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Seven million prime-age, able-bodied American men have quit—not just their jobs, but their obligations. This profound and accelerating crisis is revealed in recent U.S. Department of Labor data:

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• Among all men over age 16, the labor force participation rate stands at a devastating 66 percent. One in three men is neither working nor seeking work.

“Prime-age men”—ages 25 to 54—are the backbone of the American economy and the family. When they vanish from the labor force, the consequences harm households, communities and the nation.

• In the 1950s, prime-age male labor force participation was 98 percent. Today, it’s 89 percent. About 1 in 9 prime-age men is neither working nor looking.

It’s an “invisible crisis,” in the words of economist Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute.

• For every unemployed man actively looking for work, three more have stopped looking altogether—invisible to the unemployment rate (which is currently 4.3 percent).
• Many of them rely on parents or live-in partners. The number of men living with their parents has tripled since the 1950s.
• Most (about 64 percent) rely on taxpayers. They live off disability, food stamps, Medicaid and other government benefits. Rather than contributing to the economy, they are draining it.

Why is this happening? Jeffrey Tucker writes for the Epoch Times:

The explanations for this are all over the map. Disability ranks at the top. But we aren’t really talking about wooden legs and paraplegics here. This traces to mental disorders, substance abuse, obesity and chronic disease, low motivation, pharmaceutical injury and general lethargy and demoralization.

“General lethargy and demoralization.” Male ambition has been gutted. Tucker continues:

We all have stories. In fact, you are thinking of some men you know now and how it happened that they just lost interest in the normal flow of life. Instead, they spend their time with gaming, scrolling, porn, OnlyFans and some other pointless or destructive pursuit. They rely on substances and drugs to dampen the pain. They have given up.

The implications ripple far beyond economics. A society that loses its men to idleness, despair or withdrawal cannot thrive.

• It cannot sustain prosperity, innovation or social stability when a massive share of its potential builders, providers and defenders opts out or is sidelined.

Yet this is the inevitable result of society rejecting and consistently attacking the male role of provider and protector: With it went the imperative to find gainful employment—and the desire and drive for marriage and family.

• In the 1950s, 4 in 5 households with children were supported by a working father. Today that figure is 2 in 5.
• Absent male breadwinners correlate with rising single motherhood, childhood instability and intergenerational disengagement.

You cannot build strong families without working men. You cannot build a strong nation without strong families.

To recapture the biblical truths underpinning a man’s rightful responsibility to the family, read our free book Biblical Manhood. It describes seven specific roles God gives men—man of God, leader, provider, protector, husband, father, builder—and shows from God’s Word how to fulfill them. This instruction has never been more needed.

Israel Calls Early Elections

Israel’s ruling Likud party submitted a bill on Wednesday to dissolve the Knesset and call for elections. This follows a former member party of the coalition announcing its loss of faith in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday and urging the opposition to start elections as soon as possible.

• The 120-seat legislature is currently split 60-60 between the government coalition and opposition parties. The opposition needed only one defection from Netanyahu’s group to call early elections, so it appears the coalition is preempting them to at least determine the timing of the elections, even though it might lose power.
• Israel’s last elections were in 2022; the next elections were scheduled for this October.
• The formal Knesset vote on the dissolution is expected next week.

Israel’s opposition is getting more organized ahead of the elections. Two former prime ministers, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, have merged their political parties and invited other opposition figures to form a united front. Ongoing political machinations and voter polls suggest they may well beat Netanyahu and Likud.

• Except for a brief period between 2021 and 2022, Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009, following a brief stint from 1996 to 1999. He is 76 years old.
• Even if many Israelis support what Netanyahu has done for the country, his decade and a half at the helm might be giving many of his supporters fatigue and hope that another leader can solve Israel’s problems.

The Bible prophesies in passages like Hosea 5:13 and Zechariah 14:1-2 that the State of Israel will be afflicted by severe curses. (Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s free booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy explains this in detail.)

Israel has been hit by heavy curses such as the October 7 terror attack. But Prime Minister Netanyahu and his leadership have done much to keep Israel relatively strong. His leaving office will likely accelerate Israel’s downfall.

Draghi: ‘Europe Can Again Turn Crisis Into Union’

Europe must unify in light of a “more adversarial and unpredictable” United States, Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank and former prime minister of Italy, said on Thursday during his Charlemagne Prize acceptance speech.

• The Charlemagne Prize is named after the medieval Catholic king and emperor who conquered and murdered tens of thousands to unify and oppress Europe. It is awarded annually at his capital city, Aachen, Germany, to the individual considered to have done the most to unify Europe.

This was an open call for what the Trumpet and its predecessor have warned of for decades: a unified Europe that opposes the United States.

Draghi opened his acceptance remarks by stating, “Europeans are showing that they want Europe to act,” and they “want [the] European Union to defend their freedom, prosperity and solidarity. The task now is to answer that trust with courage and to show that Europe can again turn crisis into union.”

• The EU never wastes a crisis. It has used the euro crisis, the migrant crisis and the Ukraine war to deepen unification.

The “crisis” Draghi is referring to is Europe’s poor economic performance amid a changing world order.

• According to him, “For the first time in living memory,” Europe is “truly alone together.” As a result, “every strategic dependence must now be reexamined”—a clear reference to Europe’s nato alliance with the United States.

Draghi also said the EU’s decision-making “dilutes and delays” action. What could make decision-making stronger and faster? Making the union less democratic and ceding more decision-making powers to Germany and the other major European economies.

• Notably, the former banker focused on artificial intelligence, defense and energy infrastructure as areas in which Europeans must direct their investments to become more unified with each other and more independent from the U.S. and other nations.

Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, attended the ceremony and used it as an opportunity to call for a “fundamental modernization” of the EU’s 2028–2034 budget, meaning a larger focus on defense and making Europe more economically competitive while reducing subsidies.

Draghi is calling for a unified Europe at the former capital city of the great unifier of Europe. He is calling for a resurrection of the spirit of Charlemagne and the reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire. Merz’s comments about spending priorities call for real-world, major steps toward reviving the violent history of that empire.

The Bible prophesies that this empire will be revived in our day. You are witnessing the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire.

IN OTHER NEWS

Croatia repatriates remains of its pro-Nazi fascists: On Wednesday, Slovenia handed over to Croatia the remains of 500 fascist Croatian fighters killed in a forced march at the end of World War ii. Croatia’s minister of veterans’ affairs, Tomo Medved, referred to the fascist fighters as “victims.” This reburial is one sign that Croatia might not be fully ashamed of its dark World War ii past, in which it worked closely with Nazi Germany, ran extermination camps, and conducted forced conversions, mass arrests, massacres, death marches and mass executions.

Lebanon rebukes Iran: Lebanon confirmed Wednesday it sent a letter to the United Nations late last month accusing Iran of violating diplomatic protocol, meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs, and dragging it into a war against Israel. Following the government’s attempt to forcibly disarm Hezbollah and even public overtures for a peace treaty with Israel, this unprecedented step is the clearest sign yet that the Lebanese government, increasingly free from domination by Iran-sponsored Hezbollah, wants a clear break from the Iranians. The Bible reveals who its next major ally will be.

The U.S. canceled a nato deployment of troops to Poland yesterday. An armored brigade of 4,000 personnel will no longer rotate into the nation, and advanced personnel in the nation will withdraw. This comes on the heels of the U.S. announcing the withdrawal of 5,000 of its 35,000 troops in Germany. President Trump believes withholding U.S. military resources from European nato allies functions as punishment and pressure against Europe, but Bible prophecy warns that this notion is dead wrong.

Another Chinese spy in America: A man who operated a covert Chinese intelligence outpost from an office building in Manhattan’s Chinatown was convicted Wednesday of operating as a foreign agent. Lu Jianwang was also found guilty of obstructing evidence after he deleted text messages that prosecutors said contained directives from his Chinese Communist Party regime handlers in Beijing to suppress, threaten and pressure pro-democracy Chinese activists in America. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said, “A police station operating in New York City at the direction of the Chinese government has been exposed, its sinister purpose disrupted, and its founder held accountable for blatantly disregarding the law and our country’s sovereignty.” This case is the latest evidence showing that U.S. leaders desperately need to “Wake Up to the Threat From China.”