Good morning!

Marriage rates in the United States have been dropping for decades—by 25 to 30 percent since 2000, nearly half since the early 1970s. One seemingly unlikely contributor is dating apps.

Receive a free news briefing in your inbox each weekday—the Trumpet Brief.

Dating apps promised to revolutionize romance by removing friction and expanding options. Instead, they have engineered a system that prioritizes endless scrolling over lasting partnerships. They don’t function as matchmaking services but as attention markets. It’s a fascinating picture of how human nature can be hacked and exploited.

• Platforms like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge make big money not by helping users find love—that would lose customers—but by keeping them hooked. Their algorithms optimize for engagement: swipes, likes and time spent.
• Users rarely delete the app after finding a partner. Many remain in a state of perpetual comparison, treating potential mates as disposable commodities.
• As the Conversation notes, “Dating apps don’t sell love. They sell the feeling that it is one premium upgrade away.”

Example: Field studies of Tinder show men “like” at far higher rates than women, while women’s preferences skew heavily toward higher-status profiles.

• Thus, a few of the most desirable men receive the great majority of matches, making most of the men effectively invisible. Women, bombarded with top-tier options, often hold out for an ideal that’s just out of reach.
• Alexander Muse writes, “A woman who would, in an earlier era, have found a reliable and affectionate man an excellent partner now evaluates him against a feed algorithmically optimized to show the most aspirationally attractive available men, because aspiration is what keeps users swiping. Her reference class has been permanently recalibrated upward, not by her own choices in any meaningful sense, but by a design decision made in a San Francisco engineering meeting to maximize session length.”

Traditional courtship, through friends, church or community, allowed time for realistic assessment, not to mention social accountability—slower interactions that built durable bonds. Swipe apps collapse that process into instant visual judgment.

• The psychological toll is steep. Apps train users in a “rejection mindset.” Abundant possibilities make even good options feel like settling, hence failure.

The results are bad all around: distorted expectations, dissatisfaction, shaken confidence, and broader societal problems—including less marriage.

• One study found that a 1 percent increase in dating app activity correlates with a 0.4 percent decline in getting married—virtually the opposite of what is promised.
• Fertility data tells a similar story: Childlessness among women ages 30 to 34 has risen sharply. Intended family sizes increasingly go unrealized.

When men aren’t putting their energies toward family, they tend to lose motivation and ambition, and simply draw inward. The collapse of male engagement in broader society is catastrophic.

Herbert W. Armstrong often said strong families are the foundation of healthy, happy, enduring societies. The devil has launched myriad assaults on family, crippling society.

• When families aren’t even forming, we have a doom loop of selfishness, loneliness, declining births and societal sickness.

Avoid these troubles yourself by deleting the apps, engaging with real people—and studying the inspiring purpose for which God created marriage and family. Read Mr. Armstrong’s power-packed little booklet Why Marriage—Soon Obsolete?

Europe’s Far Right Turns Against MAGA

United States President Donald Trump lashed out at one of his few European allies yesterday, calling Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “unacceptable.”

• “I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” he said.

After President Trump’s 2024 election victory, the fringe right in Europe jumped on board the Trump train and received enthusiastic support from Trump, Elon Musk, JD Vance and others. But the Iran war and Trump’s criticism of the pope have caused them to decisively reject maga.

• Many of these parties, like the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and National Rally in France, already had an anti-America streak, but they backed maga partly opportunistically and partly because President Trump promised to bring home U.S. troops and stop American wars.

That has backfired. President Trump’s rhetoric on seizing Greenland and his attack on Iran have been very unpopular.

“It’s clear the majority of people in these countries, if not anti-American, have turned anti-Trump,” said Daniel Baer of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. So Europe’s fringe right is changing course.

• AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has told senior party figures to reduce their trips to Washington. The party’s other co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, accused Israel of dragging America into war with Iran, praised Spain for its refusal to cooperate, and called for Germany to evict American troops from German bases.
• Marine Le Pen, of France’s National Rally, called President Trump’s war aims “erratic.”
• National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, in January during the Greenland spat, accused Trump of attempting the “vassalization” of Europe.

One of the few right-wing leaders who did not turn on Trump was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. JD Vance visited Hungary as a strong sign of support for his reelection campaign—then Orbán got voted out in a landslide.

• Other leaders got the message.

Key decision: Meloni was the only European leader to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration. Yet she has also obstructed the Iran war, blocking U.S. warplanes from using a shared base on Sicily.

• For Meloni, the leader of the successor of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party, support of the Catholic Church is a core part of her appeal. After the pope criticized the war on Iran and President Trump criticized the pope back, she released a statement: “I find President Trump’s words towards the Holy Father unacceptable. The pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn every form of war.”

Counterpoint: President Trump has hurled insults at people, only to work closely with them later.

Still, whether or not the two movements reconcile, this spat is a reminder that the maga and European far-right odd couple has fundamental disagreements.

• These leaders don’t want to make America great again. They want their movements, their nations and their Continent to be great again, and they’ll use maga when, and only when, it furthers that agenda.

“Today, gullible men like Donald Trump and Elon Musk are still trying to empower a United States of Europe,” wrote Trumpet executive editor Stephen Flurry last year. “Yet we are already starting to see an anti-America spirit take root in Germany, a spirit that will soon hijack the whole continent.”

A year later, that spirit is stronger, and the phoniness of Trump’s European friendships has been exposed.

Germany and Ukraine Announce ‘Strategic Partnership’

Germany’s government announced yesterday that it has upgraded its relationship with Ukraine’s government during a visit from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Berlin. “Declaration on a Strategic Partnership Between Ukraine and Germany” was one of about 10 joint declarations and implementation agreements concerning politics, economics, energy and defense.

• Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Germany has played both sides of the conflict—and used it as grounds to advance its own military development.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said these agreements benefit Germany’s security “because no army in Europe has been as battle-tested in recent decades as Ukraine’s.”

• Germany will fund a $4.7 billion Ukrainian purchase of hundreds of Patriot air-defense air missiles and three dozen iris-t air-defense launchers made by German defense company Diehl.
• Germany and Ukraine will jointly produce long-range and mid-range strike drones.
• Ukrainian troops will train German troops on drone warfare at German military schools.
• The two countries will explore a broader drone and missile deal that would be the largest of its kind in Europe.

Deutsche Welle reports: “German companies could produce Ukrainian-designed drones under license and supply them to Ukraine, while Ukrainian experts would contribute their operational experience.”

• Merz said that collaboration will also include “digital battlefield data technology,” and Ukraine has agreed to share its combat data with Germany. The chancellor further implied that the two nations are working on a new weapon.

At the moment, Germany appears devoted to helping Ukraine win. But these 10 agreements are nonbinding, and Germany has repeatedly made real-world decisions that have aided Russia’s war effort over Ukraine’s.

• In 2023, Mr. Flurry wrote: “I believe Germany has already given Ukraine to Russia in a secret deal.”

Germany is once again playing both sides, pretending to befriend one nation while taking advantage of it to prepare for war. The war for which the rising German superpower is currently preparing will involve all kinds of weaponry, bloodshed and betrayal.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia’s oil revenue almost doubled last month, the International Energy Agency reported yesterday. Due to the war in Iran and Iran’s terrorist attacks on energy shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the average price of Russian oil rose from $46 per barrel in February to $78 per barrel, and income increased from $9.7 billion in February to $19 billion. For Russia, the timing couldn’t be better, as it faced a first-quarter national budget deficit that exceeded $60 billion, surpassing the projected deficit for the entire year. Russia, once again, can escape crippling economic conditions and continue its aggression, and the Bible prophesies much more of the same.

Taiwan leader’s visit shows China’s growing influence: Chinese Communist Party leaders hosted Cheng Li-wun, the leader of Taiwan’s Kuomintang party, for a six-day visit that ended on Sunday, another assertion of Chinese Communist power against democratic Taiwan. The first such visit by a Kuomintang leader since 2015 included a widely publicized 14-second handshake between Cheng and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping. The Kuomintang party has not ruled Taiwan for more than a decade, but many voters support it for its policy of favoring engagement over military resistance. The Chinese Communist Party favors it for the same reason. The Trumpet maintains its forecast of over two decades that China will ultimately seize control of Taiwan, with the deciding factor being weakness and unfaithfulness from Taiwan’s democratic ally, the United States.

Polish lawmaker brands Israelis as Nazis: During a Polish legislative session yesterday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, a lawmaker speaking to the chamber unfolded an Israeli flag with the Star of David replaced with a swastika. Konrad Berkowicz, of the far-right Konfederacja party, accused Israel of genocide and said, “Israel is the new Third Reich, and its flag should look exactly like this.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded: “It is hard to imagine a lower depth of contempt towards the Holocaust than this revolting act.” The incident is a crucial sign that as Israel fights for its existence against Islamist terrorists in the Middle East, the greater threat is rising again in Europe.

2025 was the deadliest year for Jews outside of Israel in over 30 years, according to a study released by Tel Aviv University on Monday. Anti-Semitic attacks last year killed 20 people in three countries outside of Israel. The last time more were killed in a single year was 1994, when a single bombing killed 85 and wounded over 300. Attacks on Jews began spiking after Hamas terrorists tortured, raped and mass-murdered their way through unsuspecting Jewish homes, streets and schools on Oct. 7, 2023. The aftermath of that massacre would logically be the time of greatest sympathy and support for Jews—yet it has instead produced a surge in Jew-hatred worldwide. The reason for this bizarre, hateful and deadly trend is explained in “The One Minority Society Loves to Hate.”

The U.S. eased sanctions on Venezuela on Tuesday to help the government survive protests from workers demanding higher wages. The average monthly pay in the country is $237, but the Associated Press said many are paid around $160 per month. The Trump administration is now allowing Venezuela to use U.S. currency, reenter the America-run global financial system, and receive billions of dollars in oil sales. Bible prophecy indicates that the conflict over Venezuela will soon turn in favor of not the United States or Venezuela, but Europe.