Duration: 1:07:00 | Recorded on August 9, 2026
S3E29 – Journalist and West Point grad Randy DeSoto (The Western Journal) joins Kent and Kyle to unpack We Hold These Truths covering the Declaration of Independence, God-given rights, the Civil War, WWII, Charlie Kirk, and America’s next 80-year turning point.
Featured Spirits
Who Is Randy DeSoto?
Randy is a West Point graduate, Army veteran, and attorney (Regent University School of Law) who’s spent the last decade as a staff writer for The Western Journal, publishing roughly 4,000 articles along the way. His book, We Hold These Truths, first published in 2007 and recently revised, argues that two founding beliefs (that our rights come from God, and that a moral order exists above government) carried the country through its three defining eras: the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II.
Themes in This Episode
- The founders’ two core beliefs, God-given rights and a moral order above government, and how DeSoto traces them through the Revolution, Civil War, and WWII
- Whether “inalienable rights” required a specifically Christian framework, and how that holds up against Islam
- Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and how both sides of the Civil War claimed divine sanction
- The 80-year cycle theory, and why DeSoto thinks the 2020s mark another turning point
- Socialism, secularism, and Charlie Kirk’s test question: “Do you trust the government?”
- Wealth, capitalism, and the parable of the talents – DeSoto’s biblical case for letting people get rich
Randy’s Takeaway: “We have to hold on to both those beliefs, God-given rights and a belief in providence, in order to retain the founding mission.”
Find Randy’s Work
Book: We Hold These Truths: The Two Beliefs That Still Hold the Power to Transform the Nation and the World (Amazon)
Audiobook: We Hold These Truths: Randy DeSoto on Faith, Founders, and America’s 80-Year Cycle (Google Play)