The same thing is happening with right-wing media and specious claims of voter fraud. Conservatives are willing to believe them even if there is no evidence, simply because anything negative about liberals is true. This mentality extends to the very highest ranks.

Newt Gingrich, William Bennett, and a bevvy of GOP elected officials have no problem parroting unverified rumors as fact because conservative journalism is not about supporting conservatives, not about finding facts.

I tried for over a decade to inculcate some standards of independence and professionalism among conservative writers but my efforts made me enemies, especially when I argued that the GOP should be neutral on religion instead of biased toward Christians.

I began work on a manuscript in 2012 fearing that Mitt Romney would lose his election because conservatives had not learned how politics actually works and that we should adapt to serve public needs and make peace with secular people.

I showed my manuscript to several people who I thought were my friends because I wanted to get the perspective of religious conservatives. Instead of helping me, some of them began trying to expel me from the conservative movement.

I eventually realized that many conservative activists were committed to identity rather than ideas. One of my friends literally told me in 2016 that he would support Cruz bc "that's what the Christians are doing."

We're at a critical moment in U.S. politics right now because the Christian identity politics that is the edifice of Republican electioneering is teetering. Millions of Americans have for decades thought that their countrymen are evil.

You can watch this play out right now on a television stage when you tune into Fox News as they cover the election. Fact-based journalists have finally realized that the identity rage of the GOP is going into a raging crescendo.

On an hourly basis now outside of the rage-filled lie-fests of primetime, Fox reporters are gently trying to explain to guests that they need actual evidence before accusing people of crimes. The guests, such as Gingrich, have NEVER been challenged like this on Fox.

Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, Martha MacCallum, and others are trying to save conservatism from itself. It's like watching a modern-day adaptation of Aeschylus or Sophocles. Sadly, the rest of us are not just spectators in this tragedy.

How American conservatism dies is the most important story, by far, of this moment. Conventional media will never tell this story because their business is built on the lie that Trump is an aberration rather than apotheosis. That NeverTrump is righteous rather than venal.

At the same time, the tens of millions of people who vote Republican are not deplorable. They are misled. And the mocking and tribalistic coverage that lefty media often engage in only makes things worse. Only love can defeat hate.

I will be undertaking several projects address these and other large subjects including: a memoir of my youth in a fundamentalist Mormon household and a new magazine called Flux that will cover politics, data, sociology, and religion. Please follow to join me!

And just to clarify my point about people who are "misled."

It's the people that Trump referred to when he said "I love the poorly educated." They are the people who work hard, go to church, and feel they have no future in a secular America.

Not the leaders but the led.

Thanks for reading my rant.

If you would to see some of my writing that explores this topic at greater length, here is an older piece I wrote about the vulnerability of "own the libs" conservatism to reaction. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/11/22/the-conservative-establishments-nightmare-is-only-just-beginning/

Thanks everyone for reading and helping me get the word out!

You might also like a historical essay I wrote a few years ago about racism and "paleolibertarianism."

Religion is the main driver but racism is a factor https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/02/where-did-donald-trump-get-his-racialized-rhetoric-from-libertarians/