The Conservative Identity

Guest Opinion by Jason Keeley

The New Year is upon us; the Republican Party is approaching 171 years of defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To that, I first want to give a Grand Old Toast to the Grand Old Party; happy New Year! May God bless us into 2026.

The Grand Old Party truly has a grand legacy of freedom—defeating slavery, spearheading women’s suffrage, destroying segregation, overturning Roe V. wade—that will stay with us for all history.

But the question now is whether we will stay the course.

The Woke Right, as it is being termed, is regrettably on the rise. “Woke” here means a dispensation toward identity politics and authoritarian leadership.

Its face is the likes of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who celebrates Stalin’s birthday and supports Hitler, once being expelled from CPAC.

Ben Shapiro in his recent speech at the TPUSA AmericaFest took aim at Nick Fuentes and those who invite him into conservative polite society, specifically Tucker Carlson, who Ben Shapiro has sharply rebuked elsewhere as an “ideological launderer” for extremists (I recommend listening to his full speech, as he expertly defends conservatism from the front lines of this fight.).

I know many have had fond feelings toward Tucker Carlson in the past, but people change. And sometimes they reveal who they always were. My family loved Tucker, but we watched him launch himself over the edge.

Mr. Carlson recently and rapidly earned a reputation for giving neonazis softball interviews where he compliments and expresses agreement with them. He says he “is just asking questions,” but he’s rather delivering praise to people like Nick Fuentes who celebrate tyrants that would have had us conservatives executed or fringe “historians” like Darryl Cooper who say Churchill was the “chief villain” who caused World War II and not Hitler.

When Nick Fuentes said, “It's easy to say, I disavow all these crazy Christians and all these crazy white nationalists because it buys you wiggle room with people that are attacking you. It's easy to throw them under the bus and say, I'm one of the good guys. I said it's too easy. We need to push in the other direction and say you should feel less comfortable saying that people shouldn't talk about their race and religion. Maybe you think twice next time.” Tucker responded, “I get that.”

The truth is that Tucker Carlson is not “just asking questions.” He’s praising lunatics who themselves praise people who would have had us murdered. There is nothing respectable about that. When a neonazi says, “I completely agree with you,” you are not in the right. There is a reality in political movements where there are shakers and movers. Shakers rock the boat with the full extent of their ideology, and movers keep a purposeful distance while trying to gradually guide society in the direction of the shakers. Shakers and movers are a wellknown phenomenon in politics and appeared for causes as righteous as abolitionism and women’s suffrage, but like all good things, there is a corrupt version. It is crucial to understand this in order to recognize it.

Nick Fuentes is the shaker; Tucker Carlson is the mover. By pointing to Nick without repeating his exact words and giving him interviews where he only touches the surface of his insanity, he brings him into polite society and gives him a spot behind the podium.

The Woke Right would have you believe the question at hand is “America First or Israel First?” But that is a disingenuous lie to claw at influence. We’re pro-Israel because Israel’s proAmerica. They’re the shield against Iran’s proxies coming to Europe and America.

The question is rather this: Do we believe in meritocratic republicanism where all are equal, or do we believe in the leadership of strongmen pushing blood and soil narratives and undermining the acceptance that made America the great melting pot of the world, a potluck of fantastic talents, traditions, ideas, heritages, and inventions?

Assuming one agrees that neonazis should not be included in the conservative identity, as one should, what is my proposal then? My cure to the affliction? Some caution that we shouldn’t adopt the cancel culture of the Left, but there’s a big difference between cancelling and shunning.

When the Left cancelled someone, they harassed and ruined them. They protested their events, they wanted them fired from their apolitical jobs, they wanted everything short of their execution—sometimes even including their imprisonment.

Shunning simply means we don’t associate with them. That’s it.

Nick can rant and rave on Rumble like the maniac he is, and that’s fine with me, but he’ll never be welcome in CPAC. He’ll never be welcome in the Heritage Foundation. He’ll never be welcome in the conservative identity. But he can go and be a neonazi all he wants—by himself. We don’t need to have any part in him attacking VP Vance’s interracial marriage.

Let’s not pretend that who we associate with doesn’t matter. It is written: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals’” (1 Corinthians 15:33). The Left did not always contain AOC, Gavin Newsome, and Zohran Mamdani. Do not think the Right cannot be corrupted likewise. We must guard our hearts.

A tent can also only be so big before it can no longer withstand the wind. It is also written: “One who walks with wise people will be wise, But a companion of fools will suffer harm” (Proverbs 13:20). The Heritage Foundation proved this verse. As Reason put it, they have “imploded” over their defense of Tucker Carlson and are suffering widespread resignations as their staff revolt. A conservative titan is collapsing precisely because it made its tent too big and tolerated the intolerable.

If we want to continue our party’s great legacy, conservatism needs strong borders. Just like it is with our country, open borders bring disaster. We must preserve the conservative identity. That identity may shift president-to-president, but it rests on one nation under God and a republic that righteously defends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of your heritage.

The conservative identity is one of ideas, not of bloodlines and skin color.

We all bleed red.

Jason Keeley is a political science student at Auburn University at Montgomery. He is the Eagle Forum River Region Action Group leader and is currently an intern for the Barry Moore for Senate campaign. The views expressed here are his own. To contact, email JasonKeeley6@gmail.com.

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