“Most of it’s fake.” 

That’s the take from Lauren Southern’s This is Not Real Life, which details her experience as a headlining member of the dissident Right.

From cocaine abuse, to selective outrage, throwing friends under a bus, and undermining the work of those they see as competition, it’s all part of the sinful underbelly of conservatism, without Christ.

Even some of those who claim the latter are only name-dropping faith in Christ to grab more followers and pad stats.

Their posts have the veneer of sincerity, but underneath, they’re only scratching an oversized ego – using people to elevate a false sense of self-importance. They’re not really about serving others.

Neither are they all that serious about following through on Christian convictions and serving any real cause.

Where clickbait is a commodity, no competition can be allowed. 

Then there’s the constant people-pleasing.

Southern illustrates that keeping a paycheque and compromising your principles sometimes go hand-in-hand.

Those in control are the woke net nannies who police speech, and the fluid, “red-pilled, parasocial” audience. 

Strangely, the red-pilled and the woke are aligned in a twisted kind of way. 

As Southern’s gritty recounts explain, the Left-wing speech police and her Right-wing audience are the “Community Standards” crowd.

Step “out of line” with either, and they’re equally as likely to demonetise you, or worse, defame and destroy you.

There’s one key difference: on the Marxian-Woke Left, you know who your enemies are.

On the Machiavellian Right, the distinction is far from clear. 

The red-pilled are as poised to “treat you like a villain, as quickly as they might champion you a hero.” 

In many ways, Southern is confirming a lot of what I’ve personally suspected, and at times observed, particularly within the Australian “conservative” scene.

What’s prompted this review, before I’ve even finished reading her book, is the connection between her brutal self-assessments, constructive criticisms, and a current controversy. 

Being dragged into a person’s meltdown in the media arena last month confirmed for me a lot of what Southern is trying to purge with sunlight.

Those who know what I’m talking about will grasp this better than most.

For those on the outside, suffice, to say, Person A accused Person B. Person B responded. Then A tried to cancel B.

That’s no exaggeration. 

This wasn’t just a passing disagreement. Person A dragged as many people into the proverbial cancel culture kill zone as possible.

Yet, both Person A and Person B would typically be described as being on the same team.

Even a few of those who know Person B choose to run for the hills.

This tragic – very real – saga confirms much of Southern’s sage-like assessments in her part memoir, part epistle to the dissident Right.

Some of the people who appear to be on your side are actually the ones working behind the scenes to hold you back.

Some do it quietly. Others do it when they see an opportunity to attack.

There’s very little loyalty to vocation or platform, beyond loyalty to self.

With “me first” fists in the air, writers, contributors, and more so those vying to be the next “influencers” tear at each other, ripping limb from limb in a frenzied climb to the top.

Those who consider themselves already there flail about, desperate to keep all the attention on them, on their prose, on their name trending in the “top ten.”

With double standards, they consider themselves not just kings, but king-makers.

All of them ignore how vain, futile, and fickle it all is.

As the Bible warns us, pastors aren’t immune to the allure of all that attention.

Many are more about protecting their brand, their product, and sense of power, more than they appear to want to protect or expand “the flock.”

That’s politics. I get it, but the Christian conservative arena has to be above all that.  

Machiavellianism is just as corrosive as Marxism. 

Although there is no mention of the former in Southern’s book, this is perhaps her most ardent and inadvertent take-home point.

Without reversal, without identifying these as sin, and without repenting for abandoning vocation, in order to be venerated, there can be no revival. 

No successful defence of life, Light and liberty (John 14:6, Eph. 5 et al) will ever be achievable, while hearts and heads are glued to a theology of glory, instead of the theology of the cross.

As others and I have argued, Conservatism without Jesus Christ is a fake paradise.