Austin Prochko is the Project Manager and Deputy Campaign Director for Next Generation Texas at the Foundation. Prior to joining TPPF, he was an educator at private and charter schools, where he taught literature, history, and government. Between his stints as a teacher, Austin worked on various political campaigns throughout Texas.
On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. A scant 36 years later, on Nov. 4, 2025, America’s most populous city welcomed a “democratic socialist” with open arms. These two things aren’t unrelated. Zohran Mamdani’s election is the rotten fruit of the rotten tree. Good old American capitalism beat the dastardly commies in the 1980s...
“If I cannot live in the land of my birth, I wish to live in America, under the Constitution.” I owe my existence to this sentiment, uttered by my great-grandfather, a Czech who escaped Soviet rule. I never met him, but I know his story: When he realized that he could not raise his children...
President Donald Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB) is packed full of policy changes—changes we’ll be feeling for years to come. To help break down what President Trump’s OBBB means for health care in Texas and the rest of America, I sat down with three health care experts and asked them what they thought the...
New York mayoral candidate—and self-proclaimed democratic socialist—Zohran Mamdani has promised to open government-run grocery stores in New York if elected. Why? Because of the high grocery prices. Let’s not kid ourselves—even though the economy is recovering under Trump and grocery prices are going down, groceries can still be obscenely expensive in New York. Mamdani’s recent...
Parts of LA are in flames. “Solidarity protests” have erupted in major cities throughout America, including Austin and San Antonio. On the upcoming 250th anniversary of the US Army—and Flag Day, to boot—nationwide “No Kings” protests are planned. Surely, some of this violence is planned, paid for, and promulgated by key progressive players like George...
“Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don’t think I am wrong about Stalin.” For those trapped behind the Iron Curtain a mere five years later, the sad reality was that Winston Churchill was wrong about Stalin—a mistake which cost tens of millions their lives and hundreds of millions...
“If you break your principles in the little things, each time it becomes easier for the bigger things.” The sentiments in this line, uttered by a friend of my grandmother’s family, have guided many principled men to greatness. And yet they have doomed many more. Tyrannical regimes rule by whim and diktat, and, for that...
Mark Twain’s quip on the variable trustworthiness of statistics is part of America’s general zeitgeist at this point—but it remains no less true. Which is to say, when people are throwing numbers and averages at you, it’s always a good idea to check the math—especially when those numbers are how much you’re going to be...
Three of our Founding Fathers, the men who formed—and formulated—our nation, did not sign this country’s most important document: the Constitution. This Constitution Day, Americans celebrate this vital document. The Constitution is one of the greatest and most succinct treatises on government and governance in human history, and it has played a huge role in...
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or so the saying goes. It is precisely this line of thinking that has seen people like Darryl Cooper, who Tucker Carlson recently interviewed on his show, align themselves with the Nazi regime—because the Nazis were enemies of the Soviets, and the Soviets are communists, and the...
“I always make sure to work a bit on Labor Day just to spite the commies.” This statement from a colleague doesn’t just reflect the liberty-loving attitude at my workplace—it also reminds us of a fact we’ve forgotten: the communist and socialist origins of Labor Day. Labor Day as we know it—the first Monday of...
Amid the cheers last night at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s celebration of the ouster that led to President Biden being quickly and quietly replaced by Vice President Harris on the national ticket, you could almost hear the rumblings of a time thought to be long past. On August 21st, 1968—not that much more than half...