Conservatism Is Dead. Build Something New ｜ 3⧸30⧸23
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.2057
Summary
The values that once bound America s culture together have collapsed, and conservatives must face that reality with open eyes. A new poll from the Wall Street Journal has revealed that respondents who felt patriotism was very important to them dramatically decreased from 70% in 1998 to just 38% in 2023. The importance of religion and having children faced a similarly alarming drop in importance.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:00:10.720
Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
00:00:25.260
Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
00:00:30.000
The values that once bound America's culture together have collapsed,
00:00:35.200
and conservatives must face that reality with open eyes.
00:00:39.160
A new poll from the Wall Street Journal has revealed that respondents who felt patriotism
00:00:43.540
was very important to them dramatically decreased from 70% in 1998 to just 38% in 2023.
00:00:51.060
The importance of religion and having children faced a similarly alarming drop in importance
00:00:56.300
from 62% to 39% and from 59% to 30% respectively.
00:01:01.260
Community involvement saw a sharp rise in 2019 to 62% but cratered in 2023 to 27%.
00:01:10.260
These aren't just the values that America was built on, but the very basic priorities that
00:01:19.980
Any population that cares so little about the things that constitute the culture and transmit
00:01:25.900
that culture to the next generation is destined to face decline and decay.
00:01:30.660
It's common to hear from many different corners of the political landscape that the culture war is a distraction.
00:01:37.400
Those who would prefer the nation's political conversation to center on issues like taxes,
00:01:42.680
foreign policy, environmentalism, or economic disparity often express exhaustion with the never-ending clash
00:01:55.700
Many aspects of America's culture have become profoundly ugly and difficult to look at.
00:02:01.300
Most people don't want to see an endless parade of drag queens exposing themselves to minors on their social media feeds.
00:02:08.980
And it would certainly be nice to return to a time when the largest disagreement in our country
00:02:16.280
In the 1980s, cultural conservatives were relentlessly mocked for making supposedly hyperbolic doomsday predictions
00:02:24.480
about the cultural shifts across the United States.
00:02:28.060
TV hosts and political pundits laughed at the notion that the deconstruction of traditional, religious, familial, and sexual norms
00:02:36.000
would create a slippery slope down which the culture would plunge.
00:02:40.000
Conservatives were successfully shamed into abandoning what was left of the cultural battle,
00:02:44.900
one they had already mostly lost in the 1960s, and resigned themselves to a series of rearguard actions.
00:02:52.200
The American right adopted the more libertarian approach of focusing on the size of government
00:02:57.360
and its encroachment on personal and financial freedoms,
00:03:00.940
in the belief that creating a smaller and more neutral state would limit its ability to negatively influence the culture.
00:03:08.740
Christian conservatives hoped that a smaller government would leave their families and faith alone,
00:03:14.020
but despite their new focus, government only grew in both size and scope.
00:03:19.720
Private organizations seemed all too eager to join formal government entities in pushing progressive social doctrine,
00:03:26.840
and conservatives quickly found themselves without any significant social institutions to defend their way of life.
00:03:33.620
Many churches now prioritize the progressive political doctrine over the Christian gospel.
00:03:38.780
Institutions that should have stood against the fashionable destruction of traditional values
00:03:44.260
are now ruled by the progressive egregore, wearing the once-proud faith's skin like a trophy.
00:03:51.100
The predictions of the religious right have proven far too mild in retrospect.
00:03:55.720
When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?
00:03:59.540
When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard?
00:04:04.620
When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill?
00:04:07.300
When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner?
00:04:11.020
Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer.
00:04:13.640
So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes.
00:04:17.240
Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.
00:04:26.440
Former stalwarts of the conservative movement like David French now regularly argue for the
00:04:32.000
constitutional necessity of drag queen story hour, and neocons like Bill Kristol attack
00:04:37.840
Ron DeSantis for restricting child mutilation in Florida.
00:04:42.060
The direct sexualization of children has awakened many to the dire consequences that America's
00:04:47.940
cultural shift has wrought, but that realization may have come too late.
00:04:51.800
As the recent Wall Street Journal poll revealed, less than 40% of Americans hold their nation,
00:04:58.360
their god, or their posterity as a top priority.
00:05:02.660
This decline reflects not only progressive radicalization, but a trend among red states as well.
00:05:09.080
For a majority of the country, that which conservatives sought to conserve has lost its cultural primacy.
00:05:15.740
The good news is that the situation is far from hopeless.
00:05:20.400
While those on the right have been impacted by the general cultural zeitgeist, there is a wide gap between the Democrats and Republicans.
00:05:28.320
GOP voters are twice as likely to value patriotism and religion as their progressive counterparts.
00:05:35.960
Conservatives are also more likely to value having children, though only by 12%.
00:05:41.020
There is still a stark difference between the two moral visions in the United States, and that should give those on the right hope.
00:05:49.100
But the conservative moral vision no longer represents most of the country.
00:05:54.140
Those who are waiting for the fabled silent majority to rise up and retake America's institutions do so in vain,
00:06:04.560
A nation's culture shapes every other aspect of its being.
00:06:08.980
The language, folkways, and religious beliefs of a people create the very substance out of which the state is formed.
00:06:16.820
Culture defines what people value, which determines what they'll prioritize and pursue with their collective will and resources.
00:06:25.440
The culture war can never be avoided, because it's the war for the very values and language
00:06:31.140
with which citizens of a nation will evaluate every other aspect of political life.
00:06:37.420
The mere attempt to conserve that which once defined America's culture has been an objective failure.
00:06:44.520
The disastrous strategy of protecting traditional values simply by shrinking the size of government
00:06:50.620
has allowed the radical doctrines of woke progressivism to take hold.
00:06:55.300
The right must no longer see itself as the defender of the status quo,
00:06:59.800
conserving the current values of the nation's institutions,
00:07:06.640
seeking to subvert the rotten core of progressive orthodoxy and replace it with the good, the beautiful, and the true.
00:07:14.760
Americans seeking to return to a culture that values the religion and tradition of their ancestors
00:07:20.280
can't rely on some vague notion of collective allegiance to those concepts,
00:07:25.240
but must instead forge a new movement that offers a dynamic alternative to the civilizational decay
00:07:35.420
The forces advancing woke doctrine aren't revolutionary or rebellious.
00:07:43.660
It's the corporations, school administrators, and human resource commissars
00:07:48.580
forcing the dismal, progressive agenda into every single aspect of daily life.
00:07:54.800
These dreary schoolmarms of civilizational decline have robbed the culture of its meaning and vitality,
00:08:02.080
and they should be opposed as the profoundly dull and bloodless force that they truly are.
00:08:07.280
Instead of trying to conserve institutions infested with these vile doctrines,
00:08:12.300
the right should seek to build new and vital organizations
00:08:15.880
that can connect the most beautiful and powerful aspects of America's past
00:08:20.620
with a vision of the future that offers meaning and purpose.
00:08:25.240
This vision is a multi-generational project that can't be achieved
00:08:29.460
with a single presidential election or the passage of some perfunctory legislation.
00:08:34.580
The forces of renewal must be willing to commit themselves
00:08:38.140
to the creation of institutions that will implement and safeguard their vision
00:08:42.820
even as the tide of electoral politics ebbs and flows.
00:08:56.300
We are called not to be the generation that conserves,
00:09:02.220
so those who come after can rest once again in the shelter of a great civilization.
00:09:13.000
If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and click like,
00:09:16.000
and if you haven't subscribed yet, now is a great time to do so.
00:09:19.400
If you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts,
00:09:22.960
you can, of course, go and subscribe to the Oren McIntyre show
00:09:29.760
and when you do, if you could leave a rating or a review,
00:09:32.580
that really helps with all that algorithm magic.
00:09:35.080
If you want to catch these videos on Rumble or Odyssey,
00:09:38.820
if you'd like to subscribe to my Twitter, my Gab, or my Substack,
00:09:43.840
the links to do that are all down below in the description.