Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Steven Olikara on Jan. 18 for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series.
Olikara is a nationally recognized change-maker, entrepreneur, political commentator and executive. He serves as president of Bridge Entertainment Labs, dedicated to activating entertainment media to elevate new stories of “us.” He also founded Millennial Action Project (now the Future Caucus), the largest nonpartisan organization of young elected leaders in the United States. Olikara’s commentary has been featured in numerous national media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, NBC, The Washington Post and USA Today. He recently made history as the first South Asian candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin.
His journey is featured in the documentary “ The Reunited States,” available on Amazon Prime and PBS. Olikara also hosted the podcast series “Meeting in Middle America,” which featured guests such as Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley, former Sen. Russ Feingold and Emmy-winning comedian Charlie Berens. He is a frequent speaker on civic leadership at venues such as the Aspen Ideas Festival, Harvard’s Institute of Politics, SXSW, the National Press Club, the White House, the United Nations and more. In 2018, he was invited to testify before Congress on issues facing millennial entrepreneurs and gig economy workers. An avid musician, Olikara is a former radio DJ in his hometown of Milwaukee and co-author of the book “JFK: The Last Speech,” on the role of artists in democracy.
Previously, Olikara advised two multiplatinum recording artists on youth empowerment and sustainable energy initiatives, including Akon Lighting Africa, which electrified over 1 million homes in Africa with solar power. He serves on numerous boards focused on causes close to his heart: human rights, democracy, national service and the performing arts. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Truman scholar. Olikara was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 and a global shaper by the World Economic Forum.
Watch the interview to learn the full extent of Olikara’s remarkable work and perhaps you’ll become more civically engaged as well.
Steven Olikara: president of Bridge Entertainment Labsyoutu.be
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.