As the old saying goes, “May you live in interesting times.” 2020 has proven to be nothing short of interesting. In my columns, I’ve only written about sports so far, but I want to change that up this week. 

I always feel it’s important for different opinions to be expressed and that’s what I intend on doing. Just adding my two cents on the modern world of politics. 

First, some background on how I came to be. 

One of the earliest memories for me regarding politics involves being picked up from kindergarten when I was about five years old. My grandfather would pick me and my brother up every day from school and take us back to our grandparent’s house until my parents were off from work. 

During these car rides, my grandfather would have the radio on. In between the questions he would ask about our day or other events going on at the time, I would listen to the radio. I was locked in the entire time. 

I had no idea who the man talking on the radio was, I didn’t have the slightest clue what he was talking about, and he made a lot of points about the world that according to him seemed bad. 

I don’t know if my grandfather ever realized how much of the radio I listened to, but I was listening despite my confusion about all of it. It was fascinating to me. 

Time went on from that moment and I listened to the radio all the way until my grandfather passed away in 2009. I was 10 at the time and I had already developed an obsession with history which to this day I still have. This led me to become interested in following politics as that is the history of today.   

A few more years went by and I began to understand how my personal, religious, and political beliefs were forming me into a conservative. The moment this was all solidified in my heart and mind happened while reading a book the summer before my freshman year of high school. 

The book was Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart. This book is the main reason I became interested in media and why I’m majoring in Media Studies. 

The name Breitbart in recent years has been smeared by the website that still bears his name and has completely abandoned its original founding purpose which was true and good. 

However, Breitbart changed in a lot of ways how I viewed the world and what it meant to be a conservative. It opened my eyes to see things from outside of the big picture instead of compacted into my little corner of the world. 

It was also in Breitbart’s book that I rediscovered the man who was speaking on my grandfather’s radio. Some of you close to me already know who the man was as soon as you read the above paragraphs. His name was Rush Limbaugh. 

Another name which people who lean left of center will roll their eyes at but I still listen to Rush years after first hearing him driving around with my grandfather. I still know for a fact he is an essential voice for the conservative movement and hopefully will be for years to come. 

Men like Breitbart and Limbaugh were major influences on me early in my life. Others have followed since them like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles. Their ideas in combination with my Roman Catholic faith as the center for what my life revolves around all have led me to become what I consider to be a conservative. I’m very proud to be a conservative. 

Now we come to today’s modern political landscape. 

I was scrolling through Instagram the other week and saw this quote. 

“There is, then, the feeling that we live in a time of unusual insecurity. In the past hundred years so many long-standing traditions have broken down-traditions of family and social life, of government, of economic order, and of religious belief. As the years go by, there seem to be fewer and fewer rocks to which we can hold, fewer things which we can regard as absolutely right and true, and fixed for all time.” 

Now I could dissect this entire quote and go over point by point how this is true and how conservatives in the past have failed to maintain many of the things which I believe are crucial building blocks of Western Civilization. 

Instead, I will look at this and just call out the general way conservatives have failed on most social issues. 

To keep it vague in order to apply to all topics for example let’s call this issue X. 

Conservatives say X is bad because it will attack a key liberty or institution on which in my opinion this country was built on. 

Supporters of X will argue that conservatives are stuck in tradition and aren’t moving along with the times. 

X becomes legal through various means and becomes common throughout the nation. 

Conservative five to ten years later say, ‘Well that’s unfortunate. It’s honestly not that important when you compare to issue Y which we are dealing with today.” 

This way of thinking needs to end immediately. It’s a dangerous cycle that has led to the progressive domination of this country for the past 20 plus years. 

Now I’m not one to only look at the negative aspect of everything. Conservatives have “conserved” one fundamental liberty perfectly and continue to even today. That issue is gun rights and ensuring that the second amendment is properly protected so that all Americans can protect themselves. The defense of gun rights is by far one of the crowning achievements of the conservative movement and can’t be overlooked. 

However, it still is frustrating when they can handle that so well yet completely fail on just about every other issue mainly social issues. 

I debated going down the entire list on how conservatives need to change their ways in order to better fight the culture war which is actively ongoing in this nation. Instead, I want to end with what needs to be done going forward in the post-2020 presidential election world. 

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and others on both sides of the political spectrum have all called for unity and compromise as we transition to a new president. All conservatives who are truly conservative should answer this call in the same way. 

No. 

I’m not saying we should run around saying Biden isn’t my president or that he didn’t win it fair and square because of unproven accusations of interference with the election. What I am saying is why should I unite behind and support someone who I disagree with on just about every issue?

The left surely didn’t unite behind the last president to make claims that we should all band together now and work together is to be utterly tone-deaf and oblivious to the past four years. 

This is the most important time to be a conservative in the history of this country. In honor of Andrew Breitbart, this is war. This isn’t a war that is fought with bullets but one with ideas. It is the most important fight in my opinion as it is for the very soul of our nation. 

That is why conservatives must rise from the sidelines, stop hiding in the shadows and stand up for what they believe in because it is important and it is what this country is founded on.

Legendary radio host Paul Harvey once spoke on the pioneer creed of those heading out west. Even though it was probably never said by any of them word for word the spirit of it was certainly in them all. “I believe in God, I believe in this country and I believe in myself”. If we can get back to that spirit being the key thread of this nation’s soul then we can overcome anything. 

Finally, I just want to thank my grandfather. Without a doubt one of the greatest men I’ll ever meet who I greatly love to this day. Thank you for keeping the radio on.