David McElroy

Movies and novels celebrate those who refuse to conform — those who refuse to do as they’re told. The non-conformists are often depicted as heroes who beat the system. But in the real world, human society rewards conformists — and non-conformists face ruthless consequences.

I was a conformist when I was young, but only because I was punished for stepping outside a strict set of norms. My father insisted on complete compliance with his orders and values. I occasionally got into trouble for laughing at something he found offensive. And I was strictly held responsible for obeying every order which he believed I should have known to follow, even if he wasn’t there to give the order.

I obeyed my father — and all authority figures — out of fear and training. By the time I was a teen-ager, though, I had developed non-conformist attitudes. I just knew to keep them to myself for the time being.

By the time I got to college, I didn’t fit with either group. I looked very conservative — and I chose the very conservative lifestyle for myself which continues to this day — but I felt like a wild-eyed radical on the inside. I was too conservative for the “free spirits” but I was too rebellious for the conformists.

It’s taken me many years to understand what that lack of conformity would cost me.

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For a very long time, I wondered how this would end. Would there be a dramatic climax? Or would love just slowly and quietly die from lack of tending?

It’s hard to even know what to call it anymore. It hasn’t been a relationship for a long time. It was a hope. Fondest dream. Futile faith in what a love might be? Fantasy, maybe?

Of all the things I imagined for seven years or so, I never imagined that it could end as sour grapes. But now that the hurt of lost love has faded into vague resentment instead, I can’t help but think, “I wouldn’t have wanted her anyway.”

I laugh bitterly at myself and wonder whether I tried to fool myself for years or if I’ve been trying to fool myself more recently. I’m not sure I would know when I’ve been most honest with myself — then or now — much less what was really best for all involved.

All I can do is point to Aesop’s fable called, “The Fox and the Grapes.” Do you remember the story?

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Millions of Americans who call themselves conservatives are angry. And I can’t blame them.

They look around and see their country being taken over by Marxist-inspired barbarians. They see personal freedoms they’ve taken for granted eroded. And they see smug politicians and activists glibly call them racist and sexist and various other ugly labels.

But in their eagerness to blame someone for this, self-described conservatives are looking in the wrong places for the cause of these developments. If they really want to know why things are falling apart, they need to collectively look into a mirror.

The conservatives of my youth would have been shocked at what today’s so-called conservatives have become. The positions and rhetoric of today’s Republican Party are radically different from the free-market conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

The people who call themselves conservatives today are really populists, but they don’t understand that. They’ve handed the control of their party to liars and charlatans. They have no principles other than “owning the libs” on social media. And they still can’t admit to themselves that Donald Trump is a narcissistic con man who’s bamboozled them.

Worst of all, they’ve abandoned the principles of individual liberty.

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