[JM Smith beat me to the punch, but my punch is different.]
At American Greatness, Josiah Lippincott opines that conservatives need to back off from culture war and focus on saving the country via immigration control, tariffs, no foreign wars, and law and order. These are all needed, but they’re not enough.
At a first reading, Lippincott’s thesis seems to be that conservatives must stop fighting the culture war because doing so will cause them to lose elections and therefore be unable to save the nation. A closer reading reveals that he counsels backing away from culture war at the national level, but acknowledges that cultural victories are still possible at the state and local levels.
Problem is, this nuance will be lost on many readers. The impression one gets from the article is that all conservative politicians and the voters who support them need to back off from culture war because they’ll only get crushed. That’s not right.
Also, Lippincott’s main thrust – – judging by how many words he devotes to it – – is that Christianity is too weak to win political fights over cultural issues. If that’s correct, his distinction between what’s possible at the national versus the state and local levels becomes irrelevant. If Christendom is too weak to win then it’s too weak to win at all levels of government, in which case Lippincott should be counseling us to avoid cultural combat at all levels. And if it’s strong enough sometimes to win then his counsel needs to be more nuanced.
I have copied Lippincott’s text in full below the asterisk, with my comments in italics, preceded by AR. Continue reading