In Indiana, Ted Cruz was eliminated from the GOP race. Fingers are being pointed. There seem to be so many people to blame. The reality is this: WE are to blame. By “we,” I mean faithful Christians and true conservatives.
How did this happen? When we. How does a liberal narcissist knucklehead like Trump win over Republican voters? The answer lies in the inability of two related segments of America. Let’s start with true conservatives. The Mark Levins, Erick Ericksons, and Ben Shapiros of the world have failed. The grassroots activists, of which I consider myself an active participant, have failed. The National Reviews, RedStates, and Soshables of the internet have failed. Conservatism as a political ideology makes way too much sense for us to have failed, but we have.
The reasons are numerous, but let’s list a few:
- Fighting on Their Level: To get noticed, you have to get loud. To get loud means that you have to abandon the higher thinking of intellectual discourse upon which we have an advantage and dive into the realm of emotional argumentation and insincere pandering. This is a losing battle; when feelings are involved, logic is dissolved. Having a low flat tax for economic growth makes sense logically but it doesn’t appeal to the masses who have to be shown things in quick sound bites and brief headlines. Preserving liberties is a fundamental component of conservatism, but when emotional fairness leads to political correctness (which it invariably does), liberties are painted as discrimination. Conservatives have the better plan, but “better” is wiped out when we bring the argument down to the emotional level… which happens way too often.
- Acceptance of the Lesser of Two Evils: How does John McCain stay in the Senate for so long? Because he’s better than the opposing Democrat. How does Paul Ryan become Speaker of the House? Because we’ve elected too many moderate Congressman. If ever there was a reason to remain on the #NeverTrump side of the ball, it’s this. We have to rebuild the Republican party under the flag of true conservatism which means that we cannot support anyone who is the lesser of two evils. As much as a Hillary Clinton White House terrifies me, I can’t say with certainty that Trump would be better. If anything, I’m leaning towards the notion that he would be worse. I will not vote for either. More on that in another article. In the meantime, we have to come to the realization that we cannot keep electing populists and moderates to office.
- Allowance of Fakers: Conservatism is popular on the campaign trail. It’s popular for talk show hosts, podcasters, and bloggers. The problem is that too many of them are fair weather conservatives. They bend. They pretend. They wave conservatism around as if it’s malleable when it shouldn’t be. They’ve helped to redefine what conservatism is supposed to be, but the reality is that true conservatism is ideal the way it is. The fakers must be removed from the conversation.
As for faithful Christians, our calling is to share the Gospel, to live by the tenets of the Bible, and to fight when appropriate. We aren’t. As a group, we’re relenting to the same political correctness that is rampant in politics. By standing by and lightly chastising the moral degradation of the country, we’re allowing for people like Trump to become our representatives. It’s sad that Trump is now the “last hope” for defending religious liberties. In other words, we are now condemned to fight on our own.
I’m disgusted, but at this point it’s time to look in the mirror to see why this happened. Once we get our wits about us again, it’s time to do something about it. As Shapiro points out, it’s time to start rebuilding now.
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