Conservatives have a strength that is simultaneously a weakness: politics is necessary, but isn’t primary in our hearts or our minds.
This is right and just. But this means that we sometimes don’t pay enough attention when it really counts. Right now, many conservatives would love to be free of politics. But, for many of us, it’s primary season. We need to get out there now so that we can be ready to win in the fall.
Unlike the modern left, conservatives will never quite be able to invest the same interest in the political cycle. We believe politics was made for man and not man for politics. Political involvement has as its goal a proper government that protects and preserves so that human beings and their families can live in peace and prosperity as they serve God and neighbor. While political action might be a religious duty for us, it is not religion itself. “The first thing to say about politics,” as the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus put it, “is that politics is not the first thing.”
This is indeed a strength. Because it’s true, it keeps us sane. We may be very upset about the results of elections, but you don’t see stories about conservatives who need to have support animals, coloring books, or professional counselors at our schools or workplaces when we lose. We may not like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden, but they have not established rent-free residence in our heads as Donald Trump, as George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan before him all did in the minds of liberals.
Nor do we spend all our time in political meetings as do far too many on the left. “The problem with socialism,” Oscar Wilde famously complained, “is that it takes up too many evenings.” Conservatives rightly like our free evenings to be saved for our family, our friends, and our nighttime prayers.
But this very healthy view of politics can also give an unintended advantage to our opponents. Because we don’t think of politics as the first thing, we too often don’t think of it as a necessary thing. The reality is that, even if we aren’t terribly interested in politics, politics is very interested in us.
The American system of self-government really depends on a citizenry vigilant about taking care of things not just in November every two or four years, but also in the intervening times. Many conservatives will complain about the weakness of their own candidates in the fall, even as they admit that they didn’t take part in those primary elections in the spring that determined who would be on the ballot.
Yes, by November, you must go with the team you have on the floor. You don’t have much of a right to complain, however, if you didn’t do anything to help decide who is on that team.
Because Republicans hold the House of Representatives only by a razor-thin margin, there is every reason to be active in choosing representatives who will both win and vote for the things they say they promise to vote for. The same goes for candidates for Senate, for governorships, and for other statewide offices.
Starting in March, the 2026 primary season will really get going. In addition to my home state of Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Illinois will all have primary elections. The rest will take place over the following months, leading up to the election. Readers who don’t know when they are taking place in their own state can check the U.S. Vote Foundation’s list of primary elections.
In every state, it is worth working early on to make sure that the fall election brings good news and not bad. North Carolina is still a purple state, so getting good candidates for the House is very important. Not letting the Senate seat held by Thom Tillis flip this fall is critical. While deep blue Illinois might not have much of a chance of electing Republicans, getting decent candidates who can force Democrats to spend money on those races would be helpful in other races this fall.
Even in deep red states, however, it is extremely important to get to the polls this fall. Here in Texas, there are multiple Republican primaries where voters have the opportunity to select Trump-aligned candidates against more establishment figures.
It’s not just federal government offices, either. Who your governor, attorney general, or comptroller is has a great effect on whether your state is going to be safe, fiscally solvent, and effective.
No, politics shouldn’t eat up our lives in an unhealthy way as it has for so many of our liberal friends and relatives. We shouldn’t give up thinking of politics as not the first thing in our lives. We should, however, think of politics as one of our regular duties that demands our thoughtful and prayerful attention.
Primary elections don’t get as much attention as do general elections, but they’re very important. Even if it’s not the first thing in our lives, voting for our fall candidates is a right we should exercise diligently now in order to be happy in November.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
