Conservatism Has A Bane Problem

Victory can defeat us - but only if we let it.

Originally posted at New Guard Press - if you read it there, this is your sign to just go down to the reading recommendations.

By now, if you haven’t heard the term ‘vibe shift,’ you might just not be paying attention. It’s a GenZ term used to describe a multi-generational cultural reality: the tide of our culture is swinging back towards sanity. From my vantage point, representing conservative and Christian investors before the largest companies in America, this movement is obvious — from ditching DEI to refocusing on core business, you’d have to literally be asleep to not see it. As American culture shifts back towards a more traditional vantage point (or at least open to tradition), we’re seeing incredibly promising trends, including a growing repudiation of gender ideology, rejection of identity politics, and (perhaps most importantly) a growing religiosity among America’s youngest voters, and the inheritors of its legacy and institutions.

That’s the vibe shift: so now what? As we look at a new year in 2026, and the incredible possibilities of another year pushing this cultural shift, what’s the roadmap for young conservatives? Now that we’re in a coalition that’s being taken more seriously and achieving wins at a rate that hasn’t been seen in years, how do we actually set ourselves up for success? It’s no accident that, as the Right starts moving culture again, it has again started to display fracturing, infighting, and division. The greatest challenge of a movement often isn’t making it through demoralization and defeat. That’s a lean survival mindset that everyone, from entrepreneur to college student, can sort out. The greatest challenge of a movement is often a slow death caused by triumph — or, for you Dark Knight fans, Bane-ification: “victory has defeated you.”

Conservatism and the Right are in a defining moment right now. Whatever happens in 2026 and beyond, we’re going to be the ones who have to deal with the ramifications in the coming decades. As such, we have an interest in ensuring not only that we’re forwarding the healthiest, most robust, pro-growth, pro-wisdom version of the movement possible, but also that we’re prepared to inherit it. So how do we do that?

As with all things worth doing, it begins with duty. We must recognize that participation in the public square carries with it a set of responsibilities. If this year, particularly the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, hasn’t shown you that the ideas space is serious business, I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t a hobby or a pet interest. Whatever you may make of recent conservative divisions, we actually have a responsibility, as Ben Shapiro recently noted, to truth and principles in the way we talk to our audience. It’s ridiculously easy to miss this. As a young conservative, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of seeing “influence” as escalating bylines, audience increase, and brand growth (to be clear, as a private sector guy, all of those matter a lot and we should be good at them).

But conservatives, even young, tech-savvy ones, are not merely called to be algorithm-maxxing machines. We’re supposed to be capable of giving the people who read us thoughts of actual value, intellectual merit, and principled grounding. Anything less is a dereliction of our duty. Saint Francis de Sales, the bishop of Geneva in the early 1600s, wrote as much in his widely-cited ‘Prayer for Journalists’:

May we be bold to confront evil and injustice:
understanding and compassionate of human weakness;
rejecting alike the half-truth which deceives,
and the slanted word which corrupts.

This calls for wisdom. We have to understand what we believe, and be able to explain that to people in a way that’s more persuasive than the average Instagram infographic. We have to read, as C.S. Lewis said, the ‘right sort’ of books: anthropology like Rene Girard’s, cultural apologetics like William Carey’s, the stuff that doesn’t generally get cited in the infographic. On the movement side of things, we have to understand which issues are ‘same-team problems.’

• Questions about an America-first approach to foreign aid? Same-team problem.

• Questions about the importance of religion to a flourishing society? Less of a same-team problem.

• Questions about whether we should put up with glorification of Hitler and Stalin? Not a same-team problem.

There are many people who will say ‘conservative’ things for clicks and likes who have nothing but contempt for our conservative presuppositions about human dignity and a transcendent moral order, and are happy to wear Right-coded platitudes like a skin suit. The way we deal with those people in 2026 and beyond will determine where the conservative ship sails in coming decades.

The vibe shift is real. But a genuine culture shift has to run on something more concrete than just vibes. Getting there means that we have to take our obligations to truth seriously. It means that we must understand, really understand, the underlying values that we’re bringing to the public square — it’s much deeper than based-posting and apple pie, as important as those things are. And it means that we have to understand that not all of the issues we’re facing are ‘same-team problems.’ It’s the only way we’ll still have a team to win the long game with.

Reading recommendations

Heather A. Conley on Arctic dominance:

Economically, the Arctic holds some of the world’s largest deposits of critical minerals, oil and gas, and fishing resources. The power that can access and harness these considerable resources, particularly those located on the seabed, will have an enormous advantage in the 21st century. America’s adversaries understand the area’s strategic value more than Washington.

Patrick West on GenZ encountering Jesus:

While Jesus was not only seen as a condescending male chauvinist and God the Father as a bully, many youths discerned other issues in the readings. In the minds of some young people, the report concludes, Jesus “is a troubling figure. Arrogant, powerful, religiously motivated and male.” These reactions may indeed be radically different to traditional interpretations, but they’re entirely in keeping with the mores of today.

Michael Pakaluk on why God loves growth:

Everything argues in favor of God’s being pro-growth, such that those who say, in some domain of good, that he favors limited or no growth, have the burden of proof. God is light, but light spreads. To say, with the medievals, bonum diffusivum sui (Good spreads itself) is to say that what is good effects growth. When Jesus said, “I am come to cast fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49), He was yearning to consume, to spread, to overtake.

Alright, that’s all for this week. Talk soon. -Isaac