Principles First Summit 2025: A Needed Course Correction
Why the country needs the Principles First Summit more than ever.
Why We Gather: Principle over Personality
A week from today, over a thousand principled Americans will come together from all over the country for the 2025 Principles First Summit to inject some much needed seriousness back into our politics.
We started this Summit five years ago as a response to the decline of principled leadership in American politics. Too many institutions on the right—once dedicated to the battle of ideas—have abandoned principle for personality-driven spectacle. CPAC, for example, was once a forum for conservative policy debate. Today, it’s a self-parody, a circus of outrage merchants and celebrity agitators—Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon. Competent leaders are nowhere to be found.
Principles First exists to challenge that decline. Our Summit will reject empty theatrics and rekindle a politics of substance—restoring integrity in governance at a time when too many so-called leaders have given up on taking their jobs seriously. The Republican Party had a choice, and it chose isolationism, entertainment populism, victimhood, and fealty to a single personality. The only choice left is for the rest of us: what will we do about it?
Consider this year’s Summit the beginning of that answer.
America’s Real Challenges in 2025
While unserious actors pursue clickbait and conspiracy, real crises are bearing down on the country. And if our elected officials won’t talk about them, we will. That’s why our theme this year is American Principles and Priorities—to surface the key strategic challenges and engage seriously with solutions. In my view, among the most pressing are:
The Affordability Crisis: Americans are being crushed under the soaring cost of living. Healthcare expenses are out of control—more than 100 million people (41% of adults) struggle with medical debt, even though we spend nearly 18% of our GDP on healthcare—far more than any other nation. Housing is just as dire: over 21 million renter households—nearly half of all renters—spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Meanwhile, homeownership is becoming unattainable for the middle class, with prices surging 47% since 2020. Even basics like gas and energy costs have become unpredictable, hitting record highs and further straining family budgets. Yet, instead of tackling these issues, the government remains chaotic and unfocused, enacting policies like tariffs that only make matters worse. We need to reject protectionism, invite global competition and price transparency, and use tested solutions to increase supply to bring prices down.
Technological Upheaval and The Rise of AI: A new industrial revolution is underway, and our leaders are unprepared. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are transforming industries at lightning speed—ChatGPT reached a million users in just five days, a sign of AI’s rapid scale and American interest in these groundbreaking innovations. But alongside progress comes disruption. An estimated 300 million jobs worldwide could be diminished or entirely dismissed due to AI automation. While AI offers opportunities for economic growth, it will also widen inequality, eliminate jobs, and raise complex ethical dilemmas. Yet instead of preparing for this transition our politicians are too busy chasing viral outrage. We need to prepare for this future today—by investing in workforce retraining, updating regulations, and ensuring AI is developed responsibly.
The Education Crisis: American students are falling behind, and the consequences will be severe. Years of underinvestment, culture wars, and pandemic disruptions have resulted in historic learning declines. For the first time ever, the math scores of 9-year-olds fell—dropping seven points between 2020 and 2022—while reading scores saw their largest decline since 1990. High schoolers are graduating unprepared for college and the modern workforce. But rather than focusing on solutions, too many politicians are fixated on performative debates about banning books. We need to restore excellence in education—by increasing teacher pay, treating education as the serious profession it is, modernizing curricula, and ensuring schools are competitive globally—else every other long-term challenge we face will only worsen.
Authoritarianism on the March: Defending principle isn’t just a domestic challenge—it’s a global one. Part of restoring serious leadership in America is reaffirming our role in the world as a champion of democracy and a bulwark against authoritarianism. Isolationist voices in our politics, including leaders in the GOP, argue that America should pull back, abandon its allies, and ignore global threats. But history teaches us that retreating from the world invites catastrophe. When the U.S. refuses to lead, the world grows more dangerous—economically, militarily, and morally. Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a stark test of our resolve. Over 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed. Millions have been displaced. This is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II—a direct contest between tyranny and freedom. And if we abandon Ukraine now, Putin won’t stop there. Eastern Europe—Poland, the Baltics—will be next. Other authoritarian regimes, from Beijing to Tehran, will take note that aggression goes unpunished. America must stand with its democratic allies and counter the forces of illiberalism before it’s too late.
We do not have the luxury of ignoring these things to indulge in entertainment politics. Our Summit will bring them to the fore.
A Principles-First Path Forward
Fixing these challenges won’t be easy, but we’ll be taking a first step by forging a political coalition of principled Americans that can defeat entertainment-populism at the ballot box.
The liberal versus illiberal divide is now the primary faultline in politics—the “great realignment” has already happened. On one side are those flirting with authoritarian ideas, whether by embracing conspiracy theories, political violence, or outright racism and xenophobia. On the other side are those who believe in the American experiment of self-government, liberty under law, and equal justice. At Principles First, we aim to unite the majority of Americans who still believe that America’s greatness lies in its liberal foundation.
We recognize time is short. The hour is late, as the saying goes, but our country is not past saving. America has an uncanny ability to correct right when things seem hopeless—and I believe we’re at one of those inflection points now. The Summit can be a small part of America’s course correction—citizens coming together to demand better and to be better. We gather to champion ideas over idols, service over self-interest, and country over party. We gather to remind our fellow Americans that principled leadership is not some dated relic; it’s the only way to build a future worthy of our great nation. Let’s get to work.
Please reach all who oppose this administration. Thine enemy is my friend comes to mind. Together we can create a united front against this illegal takeover of our Republic.
Thank you for your good work, Heath. America is indeed at a crossroads.
"Lastly, we turn again to Hayek, who argued that in a liberty-loving individualist society such as ours, the “principle that the end justifies the means” constitutes the “denial of all morals.” Americans and our institutions must insist upon the resurrection of the rule of law. Otherwise, we will sacrifice our constitutional system of rights and protections on the altar of so-called “government efficiency.” We will cease to be citizens in a republic and, instead, become mere subjects of an arbitrary power we created but cannot control."
https://democracyssisyphus.substack.com/p/american-rule-of-law-is-dead