For years, conservatives have comforted themselves with a powerful illusion: that the systematic dismantling of Western civilization was a project executed solely by the political left. They have pointed fingers at progressive ideologues, globalists, and utopians, blaming them for the failed experiment of multiculturalism, the open borders that have reshaped Western nations, and the cultural relativism that has hollowed out the moral foundations of society.
The Great Deception: Conservative Complicity
According to author Anthony Koch, this narrative is a profound act of self-deception. The uncomfortable truth, he asserts, is that the so-called respectable right—the suit-and-tie centre-right parties that governed most of the West for the better part of the last half-century—bears just as much responsibility for the current state of civilizational decay as their left-wing counterparts. These parties were not innocent bystanders; they were in positions of power, and they made the conscious choices that led to this point.
The French Surrender
The pattern is starkly visible in France. For decades, the French right, under various banners like the RPR, the UMP, and now Les Républicains, held the presidency, the legislature, or both for much of the Fifth Republic's history. Yet, the question remains: what did they actually conserve?
Under their watch, immigration surged while successful assimilation collapsed. Multiculturalism became the unchallenged orthodoxy not because the French right was defeated in a political battle, but because it surrendered without a fight. The men who claimed to be the guardians of the Republic's identity traded their convictions for caution, swapped sovereignty for empty symbolism, and replaced core principles with polling data. They preached integration but allowed parallel societies in the banlieues to fester and grow, all while insisting that national unity could survive as a political slogan even as it vanished from daily life. They spoke of secularism and French values yet abandoned the fundamental expectation that newcomers must adopt and uphold the shared civic and cultural values that have historically defined France.
The German Transformation
Germany tells a remarkably similar story. The Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, have been the dominant force in postwar German politics, wielding near-continuous power and immense influence.
However, it was under the leadership of Angela Merkel, the very embodiment of conservative moderation, that Germany's national identity underwent its most radical transformation. Her pivotal 2015 decision to open Germany's borders to over a million migrants was not an act forced by the left; it was a deliberate act of the conservative establishment. This decision was framed not in the language of radical ideology, but in the name of morality. Herein lies the great irony: the moralism of the centre-right has proven to be no less destructive to the traditional fabric of the West than the utopianism of the left.
Merkel's gesture, however well-intentioned it may have been, fractured the European consensus on migration, profoundly destabilized domestic politics across the continent, and sent an unmistakable signal to the world that Europe's borders were ultimately optional. She governed as if sentiment and humanitarian impulse could substitute for national sovereignty, and Germany, along with the rest of Europe, is still grappling with the political and social consequences.
The great tragedy, as Koch frames it, is that the political right once possessed a clear understanding of the moral dimension required to sustain a civilization. By abandoning this role and adopting the very policies they once opposed, they became complicit in the erosion they now lament.
