Did The Benedict Option Cause Trump?
I don’t say that conservative Christians should get out of political life, stop voting, stop running for office, and so forth. I expect that we will keep doing that, and that’s fine, that’s even necessary. But we should abandon political hope, by which I mean that we should understand that politics can at best be a defensive action at this point, not a means by which conservative Christians can transform the commons, except at the local level.
.. Yes, we will keep voting, and yes, we will run for office. But that kind of political action is now at the periphery. We lost the political fight because we lost the culture a long time ago. It’s going to be a very long time before it will even be possible to return to normal politics for us.
.. We are not being nihilistic or relishing in contrariness and rejection. Instead what we are doing is showing that there is an alternative to modernity and that this does not involve the flight of fancy of postmodern thought. We can stay grounded while criticising the modern. We can hold our position without seeking to transgress or to destroy.