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The internet is obsessed with pills—not the pharmaceutical variety, but the ideological kind. “The Matrix” created the metaphor when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) offered two pills to Keanu Reeves’ character. Take the red pill and see dark reality as it is; take the blue and maintain a comfortable delusion.
In its most charitable definition, “taking the red pill” means seeing through the comfortable left-leaning narrative pushed by politicians, entertainment moguls, academia and the media. Now other colors have entered the discourse: The “black pill” leads one to nihilism while the “white pill” moves one toward hope.
I’ve never been a pill-popper, but I enjoy Spencer Klavan’s concept of a quantum pill [ [link removed] ]. At every stage of history, we stand at a point of unknowing. We have to be honest about the challenges we face and the difficulties in overcoming them, then make the best choice we can.
Like Klavan, I see the future in “both an optimistic and a pessimistic way at once—like a quantum computer hovering at 1 and 0 simultaneously, or like Schrodinger’s Cat, both alive and dead until observed.” This stance confuses friends and colleagues alike when I rattle on about the latest political disaster and do so with a smile on my face. It’s not far from my genetic predisposition to what I call “Finnish optimism”: Things are pretty good right now compared with how they’re gonna get.
This outlook doesn’t require uppers or downers, let alone all the various colored pills hawked online. One only needs to accept reality with, perhaps, a little stoicism thrown in. The only things within our control are the decisions we make today; what we do now will determine if the future is better or worse. In my view, conservatism will lead to better outcomes than progressivism, but the term “conservative” no longer really describes what the American right is aiming for.
What Is Conservatism?
When choosing between the left and right, conservatism has always been more hospitable to stark reality. We accept a flawed human nature, while progressives burden themselves with perfectibility. Where the right seeks equal opportunity, the left demands equal results. Conservatives look to the possible, progressives to the impossible.
When considering the political landscape, however, it’s tough to know what conservativism even is these days. Trump fans think it’s high tariffs, while free marketeers want them kept low. America-firsters want all the troops back home, while internationalists see a need to intervene. Some want tax cuts, others want to fight the “woke” liberals and most revere free speech ... except maybe not for those groups over there, who are so obviously wrong. Where Reagan’s three-legged stool united defense, social conservatism and economic conservatism, today each leg is splintered into pieces.
This isn’t a new problem: The right has long struggled to define the term “conservatism,” which makes sense since it’s always been less a political ideology than a life philosophy, or perhaps even an attitude.
When asked to define conservatism, Abraham Lincoln replied with a straightforward, literal understanding: “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
William F. Buckley updated his answer for the mid-20th century, framing it in opposition to (modern) liberalism—in other words, an anti-ideology. In his book “Up From Liberalism” (1959), Buckley declares conservativism is “freedom, individuality, the sense of community, the sanctity of the family, the supremacy of the conscience, the spiritual view of life.”
A half-century earlier, G.K. Chesterton didn’t so much define the term as identify the action it requires.
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. [“Orthodoxy,” 1908]
Standing athwart history yelling “Stop!” may help stem the growth of leftist ideology, but it does nothing to advance an alternative philosophy. Actually promoting conservatism requires intentional, aggressive work. Daily, we must evaluate the endless stream of proposed changes, promote the few good ones and destroy the bad.
As Reagan put it [ [link removed] ], “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Reagan proved prophetic. These days, conservatives spend a lot of time telling younger generations what it was once like to be free. We speak of lost liberties and wonder how best to restore them.
What Are We Conserving?
Here’s the plain fact: “Conservatism” doesn’t make sense as a label when there’s little left to conserve. This sentiment gets pushback from old-line Republicans who insist they’ve been successful from the 1980s to today. There’s some truth to this. A few things have been conserved—Second Amendment rights, pro-market economic policies, religious liberty (for now)—but so, so much has been lost in that time.
Our southern border is shattered, violent crime menaces large cities, our military intervenes everywhere and wins nowhere. The national debt is $34.6 trillion, more than 120% [ [link removed] ] of our GDP. Unfunded liabilities are estimated [ [link removed] ] to be $214 trillion. As nice as it is to pass a tax cut now and then, eliminating fraud and waste won’t balance the bank sheet.
Nearly a quarter [ [link removed] ] of U.S. children live with one parent and no other adults, the highest rate in the world by far. Our national marriage rate is the lowest [ [link removed] ] it’s ever been, even as we’ve broadened its millennia-old definition. Our birth rate [ [link removed] ] is likewise in decline. Our best and brightest can’t even define what a woman is [ [link removed] ].
Just 47% [ [link removed] ] of Americans are “very satisfied” with their personal lives, while a mere 19% [ [link removed] ] are satisfied with the direction of the nation. Things ... are not good.
Who wants to conserve any of the above? That’s the last thing the right should do. At present, we must aim not to conserve but to restore our freedom, our family and our constitutional order.
A New Label
Words mean things, and in the modern age, so does branding. “Conservative” has outlasted its accuracy, but we need to call ourselves something.
Democrats have repeatedly employed what Thomas Sowell calls “verbal cleansing.” Progressive Woodrow Wilson’s presidency discredited progressivism, and a return to normalcy was the reaction: Republican Warren G. Harding defeated [ [link removed] ] his Democratic opponent by 26 percentage points. A half-generation later, FDR hired many former Wilson staffers, employed similar governmental interventions, yet renamed it “liberalism.” A generation ago, this new meaning of liberalism was discredited [ [link removed] ] by Reaganites, and progressivism was reembraced.
Thankfully, the right doesn’t need verbal cleansing. The conservative brand turns off leftists but hasn’t been discredited among the broader electorate—mostly because conservativism has rarely been tried.
But it’s time to change our focus. To that end, I propose that we are no longer conservatives; we are restorationists. We seek not to conserve the role of tradition in our society but to restore tradition to its rightful place. Similarly, there are no national borders left to conserve; they must be restored.
The family is scattered, and we must reintroduce this cornerstone of civilization. (That includes gender norms promoted from the dawn of time.) Free speech must be placed back in the academy, workplace and civil society.
All of this is hard work. As Chesterton said, we must always be having a revolution, even though most of us just want to be left alone. This isn’t a problem only for politicians or parties to solve. Rather, it requires all of us to join the effort: neighbors, business leaders, teachers and individuals.
This is no longer the time for conservation. On to restoration.

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