pushing an evil agenda that's going to tax the hell of us, take our guns and transgender our kids, but people don't take Republicans seriously when they say they're going to fight them, when they say they're going to oppose them, when they say they're going to stop them. I mean, how many times do we vote to repeal Obamacare yet it's still the law of the land? This is nuts. And Republicans have done a lot of. a lot of damage to themselves, and they created Trump.

So, but on this transgender sports issue, there's a lot of reason to have hope, right? Because not only do you have Donald Trump speaking out about it and opposing it, you have Nikki Haley, who's more from the establishment wing of the party. You even have Caitlin Jenner, who's transgender, you know, speaking out about the unfairness of allowing boys to just compete in girls' sports. Now, there are other issues with Caitlin Jenner saying things like, Well, if the kids transition at very early ages, then maybe they should be able to compete in women's sports. Like, well, why are we letting little kids transition at very early ages? So there's those issues. But at the same time, they get that this women's sports issue is a winner.

Terry, thank you for your leadership of the American Principles Project. Tell our listeners, once again, how they can learn more information about your organization and the big family initiative. Well, thanks so much, Rob, for having me. And I just want to say to all the listeners and your supporters, you guys are doing great work by supporting heritage. have been a dependable ally, an awesome friend. We've been in the foxhole on several fights. You know, we teamed up with Heritage Action for Georgia and, you know, Jessica Anderson's awesome. Where everyone here is awesome work with. And so I just want to thank all of you. I want to thank you Rob for doing what you do, but I also want to thank your supporters for doing what they do

because a lot of the things that we're trying to do would have fallen apart or not worked out as well if we didn't have a partner like you guys. So, you know, if you guys want to support us, You want to get involved and help us build this pro-family NRA-style movement. It's just savethe-family.appi, and it's very simple. Get signed up today. We're going to put you to work, though. So be ready to roll up your sleeves. And, you know, if you want to just donate, that's fine too.

But, you know, I really need people hosting meet-increase. I need people, you know, being social media ambassadors. I need a lot of help. I can't do this myself. I only got a team of 10 people and I need to organize millions, you know? So sign up today. I need all the help I can get, save the family. That's great. Terry, thanks so much. Appreciate you being on the Daily Signal podcast. Of course. Thanks,

Rob. Virginia Allen here. I want to tell you all about one of my favorite podcasts. Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that breaks down all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Hosts Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher mix in news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in heritage experts to help break down complex issues. Heritage explains, offers quick 10 to 50 minute explainers that bring you up to speed in an entertaining way. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor.

Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show. Doug, who's up first? In response to Rachel Del Judas's article, she was imprisoned in her native Cuba. Here's how she describes life under communism. Listener Paul Levy writes, Thank you for the Mooney article. Many years ago, I had a summer job at which the manager was a Cuban emigre, and many of the full-time workers were from Latin America.

He had been an attorney and a friend of Castro's, but he was not a communist. Castro told him that he had a choice. He could join the revolution, leave Cuba, or be killed. Similar to the engineering professor, he had connections in the U.S., and he chose to leave Cuba. He was a very bitter man, having had to accept a dead-end job that he felt was charity from the people who had been his colleagues and clients. Yes, he was alive, but he had been broken psychologically. It was the first time I had been exposed to what happened in Cuba

from someone who had been there, and quite the eye-opener, as this was just as the Vietnam War was winding down. And in response to Fred Lucas's article, fact-checking six big claims in Biden's partisan-ting speech on voting, reader John Gaskin writes, thanks for writing a factual article on Joe Biden's remarks on voter registration without hyperbole. It was fair, and to the point. What I expect of the news. Your letter could be featured on next week's show, so send an email to letters atdailysignal.com. Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels offer interviews with policy experts

on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way it's policy actually impacts people. Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage foundation and YouTube.com slash daily signal. For today's good news story, we have a member of the Heritage Foundation's Young Leaders program here to share a heartwarming story about a young man who wanted to make a lasting impact on his local high school by gifting them a hand-painted flag. Bernadette Breslin, over to you. This week's good news story takes us to a strong military

town nestled in Mountain Home, Idaho, where a student gave back to his high school after discovering the gymnasium was in need of an American flag. High school senior Hunter Delcite stepped up to the plate when he noticed the gym in his Mountain Home High School, which doubles as a cafeteria, was the only section of the school without an American flag. The construction and painting of an 8 by 16 foot American flag mural turned into a semester-long project for Hunter and became the largest project the young artist had taken on. Growing up the son of two Air Force veterans, the flag in its symbolism have a deeper meaning for Hunter, who recently shared his sentiments with Idaho's local KTVB7. The flag to me really means coming together, like that union of

all of us. Americans are really from everywhere, the freedom of just America in general. Being able to speak your mind on subjects. People in the tight-knit mountain home community, including Hunter's high school art teacher Brenda Robb, were fans

of the mural almost instantly. Everybody loves it. I didn't actually go into it, expecting it to get that many comments. I thought it was just going to be put on the wall and people would say the pledge to it. And there has been a lot, a lot of love for it. Though Hunter graduated high school this past spring, his American flag mural is set to be mounted to the gym's wall this summer for students, faculty, and staff to see this upcoming school year.

It goes without saying just how encouraging it is to see America's younger generations taking such pride in the flag. Bernadette, thanks so much for sharing that story. We're going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on their Rurkishay Audio Network. All of our shows are available at daily signal.com slash podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Daily Signal and at Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News.

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