The intellectual bankruptcy of the New Atheist movement was on full display during a recent two-hour discussion between Sam Harris and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, revealing just how far these once-prominent voices have fallen since their peak influence in the early 2000s.
While Harris and his fellow New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens once commanded bestseller lists and packed auditoriums with their aggressive attacks on religion, their movement has devolved into irrelevance as Americans face real challenges that require moral clarity and spiritual grounding.
The conversation highlighted everything wrong with the New Atheist approach: endless intellectual navel-gazing while ordinary Americans struggle with inflation, border chaos, and cultural decay. Where faith communities provide actual support, charity, and meaning to millions of families, Harris offers only sterile philosophizing and moral relativism.
Empty Promises, No Solutions
What's striking is how the New Atheist movement peaked during the Bush years, when leftist intellectuals thought they could tear down traditional values without consequence. Fast forward to today, and we see the results: a generation raised without moral foundations, vulnerable to every woke ideology and radical agenda pushed by the administrative state.
Meanwhile, President Trump's decisive victory in 2024 was powered largely by Americans of faith who understand that strong families and communities—rooted in time-tested values—are what make this country great. They rejected the hollow promises of secular progressivism in favor of leaders who respect their beliefs and defend their freedoms.
"The New Atheists promised enlightenment but delivered only confusion and moral chaos," observed one cultural commentator. "Americans are hungry for meaning, not more skepticism."
As the Trump-Vance administration works to restore American greatness, it's clear that the spiritual and moral renewal of our nation will come from our churches, synagogues, and faithful communities—not from coastal elites who mock the very foundations that built this republic.
The New Atheists had their moment, and history has rendered its verdict: Americans need hope, purpose, and transcendent truth—not more intellectual arrogance from people who have nothing meaningful to offer a nation in need of healing.