What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience

Estranged from party leadership, abandoned by the populace, yet refusing to surrender, this is the final call—one which we have all heard before—from the honorable and sincere former Vice President Mike Pence. Shortly before his run for President in 1964, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater published a book titled Conscience of a Conservative. Pence’s attempt is to create anew the fervor for the truth that conservatives have embodied before and can embody again. By once more returning to these principles, believes Vice President Pence, we can return to more firm a foundation.

The book is designed much as I believe Goldwater’s work is designed, and as one would expect a political manifesto to be designed: chapter by chapter, Pence illuminates the most critical elements of policy in our day, from immigration to tariffs to the right to life. Each chapter covers a different topic, yet each is also unified in that it presents a coherent and structured worldview, one that is, surprisingly, mostly untinged by political bias. Although complete objectivity is, of course, impossible—and Pence certainly remonstrates on the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration of the first term—the fact that he is willing both to praise and to criticize the new Trump administration, delivering praise where it is due and criticism where it is warranted, is a refreshing break from the far more politicized, highly personal politics to which we have now become accustomed. 

I began with some praise, and before moving on to the chief thesis of the book, I will offer a few short criticisms. Although much—indeed, most—of what is contained herein is true and needs to be repeated, it is exactly that: repeated. This is by no means a new message. Perhaps Pence would argue that the essence of conservatism is not that it is new, but that it is good despite, or even because of, its age. Yet that may obscure something different, namely that nearly everything Pence says has been said by him before. While reading his book, it at times reads more like an essay, or the transcription of a speech, than a new, logically structured argument. From cover to cover, I must acknowledge that this was not a read I wanted to continue, but one I felt I needed to continue because, despite its style, it was true—and because it was true, it deserves reading. I assure you that this will not become the new Pulitzer Prize–winning political treatise, regarded as groundbreaking research into the nature of politics. Likely, it will be forgotten in the recesses of a bookstore. Yet the fact remains that truth is often like that; concealed behind the guise of the ancient, or of that which is no longer popular, we seem to have embraced chronological snobbery even in our reading habits. Perhaps this book will cure us of it. 

Pence’s thesis is to recall conservatives to life. He urges us to reconsider the prevalent view that conservatives are winning in America. We are not, states Pence. Although the populist right is closer to conservatism than the progressive left, Pence argues that we are not even close to being the same, and our differences should not be forgotten, even if it may be politically convenient to do so. Chapter by chapter, Pence dismantles the problems with each of the two ditches on either side of the road called sanity into which we may be tempted to stray. On the right lies populism, which for decades was seen as antithetical to conservatism, but which has today gained a foothold. On the left lies the clear and present danger that we have long acknowledged, and which still beats at our door. One interesting thought I had during the reading process is that both of these enemies bear a remarkable resemblance. Although in the modern arena they have diverged—partly because the group on the left has become far more radicalized—if traced back in history, both progressivism and populism emerged from the same source: the Democratic Party of the 1890s, followed by the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, as well as the repeated presidential candidacy of William Jennings Bryan. An important distinction that Pence makes is that populists are not necessarily fighting for the wrong things, or even for different things than conservatives; they simply have a different way of fighting for them. While conservatives must be content to wait, to abide within the system and change it from within, populists, in their search for immediate and substantial victories, undermine the systems they strive to protect, achieving short-term success at the expense of long-term prosperity. It is not that the populist right lacks principles; the problem is that at times it fails to act consistently with those principles. 

This book contains a message that needs to be heard and considered. If, after reading it, you remain unconvinced, that is an acceptable outcome, but you will emerge substantially wiser and better equipped to engage in thoughtful conversation. This is not a light topic; in all seriousness, the future of our country is the subject of this work—something that should neither be gambled away nor protected so overzealously that, in defending it, we destroy that for which it stands. I believe that Vice President Pence has made his point, and made it well. After reading it, perhaps you will think otherwise; but, as I was, you will be compelled to admit that this book was written in all sincerity, with deep care and concern, and with clear-eyed vision. 

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

May 1st, 2026

The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher

Is the answer retreat? Is today’s modern liberal culture too far gone to save? Have we invested “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” in a project that is not worth the former two, much less the first? Perhaps this is not the exact, word-for-word argument that columnist Rod Dreher makes, but it certainly appears to be something close to it. In The Benedict Option, Dreher takes us back in time to examine the life and example of St. Benedict and his band of reclusive followers, arguing that the community they formed is exactly the kind of community in which we should participate—and the kind of life for which we should be willing to die.

Dreher begins his argument with intellectual history, describing the twin forces of reason and faith—represented by Athens and Jerusalem—as guiding the Church and society through the Middle Ages. It is within this context that the life of Benedict and his monks, living for Christ as a community rather than merely as individuals, takes place. Dreher continues his intellectual chronology with the thought and life of St. Thomas Aquinas. Coming from a Protestant background, I am compelled to concede the greatness and intellectual seriousness of the man who is likely the premier theologian and philosopher not only of his period but extending into the present day. One of Dreher’s most important strengths is his ability to appeal to authorities such as Aquinas when making the case for Christian philosophical realism. Nor does Dreher resort to blaming the typical villain of anti-Enlightenment Christian critiques, René Descartes. Although he mentions Descartes, Dreher critiques not his methodology but the thinkers who followed him. Rather than blaming Enlightenment figures directly for current skepticism, Dreher instead points to William of Ockham, the father of nominalism, as the source of the problem. Let me explain.

Dreher posits that two rival worldviews were at work during the High Middle Ages, which have since split philosophical discourse into two nearly unbridgeable camps. The first, Christian realism, is associated with Thomas Aquinas and, earlier, Aristotle. This view holds that real, discoverable truths exist and are grounded in God. In other words, a tree is genuinely real, present, and accessible to the senses, but ultimately ordered within a meaningful and purposeful reality. This was the dominant view for centuries following Aquinas’s death. In contrast, William of Ockham proposed nominalism—the view that things do not possess inherent reality, causality, or necessity. Reality becomes fragmented into isolated parts, and meaning is no longer embedded in the world but is instead fluid. While nominalism leaves room for God, it undermines the idea of God’s unchanging nature. For Ockham and his intellectual descendants, the qualities of nature are not necessary but contingent. God could have just as easily commanded Moses, “Thou shalt kill,” if He had so chosen. The key difference lies in the nature of meaning: for realists, meaning exists independently and is discovered; for nominalists, meaning is constructed. Dreher sees this shift as the catalyst for the modern struggle between objective meaning and subjective self. His argument is that once society rejected realism and embraced nominalism, the checks and balances that governed both society and meaning itself began to unravel, piece by piece.

The solution, Dreher proposes, is not political engagement. He argues that such efforts have failed. In a sense, he calls for retreat—perhaps into local communities, perhaps even into something resembling monastic life. However it is framed, engagement with an increasingly counter-Christian culture is not, in his view, the answer. The problem with this is that Christians are called to be the “salt and the light” of the earth. Classical teachings hold that Christians remain in the world as a counterbalance to evil. It is through engagement with a fallen world that redemption is pursued. Dreher overlooks this in his advocacy for intentional Christian communities. While such communities are not inherently wrong, his emphasis neglects a significant part of the broader picture.

Secondly, Dreher significantly overestimates the ability of community to preserve truth. While he is correct to reject the nominalism of William of Ockham, he veers toward the opposite extreme, failing to adequately account for the free will of individuals to accept or reject biblical mandates. Community, though valuable, cannot guarantee faithfulness. Because of human fallenness, no structure—no matter how well-ordered—can serve as a safeguard against error. Dreher himself concedes that community is not salvific. Yet by placing such weight on retreat and communal life, he effectively elevates it beyond its proper role, risking a subtle shift away from personal responsibility and active witness in the world.

The final problem with Dreher’s argument is that, although he is overly optimistic about humanity’s ability to achieve harmony within community, he simultaneously underestimates humanity’s capacity to act in accordance with natural law—especially when the survival of culture itself is at stake. His claim that the answer no longer lies in voting for political candidates risks creating a false dichotomy. The truth is that the answer never lay solely in political engagement. Both Christian theologians and the American founders understood that political involvement, while necessary, is not sufficient. We can agree with Dreher that “politics is not the solution,” but we must also insist that “retreat into community is not the solution either.” In avoiding one ditch, Dreher has driven into another. There have always been those who spread fear and predict impending collapse. Perhaps such collapse is near. But even if our systems are irredeemable, our institutions corrupt, and our world deeply fallen, the answer is not withdrawal. It is to stand and act—even if such action appears futile—so that we cannot be said to have remained silent.

It is important to avoid misrepresenting Dreher’s argument. He does not advocate burying our heads in the sand or withdrawing entirely from political life. In fact, he encourages continued support for causes such as the right to life, traditional marriage, and core tenets of Christian conservatism. Dreher is not unpatriotic, despite how his argument may sound. He clearly loves America and its people; more broadly, he values Western civilization and seeks to protect it from forces he believes are eroding it from within. The issue lies less in what Dreher explicitly argues and more in how his argument may be interpreted. He is correct to point out that many of our current solutions are ineffective. However, where he errs is not in diagnosing the problem, but in his response. Like others in the post-liberal movement, he risks rejecting the very system that allowed the problem to emerge—and that may still contain the means for its resolution. The problem is not classical liberalism or our system of government. Nor is it that we mistakenly believe politics alone is the solution. Rather, the problem lies in expecting too much from imperfect systems and people. It lies in demanding perfection from a fallen world and then abandoning it when that expectation is not met.

What, then, is the verdict? Is The Benedict Option worth reading? Yes—with important caveats. The book succeeds not so much in accomplishing its stated aim, where it ultimately falls short, but in establishing the necessary groundwork for a broader discussion. Dreher’s real contribution is that he forces readers to confront where things may have gone wrong and to consider possible solutions together. This conversation, as Dreher himself suggests, should take place within communities—but without idolizing community, dismissing political structures, or denying individual responsibility. The Church was not called to survive history by retreating from it, but by confronting it—generation after generation—not with certainty of victory, but with certainty of truth. That is where we must stand. 

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

April 24th, 2026

Bibi: My Story by Benjamin Netanyahu

The Middle East is fraught with stories of bravery and stories of cowardice, of war and peace, of all that makes the human heart noble and all that makes it vile. Indeed, throughout history, names that will long be remembered have often carved their mark into the annals of the past because of their actions in this region, which divides three continents: from Lawrence of Arabia to David Ben-Gurion and now, most recently, Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was surprising to me, as I read through the earlier parts of this book, how much time the Prime Minister spent, in his early years, in the United States. This makes his vision of an Israeli-US alliance, akin to that formed by Roosevelt and Churchill during the Second World War, look far less prophetic and far more realistic. Having attended college in the United States, having been the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and having spent a period in Manhattan as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Netanyahu is full of praise for the “arsenal of democracy,” but also warning.

Also surprising is the intense factionalism of Israeli politics. Completely different from the two-party system of the USA, the portrayal of the inner bargains and fights for power, as well as scandal, corruption, and jockeying for parliamentary control, creates an almost laughable picture, yet it is a deadly serious game, for nothing less than the survival of the Jewish state is at stake. It is at once unapologetically partisan, yet rings true nonetheless.

Readers seeking a conventional autobiography will be disappointed. To be clear, Netanyahu does write about his family life, his father’s role in the founding of Israel, and the story of the death of his brother, his hero Yonatan Netanyahu, at Entebbe Airport after the terrorist hijacking. Rather than give only a biography of himself, it seems at times as if Netanyahu is attempting to give a biography of the Middle East, and at that, I certainly believe, he succeeds wonderfully. This is a long book; it is a book that will likely sit on your nightstand and gather dust, but it is a book that should be finished, and when it is finished, you will emerge from your room wiser and more equipped to understand the complex, yet incredibly simple, dynamics of the Middle East.

Having written this book during one of the few brief periods of the last three decades in which he has not been in power, Netanyahu’s highly personal analysis of his life as both a statesman and a man does not include the period for which he is most well-known: specifically, the period following the Hamas massacre of October 7th. However, that is not to say that the book is devoid of interesting periods. From the signing of the Oslo Accords to the Second Intifada, from Cairo to Berlin, Netanyahu captures the prime movers behind the modern geopolitical landscape. Enclosed within these pages are stories of interactions with former Israeli Prime Ministers—some opponents, others, far less, friends: Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Naftali Bennett—they are all here, written about by their arch-nemesis and most long-standing opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also in these pages, you will find intriguing details about US-Israeli relations: from the controversy-fraught administration of Bill Clinton, plagued with scandal at home yet naively hoping to achieve peace with Yasser Arafat, to Barack Obama, who promised to “lead from behind.” Donald Trump and Joe Biden also have a significant role to play, from the Abraham Accords onward.

Neither does the Prime Minister spend all six hundred pages of this book crying over spilled milk or controversial relations with public figures. He does not exclusively concentrate on the present or the future, on what can be if “the right person is elected,” a narrative which so often fills the reminiscences of public figures. To be clear, Netanyahu devotes a considerable amount of time to clearing his own name from controversy and does, at times, seem a little self-serving. Not to excuse him from acting as a human, but his narrative is full of self-praise evinced by other public figures such as Winston Churchill.

Indeed, Netanyahu evokes, at times, an almost Churchillian sense of destiny. And well may he do so, for throughout these pages, although tinted with personal bias, you see before your eyes a figure of immense proportions and vast schemes come to life: a man like all others, full of errors and vanity, but also a man filled with a passion for the true, the good, and the beautiful; a man preoccupied with the defense of his own nation and of Western civilization more broadly.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 17th, 2026

1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder by Arthur Herman

Idealism is not necessarily a virtue, for both tyrants and heroes have been and are idealists. In 1917, two men, different in many ways but similar in one underlying theme, were about to be catapulted to the forefront of the world. Their choices would be choices that would shape the world for the next century.

Author Arthur Herman argues that both Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, and Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary Marxist who would soon be deified as the founder of the Soviet Union, were not only alike in their fervent belief that history could be bent toward a grand design, but also in their confidence that they themselves understood that design. From a distinctly Hegelian lens, one which saw progress as an inevitable force that would lead to harmony, both believed that they could use government, or, in a Bismarckian sense, “the state,” to further their ends. The state was a means to an end for both men, and as a means it was applied in every possible way.

1917 explores how the visions of these two men collided in a colossal way during the terminus of the Great War. Wilson entered the war reluctantly, despite the clamor from those in the Republican Party, such as Theodore Roosevelt, who urged him to stand with their European allies from the start. Yet when he entered, he applied his vision of liberal democracy and an international order to every aspect of the conflict. It would be the mission of the United States Expeditionary Force, under the talented command of “Black Jack” Pershing, to secure a peace, but it would be, Wilson urged, a peace without victory.

Herman argues that that is exactly what he got.

On the other hand was the Russian exile living in Switzerland, the avowed Marxist Vladimir Lenin. Unlike today’s perception of Lenin as a fundamentally different man from his successor, Joseph Stalin, Herman points out that it was Lenin, and not Stalin, who was in command of the purges following the Bolsheviks’ triumph in the Revolution of ’17. It was Lenin, though this applied as well to Stalin or to Stalin’s nemesis Trotsky, who was the brutal warlord who murdered his political opponents, no matter their innocence. Yet Lenin too was an idealist, and Lenin also was willing to use the state to achieve progress. While Wilson viewed progress as that which could be achieved by peaceful coexistence, Lenin saw it in starkly different terms. Well might Mao Zedong’s motto, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” have served as the unofficial motto of Vladimir Lenin’s revolution. Where Woodrow Wilson spoke the language of diplomacy, congresses, and international law, Lenin spoke the language of force, class war, and revolutionary necessity. Yet both men believed they were accelerating the march of history. The difference lay not in their certainty, but in the methods which they believed history required.

The irony is that Lenin need not have succeeded. The Soviet Union was an experiment, and like all experiments, was not bound to succeed. By its very nature, communism, argues Herman, eats its own creation, and indeed, following the stories of the leaders of the Revolution, such as Trotsky, such a proposition is historically evident as well. Rather than being bound to an inevitable victory of the proletariat, as Lenin firmly believed, the Russian Revolution nearly ended in failure many times. Alexander Kerensky and the fragile Provisional Government might well have crushed the Bolshevik movement had events taken only a slightly different course. The Whites, under the command of Alexander Denikin, could have stood up to Lenin had not inner turmoil and distrust between Denikin and Kerensky bloomed. Indeed, had Woodrow Wilson himself not intervened on behalf of the Bolsheviks, it is likely that the experiment in communism would have ended not in 1991 with the quiet dissolution of the Soviet Union, but in 1919 amid the smoke and confusion of the Russian Civil War. Ironically, it was the Hegelian idealism of Wilson that preserved the Soviet Union from destruction.

Wilson himself would fail, his idealism running aground when the Republican Senate, under the leadership of Henry Cabot Lodge, blocked Wilson’s pet project, the League of Nations. It was idealism that prevented Wilson from acceding to the demands made by the Republican Congress. It was idealism that made Wilson see the entire conflict over the League as a conflict for the future of humanity rather than an opportunity for compromise, which could have led to a fundamentally better League, one backed by both parties. It was idealism that drove Wilson mad with fury and would lead to several massive strokes that would leave him incapacitated for the remainder of his term and that would sink all hopes of running for a third term in 1920.

In clear prose, Herman successfully defends his central thesis: that the idealism of both Wilson and Lenin led to the disorder of the next century. The naivety of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and his belief that World War I was “the war to end all wars” would lead to the appeasement of Nazi Germany. The desperate, Machiavellian, yet at heart idealistic policies of Vladimir Lenin would lead to the deaths not only of Russians during the fifty-plus years of Soviet rule, but would also, albeit indirectly, cause the surge of bloody communist revolutions across the globe, from Mao’s China, where seventy million people died, to Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Kim’s North Korea. Although Herman makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for Wilson, and his hatred of Lenin, from beginning to end, the facts are neatly ordered, the thesis is well defended, and the writing is masterfully articulated.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 8th, 2026

The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Gilded Age has long been fraught with controversy, from the actions of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil to the trust-busting of Theodore Roosevelt and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Both sides of the political spectrum have a special interest in this period of American history. It was, depending on perspective, an age of greed or an age of enormous technological progress; a period during which the robber barons reigned supreme, or an age when the captains of industry generated thousands of jobs and fueled the economic boom that would send America to the forefront of world geopolitics and economics within a matter of decades.

Now, Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Team of Rivals, dedicates her talent and her pen to this age, and to two figures who were dominant not only in politics, but also in economics. In an intriguing and fascinatingly told tale involving the friendship and rivalry of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, Goodwin weaves into the narrative the questions of the day: is, as the social Darwinists and conservatives believed, the role of government limited by time and space, or is it to play an active, and, in the hands of Roosevelt, incredibly active role in asserting the rights of labor and protecting the interests of the worker? From McClure’s periodical, where Ida Tarbell and her team of “muckrakers,” as Roosevelt, in a fit of anger, would describe them, labored tirelessly to expose what they perceived as injustice on the part of capitalist businessmen and financiers, to the halls of Congress, where Goodwin portrays the group she labels as the “conservatives” as both enemies of the people and, in her view, defenders of the status quo; in short, as corrupt career politicians dedicated to preserving their own livelihoods.

In terms of style, Goodwin has delivered another masterpiece. The characters, personalities, and foibles of both Theodore Roosevelt — the passionate, temperamental, and extremely dedicated former colonel and outdoorsman — and William Taft, in personality his opposite, though in mental fortitude, if not in dedication, his equal, come alive in this narrative. From Roosevelt’s appointment as Vice President and Taft’s tenure as Governor-General of the Philippines, to Roosevelt’s presidency and his nomination of Taft as his successor, Goodwin captures the excitement of the moment, as a team of talented, if biased, journalists set to work to expose the rich and wealthy in what some may call a personal vendetta — in the case of Tarbell — or an ideological obsession — in the case of Lincoln Steffens.

Leading up to the break between the former president and the sitting president, as tensions increased, the issues of the day came to the forefront. With Taft’s catastrophic, though arguably necessary, firing of Roosevelt’s top ally, Gifford Pinchot, the two men came head to head, and both used the power of the bully pulpit to its fullest, ultimately leading to the election of 1912, in which Theodore Roosevelt, wounded after a bullet struck him in the chest during an assassination attempt, for the first and only time in history defeated one of the two main party contenders while running as a third-party candidate, coming in second to the Princeton professor Woodrow Wilson. The Progressive Era is very much an era to be remembered and studied, from the populism of Bryan to the labor strikes throughout the nation and the political backrooms of Washington, D.C.

That said, no book should be spared necessary criticism, and this book is no exception. Goodwin, who worked for Lyndon B. Johnson and is a notable critic of conservatism not only in its manifestations of the nineteenth century but also in its current forms, makes no attempt to conceal her disdain for “laissez-faire economics” and clearly takes a view of government as the cure for all ills. Her view of Roosevelt as primarily a progressive candidate opposed to business freedom is not held by all historians; and neither she nor any other historian has the right to monopolize Roosevelt for her own side. Numerous comments made by Roosevelt, Taft, or other close advisors opposing the muckrakers and labor strikers go ignored or underexplained, and while she defends her thesis well and writes it clearly, she does so at the risk of overlooking evidence that does not suit her view. Of course, this is something that many historians, including those on the right, do regularly, and it is a criticism that should apply not only to this author but to all authors when necessary. Her representation of laborers as primarily peaceful or motivated by righteous intentions is an interesting take, one that should be engaged by those on the right as a claim that overlooks the anarchism and socialism of the day, anarchism that would lead to the assassination of William McKinley. The religious aspect is ignored completely. In fact, the only mention the author makes of religion in the entire 900-page book is to state that Taft’s father defended a court ruling declaring that Christianity should have no special place in America. Further, though she does not demonize Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, or other big business executives, her sympathies are clearly not on their side. In short, this is a book you could and should expect from a progressive, pro-government intervention journalist like Goodwin.

So, what then is the verdict? It is, as nearly all matters are, a complex yet simple answer: it should be read; it should be engaged with. The thesis should be understood but not taken at face value. The facts should not be entirely discounted nor entirely accepted, but should be read critically. Above all, a conclusion must be formed. Agree or disagree, this book will make you choose, and that, ultimately, is the one piece of the puzzle remaining, for which I am proud to recommend this book as a necessary piece of American history.

Review Written by C. A. Gerber

March 6th, 2026