Where have all the conservatives gone?

Progressive excesses were bad, so is MAGA. Conservatives should place loyalty to ideology above loyalty to Trump.

Written by Bo Winegard.

Conservatism begins with a simple thesis: humans are imperfect creatures. It does not deny, of course, their impressive powers of reason and imagination. But it reminds us that they are also fallible and often depraved, inviting us to consider the delight with which a child will pull the wings from a butterfly or torment a cat as proof. Few things are clearer or more incontrovertible to the conservative than original sin.

For this reason, conservatism contends that social order is both precious and precarious, always menaced by the destructive impulses of violence and rebellion. When achieved, order must be protected. Change must be slow. And human character, flawed but improvable, must be shaped and disciplined.

This requires the inculcation of salutary norms and precepts, as well as the restraint of behaviors that might stir our baser instincts. Thus, the promotion of civility is not merely an ornament of social life but a vital pillar of the civilizing process—and a cornerstone of conservatism. Charity, decency, decorum: virtues rooted in immutable ethical truths, unsullied by the whims and foibles of fallible men.

The worst are full of passionate intensity

“JD gets the game” said Alex Bruesewitz, CEO of X strategies, a conservative digital marketing firm. The “game” he referred to was online trolling. And JD was J.D. Vance, the vice president of the United States. He gets it, but he is not the master.

That title belongs to Donald Trump. Boorish and vindictive but with an undeniable genius for belittling others, he constantly needles enemies with juvenile insults while exasperating journalists with crude, self-aggrandizing, and often mendacious rhetoric. In a different era, conservatives might have rejected him for just these reasons. But not today. The MAGA movement admires Trump precisely because he is a talented troll. The crudeness, the defiance, the utter contempt for decorum—that is the point.

For too long, a stifling orthodoxy of political correctness cowed conservatives. In their fecklessness, they became consumed with ressentiment—a kind of impotent rage fixated on punishing enemies. Trump was their retribution. That he was a crass vulgarian was irrelevant—he could irritate liberals better than anyone. Indeed, his very existence as a viable politician was a middle finger to stuffy elites.

Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, trolling as vengeance has become even more valuable. Eliciting and relishing the rage of opponents is now central to Republican politics. The online right is bolder—and more offensive. Posts or statements that tiptoe around the sacred, like some pious walker in a cemetery, will not do. Values must be trampled—the more transgressive, the better. More pain. More schadenfreude. If they condemn racism, then declare that whites are the superior race. If they decry sexism, then assert that women should be property.

Nothing is too crude, coarse, or offensive so long as it affronts the sensibilities of liberals. Their pain, their “tears,” is the reward.