I am a member of the most despised political tribe in America: I am a proud centrist.

That declaration may come as a surprise, even a shock, to those who know me only as a guy who got fired for telling the truth about Stephen Miller and Donald Trump in a post on X. I have no regrets about that; you should never regret telling the truth. And now, in my work here and elsewhere in recent months, I have made clear that I will continue to tell the truth about what I see as the single most important thing that is happening in our country: Donald Trump’s relentless drive to change the nature of our democracy and amass authoritarian power for himself. To me, that is not an opinion. It is a reportorial fact. It is the biggest story of my life as a journalist, and I intend to cover it accurately.

But by my nature, I’m inclined towards the middle. I have voted for Democratic and Republican candidates in elections over the years, including presidential elections. I hold some views that could be called “liberal,” and some that you’d call “conservative.” I’m a traditionalist in many ways (though that’s probably just age). I love our country fiercely—I’m in love with America. And I still believe that most of my fellow citizens are decent people who are not that different from me, even when we disagree (though increasing numbers of them seem determined to change my mind).

All that to say that I care about the conservative movement in America, though I do not consider myself part of it. Good ideas come from all kinds of places. And even if you don’t like the ideas of your political opponents, engaging with those ideas, contending with them, and discussing them with the people who hold them deepens and hones your own thinking. You might even change your mind, which if nothing else is proof that you’re still thinking (most people stop at some point in their lives). Plus, that kind of great conversation about the great issues before our country is fun, or used to be.

There has always been a temptation in American conservatism. It stems from the tragic fact that our society was structured from a very early point on race power. If you are trying to “conserve” the political arrangements and traditional culture of a society structured in that way, you are going to run into some very important moral difficulties very quickly. Now this is a complex subject too often discussed and argued about in cartoonish ways. At its heart, though, is a simple moral truth: We are created equal, in our essential individual dignity and in the claim that dignity has on others. Racism is an ignorant and vicious betrayal of that most American truth.

When Tucker Carlson chose to interview the neo-Nazi agitator Nick Fuentes—a man who praises Hitler, calls for the subjugation of women, and fantasizes about ethnic cleansing—he made a choice. A moral choice. In making that choice, Tucker Carlson told on himself, revealed what kind of man he is for all the world to see.

Carlson’s rise over the years has been astonishing. He is a savvy self-promoter and a very talented broadcaster. I knew him a little decades ago. He was clever, ambitious and insecure, and also kind of sweet. Sporting a bow tie and a Buckley-esque mien, Carlson rose to became the most-watched star in conservative media. But—unlike William F. Buckley Jr.—Carlson’s ascent to fame was premised less on his own ideas and convictions than on his knack of sensing where the Fox News audience was headed and getting there just as they arrived—and before any of his competitors. He reflected, echoed back and accelerated the nationalist/populist drift of Republicanism, chucking out long-held ideological commitments in the process. Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson somehow became a populist political leader, a tribune of the masses—because he followed them so expertly.

So Carlson knew perfectly well who Nick Fuentes was and what he stood for when he brought him on his show. Fuentes is a dope, among other things, an intellectual lightweight who spews random racist bullshit and anti-semitic talking points with a dimwit’s confidence and an idiot’s giggle. Carlson, who is not an ignorant man, surely knows that. By offering him a stage, Tucker Carlson didn’t expose extremism, or explore it, or challenge it; he just normalized it.

That the Heritage Foundation—once, a long time ago, the brain trust of the Reagan Revolution—has now embraced Carlson and his brand of grievance-fueled nationalism shows how far the American Right has drifted from its own long-lost intellectual moorings.

It feels final, this decline of so much of American conservatism into the sewers of racism and anti-semitism. “No enemies to the right,” is the slogan of the day among many conservatives. I suppose there will be a handful of Republican elected officials who will carefully, so carefully, voice their disapproval of the new voices platformed in their party. But Donald Trump has already demonstrated that he will not disavow the Fuentes crowd. Much of the energy in the Republican Party right now comes from the extreme right, and Trump uses that energy to pursue his dream of dominance.

Chickens always come home to roost, and if you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas. Pick your old saw—the Republicans earned this disgrace. They gave in to that old temptation. A political party that once prized character and responsibility collapsed before a demagogue. The “moral majority” became morally indifferent. The movement that revered the Constitution now venerates a man who sought to overturn an election. Trump did not invent the rot in the Republican Party, but he exposed how hungry and desperate it was for power, how shallow its commitments had become.

Tucker Carlson is the quintessential product of that decay. His transformation was a long time coming. By the time he sat down with Fuentes, Carlson had already trafficked for years in white-replacement conspiracies, Kremlin apologetics, and contempt for democracy. And the Heritage Foundation’s embrace of Carlson, inviting him as a keynote speaker and celebrating his “courage,” completes another inversion: what once was a policy institution devoted to constitutionalism and limited government now genuflects before the idols of illiberalism.

The question now is not whether a conservative movement still exists in America. It does. The question is whether it bears any resemblance to the tradition that helped build and sustain the modern American republic—or whether it has surrendered, perhaps irretrievably, to the lure of racial resentment, Jew-hatred, and authoritarian power.

We have to hope that, out of the ashes of this disgrace, conservatism finds new voices and rediscovers old ideals. America needs a healthy conservative movement. At its best, American conservatism has helped to maintain our country’s connections to what is truly good and decent in our past, harnessed and channeled our economic energies in ways that have lifted up Americans, and challenged the excesses of liberalism. I miss that conservatism. I miss that conversation.