WATCH: Justice Thomas Blasts Progressivism On The 250th Anniversary Of The Declaration of Independence

Most of what people see when they look at the speech Justice Thomas gave in UT Austin this week will be the viral moments where he puts Progressivism on blast. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To be fair, the 30-second clip that’s getting so much attention is one of those quotes we might still be talking about years from now.

🚨 JUST IN: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is being praised nationwide for dropping this TRUTH on leftism and "progressivism"

"Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights… pic.twitter.com/pVRS8AuwwL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 16, 2026

The quote in that clip is as follows:

‘Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from Government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incomparable with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.‘

The entire speech is here for anyone interested in the context. (Pro-tip, you can speed up the playback or skim the transcripts if you don’t have time to sit for the full 50 minutes of so it took to deliver the speech.)

But if you have the opportunity, I encourage you to watch the full speech. It was powerfully worded and, I believe, is exactly the tonic the body politic needs today.

He takes the grand principles out of the world of abstraction where critics and defenders tend to treat them as academic ideals, when he, his illiterate grandfather, and the nuns in his school had a deep and visceral understanding of the unshakeable reality that such claims had on the world in which we live.

He opens with what can only be called a rough rebuke to the people who work so hard to undermine and denounce America. He opens with a glimpse of his own childhood, in Georgia, where he and others stood up every morning, pledged allegiance to the flag, memorized the preamble to the Constitution and longed for the day when those rights would finally be fully extended to people like himself.

He grew up under Jim Crow. He experienced. How ironic that he, personally, feels greater love for the country and its founding principles than others who profess indignation for wrongs they never personally endured.

They hold America in contempt, while Thomas will deliver a full speech on why we want to rebuild and reaffirm the very principles on which the Declaration of Independence, whose anniversary we now commemorate, so depended.

After the speech ended, he sat down for a short interview where he gave some fantastic unscripted answers to questions. Here’s a sample from one of those exchanges, where he answers a question of rebuilding the erosion of public trust in institutions, including in the judiciary.

The interview can be found at the end of the video above.

Enjoy!

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