In case you missed it, Tomi Lahren has regained control of her Facebook page. Which means that we are about to be inundated with new âfinal thoughtsââthough, one has to wonder why they are âfinal thoughtsâ if theyâre now the whole show. Tomi lost her gig as Provocateur-in-chief at TheBlaze recently over some comments she made on The View. This post will not address the comments she madeâwhich have been addressed and refuted thoroughly. Rather, it addresses what I view to be the deeper problem with Tomi and what she represents for modern conservatism.
Shallow Conservatism
I have not cared for Tomi since she first skyrocketed to popularity. The very first time one of her âfinal thoughtsâ videos meandered into my timeline I wrote her off as a flash in the pan that didnât have the intellectual heft to last long. I must admit, I made a serious miscalculationânot just about Tomi, but about the whole 2016 election and possibly the modern conservative movement as a whole. I honestly believed that conservatives would see through her platitudes and recognize that her conservatism was inches deep. Conservatives didnât want intellectuals, they wanted firebrands. Rather than gravitating to the pages of the National Review or The Wall Street Journal, they flocked to the Facebook page of a fiery upstart whose shtick was going on-air and lambasting liberals, millennials, and anyone else who opposed her views.
The people didnât want reasoned, measured conservatism; they wanted bombastic, exaggerated pragmatism. Conservatives didnât just want to win, they wanted to decimate and destroy. They wanted revenge for decades of insults, put-downs, and ill-treatment. I think this points to a deeper, systemic flaw in the current conservative movementâsomething I will write more extensively on later.
The Tomi Problem
Returning to Tomi, she offers an object lesson on why it is so important to have a reasoned and holistic worldview [1] and ideology. Please note, I do not mean that conservatives must or should be ideologues; only that they should hold to an ideology and allow it to inform their views on all issues. This is where Tomi erred. Tomi seems to hold to a conservative political ideology but she does not understand the philosophical roots of that ideology, and she does not allow it to guide her on all issues.
Conservatism has a certain set of underlying presuppositions. Chief among them, that the individualâcreated by Godâis of inestimable worth. As such, the protection of human life is the first and predominant purpose of government. Whenever government fails to protect human life, it necessarily fails its first responsibility. Tomi, knowing only the platitude of âlimited government,â fails to make such a nuanced distinction. She does so because she does not have a thorough grounding in conservative thought and philosophy. She should recognize that that prohibiting abortion is a limited government position because, in doing so, government remains within its proper jurisdictionâprotecting the life, liberty, and property of the people.
Sadly, Tomi is a conservative Icarus. Like Icarus, filled with hubris, she flew too near the sun. Someone once said, âwhen your visibility exceeds your credibility, you are heading for a fall.â This perfectly illustrates the âTomiâ problem. Her worldview does not operate as a unified field of truth which is comprehensive and applies to all of life including all political issues. In short, her ideological foundation is insufficient. When you gain a platform, be sure your foundation is deep enough to support it.
[1] For and understanding of what I mean by âworldview,â see the first section of Dr. Glenn Martinâs essay âBiblical Christian Education: Liberation for Leadership.“