DC Leftists Threaten Families As ‘Nazi Scum’ Simply For Attending Church
Families with young kids were subject to a bullhorn-wielding protestor screaming 'F-ck Jesus, Mary, and Joseph' in a demonic-sounding tone.Families with young kids were subject to a bullhorn-wielding protestor screaming 'F-ck Jesus, Mary, and Joseph' in a demonic-sounding tone.Conservatives can’t barbecue their way through national collapse
Conservatives want to be left alone. They have families, jobs, churches, hobbies. They love their country, but they stay busy and comfortable. Politics feels like something for other people — activists, ideologues, the perpetually aggrieved. The left may dream of tearing the system down in a fiery Marxist revolution, but one solid vote every couple of years or so should keep the crazies in check. Then it’s back to work, back to Little League, back to the barbecue.
That belief sustained many on the right for decades. It has become a liability.
A vote followed by retreat no longer suffices. Saving the country requires engagement, sacrifice, and the willingness to place political reality over personal comfort.
The sunshine conservative lives under the assumption that the American system more or less runs itself, that excesses can be corrected with minimal effort, and that power remains constrained by shared norms. Those assumptions no longer hold. The times that try men’s souls have returned, and the sunshine conservative is about to discover that comfort carries a cost.
For years, a bipartisan consensus reshaped the country through mass immigration. Call it conspiracy if you like, but incentives explain it better.
Democrats saw a reliable path to permanent power. Immigrants arrive without wealth, social capital, or political leverage. They gravitate toward the party that promises redistribution and protection. Every program — health care, housing, loans, benefits — tilts toward newcomers. Open borders grow government, entrench dependency, and expand the progressive patronage machine.
Republican incentives looked different but proved just as corrosive. Conservative voters opposed mass immigration, legal and illegal alike, but party leadership feared one thing above all else: being called racist.
Progressive programming successfully framed the idea of America as a homeland — run for the benefit of its people — as morally suspect. Any attempt to articulate national interest became “nativism.” Chamber of Commerce Republicans exploited that fear, importing millions of workers willing to accept suppressed wages while silencing critics through ritual denunciation.
While the country changed, conservatives largely stood aside. The transformation unsettled them, but lawn care got cheaper and food delivery faster. The sunshine conservative preferred comfort to confrontation. Political activism felt vulgar. Winners, after all, make money and buy boats.
Now the bill has come due.
Human trafficking. Drug flows. Violent crime. Overcrowded hospitals. Stagnant wages. Exploding housing costs. The social fabric frays under the weight of policies designed to benefit elites while disciplining everyone else.
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The Trump administration’s effort to remove the worst offenders collides with a system addicted to inflow. Obvious solutions exist — employer enforcement, E-Verify, ending the H-1B visa scam, taxing remittances heavily — but those measures threaten donor interests. Instead, enforcement proceeds piecemeal, state by state, criminal by criminal.
Each attempt to exercise authority triggers panic among mainstream conservatives. They fret about optics. They warn about norms. They clutch abstractions while the left shoots at or runs over federal agents, storms churches, and treats public order as optional. Establishment voices agonize over power even as their opponents wield it without hesitation.
A friend of mine returned from the Global War on Terror with what doctors labeled post-traumatic stress disorder. The diagnosis missed the point. His trauma didn’t come from violence alone. It came from clarity. He had lived in a world where stakes mattered, where power operated openly, where failure carried consequences. Returning to a culture submerged in therapeutic language, pronouns, and safe spaces proved disorienting. Everyone else lived inside a fantasy and demanded that he play along.
Eventually, he learned to stay quiet. He still regards much of what surrounds him as childish and unmoored from reality.
That reaction mirrors what many feel toward sunshine conservatives. They cling to a story about politics that bears no resemblance to how power functions. When confronted with evidence, they demand that reality conform to their narrative. It never does. That narrative existed to pacify them, to make them manageable. They defend it with the same fervor with which the left defends its own delusions.
Each crisis cracks the façade. An assassination. A church invasion. A city surrendered to disorder. Every time, a few more conservatives wake up — only to be swarmed by those demanding a return to small talk about tax rates and process. The problem never lay with those who saw the danger. It lay with those insisting everyone else look away.
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The question no longer concerns policy tweaks. It concerns survival. One side believes the country deserves preservation and repair. The other treats it as illegitimate and disposable. That divide cannot be bridged by nostalgia or proceduralism.
The sunshine conservative era has ended. Saving the country requires engagement, sacrifice, and the willingness to place political reality over personal comfort. It requires choosing the future of one’s children over quarterly returns. It requires the disciplined use of power to defend the nation’s institutions, borders, and communities — even when that makes polite society uncomfortable.
A vote followed by retreat no longer suffices. The fantasy that it does belongs with other comforting lies. The right can either shed it or be ruled by those who never believed it in the first place.
How do you solve a problem like Wikipedia?
Wikipedia has recently come under the microscope. I take some credit for this, as a co-founder of Wikipedia and a longtime vocal critic of the knowledge platform.
In September, I nailed (virtually) “Nine Theses About Wikipedia” to the digital door of Wikipedia and started a round of interviews about it, beginning with Tucker Carlson. This prompted Elon Musk to announce Grokipedia’s impending launch the very next day. And a national conversation evolved from there, with left- and right-leaning voices complaining about the platform’s direction or my critique of it.
As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.
As its 25th anniversary approaches, Wikipedia clearly needs reform. Not only does the platform have a long history of left-wing bias, but the purveyors of that bias — administrators, everyday editors, and others — stubbornly cling to their warped worldview and vilify those who dare to contest it.
The “Nine Theses” are the project’s first-ever thoroughgoing reform proposal. Among the ideas:
- Allow multiple, competing articles per topic.
- Stop ideological blacklisting of sources.
- Restore the original neutrality policy.
- Reveal the identities of the most powerful managers.
- End unfair, indefinite blocking.
- Adopt a formal legislative process.
Such ideas were bound to be a hard sell on Wikipedia. It has become institutionally ossified.
Nevertheless, I was delighted that the discussion of the theses has been robust, without much further prodding from me. Following the launch, Jimmy Wales actually stepped into the fray on the so-called talk page of an article called “Gaza genocide,” chiding the participants for violating Wikipedia’s neutrality policy. I chimed in as well. But the criticism was thrown back in our faces.
This brings me to the deeper problem: Wikipedia is stuck in its ways. How can it possibly be reformed when so many of its contributors like the bias, the anonymous leadership, the ease of blocking ideological foes, and other aspects of dysfunction? Reform seems impossible.
Yet there is one realistic way that we can make progress toward reform.
Above all else, those who care should get involved in Wikipedia. The total number of people who are really active on Wikipedia is surprisingly small. The number editing 100 times in any given month is in the low thousands, and this does not amount to that much time — perhaps one or two hours per week. Those who treat it as a part-time or full-time job — and so have real day-to-day influence — number in the hundreds.
In interviews, I have been urging the outcasts to converge on Wikipedia. You might think this is code for saying that conservatives and libertarians should try to stage a coup, but that is not so. Hindus and Israelis, among others, have also complained of being left out in recent years. The problem is an entrenched ruling class. As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.
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If you are a conservative or libertarian who is concerned about the slanted framing of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, get involved. If you are a classical liberal who is alarmed by the anti-Semitism within Wikipedia — like Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz — it is time to make your presence felt. Wherever you may fall on the ideological spectrum, I call on good-faith citizens to become engaged editors who take productive discourse seriously, rather than scapegoating “the other side.”
Even a dozen new editors could make a difference, let alone hundreds or thousands who might be reading this column. Given that Wikipedia attracts billions of readers, in addition to featuring prominently in Google Search, Google Gemini, and elsewhere, improving the platform will strengthen our collective access to high-quality information across the board. It will bring us closer to truth.
So how do we solve the Wikipedia problem? With you, me, and all of us — individual action at scale.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Debate: Can JD Vance become the right’s great unifier — or does his VP role stand in the way?
The young conservative movement is experiencing a notable leadership gap amid ongoing chaos in the online right-wing space. Sure, there are passionate influencers and rising political voices, but no one has fully stepped up to unify and guide the broader coalition with a commanding presence.
One person investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo thinks might be able to step into the role, however, is Vice President JD Vance. But Rufo’s co-host Jonathan Keeperman isn’t sure Vance is up for the job either.
In this episode of “Rufo & Lomez,” the hosts debate whether JD Vance can step up as the unifying leader the conservative movement needs amid escalating chaos.
“I've been so far a bit surprised that the vice president hasn't tried to step into this role,” says Rufo, arguing that Vance has both the “charisma” and the “authority” to effectively lead the movement.
“I’ve known JD over the years. ... It does feel like he has some hesitation or maybe even some fear,” he adds.
While Keeperman agrees that Vance “has all of the tools and charisma and ... the right talking points” to be an excellent leader, his role as the vice president would actually be a hindrance.
“I don't think JD Vance should actually do that in his vice presidential position. Not right now. I think it'd be a bit presumptuous. I think people might kind of see it as him stepping in to sort of correct a situation that I think needs to just happen organically,” he counters.
For one, Vance’s position prohibits him from “[speaking] candidly about the administration.”
“Whoever is going to step into this role has to feel credible to this audience, and part of that credibility is going to come from just speaking honestly about all of these different things happening in this ecosystem — whether it's the different personalities, the ideas, the sort of ideology that's animating Trump but also the specific actions that the Trump administration is taking,” Keeperman explains.
In other words, the kind of leader people will follow needs to be an outsider who can speak brutal truths about the current administration, and Vance, as Trump’s right-hand man, can’t be that person.
Secondly, President Trump is still the top dog, Keeperman explains. For his VP to assume the authority of this role as the leader of the conservative movement “might not sit well inside of this coalition.”
“Maybe you're right,” Rufo concedes. “We need some sort of native figure to step up in the same way that Charlie Kirk did, in the same way that Tucker had done.”
To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.
Want more from Rufo & Lomez?
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We turned tragedy into sport
Several forces are converging right now, and the result is a perfect storm of confusion, misinformation, apathy, and — most dangerously — runaway conspiracy thinking.
For a long time, I was consumed by true crime: real-life stories filled with mystery, fear, and emotional whiplash. I wasn’t alone. The genre became a full-blown cottage industry, complete with massive conferences, prestige documentaries, podcasts, and feature films.
The problem isn’t asking questions. It is speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.
At first, I saw little harm in it — especially when victims or family members were included in the storytelling. But once Hollywood began churning out sensationalized, “based on a true story” dramatizations of real-life horrors, something felt wrong.
Then I heard the victims’ loved ones speak out.
They described the pain these projects inflicted — how strangers dissected their trauma, speculated about their grief, and turned the worst moments of their lives into consumable entertainment. In some cases, families practically begged studios to stop profiting from their suffering. The pleas went unanswered.
There is little sign that Tinseltown plans to slow down. Personal tragedy is no longer treated as personal. We’ve crossed a line into a world where strangers don’t just demand access to these stories — they claim ownership of them.
That entitlement hardens quickly. It manifests as amateur investigations, armchair sleuthing, and the conviction that someone online can solve what professionals could not. Too often, that obsession mutates into wild conspiracy theories — narratives untethered from evidence that deepen the damage inflicted on real people already living with loss.
Fueling all of this is another force: social media addiction.
Millions of Americans live on their phones. Filters are gone. Boundaries between public and private have crumbled. Every tragedy becomes content. Every rumor becomes a reel. Every high-profile event risks turning into a true-crime nightmare, complete with TikTok theories and Instagram speculation.
Not all of it is malicious. But much of it is steeped in a moral carelessness that should unsettle us. And while content creators deserve scrutiny, they aren’t the only culprits. Plenty of us are liking, sharing, and amplifying the madness.
That dynamic reached a horrifying peak on September 10, when conservative and Christian commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Almost immediately, conspiracy theories spread — many debunked within hours. In one case, a popular Christian apologist, a friend of Kirk who had been filming him speaking at Utah Valley University that day, was falsely accused of signaling the shooter through hand gestures. The claim was nonsense. It collapsed under minimal scrutiny.
No matter. The damage was done.
Other theories followed. Some insinuated betrayal by those closest to Kirk. Others implied inside involvement without evidence. Each claim compounded the grief of a family and community already reeling from an unspeakable loss.
The problem isn’t asking questions. It’s speculation and insinuation masquerading as insight.
If someone is going to promote conspiracy theories, basic decency demands evidence. To date, none has been produced. And yet the claims persist — entertained, shared, and believed.
RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’
I can’t entirely blame people for their skepticism. In 2016, I wrote a book called “Fault Line” warning that media bias carries real-world consequences. When trust erodes, people stop listening to official narratives altogether. Combine that with the government’s incoherent and often dishonest messaging during COVID, and the ground was primed for disbelief.
For years, progressives dismissed concerns about institutional credibility. Now we’re living with the consequences. A toxic cocktail of distrust, trauma, and algorithmic amplification has left many people — especially the young — drunk with suspicion and untethered from reality.
Add in social media saturation, obsession with true crime, collapsing trust in institutions, and the undeniable presence of evil in the world, and you have a generation raised inside a pressure cooker of dysfunction.
We need to cling to truth. We need to model discernment. We need to help people learn how to question responsibly — without tumbling into conspiracism — and how to rebuild boundaries that preserve perspective and humanity.
Truth-seeking should guide us, not digital frenzy or the dark impulses of the human soul. If we fail to make that distinction, the damage will only deepen.
We must be better.
Conservatives face a choice in ’26: realignment or extinction
The elections of 2026 and 2028 will be “Flight 93 elections,” but not in the way Michael Anton envisioned in 2016. Anton famously compared supporting Donald Trump to charging the cockpit of a hijacked plane: reckless, dangerous, but preferable to certain death.
Nine years later, the metaphor has inverted. The forces that once stormed the cockpit now control it. They have locked the door, fortified the controls, and flown the Republican Party in widening circles toward disaster. No one inside can change course. The GOP plane is rapidly losing altitude, and everyone aboard can see it coming.
Continuing down this path does not preserve conservatism. It buries it inside an irredeemable party.
At this stage, the only rational move involves grabbing a parachute and jumping. Staying seated guarantees political death.
The gamble failed
Anton wrote his essay when the Republican Party had already revealed itself as corrupt, inert, and incapable of reform. That decay produced Trump. He appeared as something new: a transactional, deeply flawed outsider promising to smash the uniparty and deliver for workers and small businesses long ignored by corporate Republicanism.
Many voters tolerated Trump’s personal failings and erratic behavior because he represented a rupture. At least it was different.
Nine years on, Republicans carry all the liabilities of Trump’s image and record without securing the benefits that justified the gamble. His better policies stall in court. His worst instincts endure. Meanwhile, Republicans lose elections in territory that once leaned safely red.
Trump obsesses over his ballroom project, courts tech and crypto bros, cuts deals with China and Qatar, and waves away economic pain that millions feel daily. Consumers face rising prices. College graduates struggle to find work. Small businesses buckle under costs. The White House insists the economy is strong.
It is not.
History repeats
This failure did not begin with Trump. The Tea Party quickly collapsed because it tried to reform a party that could not be reformed. The GOP long ago ceased functioning as a conservative party. It exists to serve corporate donors while marketing fear of the left to a skeptical electorate.
History offers a warning. The Whig Party collapsed once it became obvious that it stood for nothing relevant to its era. The Republican Party replaced it. Today’s GOP has perfected the art of symbolic resistance paired with practical surrender. It’s fake opposition.
Trump’s rise looked like a break from that pattern. Sadly, it was not. He has spent five election cycles endorsing establishment Republicans, preserving the very faction that produced the crisis. His rhetoric attacks “RINOs,” but his endorsements entrench them.
His current agenda reflects the same contradiction: Big Tech, techno-feudal economics, Qatari pandering, Chinese student visas, and government-backed industrial schemes sold as innovation, paired with denial of inflation and hardship.
All the liabilities, none of the benefits
The result proves electorally poisonous. Republicans repel suburban voters and working-class voters simultaneously. They project the aloof corporatism of the pre-Trump era mixed with cultural coarseness and denial of obvious hardship.
Since 2017, Republicans have compiled a grim down-ballot record, interrupted only by Trump’s 2024 victory against a weak opponent in a terrible economy. Rather than consolidate that win, Trump chose to own the economy outright and burn political capital.
Conservatives now die on hills that are not their own. They inherit Trump’s liabilities without achieving the promised purge of the party’s corporate class. The GOP and Trump’s coalition increasingly merge into a single structure that offers spectacle instead of reform.
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The case for a clean break
As Republican candidates face double-digit swings toward Democrats even in light-red districts, the choice sharpens. Conservatives can continue propping up a failed party and risk discrediting their ideas permanently. We could embrace the “aristopopulism” of JD Vance and his circle. Or we could force a realignment.
A new party could channel distrust of techno-feudalism, mass surveillance, foreign labor exploitation, and a K-shaped economy engineered through government favoritism. It could ground itself in tangible productivity, property rights, sound money, privacy, small business, and national sovereignty.
Every decade or so, Republican dysfunction becomes obvious enough to provoke rebellion: Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, the Tea Party, MAGA. Each time, the insurgency gets absorbed and neutralized by the same structure.
We have reached that moment again.
Continuing down this path does not preserve conservatism. It buries it inside an irredeemable party. The Republican Party has reached the end of its rope. The only question is whether conservatives recognize it before the fall becomes irreversible.
Can conservatives reclaim pop culture?
Remember when the Duke ruled movie Westerns … studio moguls Walt Disney, Sam Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille called the GOP home … and the Hays Code kept movies squeaky-clean?
Well, Hollywood took a left turn about 50 years ago and hasn't looked back.
Both Mark Wahlberg, a star of deep Christian faith, and actor Zachary Levi are mulling production studios far from the Golden State.
Are we finally ready for a course correction?
Coming attractions
We’ve already seen rebel outfits like the Daily Wire, Breitbart News, and this site's parent company produce feature films and TV shows from a non-progressive lens. Dude-bro podcasters Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz ignored the DNC talking points during the 2024 presidential election, with some suggesting their political chats played a role in President Donald Trump’s re-election.
Liberal late-night TV may be going the way of the eight-track tape, given current trends, while the right-leaning “Gutfeld!” outperforms Colbert and company.
That all may be dwarfed by what’s coming next.
David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry, now calls the shots at Paramount after a high-profile deal secured the purchase earlier this year. David Ellison isn’t MAGA, but he’s also not woke or eager to mock half the country.
One of his first deals with Paramount was to secure the rights to UFC events, hardly a coastal elite move. Next June, expect an MMA battle royale on the White House lawn to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.
He also purchased the Free Press and named founder Bari Weiss the head of CBS News. Weiss’ company gave conservatives a fair shake and treated the news like … news, not progressive propaganda, under her management.
That suggests Ellison understands the culture wars and thinks appealing to the middle is a wise path forward. It explains why Paramount denounced a far-left celebrity push to boycott Israeli-themed films due to the nation’s so-called genocidal actions against Palestinians.
That’s more MAGA than Hollywood business as usual.
The right stuff
Plus, a November report from Variety shared several Paramount projects with a definitive Heartland appeal, from a “Top Gun” sequel to a “Taken” variation with a cowboy spin. And then there’s the much-publicized “Rush Hour 4” sequel, spurred on reportedly by none other than President Trump himself.
The one early flaw in Ellison’s plans? He allowed TV superstar Taylor Sheridan to flee Paramount for NBCUniversal. Sheridan’s red-state-friendly shows, from “Yellowstone” to “Landman,” have upended the TV landscape, and he’ll only grow stronger under his new deal.
Sheridan’s emergence is another reason for right-leaning optimism. Once again, the prolific creator isn’t conservative, per se, but he’s willing to tell stories today’s Hollywood wouldn’t touch. His male characters exude a rugged, old-school masculinity that is often missing in other parts of the TV landscape.
A Sheridan show sounds and looks different from most modern programs. A perfect case in point? Billy Bob Thornton’s character, a world-weary oil guru, eviscerates the green movement in “Landman” season one. Would a similar rant be heard on any broadcast show? HBO Max? Netflix?
Unlikely.
Zach attack
More intriguing signs abound. Both Mark Wahlberg, a star of deep Christian faith, and actor Zachary Levi are mulling production studios far from the Golden State. That’s more potential disruptions to the status quo, fed by storytellers who don’t pledge allegiance to the progressive flag.
Angel Studios, the successful TV company now making feature films, offers a fresh take on the standard Hollywood slate.
And then there’s the current first lady. Melania Trump is the focus of a new documentary film bowing next month. She’s using her Hollywood close-up to announce a new production company called Muse Films.
That’s following in the Obamas’ footsteps. The former first couple created Higher Ground Productions and partnered up with Netflix after leaving the White House. No matter where one stands on the Obama record, the couple knows cultural soft power matters.
So do the Trumps.
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Retaking Hollywood
The real X factor may be AI run wild. Conservative artists don’t have the same access to cash that liberals possess. What if a savvy libertarian could create a film via AI, post it on YouTube or Rumble, and rock the culture without breaking the bank? How might that even the culture wars in ways the modern left can’t stop?
Conservatives still have a long, long way to go. Far-left auteur Aaron Sorkin revisits Jan. 6 in the upcoming “The Social Reckoning,” a movie sure to gin up Oscar buzz and endless fawning press coverage following its Oct. 2026 release. It is one of many projects that subscribe to a hard-left perspective.
Take this year’s “One Battle After Another,” a morally warped love letter to anti-government violence. It’s the odds-on favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar come March. Another Oscar darling is “No Other Choice,” director Park Chan-wook's anti-capitalist screed.
Plus, the Hollywood press will cover most right-leaning entertainment projects in a negative light, hoping to keep pop culture firmly in the hands of progressives. Remember how reporters raged against “Sound of Freedom,” a film cheering efforts to stop child sex traffickers? That movie wasn’t conservative or faith-based, but some assumed it was one or both, and that was enough for media outlets to both pounce and seize on it.
And for every rebel documentary like “The Fall of Minneapolis,” “Am I Racist?” or “October 8,” there are dozens promoting hard-left agendas. The existing Tinseltown infrastructure nurtures and promotes left-leaning stories and storytellers.
That won’t be easy to duplicate, let alone compete against.
Team Ellison will face overwhelming pressure to reject right-leaning impulses from Democrat politicians, media platforms, and garden-variety progressives. It could end up easier for Ellison and company to go along with Hollywood’s liberal orthodoxy than to effect real change.
Or Ellison could see this moment as the perfect time to perform an ideological pivot. The days of ignoring, if not insulting, half the country no longer makes business sense. It’s show business, after all.
And at last that half of the country finally has some storytellers to call its own.
The right must choose: Fight the real war, or cosplay revolution online
Is principled conservatism dead? And would that even be good?
Robert P. George’s resignation from the board of the Heritage Foundation last week suggests a deeper shift inside the conservative world. George is one of the most respected conservative intellectuals alive — a Princeton professor who built the James Madison Program and shaped a generation of natural-law scholarship. His departure, prompted by how Heritage President Kevin Roberts handled Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes, exposes a widening fracture on the right about what conservatism is and what it should defend.
The first lesson conservatives should recover: Reason and faith are not optional in the public square.
I have watched this tension escalate since what some have called Charlie Kirk’s “martyrdom.” Voices from what garden-variety conservatives call “the far right,” what liberals lump together as “the right,” and what Antifa brands “fascist” are pushing for influence inside the movement. Some insist these agitators are leftist plants sent to fracture the right. Others believe God allows the intentions of every heart to be revealed.
Whatever the explanation, the attacks now directed at George follow a predictable pattern: an “OK, Boomer” dismissal of a man who has spent his life defending the unborn, natural marriage, and the created order.
Full disclosure: When I was a graduate student studying natural law at Arizona State University, George took time to meet with me and guide my work. Later as a tenured professor, I became a fellow in the very program he founded. One of my own undergraduate professors — the great ethicist Jeffrie Murphy — said George’s work compelled him to rethink everything.
So-called far-right critics now claim George will debate and even co-author books with Cornel West, with his ties to Louis Farrakhan, but refuses to work with people “to his right.” The charge — absurd on its face — is that he is some kind of “controlled dissenter,” a token conservative tolerated by the Ivy League so long as he stays within its boundaries. From there, the speculation drifts into unfounded theories about motives and self-preservation.
George does not need me to defend him. His life’s work refutes these claims. He has never backed away from his convictions. He has never trimmed the truth to curry favor with elite institutions. He debates West because he believes reason still matters, because he believes truth can be argued in public, and because he believes even fierce disagreement does not require abandoning basic human dignity. He refuses to compromise an inch while treating his interlocutors as human beings.
That shouldn’t be so difficult to understand.
In fact, that’s the first lesson conservatives should recover: Reason and faith are not optional in the public square. They are the foundation for honest argument, and honest argument is the only way a free people can persuade and be persuaded. If we descend into conspiracy theorizing, rage, or tribal loyalty as our primary modes of engagement, we abandon the very tools that made conservatism coherent.
Here is George’s warning: Don’t become postmodernists. Don’t imitate the left’s racial essentialism or identity politics. Don’t throw out reason because some Enlightenment thinkers misused it. If you want to rethink every narrative you’ve heard, fine — do it with reason, not with the power-dialectic that dominates progressive thought.
But principles alone are not enough. Being principled does not mean being naïve. Conservatives once understood strategy and tactics — long-term goals paired with immediate steps that move us toward them. I believe the United States should acknowledge the kingship of Jesus Christ. Presidents from both parties once referred to America as a Christian nation. If that is true, then we must engage publicly, argue publicly, and fight publicly for that idea of ordered liberty.
That means getting into the trenches. It means refuting Marxism and atheism clearly and without apology. It means being innocent as doves and wise as serpents, fighting to win without surrendering either virtue.
RELATED: Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and the war for the conservative soul
What we cannot become is principled losers. The enemy welcomes our gentlemanly retreats. The progressive movement wants more than policy wins; it wants to redefine the human person, the family, and the moral order itself. A party that endorses abortion at any point, supports the mutilation of healthy children, and treats scripture as hate speech leaves no moral ambiguity about which side a Christian or natural-law conservative should support.
Read George’s arguments against liberalism. Read his defense of natural law. If you disagree with him, he will debate you — he always has. But you can learn from him that a revival of natural law and natural theology is essential right now. That requires teaching the truths in Romans 1 and learning from Acts how to speak across cultures and ideologies.
We are in a spiritual war. The weapons are spiritual, but the fight is real. The stakes are real. The consequences are real.
It is far better to be fighting through the mud of Mordor than fat, complacent, and conquered in the Shire.
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Legendary Conservative Intellectual Norman Podhoretz Dead At 95