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The question of how social conservatives should practice politics in the age of Trump has resurfaced as Alabamians are poised to elect Roy Moore to the Senate. The likes of Mr. Trump and Mr. Moore promise social conservatives an appealing menu of policies and judicial nominations. Their offer is especially attractive after a decade during which the left embraced a new, aggressive mode of secular progressivism and continued its war against tradition long after it had won most courtroom and ballot-box battles.
But these vulgar populists exact an exorbitant price: namely, complicity in the degradation, conspiracism, thinly veiled bigotry and leader-worship that is their stock in trade.
To understand the social conservatives’ dilemma isn’t to excuse the vile personal conduct of a figure like Mr. Moore. But if you believe, as they (and I) do, that a public culture informed by the Bible and traditional morality is essential to America’s constitutional order, then the stakes are high indeed.
Ultimately, however, social conservatives strike a terrible bargain when they support men like Roy Moore.
