…and thoughtful, honest conservatives should no longer be Republican.
It’s been building to that point over the last 20 or 30 years. That was the broad subject of my book.
But now, it’s no longer building. It’s built.
To be clear (and in the interest of full disclosure): I’ve always been a conservative but I’ve never been a Republican. Since my political awakening, that tent has always been big enough to embrace, alongside those I agreed with, a variety of people and agendas that I couldn’t, in good conscience, support.
Nonetheless, I have voted for Republican candidates more often than not. Not for Trump, certainly, but for others. Because the tent was, indeed, big and it included good guys along with bad guys, and always more of the former than of the latter.
I think, at this point, that is no longer true. Unless something changes, they have lost my vote for good.
Because anyone who associates themselves with the current mob of self-absorbed, unprincipled, power-mad thugs, and with their ignorant and deluded supporters, is dragging too much baggage along with them. It is no longer possible to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys: as long as the good guys insist on swimming in sewage, they will look and smell like sewage and will contaminate and corrupt everything they touch — including the idea and the practice of conservatism.
© Copyright 2021, Augustus P. Lowell