Why young men are done with Mike Pence ‘conservatism’

A clip of CNN’s Dana Bash interviewing former Vice President Mike Pence is making the rounds. Watch it. It embodies just about everything that failed in the last generation of conservative politics.

First, Pence is in Ukraine. As if he weren’t irrelevant enough already.

Almost anything has to be better than whatever the heck this is.

Second, his “nicer than Jesus” desire for affirmation from Bash and the trans activists is nothing short of a confession: When he was in power and had an opportunity to confront the gender-bending madness poisoning our children, he chose instead to accommodate it with his signature brand of self-important piety.

Third, his thanking Bash because “we’ve been friends for a long time” is like tipping your cap to Tokyo Rose. That’s not a flex. It’s a cry for help.

Fourth, you know who else thinks quoting “do unto others” from Scripture means affirming people in their sin? James Talarico, that’s who.

So if you want to know why young men are reading about Franco fighting the communists in the Spanish Civil War as bedtime stories, it’s because the way of life and cost of living previous generations enjoyed are no longer available to them — because the Mike Pences of the world sold them out with a “conservatism” made for the bedroom eyes of CNN and nowhere else.

Or maybe Pence is working for the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce now and has some wives and jobs lined up over there for America’s angry young men. What a guy.

Virtually every political primary I’ve gotten involved in — or chosen not to get involved in — over the last 20 years has come down to the same thing: trying to stop another era of what Mike Pence fecklessly represents “in the name of the Lord.” When Jesus offered difficult teachings and people walked away from Him or even picked up stones, He did not stop and plead for “common decency” the way Pence did with Bash.

There is no accommodation to be made with evil. Which is why, in the face of rejection, Jesus simply turned to His disciples and asked whether they were going to leave Him too.

RELATED: Christian retreat is becoming political defeat

Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

That is the firm moral foundation that built Western civilization. Pence’s version is how civilizations die. His so-called desire for decency is a suicide pact we are depositing into our children’s cultural 401(k). I mean, what the hell is that guy even doing in Ukraine?

There’s a great scene in “Young Washington” where a British general looks at the future founding father and says, “This isn’t my home.” Washington replies: “See, that’s the difference between you and me. It’s mine.”

Which raises the question: What is Mike Pence’s home? I mean, really? Whom does he serve? What is his bottom line? I fear there are no good answers.

His concern for “common decency” is a con. What, after all, is decent about a Savior beaten and tortured beyond recognition, then paraded through the streets carrying the cross on which He will die for sins not His own? And if that cross — and its defeat in the Resurrection — is the essence of our faith, how can Pence’s perpetual-kindness doctrine be anything but a distraction from true faith at best and a blaspheming of it at worst?

RELATED: The right has a blind spot about young women

Blaze Media Illustration

So is there any point to highlighting the choice of revival or bust, as I often do on my show, if Pence remains the poster child for so much of our Christian leadership — in the church and in politics? Because with him, no such choice actually exists. It’s just bust. Guaranteed. Perhaps intentionally. Too many bright, shiny idols to resist, I guess.

Too harsh? Go watch that Pence video again. He sounded like Dana Bash had given him one of the best days of his life by offering him a forum to affirm obvious sin in the name of being nice above all. That is a very big problem, and I’m not sure where we go from here until that impulse is excommunicated from us as a people.

Let’s start here: Maybe the Boomer and Gen X crowd of men can put down the shovel and start acting under the banner of biblical headship again before younger generations of men declare war on absolutely everything — because almost anything has to be better than whatever the heck this is.