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22 years ago yesterday, terrorists struck our great nation, four times, resulting in the murder of almost 3,000 Americans. 3,000 Americans who never made it back home. 3,000 fewer Americans chasing the American Dream every day. They were gone, forever, and the America before 9/11 was gone forever too.


That fateful day reshaped the world. Everything changed and nothing will ever be the same again. I've heard people say countless times that they wish they could go back to a world like September 10, 2001. Americans' minds were innocent. They were naive. There was no fear. Americans were trusting of their neighbors. They weren't looking over their shoulder every time they walked down the street. There wasn't an endless war being fought overseas. Nobody thought about airport security. Nobody thought about security at all.


September 11th was one of the darkest days in our country's history, but one of the brightest days was just around the corner. September 12th, 2001 was one of the most patriotic days since we won World War 2. If there was a ranking of patriotism in America, it would be right up there with the day we declared our independence from our friends across the pond, the day Americans walked on the moon, and the day we defeated Hitler. Patriotism was at an all-time high.

Why?

Because we were all one people that day - Americans. Nobody cared about what neighborhood you came from, what color you were, what you did for a living, or which candidate you voted for for President. It didn't matter, we were all citizens of the greatest country on the face of the planet, and red, white, and blue were coursing through everybody's veins. Stores, all across the country sold out of American flags. Walmart stores sold 88,000 U.S. flags on September 12, 2001. The day before, they sold 6,400. Americans woke up and remembered why they loved this country, they saw that their freedom and way of life were under attack, and they wanted to defend it. They were genuinely proud of the country they called home.


What happened to that America?


In a recent poll, Axios reports that only 18% of those Americans ages 18-34 said they are "proud to be an American". For comparison, in 2013, 85% of Americans ages 18-29 said they were "extremely" or "very" proud to be an American. Over the past two decades, the number of Americans vocalizing their extreme pride skyrocketed after 9/11, but started to decline in 2005, and is still declining today. A recent Gallup poll reports that Americans 55 and older were three times more likely to be proud of their country than my generation. That's not okay.


Everybody in America right now is looking around wondering what is wrong, because something clearly isn't right. If we want any shot at setting our country back on track, we must revive patriotism and pride in our country. We must resurrect the America that stood together, united as one, the day after the worst attack on U.S. soil, and that starts with my generation creating a sense of pride and dignity in our nation!

 

Brilyn Hollyhand is a 17-year-old Conservative Commentator and the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Truth Gazette, a conservative news service fighting back against the Fake News Media!


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It’s time to address the elephant in the room. The GOP has a problem. It’s not Mitch McConnell. It’s not Adam Kinzinger. It’s not Liz Cheney. It’s not even Mitt Romney. It’s the youth vote. Yes, while all of those people are an embarrassment to the party, the GOP’s problem at hand that nobody wants to address is our lack of winning the youth vote.


Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. “Why should we care about the youth vote?”. I’ll tell you why. The youth vote is the future of this country and if we want to ensure that the future is bright, we need to make sure that young people are a part of the party.


My generation is constantly looking for a cause. A cause to champion, a cause to rally around, a cause to put in their Instagram bios. If the GOP wants to have a conversation with Millennials and Generation Z, they have to understand this and be open to discussing hot topics pertinent to young voters. Yes, I’m talking about climate change, abortion, marriage, and other social issues. For too long, Republicans have walked the tightrope on topics significant to young people. It’s past time for the GOP to have a hard stance on relevant concerns to young voters. But don’t hear me say that we as Republicans need to compromise our conservative position on these issues. We do not need to be like the Democrats to win young voters. By saying that we need to have a dialogue with my generation if we ever want to win their vote does not mean we need to buckle our stance. We simply need to have a position laid out and stop playing this gray area game, letting the Left dominate all conversations on the issues because the Right is too afraid to discuss them.


So, what can the GOP do to win the youth vote? First, we have to be honest with ourselves. We need to acknowledge that the party has lost touch with my generation and that we must change that.


In the 2020 presidential election, for example, Joe Biden won the youth vote by a margin of nearly 20%. In the recent midterm elections, the majority of voters under the age of 41, classified as Millennials and Generation Z, voted for Democrats.


The 2022 midterms had the second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades, with 27% of registered youth voters (ages 18-29). 20% turnout for youth voters has become a pattern in midterm elections since the 1990s. That pattern was broken in 2018 when over 30% of registered young voters showed up at the ballot box.


According to an exit poll conducted by Edison Research, 63% of young voters (ages 18-29) voted for Democrats for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022 and only 35% voted for Republicans. We saw almost identical margins in 2020 when 62% of young voters voted for Democrats and 32% voted for Republicans.


This isn’t anything crazy or unexpected. For decades, the Democrats have had a monopoly on the youth vote, but that monopoly has significantly expanded over the past few decades.


The problem for Republicans isn’t necessarily youth vote turnout, although that is always something that can be higher and we should continue to encourage, but it seems to be who young people are actually voting for when they get to the ballot box. If Republicans want to win future elections, we must find a way to connect with young voters and win their support.


I get it, it sounds cool to be a Democrat. They dangle emotions and free things in front of my generation and expect us to vote blue up and down the ticket, and for the most part, over the years, we have.


The GOP is known as the Grand Old Party. We’re widely categorized as the party of old white guys, but the party is changing.


In the House, every Republican seat flipped in 2020 was won by a woman or a minority, and the GOP continued that success when they took back the majority in the House in 2022. When the 118th Congress was sworn in, we saw an incredibly young and diverse Republican caucus.


Over in the Senate, Alabama Republicans elected Katie Britt to the U.S. Senate, making her the youngest elected female Republican Senator in U.S. history and the only mom in the Senate GOP with school-age children.


Over the past few years, we have seen a rise of conservatives standing up and speaking out, and in some cases even running for office, that are breaking the mold of the “stereotypical” Republican. Young people today are more diverse than ever before, and they want to see a party that reflects that diversity.


The Republican Party must demonstrate that they are in touch with the concerns and priorities of young voters, which means the GOP should focus on building a strong online presence and engaging with young voters through social media platforms.


Young people are increasingly turning to social media to get their news and information, and the party should be using these platforms to connect with them and build support. This means creating appealing content and using social media influencers to reach out to young voters. The GOP needs to be where my generation is, and they need to be speaking our language.


You would think this would be a top concern of the leadership at the RNC, but unfortunately, it’s not.


The DNC has a team of youth coordinators targeting my generation. In 2005, they assembled a “Youth Council” with members in every state and divided regions across the country with individual captains. In every election since 2005, according to Tisch College, Democrats have grown the gap between Republican youth voters by over 30%.


Sure, Conservatives have incredible organizations like Turning Point USA doing work across the country on college campuses to help educate and assemble young Republicans, but if it wasn’t for Charlie Kirk, none of this work would be done. The RNC shouldn’t be solely relying on Turning Point USA to organize youth voters - that’s their job!


It’s past time for the RNC to seek youth input. Think about it this way; when you have an older church that doesn’t necessarily put an emphasis on youth engagement and has a majority elderly congregation, the church eventually dies, because the congregation dies. The churches that flourish the most have a thriving youth group and involve church members of all ages, from newborns to senior citizens. That is what the RNC must do, or like elderly churches, it will die. The RNC must establish a youth advisory council to seek input from my generation and put together a platform for the future, not just for the next convention. If the RNC, and Republican Party as a whole, invests in my generation, it will pay off.


Winning the youth vote is essential for the GOP, and should be a main focus of the RNC, if it wants to be successful in future elections. I understand that Republicans are frustrated with recent election losses, but I firmly believe the youth vote is the area where the GOP is lacking, and focusing on it is the key to winning future elections.


I know I’m only 16 years old, but if the Republican Party continues to overlook my generation, it might not still be here when it’s time for my generation to take charge. It's not going to be easy breaking the Democrats’ monopoly, but winning the youth vote is necessary to ensure a bright future for the party.

 

Brilyn Hollyhand is a 16-year-old Conservative Commentator and the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Truth Gazette, a conservative news service fighting back against the Fake News Media!


Follow Brilyn on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, GETTR, and Truth Social for more!


Subscribe to The Truth Gazette's email news list or text list to stay up-to-date with all of The Truth Gazette's latest content and have it delivered directly to your inbox, Big Tech censorship-free!


Click here to subscribe to The Truth Gazette's email list.


Click here to join The Truth Gazette's text list or text (205)-255-9375.


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We’re less than 24 hours away from polls opening for the most crucial midterm election of our lives. For the past two years, your TV screens have been filled with cheesy politicians begging for your votes in ads that only DC elites think are funny, your yards have been filled with campaign signs telling your neighbors who you support making it easy to see who to blame for inflation and high gas prices, and conversations have centered around the latest political back-and-forth in swing states across the country. Tomorrow, that all ends.


I think Republicans will easily win the House by gaining 25-30 seats, retiring Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker once and for all, and are in a good position to take the majority in the Senate as well. I’ll be closely watching the Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and New Hampshire Senate races because I believe those will be the closest. I think we’ll see the tightest margins in Pennsylvania. I’m not as concerned about Georgia as Herschel continues to rise in the polls, but I think the final result will be neck and neck as well as in states like Arizona, New Hampshire, and Nevada. The best scenario for Republicans with the toss-up races is winning Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada - giving Republicans a majority of 53 seats and the Democrats a minority of 47 seats. That is not impossible at all. In fact, I think it is very possible, but that would mean Republicans would have to pick up every single toss-up seat and not lose any other seats.


The focus over the past two years has mostly been on federal races, but 2020 (through COVID lockdowns and election issues) reminded us of the importance of statewide offices as well. We saw how powerful Governors were during COVID when you had people like Gretchen Whitmer and Andrew Cuomo impose draconian lockdowns on their states or the opposite with Kristi Noem and Ron DeSantis. A perfect example of how important Lieutenant Governors are is Kathy Hochul in New York. New Yorkers are stuck with their un-elected Governor right now, ignoring rampant crime because she is now their state defacto-Governor after Cuomo resigned. We saw how powerful Secretary of States were after November 8, 2020, when there were serious concerns with election integrity, and it was up to them and their offices to investigate it. And finally, offices like Attorney General can be overlooked in election cycles, but Roe v. Wade was overturned because of the Dobbs v. Jackson case led by Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch. So tomorrow, vote Republican up and down the ballot!


You can complain about inflation, gas prices, the border, and rampant crime all you want, but you can’t change anything unless you vote. Bring at least 5 people with you to the polls. Bring your siblings. Bring your parents. Bring your friends. Bring your coworkers. Bring your Sunday School class. Bring your Saturday morning coffee group. Don’t waste this opportunity. Ensure that when the clock strikes 7:00 pm, and polls close, you have done everything in your power to make sure our country gets back on the right track. Republicans are in a position to have a big night, but that will only be possible if everybody gets out and votes! We can not get cocky!


Vote like your country depends on it. Because it does.


Vote like your freedom depends on it. Because it does.


Vote like you and your family’s future depends on it. Because it does.


If you don’t know where your polling place is, go to www.vote.org/polling-place-locator. Polls will open at 7:00 am and will stay open until 7:00 pm. Lines should not be as long as the Presidential Election in 2020, but prepare to wait a little bit anyways just to be safe! Also, stay in line! If you are in line by 7:00 pm, you still get to vote! And finally, if you see something, say something! Call your Secretary of State’s office if you see anything concerning that could threaten election integrity! Find your state’s Secretary of State’s phone number at www.e-secretaryofstate.com.


My closing pitch is this: we can argue over the issues all day, but for years, Democrats have told us that if they have full control of the government, “everything will be better”. That was proven to be a blatant lie. Democrats have had control of the House, the Senate, and The White House for two years now - look where our country is. Crime, inflation, gas prices, and the border are all topics that will be on the minds of voters when they go to vote tomorrow.


Go Save America!


Vote tomorrow.

 

Brilyn Hollyhand is a 16-year-old Conservative Commentator and the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Truth Gazette, a conservative news service fighting back against the Fake News Media!


Follow The Truth Gazette on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, GETTR, and Truth Social for more! Please share this article on your social media pages using the buttons below.


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