Rot Takes Over
JD Vance Loses the Plot
JD didn't have the guts to call out vicious members of the Conservative party, who have been given freedom to spew hate, lies and conspiracies. If this is what it means to be Conservative, please keep me far away from it.
Vice President JD Vance's recent comments at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix have sparked intense debate within conservative circles. Speaking amid ongoing infighting over antisemitism and fringe figures like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, Vance argued that the movement should reject "self-defeating purity tests" and welcome "freethinkers" who "love America," emphasizing unity to "defeat the left."
He positioned this as a way to build a broader coalition, decrying conservatives "canceling each other" in the process.
But let's call this what it is: a dangerous evasion of principle that risks rotting the conservative movement from within. Drawing from the core arguments in the provided critique, likely inspired by voices like those honoring the late Charlie Kirk, Vance's dismissal of "purity tests" as impractical is frustrating and misguided. Standing up to racists, bigots, antisemites, nefarious liars, and manipulators isn't some elitist litmus test; it's the bare minimum for defending conservative values like individual liberty, moral clarity, and truth over tribalism.
Charlie Kirk himself exemplified this by consistently criticizing bad ideas, prioritizing principles over blind loyalty to any "team" or figure. Conservatism demands exactly that: vigilance against harmful elements that undermine the cause. Yet Vance and others who "encourage debate and criticism" are now telling us that calling out these dangers is "wrong, impractical, and problematic." This hypocrisy is glaring, how can a movement claim to defend values while mainstreaming the very actors who erode them?
Take the figures Vance implicitly defends by urging us to "look the other way": Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson (in his more controversial moments), and Candace Owens. The critique nails it, these aren't allies in the fight against the left; they are the left in disguise. Different styles, perhaps, but identical in their tyrannical, power-hungry, manipulative, and psychopathic principles. Fuentes' overt white nationalism, Owens' conspiracy-laden rants (freshly roasted by Rob Schneider at the same event), and Carlson's flirtations with isolationism and populism that echo leftist demagoguery, all of this poisons the well. Not to mention the glaring antisemitism they all spew constantly.
Mainstreaming such "worst actors" doesn't strengthen conservatism; it weakens it, just as it has decimated the Democrats. Look at how progressive infighting over identity politics and extremism alienated moderates and led to electoral losses. It's like advising a patient to embrace cancer to "win" against illness, ignore the tumor, and the whole body dies. Occasional "junk food" ideas might be tolerable in a diverse movement, but zero tolerance for outright poison? If that's a "purity test," then sign me up. It's not gatekeeping; it's survival.
Vance's plea for unity without accountability might sound pragmatic in a polarized era, but it ultimately betrays the principles he claims to uphold. If conservatives hope to endure and thrive, they must agree: Principles first, or the movement becomes indistinguishable from the chaos it opposes.