WHERE have all the conservatives gone? They’ve abandoned their posts faster than a French soldier who’s just heard his favourite mistress has rolled into town.
This is par for the course, however, and you certainly shouldn’t be surprised. By and large, so-called ‘conservatives’ are the useful idiots of the Left. Present company excluded, of course.
When examining the beliefs of many conservative commentators, it quickly emerges that they are being led by the nose by their supposed political foes. What’s worse is that they are almost entirely unaware of it.
With the world for decades sliding down the unstoppable toboggan ride of progressivism, our CCHQ-approved conservatives have no idea where the ride even started, let alone where it is heading. This blue rosette is nice, but what, exactly, am I conserving? they may wonder. In fact, they operate in a world entirely defined by their opponents.
They stand ready to oppose only the next innovation demanded by their adversaries. It’s as if the world until that point was just right. This is the extent of modern conservatism – a brake on the madness of the Left.
Each time, of course, they lose their chosen fight. Is there a single major issue in recent history that has not seen a Right-wing rout? Conservatism’s defences against progressivism have proved as robust as a de Pfeffel marriage vow. Thus the leftward slide continues. We’re even struggling to maintain the concept of man and woman: how much more humiliating can it get?
Without conservatives actually believing in anything concrete, such a result is naturally a foregone conclusion. Sure, the words are nice: who doesn’t like having their belly rubbed whilst conservative luminaries whisper sweet tales of Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution into their ear? Regrettably it isn’t enough. The Right needs to realise it has been getting its proverbial kicked for decades – nay, centuries.
All too many conservatives act as guardians of a world already utterly transformed by the religious maniacs of wokedom. Perhaps they object to a smidgen of public spending here or there, or like to belt out Rule, Britannia! once in a while, but otherwise, their worldview is one that aligns to the very right-hand extent of what is, at that time, acceptable to the Left. Today’s conservative is yesterday’s progressive.
Take, for example, the gnashing of teeth that surrounded the decrease in our foreign aid budget. A policy adopted by Call Me Dave purely to try to curry favour with the kind of people who regarded him as a slimier incarnation of Lucifer himself. No prizes for guessing whether he succeeded or not. And now, we witness the pathetic spectacle of mainstream conservativeschoosing this particular hill to die on as our economy does a Stuka.
Perhaps you’re not convinced. What about ‘Our NHS‘? Oh boy, how we love Our NHS. Many a modern conservative loves it more than anyone. Having been gaslit by progressives into buying wholesale into the redefinition of a healthcare provider (nothing more, nothing less) into a quasi-religious institution, the ever-retreating self-styled conservative leaves himself precisely zero room to manoeuvre.
Or witness the rush of some conservatives positively salivating over the prospect of the entire British population being vaccinated against Covid-19. To this growing happy coterie of health fascists, any concerns surrounding the vaccine are merely the product of anti-vaxxers’ feverish imaginations. As true believers in individual freedom and autonomy, they are fully on board with the prospect of basic rights becoming dependent on possessing the required vaccination papers. Having put up stiff resistance to the introduction of ID cards all those years ago, the modern conservative is far more amenable to such a glaring extension of government power and the withering of individual autonomy.
Or rather witness the readiness with which the British Right have thrown their hands up in surrender over President Trump. How many times will the supposed grandees of British conservatism blindly parrot the line ‘baseless allegations’? Having bought completely into the narrative of Orange Man Bad,they have disarmed themselves in the face of what may be the most egregious case of election fraud in the Western world. Somehow, shilling for a candidate whose corruption makes Watergate look like the Teddy Bears’ Picnic is a more respectable course of action.
In refusing even to consider the proposition that the election was as dodgy as a Biden family holiday to Ukraine, conservatives have not merely surrendered: they have handed their guns to the enemy. They have conceded that the grand coalition of progressive media, wokeist academia and corrupt governance has the inalienable right to manipulate elections. All because these same conservatives don’t want to be called a bad name by the people who already loathe them. What a winning policy! What a great precedent to set! Any future allegations of voting fraud, here or in America, will be brushed away with ease henceforth.
Other examples abound, which there simply isn’t enough room to explore here. Central among these is the fascinating question of how, supposedly fighting in the corner of patriotism and common sense, conservatives have transmogrified into playthings of the green lobby, whose ultimate purpose is the ushering in of an entirely unaccountable global system of governance.
There have been a few murmurs raised against the naked insanity of banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, the prospect of future restrictions on our freedom to travel and the utterly illogical elimination of gas boilers. But that’s all it’s been: a whimper. People should be foaming at the mouth with rage, aghast at such irredeemable folly.
Which brings me to the salient point: if conservatism is merely the ideology of adopting every woke shibboleth – albeit ten years after the vanguard of the Left has done so – what precisely is the point of it? If it is unable or unwilling to stand its ground on any major issue, what is it for?
And so, back to that original question: where have all the conservatives gone? It is a misleading question. There were never any around in the first place.
Of course, there will continue to be people who masquerade as ‘of the Right’. In their mode of thinking, however, they are merely the progressives of yesteryear. When push comes to shove, they will retreat once more.
The answer to all this? Sadly, the Right needs to do a lot of things. To get this particular house in order will take more than a lick of paint.
It requires a coherent set of beliefs around which it must coalesce, and from which itwill not budge.Not even if someone calls you a nasty name.For starters: the primacy of the family, utmost respect for law and order, respecting tradition and hierarchy, rejecting the poison of subjectivism, fiscal and monetary prudence. Greater minds than mine can flesh this list out.
However, it isn’t just about the policies; more fundamental is the need for people to grow a spine. Surveying the current landscape, that seems a very tall order indeed.
