{"id":1484,"date":"2023-04-28T19:46:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T19:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/04\/28\/trump-the-only-way-forward\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T19:46:26","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T19:46:26","slug":"trump-the-only-way-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2023\/04\/28\/trump-the-only-way-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump the Only Way Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda is the Only Path Forward<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Refreshingly realistic but also deeply troubling. I fear the author is right. Conservatives lost the culture war and so now: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Conservatives do not have a viable path to political power any other way. <\/span>The issues of national survival are of primary importance. There is no point in fighting a culture war if we don\u2019t have a country in which this war can take place. [. . .]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Trying to rehash these old battles in the present political moment, when institutional Christianity no longer has any meaningful political or cultural clout, is a waste of time\u2014at least at the national level.<\/span><\/p>\n

COVID-19 made the weakness of American Christianity painfully clear. Protestant and Catholic churches alike overwhelmingly declared themselves nonessential during the spring of 2020. That was, sadly, merely an acknowledgement of a longstanding reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virtually no one today cares what the pope or any megachurch pastor, for that matter, has to say about political and cultural life. Their endorsements do not move the needle and their influence has had little to no bearing, even on their own flocks, when it comes to preserving the older standards of Christian morality and decency.  <\/span><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

We live in a country where the president says it is antisemitic to ban trans surgery for minors. And yet you will strain yourself trying to hear any priest or pastor say a word in response. Millions of Americans are hurting, desperately confused about their very identity and sexual impulses, and the leaders of the churches have almost nothing to say. Nonessential workers indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One wonders what purpose, at this point, the differentiation between denominations even serves. Pope Francis<\/a>, just like John MacArthur<\/a>, agrees with the leftist view of racism. And Tim Keller<\/a>, just like Pope Francis<\/a>, lauds mass immigration. On the most prominent liberal issues of our day there is total agreement among the leaders of the West\u2019s supposedly different Christian denominations. <\/span><\/p>\n

America has a moral majority, all right. It\u2019s just liberal. The Left controls every institutional power center in America. Wall Street, the media, the universities, Hollywood, the military\u2014you name it\u2014everywhere the liberal consensus reigns supreme. There is not a single Fortune 500 company in America, not one, that would denounce transgender surgery for minors<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Those institutions shape the public consciousness in a way social conservatives simply cannot. Manufactured consent is real and all around us. A large portion of Americans simply accept whatever their televisions and cellphones tell them to believe no matter how perverted, wrong, or harmful. Even many of those who do not agree with it, at least bow to the moral consensus. Think of all those many millions who got vaccinated, not because they wanted to, but because their \u201cjob required it\u201d or because they couldn\u2019t \u201ctravel without it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea that large numbers of Americans are going to \u201cwake up\u201d and \u201cpush back\u201d is simply a cope.<\/strong> That\u2019s not how popular opinion works. The idea that Americans are going to see transgenderism as a bridge too far is, I think, much overhyped. I remember the gay marriage \u201cdebates,\u201d such as they were. I remember Prop 8 passing in 2008 in California. I also remember how none of these setbacks for the Left ultimately had any bearing in the end. By 2015, gay marriage was the law of the land. Today it is untouchable liberal orthodoxy supported by a majority of Americans, including large numbers of \u201cconservatives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Deploying more 10,000-word essays on teleology and the new natural law isn\u2019t going to solve the social issue problem either.<\/strong> Millions of Americans didn\u2019t start shoving dildos in orifices, guzzling sex change hormones, and consuming billions of hours of pornography a year because they read an article or heard an argument. These sexual and social perversions spring from a much deeper source, one that isn\u2019t going to be solved by policy wrangling in D.C. think tanks. <\/span><\/p>\n

The spiritual crisis that afflicts the West runs far deeper than most social conservatives want to admit.<\/strong> They don\u2019t understand how bad things really are, which is why they stand around, mouths agape, as they try to figure out what a \u201cfurry\u201d is or why U.S. military officers dress up in leather \u201cpup play\u201d fetish gear<\/a> while they sodomize each other in uniform and then post photos to social media.<\/span><\/p>\n

In light of our ongoing moral and spiritual crisis, I fully expect that the Bud Light\/Dylan Mulvaney controversy is merely a blip that will soon pass. In the 1990s Ikea ran the world\u2019s first commercial featuring a gay couple.<\/a> In 2022, Ikea was valued at $17 billion. Go woke, go broke? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sure. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Matt Walsh\u2019s of the world won\u2019t want to hear this, but trying to fight the Left on gender with desiccated Socratic arguments (\u201cWhat is a woman?\u201d) is a losing battle. Owning liberals with facts and logic is mostly a waste of time.<\/strong>Political power<\/strong> doesn\u2019t flow from scoring debate points in the \u201cfree marketplace of ideas.\u201d It comes from the willingness to impose one\u2019s beliefs on others and possessing the resources to do so. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

All morality requires enforcement. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Left implicitly understands that point. They are more than happy to crush their opponents.<\/strong> Just ask Donald Trump, John Eastman, Douglas Mackey, or any of the January 6 defendants. Strip away civilization and politics boils down to the distinction between friend and enemies. [You need a reference to Carl Schmitt here, son.] <\/span>That\u2019s why the White House hosted a trans day of visibility just two days after a transgender terrorist murdered six Christians in Tennessee. <\/span><\/p>\n

At some point, every political regime must put its foot down.<\/strong> Some people think cannibalism is wrong, others think that it is right. If the former are to prevail politically they must be willing to use force against the latter.<\/strong> In the end, this is what morality requires. This is what morality is. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

BV: The sound point here is that morality is just a lot of impotent prescriptions and proscriptions without an enforcement mechanism. But that is not to say that might makes right.  If the enforcer is to enforce good  and not evil, then the enforcer must either be God or, here below, godly men and governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Conservatives and Christians today simply lack the force of will to impose their social morality on the Left.<\/strong> That is why they lose cultural battles and the Left wins. Conservatives aren\u2019t even willing to mock their enemies.<\/strong> If you want to make \u201crespectable\u201d social conservatives and Christians uncomfortable, call a prostitute a \u201cwhore\u201d in their presence. Mock OnlyFans as a den of \u201csluts.\u201d Express deep revulsion at sodomy. Watch them writhe in psychic pain. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Such firm moral condemnation, I am frequently told, is \u201cjudge-y\u201d and \u201cun-Christian.\u201d \u201cWe\u201d need to \u201cwatch our tone\u201d as \u201cwe\u201d seek to \u201cdraw others to the faith.\u201d As their flock comes under attack from wolves, the shepherds condemn those who would fight back. There are many such cases. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The deep-rooted weakness of the American Christian Right is a serious problem. I wish it wasn\u2019t this way. I wish my fellow Christians had more spirit. I wish our leaders would lead. <\/em>That isn\u2019t the reality we have, though, as much as I may wish otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, conservatives in deep red areas can still fight cultural battles at the local and state levels. Even some purple states, at the local level, still provide a way to maneuver against the Left\u2019s cultural hegemony. Everywhere else, and at the national level especially, conservatives must sideline the cultural battles in favor of the issues of national survival.  <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Trump showed that even in our degraded moral culture, a huge percentage of Americans still want the nation to survive. They don\u2019t hate themselves despite all the propaganda to which they\u2019ve been subjected. The old pre-World War II conservative consensus in favor of protectionism, non-intervention, and immigration restrictions is still enormously popular. <\/span><\/p>\n

If we win on those fronts and secure a future for our country then, and only then, will we have a chance to fight once again for the family, for our faith, and for a return of moral decency. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

That day, however, is still a long way off. We have work to do. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda is the Only Path Forward Refreshingly realistic but also deeply troubling. I fear the author is right. Conservatives lost the culture war and so now:  Conservatives do not have a viable path to political power any other way. The issues of national survival are of primary … Continue reading “Trump the Only Way Forward”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,295,123,44,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decline-of-the-west","category-pathocracy-and-totalitarianism","category-political-morality","category-political-tactics","category-political-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}