President Donald Trump and Roy Moore — two prolific figures the Left enjoys caricaturing as the epitome of conservatism. Let’s dissect this fallacy.

Conservatism is not haphazard tweeting. Conservatism is not sex scandals. If your mental associations with conservatism are limited to obnoxious red baseball caps and citizens who unconditionally vote party over principle, you are in good company. Your associations are only the natural byproduct of slanted mainstream media, considering 7% of journalists identify as Republican, according to The Washington Post.

So what is conservatism? Let’s learn from the man who swept 525 of 538 electoral votes and is hailed as America’s truest conservative: President Ronald Reagan.

Before commending President Reagan for valiantly demonstrating conservative values, let’s address the nation’s greatest — and perhaps only real — lament of the Reagan presidency: the national debt. Yes, the national debt spiked under the Reagan Administration, as your history books are eager to share with you. While this seems incongruent with fiscal conservatism — and to an extent it is — the nature of this spending is actually quite conservative: defense. President Reagan added to the debt primarily due to defense spending, as we were engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union at the time. While no one ought to pride themselves on the Reagan Administration national debt statistics, let’s not forget one thing: the man ended the Cold War and introduced freedom to a previously politically and economically oppressed region.  And what modern-day president hasn’t added to the national debt?

That concession aside, the pillars of conservatism that Reagan unashamedly advocated are ideas that are often lost under the roar of debate over character and morality. Some Republican leaders lacking such attributes are responsible for muddying the waters of what it means to be conservative. Our country needs to separate individuals from ideologies on both sides of the aisle. There are poor examples of humanity on each end of the spectrum, and extremists can ruin almost everything for everyone. It is ideology, not personality, we must discuss, and there is validity to each side. New York Times’ best-selling author Dr. Paul Kengor insightfully articulates the real tenets of conservatism in his book, 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative.

Kengor argues that a true conservative promotes the following ideals: freedom, faith, family, sanctity and dignity of human life, American exceptionalism, the Founders’ wisdom and vision, lower taxes, limited government, peace through strength, anti-Communism, and belief in the individual.

While you may have heard these concepts before and might even recoil at the mere mention of a few, you may not have heard the reasoning behind each. Admittedly, a few are inherently polarizing like the sanctity of life and lower taxes, but I’m willing to bet that even a die-hard socialist at University of California-Berkeley rocking a Bernie 2016 bumper sticker can navigate common ground on a few of those eleven tenets.

It seems ridiculous that freedom, anti-Communism, and belief in the individual are construed as controversial topics. These concepts are what the United States is founded upon. If you hate the ideas that have built America into the incredible country it is today, you may freely migrate to a place more conducive to what you are seeking. Venezuela or North Korea may be appealing. In all seriousness, America is great. We wouldn’t have an immigration crisis if it wasn’t, and we did not become great by micromanaging our people.

Freedom is a word frequently used in the justification of immorality, but in conservatism, freedom means giving every citizen as many opportunities and choices as possible — within reason of the law, of course. There is a thick line between the land of the free and the land of the amoral.

Conservatism’s manifestation of freedom is most clearly observed in its stance on regulation and taxes. The logic is simple: the less a government regulates a company, the more freedom it has to make choices that maximize profit potential; the less a government taxes individuals, the more freedom they have with the money they have earned. They have the freedom to choose how it is spent and invested; when it disappears from their paychecks, so does their freedom over those hard-earned dollars. Even if you enjoy taxation, conservatism tolerates your right to pay additional taxes. The U.S Treasury will happily accept your gift if paying taxes is your favorite way of exercising personal freedom.  

Fiscal conservatism is fiscal freedom. As President Reagan boasted to the United Nations, “The free market … works.” The facts don’t call him a liar. In the last 20 years, capitalism has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty worldwide and continues to be the driving force of success in first world countries. While any educated person recognizes that taxes and government intervention are necessary to an extent, the statistics argue that the lesser the extent the better.

Anti-Communism goes hand in hand with freedom, but if Communist parties called themselves the parties of anti-freedom, their gig may lose some of its American admirers. Interestingly enough, Communism has been romanticized among some millennials. This may be in part because President Trump serves as a brash example of conservatism when young people are learning about politics, and liberal media has applauded Communist countries, as shown by the heyday CNN had celebrating Kim Jong Un’s sister’s presence at the Winter Olympics. It is time to bust the myth that Communism is somehow kinder and “fairer” than capitalism, when in practice, it is a failed ideology. There is a reason the United States has the highest GDP in the world.

The global influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 killed an estimated twenty-plus million. Communism, however, killed an estimated 100-140 million between 1917 and 1991. It turns out dictators do not like it when you say mean things about them. And sometimes when the state controls your food, they don’t make enough to feed the whole populace, and you starve to death. In Venezuela, citizens have lost on average 24 pounds in the last year, and 90% of Venezuelans are now living in poverty, according to Reuters. Socialism achieved its goal of “equality” now that everyone is equally poor. Although Venezuela is socialist not Communist, their subtle differences only diverge after the foundation of state-controlled enterprises. The Soviet Union serves as an example of Communist-fueled starvation. Does government control of resources still sound so kind and fair?

The belief in the individual is the foundation of the other ten conservative principles. Without faith in individuals, there is no reason to allow anyone freedom. President Reagan advocated for every facet of the individual, from fetuses to immigrants, because he believed in the potential of all. In 1986, he granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in America. Logically, this grace applied only to illegals already in the country, and this act of amnesty was followed by the Immigration Reform and Control Act intended to end illegal immigration. President Reagan could have labeled the initial illegal immigrants unwanted, but he instead invited them into citizenship. That is faith in humanity.

The goal of this essay was not to sway one’s leanings. The goal was to humanize conservatism and share concepts the reader may not learn from CNN or The New York Times. Our country must acknowledge that it is craving compromise, or it must somehow stomach continued division. Compromise can only be achieved if each side has a mutual respect for each other. It is hard to respect what you do not know or understand. Demonization of the opponent has become a popular, yet cowardly fallback during political debate. If we make ourselves more aware of both the conservative and liberal perspective, we may actually be able to entertain productive discussions rather than mudslinging embarrassments.

Conservatives are not evil; liberals are not evil. Now, let’s work together to knit our country back together.