This desert girl’s first time skiing was an icy lesson in the properties of snow and slopes. After a quick bout on the bunny slopes, feeling entirely overconfident, I tried to ski up a slight incline to where my father was waiting for me. I took two strides and started sliding backward, irreversibly, and gaining speed. Common sense should have told me that was never going to work, but I didn’t yet know the nature of slippery slopes.The conservative party in America is skiing backward down a black diamond trail, and we need to reevaluate our approach if we want to avoid the crash landing hurtling toward our backs.You see, the slippery slope has always been man’s bent. Lawlessness has the greatest gravity in the heart of man without God. And our society lives by the poetry of Nietzsche, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”Much more than conservation is necessary to make it back up this mountain. Upon taking two strides, we don’t want to find ourselves sliding toward doom.By nature, branding ourselves as conservatives has two main issues. First, we are always one step behind, always the bad cop poopoo-ing progress. Secondly, conservative Americans, like conservation biologists, face the problem of moving goalposts.That which was reason yesterday is ridiculed today.And so conservatives are caught in the cultural gravity, proud to be facing the top of the mountain, never mind we are not moving toward it. Because at least WE are not THEM.The conservative movement has largely failed. It has lost the culture war, not only in states like California, New York, and Colorado but across the Union. SEE ALSO: This holiday season, the devil is in vogue; Christ is impermissible For example, consider the cultural conversation around legalizing gay marriage.In 2003, 59% of adults in the U.S. opposed same-sex marriage. Just 20 years later, 61% of U.S. adults support it.As a senator, Joe Biden voted for a Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Recently, he hosted a myriad of transgender influencers and drag queens to witness his signing the Respect for Marriage Act into law, which endangers religious institutions that do not recognize same-sex “marriage”.The public square censors all who say men and women are distinct and biologically determined. Abortion up until and in some states after birth is mainstream. Border enforcement is scowled at. Keepers of civil society, police, are villainized.The school system is regularly teaching marxist critical race theory and the 1619 Project. Due to the corruption in education, the party of Abraham Lincoln has been taught as the party of Jim Crow, forgetting that it was Democrats, not Republicans who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Conserving is not enough.The Grand Ol’ Party is in need of some restorers.Perhaps there was a time before the 21st century when conserving was enough. But now we are speeding headlong toward the bottom of a slippery slope, the crash is inevitable, and any conserving we are able to do along the way is meaningless to stop the trajectory. SEE ALSO: Chinese dissidents cry “Give me liberty or give me death!” Judeo-Christian tradition tells a story in the book of Nehemiah that we Americans would do well to take to heart. Israel had been taken captive into exile, spread far from their homeland, when King Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah, one of the captives and his cupbearer, leave to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of the city. Every man did his part, either great or small, and the pride of Israel was restored.Surely it is time to look around ourselves and see the rubble for what it is. Yet, may this never lead us to despair, but set our hands to action.The walls can be rebuilt, the city can be restored, but not if we are intent only on keeping our opponents’ hands off of the destruction they waged yesterday.Restoration is a glorious goal.Restoration harnesses the past, its successes and failures, and aims to do better. It sees a future not only where walls are rebuilt, but painted brilliant colors, protecting a city full of free citizens, bustling trade, marble statues, and magnificent cathedrals.So maybe it is time to abandon the conservative effort.Maybe it is time to start restoring the damage.Then perhaps, we can throw away our skis, pull out pickets, and set about the real work of scaling the mountain.Catie Robertson is an intern with the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Government.
