Are conservatives really “back”?

Donald Trump’s election to a second term is making a lot of people on the right feel good. Not only did he win, but he won decisively by sweeping the seven swing states, winning the popular vote, and improving his vote share among key demographics, including young, Hispanic, and black voters. His supporters are equally excited that President Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do.

Criminals who are in the country illegally are being sent back to where they came from and the border is being secured. So-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that favored superficial identity categories over competency are being dismantled. The federal government is once again acknowledging there are only two sexes. In addition, the restoration of the Mexico City policy along with the appearance of both President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance at the March for Life suggest the second Trump administration will be more pro-life than the campaign was.

Trump is calling all of it his “revolution of common sense,” and Americans are responding favorably by giving him higher approval ratings early in his second term than he had at any point in his first term. Of course, President Trump is taking advantage of a shocking amount of political low-hanging fruit. Previous Republican presidents weren’t blessed enough to have political opponents who believed men could have babies and criminal illegal aliens should be allowed to stay in the country. Never has a president been able to take a victory lap after declaring there are only two sexes, but here we are.

While the return to sanity is welcome, creation order conservatives shouldn’t be declaring victory just yet. President Trump’s revolution of common sense is right about many things, but these days, we can’t confuse right wing with “conservative.” Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump himself are all former Democrats who have oddly become standard-bearers on the right while maintaining moderate to progressive positions on a range of social issues. To be on the right these days, all you must do is believe in free speech and two sexes. Thankfully, those ideas are winning the day, but the current right is united more by a mutual disdain for what the left is offering than agreement over the best way to build a strong civilization. Diagnosing a problem is always easier than providing a solution.

During the Biden administration’s four years, the country experienced pure, concentrated progressivism like never before and didn’t like the burning cities, weaponized justice system, and mutilated children it produced. But what should replace it? Common sense, which relies on instinct and our cultural sense of appropriateness, can be our friend, but it makes a lousy foundation on which to build a civilization because groups of people are easily deceived and often wrong. Indeed, most civilizations throughout history have considered it to be “common sense” that some people are more valuable than others and that the powerful should rule the powerless.

Our nation was not founded on common sense but on the creation order understanding that we are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. However, even as we have enjoyed these rights, we have become increasingly uncomfortable with the source of our rights because we don’t want the responsibilities associated with having a creator. So we’ve slowly moved away from “one nation under God” to “follow your heart” and “my body my choice.” We’re coming to terms with the fact that things were not fine, but it’s not at all clear we understand why. When you’re near death, you can improve a lot and still not be healthy.

Creation order conservativism is premised on the belief that God knows what’s best for us and tells us about it. Conservatives don’t defend marriage and family because Norman Rockwell makes us nostalgic, we do so because God created marriage and family as the building blocks of a healthy society. Conservatives don’t fight for a virtuous society because we want to make other people be like us but because the laws of nature ensure that a community of people who do the right thing is better than a community of people who live for themselves. This is what solves our problem, not simply acknowledging there are only two sexes.

We can all be thankful we recognized the error of the path we were on, but the solution lies in a return to revealed truth, not merely a revolution of common sense, and that will be the work of the church more than a bunch of red-pilled former Democrats.