Victory Mindset For Young Civic Leaders - with Thomas Umstattd and Elias Coop-Gonzalez

We’re coming to you from the Patriot Academy National Leadership Congress in Constitution City, Texas, where more than a hundred young adults are debating bills on the floor in a full legislative simulation. It’s constitutional education with real-world pressure, real speeches, real motions, and the kind of civic leadership training most people never get until they’re already in office, if they ever get it at all.

We sit down with Patriot Academy alum Thomas Umstattd to talk about something deeper than procedures: mindset. He argues it’s time to trade retreatism for an attitude of victory and to recover the belief that we can actually take ground in culture and public life. From there, we zoom out into storytelling and influence, including how books shape leaders over decades, then into a fascinating thread on Elon Musk, Benjamin Franklin, and why radical accountability beats committee-driven systems. That leads to the hard question underneath modern bureaucracy: if nobody can be held responsible, can anything be fixed?

Later, we talk with West Virginia delegate Elias Coop-Gonzalez, who came to Patriot Academy as a teenager, ran for office at 19, and became the youngest member of his state legislature. He shares what helped him hold his ground, why community and mentorship matter, and what he wants the next generation to carry with them. We also preview two timely topics brought to the students: when to compromise without becoming compromised, and how to think clearly about AI without panic or blind trust.

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