We live in an age of abstractions. As Alexis de Tocqueville diagnosed long ago, human nature tends toward generalities. In Democracy in America, he writes that this inclination has an “admirable” quality because it allows “the human mind to bring rapid judgments to a great number of objects at one time.” But the drawbacks—which the digital world intensifies—are considerable.
Democratic man is ever tempted to twist this natural proclivity through an unchecked passion for equality, which produces envy and strife. This can result in unclear thinking and ultimately a rejection of practical politics in favor of utopian schemes and political mythmaking.
Today, this democratic tendency manifests itself in endless purity tests, revisionist rabbit holes, and a massive entertainment complex dominated by influencers. As we move from crashing through the doors in 2016 to laying a solid foundation for generational success, it’s more important than ever to listen to those with real accomplishments and real wisdom. In this environment, Nate Fischer rightly argues that “we should be wary of taking guidance…from people not focused on real achievement.”
We need individuals who display competence and possess a deep understanding of our political and cultural moment. This is one reason Vice President JD Vance is currently leading in the polls for the 2028 Republican presidential primaries, especially as the electorate trends younger. It’s also why there’s still talk of Marco Rubio running for president, though Rubio said he won’t enter the race if (and increasingly when) his good friend Vance does.
Those doing the difficult work of practical politics—those who spend summers going door to door or regularly take part in county or local governments—should be more valued. The same goes for those building institutions and trying to leave a legacy for future generations.
Quality public political commentary, of course, still has a role to play. Productive and courageous speeches that move the needle are needed, like those William Wolfe, Jonathan Keeperman, and Matthew J. Peterson gave at NatCon earlier this week. Part of the New Right’s future success depends on having frank and honest discussions about the third rails in our politics. Pretending that the widening generational divides can be stopped, much less reversed, is a fool’s errand. Our political challenge is to work within this new paradigm rather than retreat to generalizations.
But the tendency toward abstraction that Tocqueville noted keeps cropping up in online political discourse, especially in discussion of the Ohio governor’s race. The “to vote or not to vote for Vivek” debate has been illuminating and sometimes provokes clear thinking about regime-level issues. Good-faith arguments are being made on both sides. Which way Ohio goes will have implications not only for the state but for America more generally. Open debate about citizenship, the meaning of meritocracy, and the religion of our political candidates needs to happen.
What can get lost, however, is that whoever wins the Ohio governor’s race will directly affect the lives of 12 million people for the next four years. It is easy to make theoretical political arguments about a place you may know little about. Ohioans have a history and a way of life, however foggy our understanding of them has become.
Those who rightly attack the idea of hyper-proposition nationhood shouldn’t reduce states themselves to an idea. If the name Matt Huffman doesn’t ring a bell, stop offering authoritative-sounding assessments of Ohio politics until you know more about Ohio and its political circumstances. The same goes for anyone handing out advice about key statewide races elsewhere in the country.
Political strategies as untethered to reality as the Never Trumpers’ wild theories in 2016 need to be rejected. One such idea was to elect Trump and immediately remove him from office so that Mike Pence could become president—with apparently no thought given to the tens of millions of people who had just elected Trump. In a similar vein, there’s been talk of electing Amy Acton as governor with the hope that Governor Mike DeWine will suddenly become like John Adams as the Jefferson administration drew near. But this is a pipe dream.
DeWine and the Ohio GOP would not do what’s needed to limit Acton’s activism. He would need to shift wildly from being the governor who has consistently backed the importation of Haitians into Springfield, Ohio, to a smart and savvy political operator who understands what our times demand. Quite simply, Mike DeWine would not make a “based” turn if Amy Acton wins in November.
Too many overly ideological political consultants and commentators are still working from a framework developed in the pre-Trump era—a framework in which wild theories abounded because the state of politics looked so bleak. The conservative movement was locked into a spiral of permanent defeat. The Republican political establishment showed more thumos in scolding its own voters for picking Trump than they ever did against the Democrats. But over the past 10 years, Donald Trump has begun a revolution that now functions as the new baseline in American politics.
We need to grapple with the realities of politics as it is in 2026, not retreat to utopian models that assert a principle and skip all the difficult parts. This does not mean that shifting the Overton window is not a useful, but that it cannot be done for its own sake.
Abstract political thinking, a fixation on principles, and working within old political paradigms long after their sell-by date are tendencies that will always be with us. But they are not useful for building a new political establishment capable of serving Americans in the second quarter of the 21st century.
