We’re losing the culture war, cries Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian expat turned reactionary Catholic. He knows who is at fault: not just the godless left, but the wimpy GOP establishment that believes in limited government, individual rights, and a free market in ideas. Trying to convert the heathen is a waste of time; we need to engage in smashmouth politics to win the day. According to Torquemada, er, Ahmari, social conservatives should use power to “enforce our order and our orthodoxy.”
To use my terminology, Ahmari is calling for the Reactionary faction of the GOP to impose its will on the other three factions, and on America as a whole. Conservative reactions have been strong, but mixed. Ross Douthat minimizes his apocalyptic language and contends Ahmari only wants to renegotiate the deal between economic liberals and social conservatives. Rich Lowry asks, perfectly reasonably, how a small minority of the country is going to impose its will on the rest. Other conservatives, however, have agreed with Ahmari. One in particular apparently said (this is a paraphrase) that if we don’t fight the culture war to the death, the left will be sending us to death camps.
These are the depths to which we have been reduced; the extreme right equates left-wing Twitter mobs and gay pride parades with gas chambers. That’s pathetic, but it gives you some idea of the intensity of the feeling on the other side. The fact is that, if you think you’re losing the culture war, you have four options: (a) to redouble your efforts to win it (what I have called the “Patrick Option”); (b) to withdraw from the world and hope for better times in the future (the “Benedict Option”); (c) to use politics and the legal system to carve out “safe spaces” from the encroachments of evil seculars; or (d) to use extralegal methods, including violence where necessary, to enforce traditional values. There is a word for (d): fascism.
Make no mistake–Torquemada, er, Ahmari, is advocating (d). The wimpiness of the response from the establishment right is a warning that we can’t rely on them to fight for the current system. More on that tomorrow.