Blake Boudreaux is a student at the University of Virginia. He is 6’2”.
There is an all-out war for America being fought every day, but you would not know it if you looked at “trad-con” right-wingers. This war is not an academic debate, it is not a Socratic seminar, and it is certainly not a Norman Rockwell painting of a republican election with candidates on the back of a train trying to win the hearts and minds of voters.
It is a bare knuckle, no holds-barred street fight for total control over our public institutions. The victor wins the power to shape society.
On one side stands the secular left, with abortionists, pornographers, and Wall Street wealth-worshippers. They ride the Lolita Express to private islands. They make movies that mock Christ. They write opinion pieces and policy papers disparaging faithful Christian families. These people want us broke, dead, and powerless. They think it is funny.
On the other side are the Christians, and it is imperative we stick together. We are blessed with a crop of angry, young men radicalized by the excesses of liberal America. They have rejected secularism and wholeheartedly embraced orthodox, traditional teaching.
These young men need to storm the gates of power. As Machiavelli and countless other theorists wrote, politics is an intra-elite power struggle. Imagine how much good could be done if Christianity’s new radicals used their zealotry to wrest control of the institutions away from the secular left.
Much has been written about the consequences of declining birthrates — countries with fewer people are less powerful. The same principle applies to the top 10 percent of American society. We must increase the amount of “our people” entering the elite. The more friendly people we have in the highest echelons, the less vulnerable we become.
For decades, it seemed like we were held back by demographics. Older Christians lamented that churches were losing their young people to the World. Against all odds, we finally have the young soldiers that can fight this civilization battle, but we are wasting them!
These young men are searching for direction, but they do not find wise counsel. Instead, they are led astray by the same people responsible for past losses.
The “trads” tell them: “Go to trade school, marry in your teens, have more kids than you can afford.”
Sorry — what?! The religious right has miraculously acquired the most valuable reinforcements of human capital, and their marching orders are to stop fighting? “Trad” influencers might as well tell their audience to “turn on, tune in, drop out” like the hippies of old.
Why would we want our best people to opt out of the elite? A small contingent of radicals can have much more impact flooding the halls of power than they would by subsistence farming in a rural town with “more kids than they can afford.”
The people pushing this advice are the same who complain that leftist elites have made it impossible for Christians to live unmolested anywhere in the country. Our enemies are gleefully and unmercifully coming for us, whether we fight or not.
Already, they spied on churches, they forced Christian business owners to serve LGBT wokester activists, and they replaced Easter with Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is imperative we remember this because despite the proclamations of “Golden Age” and “We Can Just Do Things” our battle is far from over, and we remain the underdogs.
As soon as our enemies regain power, they will double down on their excesses. We cannot win if we do not fight, and if we lose, we can expect no mercy. It is irresponsible to counsel young people not to fight.
But when questioned about this strategy, the “trads” retreat with indignation to their moral motte: “Are you against marriage? Are you against the family?”
By no means! In fact, it is they who are against their own family. They choose to opt out and let their sons and daughters deal with the consequences of a society controlled by enemies. Proverbs teaches, “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children.” What inheritance are they going to leave?
You are not a nineteenth-century homesteader. You are not a Spanish Inquisitor. You are not a Roman legionary. You are not the first person to discover traditional beliefs.
And, I am sorry to tell you, but you are not going to save the West by having a family. Only one person ever saved the world by having kids — and she only had one.
This is the real world. We cannot afford to tell our best people to opt out of the fight, or to play dress-up, or to “have more kids than you can afford.”
Perhaps it is not fair. Perhaps people in the past had it easier. Maybe we will not all get to have the perfect life that we always wanted.
But we’re in a new fight — one that we cannot opt out of. Stop playing pretend.
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Defining "trad" would be helpful. While the Little House on the Prairie crowd is a real thing, I know many ardent traditionalists working in media, finance, medicine, federal LEO roles, etc. Not every TLM attendee is an ignorant peasant, as this article seems to imply. Also, not everyone is cut out for the elite. Those people should not be told that they are failing their Country and their family by aspiring in proportion to their abilities.
This article lacks coherence. The author seems to be attempting to criticize some theory about how young people should go about their lives in their 20s, but this isn't specified. Who are these "trads?" What precisely are they saying? There is a lot of random criticism of advice given to young adults, but nothing offered in its place. Something about a vague battle to be fought. How? We are not told.
Education is great. We really do need more of our people in the commanding heights, but counseling literally everyone to spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to college is idiotic. That's a huge problem we have. The trades can be a solid route to local influence in the community. If Zoomer Zane has a 105 IQ, why send him into debt slavery at college?
Eschewing family? Why? If the culture can produce warrior monks, then so be it. But can it? It can't even produce good fathers (mostly because women refuse to be good wives and mothers). Why counsel families to contracept and avoid having children? Is it worth it to win the temporal battle but lose our souls?
Maybe we have to fight with the army we have. Maybe we have to play the long game. I wish the author the best with his education!