Who is the next Steve Frank?

The real question is whether grassroots organizations still have the courage to produce fighters.

By now, the question has spread through conservative grassroots circles with a mix of grief, admiration, and anxiety: Who will be the new Steve Frank?

It is a fair question. It could also be the wrong one.

The better question is this: Does the conservative movement still have the courage, discipline, clarity, and strategic instinct to raise up men and women willing to carry the kind of mantle Steve Frank carried?

Because Steve Frank was not merely a political operator. He was not merely an activist. He was not merely an insider with good instincts and a long list of contacts. Steve was something much rarer and much more dangerous to the establishment, a man with conviction, pattern recognition, institutional memory, strategic precision, and the willingness to tell hard truths when everyone else was busy protecting illusions. Steve was also my political mentor.

And men like that do not come around often.

On January 6, 2021, I sat on the steps of our nation’s Capitol as a father, a husband, a pastor, and a patriotic American. What I witnessed that day is burned into my spirit. Tear gas drifted down the Capitol steps like a scene from an apocalyptic film. The screams of thousands filled the air. Flash bangs shook my chest. A handful of Catholic nuns and monks were on their knees nearby, chanting prayers in unison while chaos swirled around us.

It was one of the most surreal, volatile, emotionally charged moments of my life. I was there filming with my documentary team for a project on government hostility toward the Church. I had come as a faith leader and a patriot. I left with a burden that would alter the course of my life.

As I sat there weeping, proud of the Americans who showed up to stand for what they believed and at the same time deeply grieved at how close this nation felt to the edge of internal fracture, I felt the Lord press something into my heart that terrified me: Run for Congress.

I returned to the hotel that night, told my wife what I believed God was saying, and stepped into the greatest challenge we had ever faced.

When we got back home on January 8, I immediately began assembling a team. Within days, around forty leaders from across Los Angeles County had joined the effort. For two years, they met weekly at my campaign headquarters, which was my house. In Los Angeles, that level of commitment means something. People sat in traffic for hours just to show up. They came because they believed. They came because they cared. They came because they saw a fight worth joining.

But there was one major problem: not one of us had ever run a campaign.

We were flying blind.

I did what any serious man would do. I studied. I bought more than fifty books on Congress, campaigns, strategy, Christian civic engagement, election mechanics, messaging, and leadership. I read everything I could. I learned a great deal. And still, I was blind.

Because politics is not learned in theory. Politics is a hands-on, high-pressure, full-contact fight. Books can inform you, but they cannot train you for the exhaustion, the attacks, the betrayal, the rumors, the media narratives, the spiritual warfare, or the emotional toll that comes with stepping into the arena.

Then God opened a door.

Through a series of providential connections, I was introduced to the California Republican Assembly. At my first meeting, Katherine Loy welcomed me and connected me to Steve Frank. The next day, Steve called me. We spoke for over an hour. I barely remember half of what he said, not because it lacked substance, but because I did not yet have the framework to fully receive it. He was speaking from years of experience on a battlefield I had only just entered.

The following day, I drove to Simi Valley to meet him at The Junkyard Cafe. That first meeting began a relationship that would profoundly shape me. We met there many times after that, talking politics, strategy, messaging, movement building, and war.

Steve was unforgettable. Direct, witty, brutally honest, and absolutely unafraid to tell you what was real.

I remember telling him in that first meeting that I was thinking about getting the tattoos removed from my neck and hands so I could fit in better politically. He snapped back immediately, his voice rising the way it always did when he got animated: “Don’t you dare. Your tattoos separate you from everyone else. They make you real. They make you you. People are tired of politicians.”

Then came the line I have never forgotten: “Derrick, we can do this. We can win. You have what it takes. But no more sugar. Only coffee with fat-free milk.”

That was Steve. Sharp as a blade, strategic as a general, and funny in a way only he could be.

Over the next several years, I spent countless hours on the phone with him and in person with him. Whenever I called and asked how he was doing, he answered exactly the same way every time: “Killing commies every day.”

At the time, it felt like classic Steve, part humor, part attitude, part conviction. But after his passing, hearing that he had served in Vietnam as an Army helicopter machine gunner, that phrase took on a deeper weight. Steve was not just talking tough. He had lived through fire.

Steve endorsed me in every race I ran after we met. He backed me for Congress in California’s 36th Congressional District, where he served as my campaign strategist. He backed me for Senate Director of the California Republican Assembly, for Vice President of the California Republican Assembly, for the 66th Assembly District Central Committee, and for 1st Vice Chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party. He was going to endorse me again in my reelection race for Vice President, but he was taken too soon.

I won four out of six of those races. Not bad for a man who started with no political training.

The truth is that much of what many people now assume I instinctively know about campaigns, messaging, party mechanics, and strategy came from Steve Frank. People call me asking for help with elections, endorsements, opinions, and political warfare as though I came out of nowhere fully formed. I did not. A large part of what I know was poured into me by Steve.

To me, Steve Frank was Yoda.

And that is why the question keeps coming up: Who will be the next Steve Frank?

The answer is simple. There will never be another Steve Frank.

There was only one.

He cannot be replaced, duplicated, cloned, or recreated by committee. But his mantle, his seriousness, his willingness to fight for truth rather than conform, those things can be carried forward.

And that is where the grassroots has to face an uncomfortable truth.

The battlefield has changed, but too much of the grassroots has not.

Steve knew this. He understood that the old formulas were no longer enough. He saw that politics was shifting, media was shifting, attention was shifting, and culture was shifting. He was willing to pivot. Too many around him were not.

I still remember Steve looking at me one day and saying, “Derrick, you are the future of the Republican Party.” That was not flattery. It was not small talk. It was a challenge. It was his way of saying the old guard was running out of road, and if this movement was going to survive, a new generation of fighters would have to rise without surrendering the convictions that made the movement worth saving in the first place.

That remains one of the great weaknesses of the conservative grassroots. We say we want to save the Republic, but too often we refuse to adapt our methods to the modern battlefield. We cling to comfortable habits while the world around us changes at digital speed. We talk about preserving values while failing to build a movement capable of carrying those values into the future.

Changing how we do politics does not mean we bow our knee, soften our convictions, or surrender our moral compass. It means we finally grow wise enough to separate eternal truth from outdated methods. That is the delicate architecture of this hour, changing how we fight without changing what we believe.

Conservatism cannot survive on nostalgia.

It cannot survive on recycled slogans, stale structures, and leadership pipelines that never touch the next generation. It cannot survive by pretending that young people will simply wander into the movement on their own. If we do not intentionally recruit, disciple, train, and empower them, we will lose them. And if we lose them, we lose more than organizations. We lose the Republic.

Steve understood that part of the future of the movement would depend on reaching younger men, especially those alienated by a culture that mocks masculinity, punishes conviction, and demands ideological submission. He understood that many of these young men were not looking for permission to rebel. They were looking for somewhere to belong. They wanted meaning. They wanted structure. They wanted purpose. They wanted a future.

And I told Steve what I still believe now: where those young men go, many young women who still believe in faith, family, marriage, children, order, and country will follow. There is a massive opening right now for the conservative movement to offer belonging, mission, identity, and leadership to a generation that has been lied to, confused, shamed, and displaced.

But we will miss that moment if we keep doing politics like it is still 1998.

Groups like the California Republican Assembly cannot afford to become museums for aging memories. They must become training grounds for the next generation of fighters. Young people do not need to be patted on the head and handed pamphlets. They need to be brought into the trenches. They need responsibility. They need mentorship. They need to be trusted with real work. This is not learned from a book. It is learned in combat, through wins and losses, through pressure and persistence, through engagement on the field.

Steve Frank believed this nation could still be saved because he loved it deeply enough to fight for it relentlessly. Politics consumed him because America mattered to him. Truth mattered to him. The grassroots mattered to him. The future mattered to him.

So no, the question is not who will become the new Steve Frank.

The question is whether enough men and women remain who are willing to think like adults, fight like warriors, adapt like strategists, and build like nation savers.

Do we still have leaders with courage?
Do we still have grassroots fighters willing to evolve?
Do we still have men and women with enough love for this Republic to pay the price of defending it?
Do we still have enough seriousness left to stop performing politics and start doing the hard work of preserving a nation?

Steve Frank wanted us to fight.

Not whine.
Not posture.
Not complain.
Not protect our comfort.
Fight.

Fight for truth.
Fight for the next generation.
Fight for the moral foundation of this Republic.
Fight for the future while there is still a future left to defend.

In honor of Steve Frank, and in defense of the nation he loved, I say this as plainly and forcefully as I know how:

Do not merely admire men like Steve Frank. Become the kind of fighter worthy of having learned from them.

By Derrick Gates

Father, Husband, Pastor
Vice President, California Republican Assembly
Vice Chair, 66th Assembly District Central Committee LAGOP

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Who is the next Steve Frank, by Pastor Derrick Gates

Who is the next Steve Frank?

The real question is whether grassroots organizations still have the courage to produce fighters.

.				BRIDGETT LEWIS Councilmember District #2
.				310-618-2801 BLewis@TorranceCA.Gov 3031 Torrance Blvd. \| Torrance, CA 90503 TorranceCA.Gov Facebook X (Formerly Twitter) Instagram
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