The True Sensibility in the American “Alt-Right”
The term “alt-right” has become a favorite buzzword of the Left to sling with unfeigned callousness at their political opponents who exhibit political views that veer to the right of Hillary Clinton. Or, for that matter, those who hold the political viewpoints of the Democrat party circa 2011. By our contemporary standards, so graciously ushered forth by the American Left, Barack Obama on the eve of his second term as President would have found himself as an unlikely bedfellow of Hitler or Mussolini. To the sensible man, these assertions on their face are utterly absurd. As obvious as this is, however, those on the Right, the mainstream Republican party, are guilty of the same crime toward their ideological allies. The average American, who by virtue is statistically a centrist by nature, may agree with many of the tenets and policies of the Democratic establishment; but, should said individual not support the genital mutilation of minors, he likely will be branded as being an “alt-right fascist” by those on the Left. To much disappointment, the same rhetoric can be observed in regard to those who hold more traditionally conservative views within the Republican party; who, with equal fervor and brutality as their Left-wing counterparts, do not hesitate to throw around the damning charge of being of the “alt-right.”
What, then, exactly does it mean to be “alt-right?” Given the vitriolic backlash unleashed on those deemed to belong to this subset of the American political discourse, on both sides of the ideological spectrum, it seems to me that being a member of the alt-right is unanimously synonymous with a core principle: that is, posing a threat to the established political order. One need look no further than the demonization of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement led by Democrats and mainstream Republicans alike. The very crux of the alt-right conundrum is thus miraculously unveiled. Traditional conservative ideals, that is resisting the globalist agenda, dismantling the bureaucracy, affirming the existence of a transcendent natural order; these, to name but a few, are the boogeymen of the ruling establishment. Through the simplistic utilization of language and rhetoric, those whose authority is threatened are able to forge a superficial “untouchable” class of radical extremists – the “alt-right.”
Since the 1950s, the Republican party, alongside every other facet of our culture and society, has undergone a vigorous process of radical liberalization. Fusionism, promulgated by prominent Republicans William F. Buckley Jr. and Frank Meyer, sought a coalition to unite the dueling factions on the right – namely the conservatives of the Old Right and the libertarians – against the Communist threat during the Cold War. There were many staunch critics to this fusionist agenda in the likes of Russell Kirk, Pat Buchanan, among others. Quoting the British poet T.S. Eliot, Kirk refers to libertarians as being a loud minority within the conservative movement by calling them “chirping sectaries.” He notes that, ideologically speaking, conservatives and libertarians have fundamentally nothing in common apart from an opposition to collectivism (that is, Communism), totalitarianism, and bureaucracy.
A core tenet of holding the view of a libertarian is the insistence on not allowing one’s own beliefs on morality impact legislative decisions. Worshiping at the high altar of the free market, gross domestic product and laissez-faire are integral components to the liturgy of the libertarian. Thus, libertarians do not hesitate to disregard social issues in favor of economics, ultimately resulting in a devastating defeat on any social issue in question. Libertarians are reluctant to recognize the existence of a transcendent natural law even if they, on the individual level, agree with the premise. Consequently this tends to favor the utilitarian view that there can be no governmental sanctions on moral conduct, allowing degeneracy to freely roam in the culture. This formula is one that spells disaster for any conservative movement, one that asserts the late Andrew Breitbart’s idea that “politics is downstream of culture.” Conservatives hold the Aristotelian view of politics that man, being a political animal, has a right to establish standards within his society and to enforce those standards; they are proponents of cultural collectivism, in the sense of the family being the fundamental political unit. Libertarians embrace the Lockean view of overt individualism, the flawed notion that man, as an individual, is the fundamental political unit. Traditions that inhibit man’s individual freedoms or that impede upon economic growth, expounds the libertarians, are no longer worth preserving.
It is no surprise, then, to discern how the combination of these two radically opposing ideologies into a single coalition would serve nothing more than to weaken the wider right-wing agenda. The iron grasp of the libertarian wing of the Republican party, by the time of Ronald Reagan’s presidency (one of Fusionism’s most fervent supporters), was strengthened and solidified, resulting in the formalization of the neo-conservative movement. As he (in)famously remarked, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” There is no question as to how Reagan and his administration regarded the “limited government” libertarian inclinations present within their party. The obvious problem that arises with this rearrangement of the party is that libertarianism, as its name suggests, is inherently a liberal ideology that rests in stark opposition to true conservatism. The writing was on the wall from the outset of this newly established coalition. As its staunchest critics had anticipated, the libertarian wing was destined to dominate the conservative movement. In essence, the Republican party – the so-called “conservatives” – devolved into the party of not conserving a damn thing. They became the party of globalism, of selling away American sovereignty to multinational corporations under the banner of capitalism and free markets; all while in the process, ignoring the culture and handing it to the radical left on a golden platter. Neo-conservativism, the term that will now be utilized when mentioning the post-Fusionist party, reveals itself to be a self-defeating enterprise.
Briefly, let us return to the three ideological commonalities between conservatives and libertarians as expressed by Kirk: a shared disdain for communism, of totalitarian regimes, and of a large bureaucracy. It is precisely in the neo-conservative’s inability to assert political power that manufactured an environment that allowed for all three of these to become a reality unchecked. Neocons, through these acts of grave inaptitude in the political sphere, have, in essence, acted as the primary movers in their political nightmare metamorphosing into a reality. In their quest for small government and limitless economic prosperity, they have denied the existence of the natural law and sacrificed the cultural prosperity of the United States at the altar of the free market. Individualism, which lies at the heart of the neocon ethos, breaks down the collective unity of the society, leaving each man to feed his own appetites and ambitions, oftentimes at the expense of the wellbeing of his own community. Breaking down the society to mere individuals, by denying the family as the basic political unit in a flourishing society, opens it up to immense vulnerability to be collectivized by revolutionaries – namely Marxism, feminism, atheism, the list goes on. Devolving into a materialist, utilitarian society leads to one void of cultural and religious identity. This is the framework of American society that has been pushed by the libertarian neocons for over half a century; and the fruits of their endeavors grow evermore present by the day.
As our society is becoming increasingly more individualistic, large swaths of Americans, most prevalently the youth, are being collectivized into these radical leftist worldviews at rates never before observed. The untimely dissolution of a prominent conservative movement in the political body allowed radical Marxists to infiltrate into the highest positions of our country’s most esteemed and influential cultural institutions, most notably our educational, governmental, and religious systems. Meanwhile, while the neocons were neglectfully allowing the political order and the culture to be swept from under their feet, they proved to be instrumental in promoting globalism and building the corporate Plutocratic class at the direct expense of the citizenry. It allowed for the exponential growth of the bureaucracy and the welfare state. The rise in multinational corporations, for example, is revealing itself to be one of if not the gravest sin of the neocons; as it has come to pass that these entities that they vivaciously buttressed over the course of the past few decades have become the vanguard in the opposition to conservative values in our present technocratic state.
Multinational corporations have become nothing more than the propaganda arm of the radical leftist agenda, the foot soldiers whose sole purpose is to force the masses into submission on issues such as climate change, transgenderism, atheism, etc. By all measures, a forced conversion into radical values opposed by the rational majority. The average American is immersed in the corporate world: they consume their goods, shop at their stores, work for them, and most likely live in their apartment buildings or suburban developments. Corporations have an immeasurable impact on the everyday life of most people. Herein lies the issue; if an individual opposes the political narrative pervading these entities, there is a dire consequence awaiting them in nearly every aspect of their lives.
Required of every civilized society is an ultimate end, or goal. And, consequently, a means upon which that end is achieved. The end sought by the neocons in recent decades has been economic prosperity – an idolatry for mammon. This is an immoral practice that inevitably leads one down a grim, Luciferian path of vice and Godlessness. Nonetheless, this is the path that those who purported to represent the “conservative” perspective of the nation sought to pursue. The goal was this: to lower taxes and to deregulate the economy to ensure that big businesses could expand with as few guardrails as possible. Afterall, to the libertarian, the only gauge by which to judge the merits of a society is a dollar sign. In doing this, the libertarians are no better than the Marxists. The ends achieved by these ideologies remain the same, to reduce humanity to nothing more than economic agents. The understood motive for such action was grounded in the idea of trickle down economics, that the wealth of these corporations would naturally find its way down to everyday Americans. A fallacy in and of itself, but that is not the topic of this work. Corruption was destined to follow suit as the relationship between the private and public entities expanded into one of incessant lobbying. The politicians were in the pockets of the corporations and the corporations in the pockets of the government. Each working closely together to achieve their own financial means, neither of which proved to be in the collective interest of the society.
Corporatization of our society led to the desolation of small towns in favor of urbanization. It drastically decreased the abundance of quantity and quality of skilled labor, as the workforce were encouraged to take up low-skill manufacturing jobs or corporate office jobs. It devastated the family by encouraging women to enter the workforce in droves, leaving families with no choice but to send their children to state-run schools. Likewise, it funneled an unprecedented percentage of young Americans through the university system, a system that implanted upon their impressionable minds infectious leftist ideologies. Small businesses, once a hallmark of the American dream and identity, steadily became obsolete, especially in small towns where many never stood a chance in competing with the prices of big corporations. China, the greatest threat to American hegemony, has reaped the benefits. The utilitarian society formulated by the minds of Jeremy Bentham and Ayn Rand has come true. The cultural impacts of these changes were immense. This purview of politics that has come to consume the majority of the Republican party and the centrist Democrats.
Why, one may ask, is any of this relevant to the present day and our culture? More importantly, what does any of this have anything to do with the alt-right? The truth is that these libertarian principles of the neoconservatives still comprise the majority of Republican leadership, as well as the majority of voters.. Meanwhile, the Democratic party has shifted ever farther to the left and accumulated dominance over the culture and the political order. Not only do these sentiments prevail, they also give way to Republicans “compromising” with Democrats at absurdly frequent rates. Luckily, in the past decade, there has been a rising movement within the Republican party to return to more mirror actual conservative values. As mentioned previously, the likes of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again platform has ignited a flame within the conservative movement, one that has focused its attention on the rot within the establishmentarian system. Mainstream Republicans, such as Mitch McConnell, whose existence is the embodiment of this establishment, assess this rising contingent within their own party as a looming threat to their own authority and influence. And since Donald Trump has exited the White House and even before then, they have doubled-down on their efforts at annexing their fellow Republicans as being of the alt-right with the same vigor as the left castigates all Republicans with the same accusation.
Those few Republicans whose desire is to advocate a true conservative agenda, who question the corrupt political establishment, are now lumped in with the likes of Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, etc. These individuals, in the collective consciousness, are what are commonly considered the “alt-right.” Which, genuinely, is an unfortunate calamity. Nick Fuentes, to provide a single example, promotes a solid agenda on numerous issues, one that would closely align to the conservatism mentioned herein. However, his views are instantaneously rendered illegitimate in the broader culture because of the inflammatory nature of his rhetoric and the reputation that precedes his followers. What good does questioning the legitimacy of the Holocaust, or making light of racial segregation in our country have in the alt-right movement? This is the grave error within the current alt-right that must be amended if it seeks to ever make a meaningful impact. Behavior of this sort undermines the entire movement. Does this mean we shy away from speaking the truth in order to appeal to wider audiences? Of course not. It is our moral obligation to reveal the unpopular realities of our world, such as the Jewish stranglehold on the West, or of the looming globalist world order, and the necessity of a strong Christian state. Presentation of this material is critical and prudence should be exercised. Appealing to teenagers who spend much more time on the internet than they should, acting as virtual foot soldiers, is not the pathway for building a formidable movement in the wider culture.
What does a modern “alt-right” agenda need to consist of moving forward? How can we take the good out of those already considered of the alt-right and translate that into a movement that is palatable to the common American while leaving behind the unsavory, internet humor behind? The answer is what I have mentioned on numerous occasions already: traditional conservatism.
In order to be a conservative, one must seek to conserve something. That is the first question that requires an answer: what kind of society are conservatives going to conserve? Consistency in this answer is key. One cannot have it both ways, conservatives will either be the party of tax cuts and free market fundamentalism, or it is to be one of preserving a good, true, and beautiful society; one ensconced in transcendental morality and Christianity. This is the plague that has befallen the pseudo-conservative movement for decades. The old agenda has proven ineffective. Republicans such as Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney seem blissfully content on maintaining the archaic nonsense that led to our poisonous downfall. Precisely because Republicans of this type, the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), are only interested in their own political interests and monetary gain. They do not and have never cared about the best interests of the United States.
During this past month alone, on the eve of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, instead of holding strong and awaiting a more favorable position with more leverage, 12 Republican Senators voted to affirm gay marriage in a bill that will inevitably result in calamitous infringements on religious freedom across the country. Less than two weeks later, again, 21 Senate Republicans handed the Democrats their radical $1.7 trillion spending package unopposed. In the midterm elections back in November, Mitch McConnell explicitly refused to financially support Republican candidates that expressed more traditionally-minded conservative views, instead favoring the same establishmentarian types that could be relied upon to fall into party line with no opposition. All of this, of course, at the expense of costing Republicans what should have been an easy majority in the Senate.
We must not disillusion ourselves, either, that individuals like Donald Trump are to be our chosen champions. Trump, for instance, would not fit into the mold of the “alt-right” conservative movement presented here. This is not to say that he has not proven to be a valuable asset in the formulation of said movement. Trump is hated by the left and establishmentarian right precisely on the merit of him being against the establishment. He poses a risk to the entrenched interests of politicians on both sides of the ideological spectrum. I hesitate to begrudge Donald Trump too aggressively, however. While he would not consider him a conservative by my own definition, he has proved invaluable in being a step in the right direction toward the type of conservatism I am to propose.
John Adams wrote, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” These timeless remarks are to be the thesis of any serious conservative movement going forward. The culture of Christianity long extant in the United States, relentlessly battered by radical leftist axioms, has crumbled in the latter half of the 20th century. Estimates are that only 63% of Americans consider themselves Christian. Opposed to well over 90% who considered themselves to be Christian in the 1950s. The United States is fully immersed in a brutal battle for its soul. Like the body of any rational being, it relies upon its soul as its fountain for life. Christianity, for the entire history of our country, has been that fountain. By losing it, it loses its identity altogether. “Liberty,” says Edmund Burke, “does not exist outside of morality.” As greater quantities of individuals are falling victim to the perils of atheism, the more the government is going to secularize. Hence, the wisdom of Adam’s words ring ever truer.
Once morality and religion is lost, degeneracy and despair will run rampant. Upholding the former is to be the primary goal of a reinvigorated alt-right movement. As Dostoyevsky noted, we must not rebuild the Tower of Babel to bring Heaven closer to Earth, instead we must bring Earth closer to Heaven. To effect this change is to require wielding the power bestowed upon the executive and legislative branches to achieve moral and just political ends. Dare I say, prudential authoritarianism. The Democrats poignantly understand this principle. They are, after all, the ones that have been winning the political war that has been waging for the past half century. The modern Republican movement is absorbed with these false notions that it’s inherently conservative to seek after small government. Conservatives, in the true sense, urge for strong, but limited, government, not a small government.
As I noted previously, the end of every society should justify the means to achieve it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge asserts that a society must be grounded on an “Idea,” which can only be derived from our divinely bestowed Reason. Ideas, in themselves, are finite; having always existed as God is their Creator. It is our duty as a moral and religious society to grasp upon these ideas, work toward them, and emulate them in our communities. Understanding, that is the calculated, methodological method of examining our physical world pushed by the utilitarian philosophers, cannot exist without, first, having an Idea to draw upon. Understanding alone, then, cannot be the underpinning foundation upon which a society is built. The intertwining of Church and State is crucial in the pursuit of this Idea, as it is only in Faith, our adherence to God’s natural law, that society can be built upon. The Church, or “Clerisy”, as Coleridge coined it, is responsible for the spiritual well being of the Nationality – the people. Their duty is to shepherd and educate their flock, to instill in the new generations the traditions of the old. Burke writes, “Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the end of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” We are obligated to our forefathers, who, while no longer with us in the physical sense, are ever present in the metaphysical; they are present in the collective spirit and tradition prescribed unto one generation to the next.
If democracy is to play a sizable role in the governance of a country, as it does in our own, it is imperative that the populace are to be properly catechized in the traditions of Faith cherished by society in order to participate effectively in the political order. Man, being the nexus between our physical and metaphysical reality, must be nourished in both of these aspects of their being in order to be political agents worthy of being heard by their representatives. Democracy, otherwise, falls apart. The primacy of the metaphysical, of the soul of man and his divine Reason, has been cast by the wayside. Mankind has been reduced to the status of a mere chemical organism possessing no higher purpose than to live out his autonomous utilitarian existence as an interchangeable cog in the materialistic mechanism, to produce and consume in our misanthropic epoch of modernity.
Much has thus far been spoken on the topic of religion, of the importance of the natural law and the Church in both the government and the electorate. Faith, alone, does not totally account for the many facets of the political order to be restored and preserved by a new alt-right movement. It is pivotal for such a movement to be guided by traditional conservatism, to acknowledge that man, foremost, has duties, obligations, and traditions to fulfill rather than to focus on equality of circumstance and democracy, ideas that have consumed liberal politics on both the neoconservative right and the left. Insofar equality in the sense that upon each man is bestowed an abstract right of equal circumstance. This, of course, is a mythical liberal fallacy. For, social hierarchy is a predetermined construct required for a civilized society. All men have a right to be treated equally under the bounds of civil law; they are not to be ensured with equal circumstance and material resources, to do so would be to deny God’s natural law.
On the pitfalls of democracy, Edmund Burke writes, “in a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.” Democracy, taken to its logical conclusion, leads both to anarchy and tyranny. Going back to the idea of a qualified, educated electorate; if democracy is to succeed then those participating in it must have a stake in the governance of their community. Property ownership, in addition to a proper moral foundation, must stand as a requirement for acquiring a membership into the electorate body. Within a society, there are a diverse array of interests in which the government must attend. Coleridge, when speaking on these parallel interests, establishes them as the “Prerogative” and the “Progress.” The Prerogative refers to the interests of the aristocracy, those who possess influence over the society. And Progress as the interests of the working man, an assurance that society is progressing in a prudent manner to ensure his needs are met.
It is paramount to ensure these interest groups have their grievances adequately met by the most efficient means, decisions derived upon a communal majority rather than a numerical majority. Working toward the common wellbeing of the society should be at the forefront rather than working toward the demands of an abstract numerical majority. Each vote is not inherently equal, it should be weighted to ensure the true needs of the society are met rather than solely entertaining the fainting fancy of any singular popular issue. If the will of said majority persists, the interest of other groups, in this case that of the aristocracy, will be mercilessly squashed, the basic thesis of utilitarianism. To effectuate cooperative government, then, it is pertinent to have all of these interests represented, the aristocrats and elected representatives of the people, with a strong executive at the helm. Ideally, this executive would be in the form of a monarch, who is bound by the Church and divine authority, to morally and justly rule over his subjects. A negative force, in these forms of checks and balances, is crucial to keep these interests within the government in check to prevent overreach and tyranny.
Aristocracy has been mentioned, and to the contemporary Republican the very idea of this is repugnant. A cursory glance through the writings of the great conservative minds of our Western heritage, one would find the necessity for an aristocracy in a thriving society. Drawing upon the idea of duty and of obligation, as well as the idea that striving for circumstantial equality, of socially leveling the society, reeks of that insidious odor of radicalism. Edmund Burke and John Adams put forth contrasting ideas of what exactly constitutes an aristocracy; the former favoring hereditary acquisition and the latter drawing upon the idea of accession through a natural aristocracy. Each of these views lead to the same conclusion, of having an esteemed class in possession of the virtue and talent required to fulfill their duties and obligations afforded to them through their privileged position. Into their hands is placed the means in which to effectively lead and govern. Plato, in his Republic, reinforces the necessity of “philosopher kings,” a ruling elite within society harboring within themselves the invaluable fruits of truth and morality need to be worthy rulers. For aristocracy, and likewise a monarchy, to succeed, the aristocrat and monarch must positively contribute to their people in order to justify his position. To do this they must be baptized in the tradition, history, and prescribed knowledge of their cultural inheritance. This group of dignified individuals are to act as the embodiment of the nation, to be a uniting institution that exists above the realm of politics. They are to be the grand proprietors of the good, true, and beautiful elements of their culture.
To dwell under the assumption that the United States did away with such a system in 1776 is ignorant folly. This very day we have our fair share of artificial aristocrats. These inadequate individuals are elevated solely through material wealth and popular opinion. No adherence to virtue or exceptional ability need be required. Oftentimes, our modern “aristocrats” promote the opposite; they exhibit vice at every opportunity and possess no redeeming qualities that would suggest they are worthy of their position. Here I am mainly referring to the likes of celebrities, or of the Plutocratic capitalist ruling elite. The 19th century began witnessing a wholesale eradication of these traditional elements that the founders intentionally wove into the fabric of the United States. Most notably, the idea of an officiated aristocracy was dismantled with the passing of the 17th amendment to the constitution which enabled Senators, the American answer to an aristocratic class, to be directly elected by the people. Additionally, the liberal notion of universal suffrage and societal leveling has risen to the core of the American political ideal and further deconstructed the system originally envisioned for our nation. The core tenets of prescription and prudence, so staunchly advocated by Burke, are a distant figment of the American imagination.
“But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.” This lamentation from Burke has perhaps never been a truer expression of the dire circumstances of us living in our modern predicament. Rationalism has seemingly conquered God, materialism and utilitarianism has conquered beauty. We live in a much uglier epoch than our forefathers. That has been the intention of this essay, to address why we find ourselves in this unsavory predicament and, perhaps, where we can begin to correct our course. And that is where the true sensibility of a renewed dissident right, a respectable alt-right movement, becomes relevant to our path forward. That sensibility, as I have understood it, is the traditional conservative ideals that have permeated through the Western political mind for nearly 300 years, ideas that have seemingly, along the long and arduous path of time, been lost to us. The most intriguing bit about our current age is that it has all happened before.
Coleridge, on more than one occasion, has been invoked in this work. Too many, if they are familiar with his writings, associate him with poetry and not political philosophy. I, too, was invigorated when I stumbled upon these lesser known works. I found myself contemplating the defining characteristics of his age, the Romantic era, a period of profound artistic excellence. Some of the greatest poets and novelists of our Western heritage were active during this time: John Keats, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, etc. Quickly it becomes clear, their epoch was not too dissimilar from our own. The turn of the eighteenth century was an ideological battleground having come out of the Enlightenment, a period plagued by philosophical radicalism and the first widespread attempts to remove God from every corner of European society. A time where brutal revolutions were fueled by a burning hatred for tradition, that sought to overturn the old order and replace it with their vision of an anarchic, democratic utopia. It was also the time of the Industrial Revolution, which witnessed the sprawling, serene countrysides engulfed in the smoke billowing from the factories and workhouses that were being built at extraordinary rates, that oversaw the destruction of agricultural life and the growth of cities, replacing the old aristocracy that had long propped up the cultural heritage of their civilization by crude capitalists and a small ruling elite completely devoid of any filial obligation to their society. For us in the twenty-first century this is an all too familiar reality. The exquisite artistry of the Romantics was merely a response to the diminishing beauty of the world around them. They sought to reestablish goodness and beauty into their world of deceit and decay.
This has been our reality since the 1960s. The evils of feminism, secularism, and scientism have assaulted our culture with advanced vigor. While the Romantics were able to recognize the peril of the world around them, they were unable to fully amend their broken society. We must not let ourselves be damned to the same fate. The conservative movement can be overwhelmingly pessimistic. There is a popular saying that goes along the lines of “the pessimistic conservative says ‘things can’t get much worse,’ while the optimistic conservative says ‘why, oh yes they can.’” Before us is laid an opportunity that the Romantics did not have. Theirs was one extant within the constrained bounds of artistic expression. Today, traditional conservatism is on the rise throughout the West. Wherein multitudes of young adults, from a diverse array of backgrounds, are becoming reacquainted with the timeless truth and beauty to be found in tradition and are flocking to it in waves unlike at any time in recent memory. Many feel as though they have been robbed of their cultural heritage by the merciless grips of modernism and resent the libertarian conservatives who stood by and eagerly ensured its expansion. The wretched rot that pervades throughout our political order and society, with all of its moral depravity and degeneracy, cannot persist indefinitely; not while there are still those who are willing to fight for the good, the true, and the beautiful.