Lest we forget, there was a bipartisan “consensus” that we should invade Iraq. Twice. There was manufactured unity among conservatives that John McCain and Mitt Romney were the best Republican warriors to take on Barack Obama. And let’s not dismiss that nearly three out of four Americans are “fully vaccinated” while over 80% have taken at least one jab.

This is why I’m not opposed to the various battles taking place among conservatives over the Israel-Hamas war. Most of them are petty, such as the tiff between Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly over whether or not pro-Hamas students should be “blacklisted” by corporate America. It all started with a Tweet by Vivek Ramaswamy claiming kids are stupid and should not be permanently harmed by their stupidity. Kelly had a problem with that. Owens chimed in to remind her that she was once a pro-abortion leftist as a stupid kid. I’m not going to post the threads because it’s a bunch of silliness coming from both sides.

With that said, I’m glad it’s happening. I’m glad that Ben Domenech, co-founder of The Federalist, is out there accusing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk of being an anti-Semite even if I completely disagree with the assessment. Kirk questioned whether parts of the Israeli government and/or military were involved in the Hamas attacks.

I’m glad that there are those on the right who are siding with Palestinians even if I’m not among them.

The reason I’m glad there is all this bickering over a war that’s on the other side of the globe is because the larger conservative movement is in desperate need of a revamp. It has become about as feckless as the Republican lawmakers they help elect. Big words, little action. Sadly, the same cannot be said about the leftist movement. Their words are idiotic but their actions are effective. Those actions may be devious, misguided, intimidating, and destructive, but they’re effective at accomplishing their goals.

The collectivists are beating the individualists because the individualists are being told we need to operate collectively. The modern conservative movement claims we need to unify behind bad ideas and bad people so we can counter the worse ideas and worse people leading the left. As a result, our “victories” are often insanely stupid.

Case-in-point: Bud Light. The takedown of a beer brand that put a dude pretending to be a woman on their cans has not had the desired effect. Sure, Anheuser-Busch is bleeding but the overall push for corporate wokeness barely skipped a beat. Other beer companies engaged with LGBTQIA+ marketing and didn’t get hit. Bigger companies doubled-down on trans-supremacy and didn’t even get a story printed about them on Breitbart or Daily Wire. Conservatives had one glowing “victory” in which we taught one company a lesson that other companies generally ignored.

Meanwhile, drag queens are still holding parades and tossing condoms at children. Popular shows and movies continue indoctrinating Americans into woke ideologies. Billions of dollars are being funneled to help women get abortions-on-demand, even if they have to cross state lines to do so. Climate change cultists are seeing their ranks grow, not diminish.

In short, the false unity within the conservative movement has barely been a speed bump as America barrels down the highway to hell.

When (if?) the dust settles from the Israel-Hamas war and Americans get back to (hopefully) focusing on our own problems here, the anger that’s splitting conservatives apart will dissipate. That won’t necessarily heal wounds, but it will force us to use our individual strengths to fight the good fight rather than relying on the groupthink that’s permeating across conservatives, patriots, libertarians, and populists today.

Is this the shakeup that we needed? Maybe. At this point any shakeup is better than the cozy, complacent inaction we’ve seen for the last three years. We do NOT need to get along in order to fight side-by-side against open borders, voter fraud, medical tyranny, or wokeness. We must NOT rely on groupthink to drive us into supporting bad ideas or bad people for the sake of unity.

We are patriots. We are conservatives. We are individualists. We shouldn’t be following the movement. We should be forming our own perspectives and acting accordingly. The last time there was a strong level of disunity among conservatives was 2016. The Trump Train had as many detractors as it had passengers. But despite the lack of consensus among patriots, Hillary Clinton was still defeated.

Fast forward four years and there was tremendous unity among conservatives. The Trump Train was full and destined to get more votes than it got in 2016. Victory was assured, so we got complacent. We took for granted that the left would be working on getting more ballots, not more votes. Our unity as a movement meant nobody did anything to prevent voter fraud, ballot harvesting, or tyrannical Covid measures. Everyone was pointing fingers after we lost.

Individualist conservatives sick of Obama and scared of Clinton won in 2016. Collectivist conservatives unified against Joe Biden in 2020 didn’t have a chance because our unity bred the complacency that allowed Democrats to steal the election.

We need to be uncomfortable. We don’t need a falsely unified conservative movement in order to reverse this nation’s direction. We need patriots who are angry about whatever makes them angry and to act accordingly. I don’t care who’s on Team Shapiro and who’s on Team Tate. All I want is for YOU to understand the issues that are important to you and to take a stand based on your individual perspectives. If the Israel-Hamas war tears the conservative movement apart, then there is an opportunity to rebuild it as a disjointed group of pissed off patriots who aren’t going to pay attention to the groupthink that’s being sold to us today.

When we’re fighting, we’re thinking. When we’re thinking, we’re ready to act. When we act, things get done. Unity might be able to take down Bud Light, but individualism is what’s needed to take down far bigger foes.

Sound off about this story on my Substack.