While watching the January 6 insurrection attempt at the United States Capitol, it brought to mind a question I have asked myself a number of times – what is a conservative?
In my teen years, I would describe myself as a conservative. Those calling themselves conservatives generally supported the Vietnam war. I had a class project in high school about Vietnam and after studying everything about that conflict, I found the conservative view on the war to be wrong. In the end, about seven years after that project, the Vietnam war ended quite badly for the United States.
I spent a number of years where I would switch my political view to much more on the liberal side. Then I began to cover politics as a reporter and discovered a fact that changed my view on politics forever – there are really good and really bad people in government both conservatives and liberals.
It was that experience that transformed me not into a moderate necessarily, but a recognition that most people are liberal on some issues and conservative on others. No political philosophy has a corner on truth.
I am much more likely to study an issue and review what the true professionals are saying. I look at data, verifiable facts and science. Relying on what is true is the best way to decide my stance on any issue.
Being tied to a political ideology is confining to me. If you believe yourself to be conservative, you are expected to have the same core values as other conservatives. Same goes for liberals. I prefer to take each issue and subject, analyze and study it, then come up with my view.
Why did the January 6 Capitol Hill event bring back those memories? Because I am more confounded than ever on how to define a conservative.
One reason I feel compelled to write this commentary relates to one of my home state U.S. Senators, Mike Braun. He presents himself as a conservative. Yet he took a recent stance that does not seem conservative to me.
Braun signed-on to challenge the Electoral College results for some states. There are about 12 other senators, all Republicans, that would describe their political philosophy as conservative, that have joined Braun in this effort.
The Constitution gives clear authority to the states to conduct elections and appoint their electors to vote for the presidential candidate their state supported in the election (there are a couple of exceptions, but we won’t get into that here). To question that process by making arguments rejected by all the states where challenges were filed, and to set aside the fact that many judges, appointed by presidents of both parties, have found nothing wrong in the vote counts of any state, makes no sense to me.
I was on the debate team in college, where you learn the difference between assertions and fact. Anyone can make assertions about anything, but you must have verifiable facts to back it up or you lose the debate.
The president and his supporters have been making plenty of assertions, but once in court, they produced no verifiable facts or evidence to support their claims. But that hasn’t stopped assertions from flying outside the courtrooms.
Senator Braun signed-onto the effort to challenge the election results, but with no evidence, in a proceeding that is essentially nothing more than the announcement of a vote count.
For example, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Mitt Romney have pretty solid conservative credentials. Yet both rejected the arguments put forth by the president about the election and those senators of which Braun is one. McConnell, Romney and Braun all call themselves conservatives, yet they view the election differently.
This presidential election’s aftermath has split Republicans and conservatives. You belong to a political party but being a conservative is not exactly the same thing.
With what one can only describe as an attempted insurrection as the Electoral College vote count was proceeding in Washington was a very tough thing for me to witness. Many news reporters that spent time in places like Egypt where an insurrection was attempted, are describing the January 6 violence at the Capitol as reminiscent of their days abroad. That is sad. America will not be seen by the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy for a long time to come, if ever.
I do not think I would be writing about this had one of my own senators not joined into a failed effort to reverse an election that was as clean and fair as an American election can be, based on verifiable facts, not mere assertions.
There are many conservative writers, George Will comes to mind, that have split with the president often in the past four years. So, there will be a continued debate about the future of the Republican Party and conservatism – will these political concepts be Trumpian or based on other values?
In light of the violent attack on the Capitol Building January 6, Republicans, be they local or national figures, must explain to their constituents where they stand. Having a political philosophy is fine, but when violence attacks our democratic institutions and our democracy itself, I believe we need to know.
It makes no difference whether you ascend to the presidency, serve in congress or are elected to the Fishers City Council. Voters need to know where you stand on the state of our democracy. If the Republican Party wishes to continue as a viable institution, some major soul-searching is in order. Let your constituents know where your soul stands at this point in the history of our nation.
