At the beginning of June, the National Review fellow and social-conservative wunderkind Nate Hochman wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled “What Comes After the Religious Right?” In it, he expanded on the somewhat declinist view of the conservative Catholic writer Matthew Walther, who coined the term “Barstool conservative” in a 2021 op-ed for The Week — writing that, “While the old religious right will see much to like in the new cultural conservatism, they are partners, rather than leaders, in the coalition.” Hochman argues that although a figure as non-pious as Trump (who could plausibly claim the mantle of the Barstool president) might have empowered social conservatives, they’re too much of an electoral minority to succeed without their comparatively libertine coalitional partners.

Hochman’s insight invites a similar reflection from the other side of the aisle. Once upon a time, as the writer Matt Yglesias recently pointed out in response to Portnoy’s pro-Roe stance, chauvinistic bros were reliable Democratic voters, who made common cause with realpolitik-ing feminists willing to overlook the Clinton-era party’s affective cultural conservatism in exchange for political wins. Both were opposed to the Moral Majority-era sanctimony of the Reagan-Bush GOP, the ethos of the alliance perhaps best summed up by a notorious quote regarding Clinton from the former Time White House reporter Nina Burleigh: “I’d be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”

For various reasons beyond the scope of this essay, the salience of cultural politics has increased in American life to an extent that makes that alliance impossible. Conservative thought leaders now find themselves at the same crossroads liberals once did: What price are they willing to pay — what are they willing to sacrifice, or excuse — to keep such fickle, secular, Portnoy-like independent voters in the fold?