The Heritage Foundation’s chief advocates for family-centered policies

“The fight for our nation is ultimately a fight for our families,” said Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.

A culture besieged by anti-family elite institutions is driving Americans who are raising children to the political right, he said.

Roberts made the remarks in a speech that aired on this week’s episode of his podcast, “The Kevin Roberts Show.”

The speech was originally delivered on July 25 at the Conservative Social Policy Conference hosted by the Family Policy Alliance Foundation, a Christian ministry that seeks to defend the faith and protect families.

“We have to transform a party of mothers, fathers and children, in a party for mothers, fathers, and children, and the way we do that is to recognize and insist that in this movement—and especially at this time—every problem must first be understood as a family problem, one that is centered around dinner table, not a basement in Delaware,” said the Heritage Foundation president. The reference to Delaware was an indirect slap at the policies of the Biden administration.

Conservatives must work to protect the institution God created from the very beginning; especially family, Roberts said.

“The division, dysfunction and decline we see all around us — driven at every turn by the breakdown of our families — didn’t just happen,” he said. “Some Republican leaders, obviously not all of them in this city, helped make this happen. We live in the nation that their political myopia helped build.”

Some Republicans have forgotten that the primary purpose of government policy is human flourishing, added President Heritage.

“And as you know, happiness and flourishing ultimately depend on the health and strength of our families, whose health and strength depend on their faith in God,” Roberts said. “The left certainly understands this. They know that in order to fundamentally change America — that is, to destroy it — they must first destroy the American family.”

He said millions of Americans who might not typically vote Republican “are screaming for permission to vote with us.”

“Just as we invite someone to church, we must invite them into our movement, proclaiming the truth boldly, as (Ronald) Reagan would say, not in pale pastels, but in the bold colors of red, white, and blue, and God’s truth,” Roberts said. “This is our mission.”

You can hear more about what Roberts had to say about “family first” conservatism, why America’s national survival depends on families, and why social conservatives are more than just an interest group here: