Commentary

Two months ago, a teenage granddaughter informed me in all seriousness that she has but two goals in life: to get ripped and to get rich. The alliteration of ripped and rich appeals to the ear, but those materialistic ambitions by themselves are shabby and second-rate. She’s a good kid, and odds are that as she matures, she’ll find higher markers for a life well lived.

Right now, MAGA is a lot like my granddaughter.

A majority of Americans voted in 2016 and 2024 for politicians who aimed to Make America Great Again. Judging from the actions of our present MAGA government, the goals are a powerful America abroad and a more productive and richer America at home.

Among other worthy objectives, proponents of MAGA also want less government regulation, controlled and legal immigration, and freedom of thought and speech. They’re looking to root out corruption and boondoggling in government, to establish free and fair elections without cheating at the ballot box, and to follow an America First policy, which prioritizes the needs and wants of the United States rather than the vague and often destructive ambitions of globalism.

All well and good. Like my teenage granddaughter, MAGA politicians and bureaucrats want our nation ripped and rich. Meanwhile, however, many of them are paying far less attention to the erosion of the virtues and traditional values that have long served as the foundation stones of our national prowess and wealth.

Here are a few anecdotes and data illustrating this falling away.

A couple of weeks ago, a barista in a Christian coffee shop and I were discussing books we’d read. She highly recommended Colleen Hoover’s “Verity,” which she described as a suspense novel. After checking out “Verity” from my public library, I opened it at random and dropped into a sex scene involving a kitchen counter and an F-bomb. The novel received 4.6 stars out of 5 on Amazon, indicating that many readers liked it, and it will soon be released as a movie. High praise there as well, but the book was a no-starter for me—just more porn for women masquerading as a romantic suspense.

A week later, I was tending to a long-time friend while he recovered from surgery. One evening, he suggested we watch some television. I don’t own a TV and haven’t watched much of anything for years, so I left it to him to pick a show. He selected the series “Ozark,” which he’d previously seen. The pilot show was more than enough for me. Murder, drug cartels, money laundering, sex, F-bombs in every scene, all without a single character to root for. My conservative friend binge-watched the series by himself for the next five days.

Broaden our perspective, and we find a 2023 study revealing that Xvideos, the world’s top-ranked purveyor of pornography, had 700 million more visitors than Amazon, 900 million more than TikTok, and 1.5 billion more than Netflix. The United States provides the “largest percentage of traffic to all porn sites combined,” according to Psychology Today.

In December 2025, YouTuber Nick Shirley cracked open Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota involving billions of dollars. That widespread scam is likely only the tip of an enormous iceberg, not only in the Land of 10,000 Lakes—or Fakes, if you will—but around the country.

The degradation of our morals and culture, and the unethical behavior in government, just go on and on. The now casual use of obscenities in public. The equally casual disregard for abortion, divorce rates, and declining fertility rates. The Minneapolis rioters seeking to protect criminals from arrest. The dumbing down of American students from kindergarten through college. The federal government’s growing mountain of trillions of dollars of debt. The members of Congress who, after a few short years in office, are newly minted multimillionaires.

What MAGA and the rest of the country are missing is MAMA—Make America Moral Again.

With so many politicians and celebrities sitting out the game of virtue versus vice, MAMA needs Americans who truly love their country to suit up and step onto the playing field. In our homes, businesses, and communities, we can promote and practice those ancient attributes of character that have strengthened our country from its founding. These virtues are the lungs, heart, and lifeblood of all our strength and success.

In a 1798 address to the officers of a Massachusetts militia, President John Adams famously warned, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

To strive to become a strong and wealthy nation—or ripped and rich if you will—is admirable, yet any dictatorship can take aim at this same target. To preserve and protect our liberties, honor, and dignity, we need to water our wealth and power with the classic virtues—courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom—and the headwaters from which these virtues flow, humility and gratitude.