FreeCon 2025
Dan Crenshaw, Jonah Goldberg, others discuss the future of the American Right
What do Freedom Conservatives believe?
You’ll find some answers by perusing the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles. Hundreds of FreeCons have signed it, pledging ourselves to defend the rule of law, restrain the size and scope of government, champion free speech and family formation, and reduce Americans’ cost of living through competitive markets, consumer choice, and free trade.
“Liberty is indivisible,” we wrote, “and political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom.”
But FreeCons represent a variety of backgrounds, regions, generations, and roles in the movement. We differ on some matters, large and small. And we express our ideas in compatible terms, not identical ones.
The best way to learn more about the breadth and depth of Freedom Conservatism is to attend our inaugural conference on February 24, 2025, at the National Press Club in Washington. Here are some of the panel topics:
• What can Freedom Conservatives Learn from Their Predecessors?
• A Pro-Liberty Agenda for Americans Left Behind
• Expanding the FreeCon Coalition
• Pro-Growth Tax and Fiscal Reform
• DOGE: The FreeCon Policy Engine
In past newsletters, we profiled such FreeCon 2025 speakers as Kristen Soltis Anderson, Charles Murray, John Cochrane, and Kay Coles James. Today we add more prominent conservatives to the list.
Highest potential
Dan Crenshaw represents the second district of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives and will be a featured speaker at the Freedom Conservatism Conference on Feb. 24, 2025 at the National Press Club.
A former Navy SEAL, Crenshaw served five deployments overseas, fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Awarded two Bronze Stars (one with Valor), the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor, Crenshaw retired as a lieutenant commander in 2016.
A graduate of Tufts and Harvard universities, Crenshaw was elected to the U.S. House in 2018 and serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
A skilled communicator, he hosts the podcast “Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw” and appears regularly in other media outlets.
A bill Crenshaw filed earlier this month would require able-bodied adults without dependents who receive Medicaid benefits to work or volunteer for at least 20 hours per week.
“The goal of this bill is straightforward,” he said. “If you’re a healthy adult on Medicaid, we want to make sure you have every opportunity to find employment that leads to better health coverage.
“Welfare programs shouldn’t incentivize people against working. This is about empowering Americans — helping them become independent, thrive in the workforce, and reach their highest potential.”
Restoring clarity
Carrie Sheffield is a columnist, broadcaster, and author of the bestselling book Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. She’s also a featured speaker at the inaugural Freedom Conservatism Conference to be held on Feb. 24, 2025 at the National Press Club.
A senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum, Sheffield is a former White House reporter and Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. She covered Congress for The Hill and was a founding reporter at Politico.
A graduate of Harvard and Brigham Young universities, she previously managed municipal credit risk at Goldman Sachs and served as lead analyst on a $5 billion portfolio of healthcare bonds at Moody’s Ratings.
In a recent Washington Examiner piece, Sheffield praised President Trump’s executive order protecting the rights of women in bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic competitions.
“Former President Joe Biden attempted an illegal rewrite of Title IX that threatened women and girls’ safety nationwide,” she wrote, “but Trump’s order resoundingly rejects that and creates needed legal clarity to sex-based words such as ‘woman,’ ‘man,’ ‘female,’ and ‘male,’ while preserving the legal existence of women as distinct from men.”
Market discipline
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of the Dispatch, a CNN contributor, and a featured speaker at the Freedom Conservatism Conference to be held on Feb. 24, 2025 at the National Press Club.
Goldberg holds the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of such books as Liberal Fascism and Suicide of the West, Goldberg has written a syndicated column since 2000 and a Los Angeles Times column since 2005.
In a recent piece, he argued that trade protectionism isn’t good for economic growth or financial markets — and that the latter has the greatest potential to temper President Trump’s use of tariffs.
“Opponents of capitalism resent the market’s impersonal efficiency,” Goldberg wrote. “They want economics to be an extension of politics. They mistake the amorality of economic decision-making for the immorality they ascribe to their political enemies.”
Reclaim sovereignty
Kurt Couchman is senior fellow in fiscal policy for Americans for Prosperity and a featured speaker at the Freedom Conservatism Conference to be held on Feb. 24, 2025 at the National Press Club.
Couchman has previously held positions with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Defense Priorities, several members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Cato Institute.
He is the author of numerous legislative proposals — including two bipartisan balanced-budget amendments — and opinion articles, as well as chapters in several edited volumes.
In a recent National Review piece, Couchman urged state governments to change their budgeting rules to tie revenue and spending trends more closely together.
“Fiscally independent states — and their members of Congress — can better resist federal bailouts and the coercive strings that remain long after the money runs out,” he wrote.
“In this way, smart budget targets can help states reclaim their sovereignty.”
In the mix
• In National Review, FreeCon signatory Jack Butler celebrated the declawing of the extra-constitutional Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Noting that Patrick Deneen and other NatCon figures had previously praised the CFPB, Butler argued that the Trump Administration’s moves to restrain the agency are “a strong indicator” that it “is ignoring the counsel of those on the right who favor retaining an expanded state.”
• In the Washington Examiner, FreeCon signatory Tiana Lowe Doescher described how the Trump administration can break the egg-price inflation caused by its predecessor.
“Trump, for one thing, must do what Biden did not — allow American farmers to vaccinate their poultry,” she wrote. “Other countries have already been vaccinating their chickens for nearly a year now.”
• In the Orange Country Register, FreeCon signatory Gonzalo Schwarz and coauthor Alexander McCobin called for a renewal of America’s culture of entrepreneurship.
“We need more than just policy,” they wrote. “We need a hopeful narrative about the future and an appreciation of entrepreneurs’ role in society and how they create more paths to human flourishing by enabling upward economic mobility.”
McCobin and Schwarz, who is president of the Archbridge Institute, name-checked past and present innovators who chose America to build their enterprises.
Why celebrate such successes? “Because we want the next Elon Musk to come to America,” they concluded. “Because we want the next Jeff Bezos to leave their corporate job and start the next Amazon. Because we want the next Sam Walton to think they can take on the big, inefficient players.
“That doesn’t come about from individual policies; it comes from culture.”