Tom Klingenstein likes to say that you can’t win a war if you don’t know you are in one. That’s bad enough. But what about people who do know they are in a war, and choose to shoot at their own side? Those individuals would rather not fight, prefer to ignore the dreadful march of the destructive Left, and balk at “activist conservatives” who attempt to stop the progressive trampling of institutional, legal, and cultural inheritances.

Prominent among those troubled by bold right-wing action in the United States we find “intellectual conservatives.” That title has generally become shorthand for a certain kind of respectable right-leaning never-trump academic. These brave scholars lob stones from atop the ivory tower, bruising the backs of the men in their own army as they defend the city walls. They believe the work of the tower superior in every way, to the point of making the work on the ground not just strategically in error, but perhaps morally wrong. Never mind the role those in the trenches play in defending the tower.

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