Republicans are losing sight of moral conservatism

Michael Stephens
Guest columnist
President Donald Trump, right, accompanied by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., arrive for Game 5 of the World Series baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals on Oct. 27, 2019, at Nationals Park in Washington.

Hopefully we can all agree that Donald Trump left office, at least in the strictly literal sense of the Oval Office, on Jan. 20. To say that he ceased to be president of the United States might be considered treason by many true believers, especially coming from a fellow Republican. Regardless, Trump's legacy certainly has not diminished. 

Trump's candidacy and presidency epitomized the moral rot that has been growing in the Republican Party. His uber-creepy attitude toward women, his gangland political style and a mouth so foul it needs a big bar of presidential-seal-stamped soap: Our former president is the street-corner bully you don't want your impressionable young politicians hanging out with. 

This year's Matt Gaetz meltdown should warn Republicans where the GOP is headed if its emerging leaders keep trying to trump Trump. Gaetz's personal moral problems have undermined any ability to function in Congress, just as Donald Trump lost administrative credibility because he lacked the moral compass to govern. 

Gaetz's incredibly crude April 5 Washington Examiner op-ed volunteered more details about his romantic life than any non-voyeur would want to know. Any time I hear Gaetz trying to defend himself by insisting that every sexual relationship he has ever had has been completely legal, I want to cover my ears and start desperately singing, "America, America, God shed His grace on thee!" 

Devoid of moral values, political conservatism becomes a mere pursuit of what Eugene Genovese denounced as "a brave new world of affluent depravity." Liberty becomes libertinism, patriotism becomes violence and capitalism becomes exploitation. Every issue reduces itself to a question of expediency. 

As party morality declines, Republicans increasingly lose sight of everything that makes us conservative except for fiscal policy. State-sponsored gambling is now OK because it brings in tax revenue. Some of that revenue helps fund gambling-addiction recovery programs, a worthy remedy to a shameful corruption of the people. 

Recreational marijuana is now okay because it brings in tax revenue. And anyway, plenty of good citizens are using recreational pot already, and most of them survive. The fact that smoking dope never seems to make anyone smarter may have the added advantage of helping keep incumbents in office. 

Letting drunks crowd the bars (and inevitably the streets) all night is OK because it brings in tax revenue. There are also few more visible ways for lawmakers to demonstrate a superficial commitment to liberty. To a new and vicious generation of Republican politicians, it is the people's right to party all night. 

All these vices are now enthusiastically embraced by FROs ("fiscal Republicans only") on the reasoning that "sin taxes" are preferable to the expense and embarrassing moralization of maintaining some legal limits on behavior. If abortion and prostitution could be harnessed to revenue generation, the most disingenuous "conservative" FRO arguments for legalizing them would soon appear. 

Liberalism and conservatism tend to follow culture. Political beliefs are shaped by lifestyle. How one lives determines what one believes, more than what one believes determining how one lives. Intellectual exercises — study, sermons, discussion — are momentary awakenings of the mind. Most of the time, it is daily practices that form and sustain our world view.

Today people are searching for meaning, and they are looking within themselves because that is the only place they know to look. The idea that the deeper truths may be outside ourselves — wise traditions, a moral order, even God —is increasingly alien to us. This poses a crisis for conservatism.

Certain vital words have largely passed from our vocabulary. "Wisdom," "morality," "decency" (and "indecency") are quaint and unfamiliar terms, making it hard to convey their power. (I began this column wary of the term "moral," but with use it has quickly become indispensable. Perhaps more conservatives should try it.) 

When our ostensibly conservative leaders fall to an amoral utilitarian level, they lose the ability to make the hard decisions good government requires. Values are essential to any stable social order, especially one designed to survive the frequent changes of government inherent in a democracy. 

Real conservatives today, especially if they derive their beliefs from religious faith, feel besieged by a culture that is not only secular but enthusiastically immoral. Republican leaders shouldn't make things worse by joining in. 

At the very least, they can revive the dying art of hypocrisy, by behaving decently as a model for the public. Who knows? It might even become a habit-forming virtue. 

Michael Stephens lives in Gainesville.