Why we conservatives tend to lose

Today I found for the first time a website called The Thinking Housewife. I don’t doubt that the author thinks, but when it comes to politics, let’s just say that her opinions lack good sense. She became quite skeptical of the results of the 2024 US election, complaining that Trump, despite gaining 2 million fewer votes than in the last one, somehow won big. And all the while noting that Kamala Harris received 14 million fewer than Biden. That last observation should have ended her suspicions, since, in light of the proportion, it was a big win. What to complain about this time, other than the fact that some 20 million votes that showed up in 2020, but not this time, is rather odd? She immediately inferred that Trump is controlled opposition!

In another post, she asserted that Kash Patel’s Indian heritage proves that Trump is not pro-American. Obviously, she didn’t bother to dig into the lawyer’s history, as he was born in New York. His parents may have been from India, but Mr. Patel himself was not. In a third post, she crowed that the marital status of Scott Bessent, chosen to be the new secretary of the treasury, is a demonstration of Trump’s anti-family values. Three strikes in one visit. There were other political opinions of hers that I read, equally unhinged, but I didn’t find any good ones on this topic. We all “make crazy” from time to time, especially dealing with sensitive issues, but this gives clear hints of Trump Derangement Syndrome and selectively uncritical paranoia (pardon my repetition). However, in all of this, I’m not writing to gossip about someone who ground my gears. Rather, I would like to focus on the third entry and what we can learn.

The egregious “anti-family values” non-sequitur

Now, I understand the inference I’m criticizing, and I almost sympathize with the author here. Christian conservatism holds that “gay marriage” is a contradiction and that the family is based on a marriage covenant. Logic dictates, given these premises, that there can be no family based on a homosexual relationship. But, for you to licitly and relevantly conclude that Trump holds anti-family values, there are two more premises that would have to be true:

  1. Trump has anti-family intentions;
  2. His election was at least partially based on his values, rather than in spite of them.

If Trump’s intentions aren’t anti-family, the conclusion will be irrelevant, especially in a cumulative case to show that Trump should never have received conservative votes. The value of Bessent’s marital status in such a case depends on a connection between Trump’s character and his beliefs. But, people don’t always notice inconsistencies between their premises (or values) and their goals. All things being equal, we can’t infer much about someone’s character from an isolated belief, and it seems that The Thinking Housewife deduced too much. Before judging him as wicked on this point, he should be shown that his tolerance of certain kinds of “non-traditional families” would result in serious harm to the true family, and thus damage the nation. Who’s told Trump all this? In this degenerate culture, our belief in these propositions ceased to be obvious long ago. And in view of his many responsibilities, it would be unfair to demand that Trump investigate it alone; it’s necessary at least to try to change his mind, or we can’t condemn him like The Thinking Housewife did.

If Trump chose Scott Bessent without considering his homosexuality and so-called “marriage,” the second premise is incorrect. In that case, the conclusion is illicit, because it lacks sufficient justification. As it happens, Scott Bessent says he’s gay, but Trump didn’t choose him because of that. Without better evidence, we must accept that, as Trump said, he chose him because he seems to be the best man for the job. Of course, The Thinking Housewife also exhibited skepticism here, but that’s another debate. We simply have no evidence that Trump decided in favor of Bessent for reasons peculiar to the World Economic Forum and its Great Reset.

The principle going unnoticed

Notice: that criterion follows the same logic that a majority of us used in 2024 when we voted for Trump. That logic won him the White House in 2016. Trump isn’t conservative, but he was the best viable option for us in the past three election cycles. And we would be fools to dismiss him because he’s not “perfect,” since Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were worse, period. What’s going on here? In politics, as in every form of self-determination, the important thing is to make the best viable decision. And it’s precisely because many recognized this time that Harris wasn’t a viable decision that she lost, thank God. The Thinking Housewife would no doubt object that I have a very different idea than she does about what determines viability. She’d be right about that; not all principles are equally important, there’s a hierarchy. If we pretend otherwise, we’ll become hypocrites right away, just as leftists already think.

What say you?