It’s a difficult time to be a young conservative trying to stand for his ideals. But the best times to stand for your principles are the times they are most at risk.
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Hello again, loyal readers, and welcome to another week of American carnage. The economy is still in shambles. Oil prices are still down dramatically. Coronavirus continues to loom large over everyday life. Not enough you say? How about some congressional insider trading as well.
What a time to politically come of age; before we continue, I’d like to tell you guys a story.
Growing up in Oklahoma, I was always surrounded by staunch Republicans. My family was red as far back as Richard Nixon. Despite being working class, they were loyal to a fault to the party of Lincoln and Reagan.
As I grew older, I got to experience this brand of party politics firsthand at family gatherings and on holidays. The adults would sit down to talk politics, and as a young boy, I would excitedly join them and listen. What really excited me, though, was talking with my great-grandfather on the subject. He always talked to me like an adult, even when I was only eight or nine. He asked for my opinions, and he listened when I gave them. When we were done, he would hand me a book out of his personal library and tell me to read it.
My political origin story didn’t come to fruition, however, until the 2016 election. By this time, I had moved to South Dakota, another reliably red state, and my Republican persona was well-established.
To be honest, I fell in love with Donald Trump. I liked how he was brash, that he said outrageous things, and I reveled in the fact that he irked Washington politicians. I was jubilant when he won the primary, and I was ecstatic when he won the general election. In that same election, however, I found a model for the kind of conservative I would later become.
As many others have done before me, I discovered Ben Shapiro.
Regardless of what you may think of him, Shapiro seems to be a truly principled conservative, and he spoke with a morality that was lacking in other conservative speakers. It’s not enough to know your policies work in practice. You have to be able to explain to people why they are morally right, or you will never win an election.
Shapiro was also uncompromising in his positions. If you believe in a principle, you have a moral obligation to take it to its logical conclusion, even if that leaves you with some novel principles. The intellectual consistency he spoke with was refreshing. Between discovering him and having Trump as president, I was ready to jump into politics feet first.
If you’ll notice, I used the past tense in that paragraph. It’s been a long three and a half years.
The longer Trump was in office, the more upset with him I became. The more he did, the less I supported him. Whether it was tariffs or tweets, he made it increasingly hard to justify support for the man.
As has been documented, the straw that broke this camel’s back was his national emergency declaration in January 2019. Since then, he has only gotten worse, culminating in his impeachment. As a young man able to vote for the first time in 2020, I can assuredly say I will not be voting for the man I trumpeted only four years ago.
On the other side of this rude awakening, my admiration for Ben Shapiro has taken a tumble. His uncompromising takes on political ideals have waned. His intellectual consistency has taken a backseat to partisan loyalty. It is a shameful reality because America could use more prominent principled conservative voices right now.
It can be a trying time for people involved in politics. And, for the first time in my life, I understand why so many young people avoid the political theatre. It’s stressful. It’s trying. At times like this, it is downright depressing. When the people you campaigned for blatantly misuse their office, it hurts. When the ideas you’ve fought hard for are thrown away like a dirty cloth, it can feel hopeless.
Despite all of that, this is also a wonderful time to get involved in politics.
As Reagan once said, this is truly a time for choosing. The best times to stand for your principles are the times they are most at risk. For young (and old) conservatives, that time is now.
The Republican Party has, for the time being, abandoned us. Voters have repeatedly shown that they don’t know enough about the US Constitution to vote for it. The Democratic Party swings dangerously close to communism and a total rejection of what our Founders stood for. If there were ever a time to stand up and fight, it would be now.
And that is what I intend to do. And I hope that you, the young conservative reading this, will stand with me.
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