Yesterday, Speaker Johnson delivered the keynote address at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) global conference in London, England. Appearing remotely to the more than 4,000-person audience, Speaker Johnson warned against the threat of “soft despotism,” and encouraged leaders to “be prepared to steer their aims towards policies and mediating institutions that reduce government dominion over our lives and advance prosperity.”
“The only way to reverse this trend into further technocratic tyranny is to recommit to our foundational principles and live them out. What made the West, and what made our nations great, must now guide us once again,” Speaker Johnson said.
Below are excerpts from the address:
“Here in America, as you are all seeing, we’re in the midst of a great change. In our national election a few months ago, our people delivered truly a mandate to make our country great again and to restore common sense in our public policy. Here and elsewhere, the radical big government progressives pushed that pendulum too far and too aggressively to the left, and the people rose up and said, enough. And now that pendulum is beginning to swing back to the center, and we’ve been given a once-in-a-generation opportunity to demonstrate now to our nation and the new demographics of voters who have come into our Republican Party for the first time, that it really is our conservative policies that lead to human flourishing, because they’re better for individuals and families and communities, individual states, and our nation as a whole,” Speaker Johnson said.
“In America, we still believe in peace through strength, and we still understand our role in the world. A strong America is good for free people everywhere because it helps to keep the terrorists and the tyrants at bay. But to maintain our strength and leadership, our foreign policy must be centered on our own national interest. It’s a matter of common sense for each of our countries to acknowledge that we must each take care of our own houses before we help take care of the neighborhood,” Speaker Johnson said. “As we seek to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous, we will encourage all our friends and allies to do the same in and for their own countries. The survival of the West will depend upon that. And this is how we will turn the tides, by refocusing and marshalling our many shared interests toward our own national interest.”
“This trend is reflected in political apathy and the growing tendency of people to simply submit to governments whose laws have become so offensively intrusive and whose centers of power feel distant and inaccessible. If there is nothing to fight for, then why fight at all, Speaker Johnson said. ”This is the vision of the left, for the people to feel so powerless that they give in and just accept their fate as mindless vassals under the safe protection of the state. And the only way to reverse this trend into further technocratic tyranny is to recommit to our foundational principles and live them out. What made the West and what made our nations great must now guide us once again.
Below is the full transcript of Speaker Johnson’s address as delivered:
Thank you, my dear friend, the Baroness. Good morning. I wish I could be there with all of you in person, and I am truly sorry that I’ve been prevented from making the trip now for the second year in a row. I was unexpectedly elected Speaker of the House just days before the inaugural ARC Conference in October 2023, and I had to send my last-minute regrets. And now, just days before this second conference that I had so much been looking forward to, I found myself once again with late breaking developments in Congress, this time involving our budget and government funding that simply doesn’t allow me to leave the country. But there’s no place I’d rather be than there with you this week as we had long planned, but I’m glad to at least have this opportunity to join you remotely.
We find ourselves in a very unique and consequential moment in history here in America and throughout the West. And I believe the timing of the ARC Conference is truly providential. I joined the ARC Advisory Board two years ago because I was so intrigued by the idea of bringing together so many thought leaders and change makers from around the world to, as we determined, ‘shape a hope-filled vision for the future.’ My friends, there really is great reason for our hope.
Here in America, as you are all seeing, we’re in the midst of a great change. In our national election a few months ago, our people delivered truly a mandate to make our country great again and to restore common sense in our public policy. Here and elsewhere, the radical big government progressives pushed that pendulum too far and too aggressively to the left, and the people rose up and said, enough. And now that pendulum is beginning to swing back to the center, and we’ve been given a once-in-a-generation opportunity to demonstrate now to our nation and the new demographics of voters who have come into our Republican Party for the first time, that it really is our conservative policies that lead to human flourishing, because they’re better for individuals and families and communities, individual states, and our nation as a whole.
In recent decades, our government had become too large, too inefficient, and too powerful. And in too many cases, it had also been weaponized and corrupted. That is precisely what the framers of our Constitution feared and what political philosophers and historians over the centuries have warned against. Almost two centuries ago, Alexei de Tocqueville wrote of big government: “After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd.”
De Tocqueville noted that “such a power does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.” Tocqueville called it soft despotism, a condition in which citizens voluntarily and gradually just surrender their rights and independence to the government, lured by the promise of security and stability. This kind of despotism doesn’t arrive through violence or open tyranny. Instead, it comes quietly, insidiously, through comfort and convenience.
Tocqueville warned of a future where citizens would become passive spectators in their own democracy, willful stewards of their carefully managed decline. Soft despots don’t break down your door and confiscate your weapons, they don’t arrest you in public for criticizing the government, and they don’t station soldiers on street corners to ensure your compliance. Soft despots ensure your compliance through normal democratic channels.
Regulations? Oh, they keep you safe.
Censorship? That’s to protect you from misinformation.
Surveillance? That’s necessary for your security, see.
Dependence? It offers you stability.
And we see these forces at work in our society today. The architects of this soft despotism have taken shape too often as government bureaucrats and big tech and corporate elites, international institutions, media gatekeepers, and the welfare state. And their benevolent rule has given us nations without borders, grossly inefficient bureaucracies, a culture of surveillance, and a citizenry that is apathetic, distracted, and dependent. The dynamics are the same around the world. Whether you’re in Detroit or Manchester, Lyon or Berlin, the supreme power of big government has extended its arm over all of us. And the casualties of the soft despotism that’s taken hold have been the loss of our heritage, our national identities, our patriotism, and our prosperity.
In this civilizational moment, as our friend Oz Guinness describes it, will we choose renewal, replacement, or decline? In the U.S., we have just embarked on a new path of renewal. We are determined to bring about a new golden age in America, as President Trump says, and we are convinced that we can, if we return to the timeless foundational principles which lead to human flourishing.
The challenge we have today is ensuring that the current generations of our countrymen recognize and recommit to those principles. And what are they? In less than 17 months, the U.S. will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. As G.K. Chesterton observed, “America was founded on a creed that is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity,” he said. From. the second paragraph of the Declaration, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. “
Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration, almost all of them professed to be Christians, and at least half of them had received formal religious training in their education. Having studied the Bible, they recognize that we are not simply born equal, but rather created equal and that it is our Creator who endows us with our rights and not the state. They also recognize that all of us are made in the image of our Creator and thus every single person has an inestimable dignity and value. And that value is not related in any way to the color of our skin or where we live or what our talents are or anything else. Our value is inherent because it is given to us by God.
The founders of our country also understood that man has a fallen nature and that fallen men with power and no accountability can become a serious problem. Because power corrupts and as Lord Acton observed, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” So, our system of government was meticulously designed with careful safeguards, like the separation of powers and checks and balances. And our founders emphasized that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, could not long survive without a vibrant practice of religious faith, because they understood that is a necessary element to foster personal responsibility and to keep a general moral consensus among the people. A healthy, self-governing society relies on the moral character of its citizens.
It’s ironic, but on this day in America, we’re observing one of our 11 federal holidays, and this one’s known as President’s Day, which originally began as an annual celebration of George Washington’s birthday. In his farewell address, the father of our country noted this. He said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Our second president, John Adams, reminded his countrymen that the American Constitution was, “made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The founders emphasized the importance of balancing individual liberty with personal responsibility. And our fourth president, James Madison, argued that every citizen should put the nation above their own self-interest.
The timeless virtues that are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition served as the foundation of America and of all Western civilization. But in recent decades, changes have happened rapidly, and left-wing social movements have advanced very aggressively. Many world leaders, convinced that national borders were obstacles to unity and social progress, sought to dismantle them in favor of global integration.
But a key downside to the new global order is that it ultimately led to a devaluing of local communities and a weakening of national identity, which was replaced instead by a divisive new racial, sexual, and gender-based identity. If Americans aren’t American anymore, and Brits aren’t British anymore, and Germans aren’t German anymore, then naturally something else will fill the void. If everyone is a citizen of the world, then no one is really accountable any longer to their own nation or to their own local community.
Unfortunately, these ideas have taken hold. We have heard a little bit about polls this morning. Here’s a few more. 50% of Germans under the age of 30 say they feel more European now than German. Only 40% of Americans say they are extremely proud to be American. Only one in five British adults consider themselves to be very patriotic. This trend is reflected in political apathy and the growing tendency of people to simply submit to governments whose laws have become so offensively intrusive and whose centers of power feel distant and inaccessible. If there is nothing to fight for, then why fight at all?
This is the vision of the left, for the people to feel so powerless that they give in and just accept their fate as mindless vassals under the safe protection of the state. And the only way to reverse this trend into further technocratic tyranny is to recommit to our foundational principles and live them out. What made the West and what made our nations great must now guide us once again.
During his trip through America, Tocqueville marveled at what he said was, “The extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and in inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.” Those neighbors and local volunteers joined together to found seminaries, hospitals, prisons, libraries, and schools. They built society together with their own hands.
In all of our shared history in the West, it has remained true that strong communities have formed a bulwark against tyranny. Strong mediating institutions ground us in the needs of our community and the outgrowth of these institutions formed the basis for a healthy, engaged citizenry. Edmund Burke called them “little platoons.” He was referring to the families and churches and civic organizations and community groups which began at the smallest, most local level. Burke argued this bottom-up voluntary approach to society would deepen our sense of duty and shared responsibility to one another and also act as an important safeguard against a distant state authority.
While the spirit of voluntary association is currently on life support throughout the West, it is not dead. We see it in America every time there is a natural disaster. I’ve participated in this as a local citizen, and I’ve witnessed it often as an elected official.
This past September, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the United States. It was an historic storm. For five straight days, torrential rains and 100-mile-per-hour winds swept across the Atlantic, devastating homes and communities and businesses. It hit western North Carolina the hardest. As the Speaker of the House, tasked with ultimately passing the relief efforts through Congress, I wanted to take a trip to ground zero to witness the scope of this destruction and meet with the individuals whose aid our aid would eventually impact.
One of our first visits in the state was to the First Baptist Church in Swannanoa, North Carolina. When we arrived, we were met with what looked like a military-grade aid station. It was so impressive. There were doctors and nurses and carpenters and chefs and scores of volunteers. The storm knocked out almost all of their cell and internet service throughout the entire region. So, I asked the pastor’s wife at that church, how did all this come together?
She informed me that an elderly woman in the community, who had recently purchased an entire cow to store in her deep freezer for the winter months, had lost her home in the storm, but somehow the deep freezer had survived. She was worried that the hundreds of pounds of meat in her freezer would spoil without electricity, so she loaded it into a vehicle and dropped it off somewhere she knew it would go to good use, and that was the local church.
Neither the pastor nor his wife were trained butchers, but they knew they had hungry mouths in the community, so they turned their sanctuary into a makeshift butcher shop and started cooking for the surrounding people. As the smell of grilled beef wafted above the small town, citizens showed up. And they continued to show up. And from that point forward, the church became the central hub for disaster relief, organized not by the state or the federal government, but by local neighbors, the community. It filled in where the bureaucracy could not.
In times of disaster, local organizations are often the first to respond, well before the broken and bureaucratic federal agencies ever arrive. And they often have a much higher mission success rate, by the way. In my home state of Louisiana, organizations like the Cajun Navy, an interconnected group of volunteers with boats and trucks, have saved thousands of Louisianians during storms like Hurricane Katrina.
I tell these stories because they serve as evidence that strong communities, built on the spirit of voluntary association and shared responsibility are still very much alive. But it is a shame that it takes a natural disaster for us to recognize their value. This level of civic engagement should be the rule and not the exception, because the same principles that drive effective local action in times of crisis can also inform national policy and global leadership.
In the last line of the Declaration of Independence, our founders wrote the following, “For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” America’s founders were willing to die for the cause of liberty, and this acknowledgment in our nation’s birth certificate signaled a commitment that America would place our national interest over our individual interests, and those of foreign nations.
While we have gradually lost sight of this concept, the new American government is proof positive that we can rekindle that spirit once again. On this national holiday of ours, I’ll quote the president that I most fondly remember from my youth, and that’s Ronald Reagan. He reminded us of this famous admonition. He said, “We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall in Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return of the Dark Ages, Pope Pius XII said, the American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions.
Into the hands of America, God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.” American leadership clearly did help bring about decades of peace and economic growth and prosperity for the Western democracies.
In America, we still believe in peace through strength, and we still understand our role in the world. A strong America is good for free people everywhere because it helps to keep the terrorists and the tyrants at bay. But to maintain our strength and leadership, our foreign policy must be centered on our own national interest. It’s a matter of common sense for each of our countries to acknowledge that we must each take care of our own houses before we help take care of the neighborhood. As we seek to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous, we will encourage all our friends and allies to do the same in and for their own countries. The survival of the West will depend upon that. And this is how we will turn the tides, by refocusing and marshalling our many shared interests toward our own national interest.
Recent elections in places France, Italy, like Netherlands and Germany signal that millions of freedom-loving people around the world share our concerns about unchecked power and the erosion of national sovereignty. As leaders in government, academia, media, and the arts, we must be prepared to steer their aims toward policies and mediating institutions that reduce government dominion over our lives and advance prosperity. In short, we must not let this civilizational moment pass us by.
So how do we do it? As leaders, we should be working at every level to shift control away from established power centers and back to the people. The local school board will not be nearly as powerful if there is a thriving parent-teacher association holding them accountable. The county commission’s grip on zoning laws is weakened when neighborhoods take control of development initiatives. And organizations like the World Economic Forum lose their dominance when organizations like our ARC seek to challenge their hegemony.
History has proven that centralized governments thrive when their subjects are powerless and indifferent. If we want to protect our rights from tyranny, we have to focus, work, and build closest to home. And we must hold our elected leaders accountable.
President Reagan reminded us of another thing. He said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on so that they will know the same liberty, opportunity, and security that we have too often taken for granted.”
This is our civilizational moment. The West is finally awakening once again. We have to seize this opportunity, and by God’s grace, we will. I hope you all enjoy this historic conference, and I thank you again for the opportunity to share with you this morning, and I so wish I was there in person. God bless you.