It’s neither a secret nor a surprise to any real conservative worth his salt that the Republican Party is fractured, perhaps beyond repair. While certain party lines are still more or less toed, the party once helmed by Abraham Lincoln has effectively split into two factions: one we may call the conservatives and the other we call the GOP — the Gay Old Party.

The LGBT battleground is the perfect place to examine the Republican fissure in detail. The advent of the trans agenda has, in many ways, forced Republicans to reveal their true colors, either red-blooded or yellow-bellied. The red-blooded Republicans, or actual conservatives, have largely stood against the L, G, and B as each cropped up in recent history; the (admirably) retrograde reaction against each has only intensified with the onslaught of the trans agenda and especially its predatory obsession with children. Conservatives have recognized that the logical foundation for finding that one’s own sex contradicts God’s designation necessarily stemmed from allowing one to determine one’s own “sexual orientation” even in contradiction to natural law and God’s designation.

The Gay Old Party, on the other hand, is simply picking up the leftovers from yesteryear’s progressives and leftists, accumulating a substantial gay lobby amongst its already contradictorily multifaceted ranks. Late last year, pro-gay Republican senators banded together to support the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which mandates nationwide permission for gay marriage. Among the donors and ideologues backing the bill and reportedly pressuring senators were former Republican operatives — openly gay Ken Mehlman, a former George W. Bush campaign manager, and openly gay James Dozier, a former Republican congressional staffer and current board president of politically moderate lobbyist group Centerline. Nearly a quarter of Republicans supported the same legislation in the House.

Former President Donald Trump has supported homosexuality, prominent “conservative” commentators like Dave Rubin are openly gay, CPAC leader Matt Schlapp has been accused of sexually assaulting another male, Republican-linked groups like Turning Point USA proudly back Republicans greenlighting pro-homosexual legislation and agendas, and the GOP itself even introduced a “gay outreach” program recently.

At the establishment level, the Republican Party is not only tolerant of homosexuality but fully pro-gay. The rainbow flag that the Democratic Party once wore as a cape has been found discarded by the GOP, which now wears the rainbow as a crusader’s mantle. Ten years ago, Republican leaders warned against gay marriage — today, they champion it. In another 10 years, Republicans will add the blue, white, and pink trans stamp to their capes while limp-wristedly protesting leftist support for legalized pedophilia. Another 10 years after that…

Republicans still largely call themselves conservatives, which raises the question: What the hell are they conserving? Today’s Republican Party, at the establishment level, only preserves the means of its own demise, which is liberalism. Liberalism and libertine principles are grounded in nothing concrete, which means they are quickly and easily swayed and buffeted about by the moral and ideological ravages of any given age. Conservatism, conversely, denotes specific values, traits, and lifestyles as inherently good, regardless of the contemporary consensus, and fights tooth and nail to preserve what it knows to be noble. In essence, the chief difference between Republicanism and conservatism is that the former says, “We the people determine what is good,” while the latter says, “We the people will fight for what God has determined is good.”

The cancer called liberalism has given rise to some of the deepest wounds the Western world faces today: pornography, sodomy, abortion, usury, and now the genital mutilation of children by proponents of the trans movement. The GOP doesn’t seek to further these causes, but it simply preserves them once the leftists have moved on to their next perversion. The Republican Party is, as the old joke goes, simply the Democratic Party going the speed limit.

True conservatives need to realize that there are definitive goods worth conserving: faith, family, marriage, ruralism, integrity, beauty, and a whole host of other virtues enumerated throughout the ages by both the greatest minds and the most common minds of every era. Party unity is worthless if it means permitting liberal, pro-gay cancer to infect one’s principles. Let the Republican Party crumble, and let a true conservative movement rise in its stead.