WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Brilyn Hollyhand: Make America Talk Again

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Americans have never had more ways to connect, yet we’ve never been more divided, lonely, and silent. Civil discourse—once the lifeblood of democracy—has been replaced by a fear of losing friends and family, being ridiculed on social media, getting swatted by anonymous callers, and losing your job, all because of the words you spoke.Make America Talk Again is Brilyn Hollyhand’s roadmap to a better future. Hollyhand is a familiar face on national news networks, including Fox News, CNN, ABC News, NewsNation, and Newsmax, and he regularly provides a unique perspective on current events through the lens of Generation Z. He joins Siobhan Weed on WRFH to discuss his new book.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Chavon Weed, and joining me today is Breilin-Hollyhand, best-selling author, political commentator, and rising Gen Zee leader, here to talk about his recently published book, Make America Talk Again, How to Save Humanity from a Screaming Culture. Thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited, a big fan of Hillsdale in the audience, and I'm just looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, well, we're, again, glad to have you on. So, honestly, so in the introduction to your book, there was this line that really stuck out to me where you said, like, we are hostile to truth, but starving for meaning. I thought that was great,

especially since, like, obviously, like, this lack of an ability to have open and good, like, political and, like, just, like, conversation in general, obviously hurts our political sphere. But, like, in the last years, like, loneliness has been described as a public health epidemic. And there's been studies that show that, like, social isolation increases risk of premature death by, like, 30%. So can you kind of talk about how, like, this hostility to truth, like, not only kind of is bad for our political sphere, but just bad for us as human beings. Exactly. You're spot on. I think we live in a society today, 2026, where you're told to live your own truth, to trace what feels good, to do what the world wants you to do, and to basically

fill the God-shaped hole in your life with anything but God. And that's what we're told is normal and the cultural norm. And that's become dangerous. I think we have, you know, this six-inch screen that's glued to the palm of our hands at all time with a bazillion apps on it that are supposed to connect you with everybody and you can talk through pictures and text and videos. We should be so connected and so united and, you know, the opposite of isolated, but instead we're the most medicated, the most anxiety driven, the most oppressed generation because we're so lonely. We're so isolated. Why is that? Because we've stopped talking to each other. So what happens when the marriage is stopped talking? They go to a divorce. What happens when

nations stop talking? They go to a civil war. And I really think that that's what we're on the brink of. You know, people fearmonger for emotions all the time in election seasons. But if you look at a society where political assassinations happened, what, two years ago when they tried to kill Trump and Butler, and 10 months ago when they did kill Charlie Kirk on a campus, you're inching pretty close to the point where there would be a pretty, you know, all out fight between both sides of the aisle where you're literally killing each other all because you can't sit down and have a conversation. That's dangerous and that's what we're trying to get away from. And then another kind of pretty huge theme in your book is how this idea that like civil discourse is truly like the lifeblood of a democracy. And can you kind of just expand on this idea that open conversation is necessary for like a true healthy democratic system? It's the most important thing. I can't think of anything more important. I really do think that, you know, you and I have been raised in a society where we're taught that, you know, civil discourse is taboo, whether it be through the media that we see on our phones or through the news that we see on. our screens or worse, the movies that we see from Hollywood, they all tell us to pity each other

against ourselves because that's what drives clicks and engagement and views and therefore money. You know, you don't see videos go viral of people united and, you know, having conversations because that's not trendy or catchy or, you know, extreme. What goes extreme are the fights and the, you know, ranting and the assassinations because we have, you know, brought that to light in our culture. I think the flaw there is we didn't practice civil discourse at the dinner table because it was taboo. It was uncomfortable. Let's not bring up politics. It makes things awkward. We certainly didn't practice civil discourse in the classroom. You're supposed to hold your tongue, just nod in agreement, get a good grade, get your diploma, and then go share your opinion

afterwards. And we never practiced it. So we've never seen civil discourse, therefore we don't know how to enact civil discourse. Honestly, this is almost like a personal question for me. So when we talk about trying to return to this place politically and culturally where we can engage in civil like truth seeking conversation again. I think so many young people, yeah, just so many people, especially young people, I would say, again, lopping myself right in that boat, kind of struggled to walk the line of being charitable and understanding and like genuinely curious about where people on the other side are coming from while still like actually being bold and speaking about one's convictions. What do you think it's like some advice that you can offer to people to help,

to help them have those charitable, but like productive conversations. The very first thing that I do every single time I'm going to debate somebody. And thankfully, you and I aren't debating now. But when it does, this is a rare conversation where I can just, you know, have a normal non-raised voice. When it does happen on a campus, it's pretty hostile typically to start, almost every time, regardless of, you know, what they're screaming at me, what they're throwing at me, what they're coming up with got your question.

The first thing I do every time is to try to find a point of agreement. So whether it be, hey, man, like I love that. t-shirt, that's a cool sports team, you know, go Braves or whatever it might be, or that's a cool hat. I love that book or movie, something to try to make a point of connection with them. The intention is not to necessarily make a friend out of it. The attention is to humanize each other. So it's a lot harder to assassinate me, to scream at me, to throw things at me if I'm a fellow human being. And I think sometimes they get this caricature in their mindset of, I'm coming to save the world and rid them a brival and his ideas, so I'm going to scream at him

as lot as I can, as opposed to I want to have a conversation with them. And I think starting it off on that note, on that foot, humanizes the conversation. And I think it's worked successfully for me on the campuses. A point for students and classes is starting, you know, not with the most polarizing hot button issue that you can at your lunch table, but maybe starting somewhere where you can agree with each other. And then moving from there. And guess what?

If you leave the conversation and still disagree, so be it. You had a conversation. There might still be disagreement in it, but you talked. And you did better than half of the country right now. And so I really do think that the practice of it is a lot better than just completely ignoring it. I was wondering, like, can you, do you have, like, any success stories that come to mind? Like, really, like, conversations that you walked away and were, like, really fulfilled by, even if maybe they didn't end by someone having their mind changed or, I don't know.

Do you have any that come to mind? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll give you two examples. So one, I started fairly hostile. It was in the middle of the campus tour last year. And somebody came up and they had these lists of, you know, prepared points that they had together. They'd probably practiced in the mirror that morning

because they were really good at screaming at me and trying to insult me. And I think once they realized that the personal insults, things like, oh, your face is stupid or your hair line is bad, or how dare you wear that or whatever it might be that they were trying to say, when they realized it did not phase me

and the slatist and I wasn't budging, they were kind of like, oh, I'm out of ammo now. And I'll have much else to say to you. And then I said, hey, man, like, what do you think on and just said like an issue that was going on in that local area? And I was like, what do you think about that? And he was, I think it was flock cameras, okay?

And I was like, yeah, he was like, yeah, I think we should get rid of flock cameras. I think we need legislation to, you know, better have safety with flock cameras. And I was like, yeah, like, I agree. Like, I'm a pretty anti-regulation guy. I think we need to have a smaller government. But when it comes of surveillance, like, I can agree with you. Like, we definitely do need some transparent to with the flock cameras. Here is somebody that came there to tell me my face was stupid.

And when we left finding something we agreed upon. Now, a few weeks later, we're in the summer or no, we're in, the fall of 2024, it's election day. And I share the story in the book. Harry Sisson and I have been pitted against each other because, you know, he is a influencer on the other side of the aisle and it's really good for engagement on cable news when they put us against each other for a debate. And they think we're going to go out of each other and have this really aggressive moment. And I think they're really dreaming for a fist fight one day like mid TV. And it's just not going to happen. I'll just tell you that now. Yeah. But I think they want like they purposely like try to like

rally you up in the commercial break and like, oh, what do you think of we? Harry said this about you. You're not going to believe it. And they really want you to have this moment. And we just never do it. We never let them have it. We go each other pretty hard. We get, you know, get pretty intense with our political disagreements. And Harry and I have never found a policy issue that we agree upon, but we're friends outside of it. And specifically on Election Day, 2024, I'm leaving an event the president was doing, I think in Georgia. And I'm heading home in Alabama to go votes. And I walk past a TV screen and Harry's on the screen and he just said you know hey you know we're going to have you know a big Kamala Harris landslide tonight and all the Republicans will be crying and I just you know

took my phone out and sent of the text and was like hey man like regardless of what happens you know have a great night and you know I'm glad that we got to you know campaign in similar states we got to cross paths a lot and I just hope a lot of young people get out and vote and he was fond of something super kind and similar and he was like yeah man like at the end of the day if young people paid more attention to politics because you not debated you other and they're going to vote because you and I, you know, were out there, regardless of who's candidate we were supporting, we were both out there on the trail. Let's count that as a success.

And I think that's the whole point of this, that Harry and I still have not found anything two years later that we can agree upon, but we're still friends that we can still, you know, have the betterment of our country at heart. Kind of going back to this idea that having a healthy democracy depends on, like, not just institutions, but like just certain habits of character among its citizens, things like, like good and ability to have healthy conversation. Like, I don't know, this comes to mind where, like, John, Adams wrote about how our constitution, like if we want it to persist, we need, it demands like

a moral and religious people. What kind of habits or virtues do you think are like most important to cultivate today? And what are those virtues that like will support the return of civil discourse? It's a great question. And I think the big part of it goes back to the root of this country. We were founded as a Christian nation. We've survived 250 years as a Christian nation. And as we've seen decay in the past decade or so, it's because we've taken those Christian morals and values out of our classrooms, out of public life, and out of government. And we've said that somehow we should be ashamed of being a Christian nation, and now America begins to decay. What a coincidence.

I really do think that from the Mayflower Compact to 2026, our nation was proud of its Christian heritage, and as we continue to move away from that, we're going to continue to see this crumbling of our foundation. If we get back to some of these things, our founding fathers fought so hard to get into the founding of our country, a nation for the people, by the people, under God, is something that's that pivotal that the founding fathers

literally fought a revolution with blood to defend the values of what we should continue to have today. And I think, as you saw specifically, say, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, even Ben Franklin, whoever it might be that was debating in the Continental Congress, you have these framers of our independence, of our Constitution, who literally debated, who didn't agree on just about anything.

They agreed that we needed to have freedom. They agreed that we need to have independence from Great Britain. But other than that, there were different systems or structures or economic policies, but they never saw out of eye on until their deaths. But they came together and hashed it out on the floor of the Continental Congress, debated and handed us what ended up being the U.S. Constitution. And so if our nation was founded on debate, it's not a crazy novel concept that we should still be debating.

And these people, despite the paintings that we see of them today, were not just old white guys with powdered wigs. They actually were young guys. And we had, you know, high school age people and college age people literally fighting the battle and not only being on the front lines of it, but then being in the Continental Congress to sign this and ratify this, you know, constitution that we all live under today. So if young people were able to debate and found the country, young people should be able to debate and lead the country today. This actually kind of ties in nicely. Like you were talking about how, yeah, like the founding totally is something that people don't talk about. But like that, there was so much division that they had to overcome to even create the founding, like documents and the constitution that we now have. And there's been like numerous times that America has faced like very serious division.

Again, counter-revolutionaries, but then like civil war and reconstruction, civil rights act, all these things. Like you talked about Ronald Reagan a couple times in your book. What are, yeah, kind of can you talk about some of the like valuable lessons to recover from those past leaders in America who were able to like, Yeah, unite the country amidst division. Obviously, you already touched on the founding fathers. But I don't know if you have a couple other examples that come to mind. Of course, yeah, absolutely. Reagan, obviously, is one idea that I'm personally biased.

I think he's just, you know, an incredible president and an incredible leader. Two specific examples with him. He said all great conversation in America begins at the dinner table. It doesn't begin in the halls of Congress. It doesn't begin, even in the Oval Office, it begins at the dinner table. And I think a lot of parents come up to me today and they complain about the indoctrination in the country. And yes, it's bad. We're fighting it. Trust me, we're doing our best.

But you could help us. You could raise your children rights as Christian conservative leaders in the living room before the government indoctrines them at daycare, which is basically schools today. This taxpayer-funded obedience training that you drop her students off for seven hours a day, five days a week for 12 years, is of course going to change their minds because you see them at dinner and at breakfast before you send them off for the bus and then you're shocked while they're little minions of the government one day because you're not raising them when you have them in the living room.

Reagan pointed that out, the dinner table is that important. Another Reagan example is he, you know, was famously pitted against Speaker Tip O'Neill as big enemies, as big foes. And they went out each other pretty hard on a lot of legislation. But at night, when the day was done, when the work was over, you would see them in the Oval Office, you know, you know, having dinner, just making that time to still be friends and still, you know, pop, you know, crack jokes to each other. That opportunity right there just shows that at the end of the day, if two of the fiercest enemies in say the 1980s of this country could still break Fred together at night after some of the most intense policy to debates during the Cold War, I think we can talk to somebody

to the next to us in the lunchroom that we might disagree with. That kind of ties, this ties into something we were talking about earlier, but like there are so many Americans that seem to experience disagreement in conversation, not as like a challenge to just like an idea that you have, but as like a challenge to their identity. How, like, how do we arrive at this point and kind of, do you have any ideas as to how we like move beyond it? So I think we got here. because we were told it's a me, me, me, rat race to the top. It's all about you.

It's all about yourself. It's all about climbing. And it's not about the betterment of the country. And I think that, okay, Charlie, for example, if Charlie Kirk ran his race in life, if he, you know, set up his organization as the Charlie Kirk Foundation for Freedom or whatever example you could throw out there,

and it was all about him. It was about his brain. It was about his personality. It would have all crumbled because when he was executed, on that campus, his identity would have went with him. Instead, he built something bigger than himself for the betterment of the country. And his student organization is thriving and bigger than ever before because it outlived him. He built something that outlasted him.

If we have debates and conversations for topics that will outlive and outlast us and improve this country for us to hand our kids and grandchildren one day, that's how you improve a society. Because honestly, I mean, what we see today is all about the individual rights, the feelings, this person, you know, being offended by that. And honestly, we've spent so much time being taught how not to offend each other. We've forgotten how to talk to each other. Yeah. I would assume you're kind of familiar with this feeling of like as you talk about kind of the state of American politics and American culture, it can kind of be like an abysmal picture that you see. You know what I'm saying? But do you think that like, like, are there elements of maybe like changing trends or things like that that kind of give you hope that like these problems that we see in our society could be reversed?

Certainly. Yeah. No, I do. And I think a specific story. So obviously the week of Charlie's assassination was like the worst week imaginable. Yeah, I can imagine. And I don't think I slept once. I think you're just kind of like in this period of shock and mourning and anger and you're going through all these emotions. Yeah. And I remember I was walking to a prayer vigil for Charlie. And I think it's the first time I've left to my apartment since it all happened.

And so I've got like a hoodie on and a hat and sunglasses and I'm walking with plain clothes officers. And I just want to go like see this and just kind of like see all these people. people gather. Yeah. And my college pastor calls me. And I was like, hey, like, you know, I've got to run into this prayer vigil real quick. And it's like, I'll be fast. I have a story for you. And he was like, we were going to close up the church this afternoon. This is a Friday. And he said, we're going to close up the church. And all of a sudden, this girl knocks on the door. And she says that she was a big fan of Charlie's. And she watched all of his videos. And she realized that in the wake of his assassination, we weren't all talking about Charlie's relationship with Donald Trump.

We were talking about Charlie's relationship with Jesus Christ and his faith and how much it meant to his family values and how those drove his debates, not political parties or elections or voter registration. And she said she realized in that moment that she had all the allegiance she needed to our party or our president, but she hadn't done anything about a relationship with God. And she wanted to get saved. And that girl got saved in our church parking lot, got baptized that Sunday. And it was just one of those cool moments of like, dang, like, that's crazy. Like, that's so cool. And like, it was. the worst week possible.

And I can think of a million different ways to tell God that that girl could have gotten saved. But how dare I tell the creator of the universe how to run his plan? Like, yes, I wish my friend was still here. Yes, I wish there were different ways that it could have happened. But a silver lining like that shows me that there's a faith revival. And there is. We've seen church services all across the country. I was in New York last week, a Genzi church service literally spilling out into the streets.

In New York City, all of these people finally deciding that maybe they should put God in the God-shaped holy their lives. And so that gives me hope in a world that tries to tell you there is no hope. I just always remember that Jesus Christ is your hope. And if your hope is in politics or in the new cycle or even a country, you're always going to be disappointed. If your hope is in Jesus, you're never going to be left short. Yeah. Wow. Amen. That's beautiful. I love that story. Kind of as a closing question, I guess, going back to your talking about Ronald Reagan and his idea that like the problems that we see around us have to be solved at the dinner table, Yeah, like it has to be this bottom up approach.

So what would you say your call to action is to especially like the young people, like when we try to talk about how to bring back the kind of human flourishing that we used to have? Yeah, how do we shape like our daily habits to begin to make that change? So Reagan said on 1967, he was on the steps at the California governor's mansion being sworn in to make the transition from Hollywood movie actor to politician. And he said a line that's like stuck with me throughout my career. And he said, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It's not ours by way of inheritance.

It must be constantly fought for and defended because it comes only once to a generation. And he was right. I think understanding that we are that one generation away, that his words are timeless. They were true in 1967 and they're more true today in 2026, that we have to stand in that gap. It's scary and I understand it. But First Timothy 412 tells us,

don't let anyone look down any because you're young, but set an example for the believers in speech and love and conduct and faith and a purity. If you're speaking specifically about my generation, we're always going to have people that look down the nose at you and say, wait your turn, get some gray hairs on you, some wise experience, and then come back and try to run for office, change this policy, get the podcast, speak out on social media, whatever may be, wait your turn. And scripture tells you the opposite. Scripture tells you the time is now to set the example for your fellow believers.

So understanding that as you walk into the craziest possible arena, which is politics, which also doubles as the darkest possible arena that needs that light and truth of Jesus more than anywhere else I can think of. Know that going in. I have the armor around you, and it'll be a lot easier fight to fight. Yeah, well, thank you so much, Bryland. This has been great to have you. I really appreciated our conversation.

And, yeah, again, congratulations on your book. Thank you. I appreciate. This was a lot of fun and hopefully we'll be seeing all at Hills Tell us sometime soon. That sounds great. This has been Brylyn Holleyhan, bestselling author and political commentator, here talking about his recently published book, Make America Talk Again, How to Save Humanity from a Screaming Culture.

I'm Chauvin'Aweed, and this has been Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.1.7 FM.