We usually have spirited discussions about what it means to be conservative during elections. This time it's pretty simple. We're fighting Democrats to conserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you're not up for that fight, stop calling yourself conservative.

If you want to reposition yourself as "center-left" or take a new position as a moderating influence on the deeply, dangerously radical Democrat Party, then good luck and farewell, but that's not conservatism. The centrist rump of a far-left party is not conservative.

We need conservatives on the battlements to fight for things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, political freedom - the entire Bill of Rights. We're fighting just to have police protection for law-abiding American families, for God's sake. That's on the chopping block.

A mad lunge to the left by a radicalized opposition should be a deeply clarifying moment for conservatives. If you're not ready to fight like mad against the people who want to abolish the police, then what ARE you willing to fight to "conserve?"

If you're not ready to fight against judging and punishing all of America for "racism" without trial, against crippling our economic freedom with Green New Deal insanity, against taking a knee before Communist China as the new rulers of the world, what battle cry WILL you answer?

This whole situation has gotten worse and worse as 2020 grinds on and the Democrats charge to the Left. I never understood anyone who trusted them to "moderate" once they get into office, but you have to be out of your damn mind to expect that NOW. You've had a psychotic break.

Do you really think the party that turned the streets over to mob rule, the party that talks every day about using the power of government to permanently suppress its "evil" opponents, is going to start listening to its NeverTrump "moderate" friends after it wins?

The Dems are already having vicious battles inside their own toxic alliance to purge anyone who isn't far enough to the Left. What lunacy makes you think they'll welcome advice from former Republican turncoats about how to "moderate" after they seize total power?

You think they want your advice on how to reach out to persuadable moderate conservatives and the center right? News flash: they're not interested in persuading ANYONE. That's what cancel culture and P.C. are all about. The Left uses force and intimidation, not persuasion.

Persuasion is too much work, and the effort to reach out to infidels sullies those who passionately believe in the true political faith. They don't want to learn how to speak your conservative language. It's much easier to simply punish you for speaking it.

They're not interested in bringing you NeverTrumpers on board as subordinates who can help them understand what working American families are thinking. Working American families will do as they're told, or they get mobs in the streets and cancel culture swarms online.

You can't fool yourself into thinking this election is business as usual and only a few marginal issues are really at stake. You can't look at the rabid Left and see a bunch of moderate centrists who got a little overheated in their rhetoric because they hate Trump so much.

Basic public safety is on the line now, the rule of law itself. Without that, nothing else matters because everything else is temporary. If you help Dems win and validate the use of force in politics, you're going to get more of it. They won't leave anything to chance ever again.

Maybe you've convinced yourself the relatively "moderate" trailing edge of the left-wing crusade is the new "conservatism" because their victory is inevitable and the best you can do is cling to a few scraps of America That Was. Maybe you can save a little bit of capitalism.

And maybe you feel just a little bit of schadenfreude as the Left takes over, a bit of vindication. This is all Trump's fault, you tell yourself. If only they'd listened to me in 2016 none of this would be happening! Hillary Clinton would have been more reasonable.

None of that is "conservative" in any sense whatsoever. Conservatism is not about clinging to such scraps of liberty as the collectivists decide to leave us. It's about conserving basic truths, bedrock American principles, because you know they're VITAL, not because you dig them.

Conservatism is about standing for what is right, not negotiating terms of surrender with what is wrong. We've lost too much because the Left gleefully exploits that surrender instinct as hypocrisy, proof the Right doesn't truly believe what it says. They take it as weakness.

The stakes are clear as a bell today. Look at these last things the Left demands you tug out of your wallet and hand over. The rule of law? The presumption of innocence? The POLICE? You really think they're going to respect you and value your opinion after you surrender THAT?

Do you really think any great number of hard-working regular voters - not ideological theorists who love online bull sessions, but people worried about their lives and families - are going to rally around your weak, bloodless, useless idea of conservatism after THOSE concessions?

What constituency do you think you'll have in 2021, or 2026, that will impress your left-wing masters into thinking they need to take you laughable, impotent, servile "conservatives" seriously and give you a seat at the table of power? You won't be much of an obstacle to them.

Now is the hour to rally everyone around the battle for basic freedom, the rule of law, capitalism and even democracy itself. (There is nothing "democratic" about what's coming under the Left. They won't need majority support for their agenda. They scoff at that notion NOW.)

If that's not clear to you, if that's not what you see at stake when you watch the Democrats wheeling Joe Biden toward the White House, then you aren't conservative and you NEVER WERE. At least do us the small courtesy of not insulting us by claiming otherwise. /end