New Year, New Slip, Same Fight
Let's do the thing. Actually achieving. policy goals and all that jazz.
We made it, guys—2024! Here’s to new beginnings, healing old wounds, taking control of the situation (in whatever ways we can), and keeping our New Year’s resolutions. For me, that’s being more kind and empathic to everyone I encounter this year while not losing my nerve to stick up for what’s right... and losing my baby weight, for real.
Welcome to your newsletter dedicated to covering American politics from a conservative woman’s POV. I’m honored to have your readership today, so let’s dive right in:
One thing
Gut check: Can we make Conservatism Great Again?
Survey says: The youth vote is up for grabs
In your free time
1 Thing to do today (if nothing else)
There’s an extreme Millennial theme in today’s Slip and in that vein, I feel like I must share my guilty pleasure: E!’s House of Villians is a new show but a total throwback to the shows I would binge in the afternoons when I was in high school. It’s hysterical: a show full of all the bad guys from classic junk reality TV shows. Is it stupid, yes. Is that its selling point, also yes.
Gut Check: Can we move past the political psychology of “Lesser of two evils”
I often find myself wondering why the American conservative movement hasn’t been more successful in my lifetime. Beyond the bugaboo of blaming the schools, the media, or celebrities for propaganda of the masses—within our ranks, we are eating our own and abandoning (what I thought was) core values of the Republican Party.
We’re more obsessed over personality power struggles within our Party than with conservative wins in the legislature. No one will admit that that’s what’s happening but that is the objective reality of how our time is being spent. I don’t want to do that. I don’t have time for that. And I don’t blame people for being stuck in that unlucky fight to restore their professional reputation from being slandered or anything of the sort, it’s just so unfortunate. Onlookers are right to shy away from getting involved and what that leaves us with is a smaller and more fractious Party than ever.
Add on systemic levels of civic disengagement and low levels of confidence among the citizenry of the government’s ability to perform basic services or for the justice system to live up to its standard of equal treatment under the law … and you’ve got a dangerous cocktail. If people don’t trust the system to be fair, if people lose faith in society’s ability to self-regulate norms and basic manners, then what are we doing? Isn’t that the point of living in a community—the invisible hand of self-imposed moral rules at work that keep us all in check and relatively nice to each other? The punishment of being ostracization from polite society.
With that out of the way, I earnestly ask: what can you and I do better to make a positive case for conservatism? How can we persuade our friends and family to get engaged again, to trust again, and to have hope again?
I’m working on the answer, but I think showing goodwill and being the first to extend an olive branch can go a long way in restoring the bonds we have with our neighbors and relatives in our community.
Survey Says: Huge Chunk of 18-34 year-olds remain largely undecided on 2024 Election
The lede of this story should be that I’m still considered to be the ‘youth’ at 34. Woe to me later this year when I cross the 35-year-old threshold into the middle-age bracket and can finally speak with authority to all y’all youngins. ;-)
Until then we the youths of America have some questions. In a November 29, 2023 poll by CIRCLE at Tufts University, it was found that:
Among all youth in our survey, 37% say they’re most likely to vote for the Democratic candidate for president and 25% would vote for the Republican candidate. Seven percent say they’d vote for an independent or third-party candidate, and 31% of youth said they don’t know or remain undecided.
Propensity to vote aside, I see a lot to be optimistic about in this survey. To be “undecided” in today’s age doesn’t read uninformed to me, it reads tired of all of the drama. In a culture that relentlessly pushes the idea that you can’t be undecided without being complicit, I might be jumping to conclusions by reading between the lines but maybe not by much. If we can reach these potential voters and move them to engage again we can seriously change the makeup of political power in this country.
Speaking as a relatively elder-Millennial I’d like to invite anyone to AMA on what conservativism can do for you and our country as we move into the mid-Twenty First Century. I remember the previous century, cause I’m old and stuff. I had a Tomogatchi, I had dial-up internet, and I too survived Y2K and low-rise jeans.
In Your Free Time:
For Happiness in the New Year, Stop Overdoing Everything | Essay by Julia DiGangi in WSJ
Shorter: 1) Set boundaries and stick to them 2)Recognize the difference between danger and dislike 3) You control your time and mindset.
Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin; Feat. Marc Andreessen. | This is a 3-hour podcast but it covers so much from tech to leadership to music. If you have the time listen to these two titans converse about modern life.
Thank you and we’ll see you in two weeks! - Sarah