Steve Deace: Young men’s energy will go somewhere — the right must decide where

On a recent episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” the BlazeTV host framed a stark choice facing the American right when it comes to the nation’s young men: channel their energy into constructive leadership and real solutions, or watch it keep flowing toward pure grievance and nihilism.

He frames this dichotomy by holding up two very different figures. On one side you have Zach Lahn, the Iowa Republican nominee for governor — a sixth-generation farmer and businessman who shocked the establishment by defeating a Trump-endorsed congressman in the primary and has positioned himself as a paradigm-shifting “Iowa First” candidate focused on regenerative agriculture, cost-of-living pressures, and health freedom.

On the other side is James Fishback, who was a Florida Republican candidate for governor this election cycle. Fishback lost the Republican primary to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), but Fishback is still important to analyze as someone who has built a following among younger men through aggressive online content, “anti-Israel” rhetoric, and a style Deace dismisses as pure grift.

What happens next, he warns, will shape an entire generation and the future of the nation.

The predicament America’s young men are facing today, Deace explains, is dire.

“Here’s the current deal on the table for them, particularly if they’re white: You’re automatically a racist. You’re automatically to blame for things that happened hundreds of years before you were ever born. There’s an automatic aura of suspicion around you. Your life will be half over probably before you can afford a home,” he says.

“The likelihood you will find a wife that is not proud of the amount of men she bedded on the way to meeting you and hasn’t had an abortion or three … shrinks by the day, and you went to college to get a job that we’re probably going to give to an Indian or a Muslim,” he continues.

This unfortunate set of circumstances, Deace argues, creates a restless “energy.”

“That energy is going to find conduits. It’s going to go somewhere,” he says. “It’ll be up to us to determine which direction we’ll go.”

The “constructive channel,” Deace says, will lead to “action” that sparks positive change.

“That’s what Zach Lahn represents. That’s what I think frankly JD Vance represents. … They represent younger men who understand we are in radical need of paradigm shifting,” he explains.

On the other hand, Fishback, according to Deace, has “no credentials at all,” “couldn’t survive a background check of page one of Google search,” and has a campaign built on “obvious grift.”

“James Fishback will go away. … What you don’t know though is there’ll be another one next year and then there’ll be more — unless there’s a constructive outlet for this energy,” Deace warns.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.