When Donald Trump first ran for president, many of us on the Right reveled in the thrill of the brazen businessman swinging a chainsaw at the bureaucratic beast that had spent years grinding down conservatives, families, and young men. In the years that followed, we often felt vindicated. The Left had lied for years. Institutions failed us. COVID “experts” betrayed the public, Russiagate was a horrific hoax, and 2020’s summer of riots confirmed that rules only applied to the non-woke. Distrust was earned. But recently, young conservatives — especially men — have traded righteous anger at the Left for a toxic victimhood that mirrors everything we once fought against. They parrot conspiracies and insist that everything — America, young men, the world — is doomed and the cards are stacked against them, no matter what. This isn’t anti-establishment courage. It’s the same grievance politics the Left perfected, now wearing a red hat. As Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro warned during his recent appearance on the Hoover Institution’s “Uncommon Knowledge” podcast, this internal rot — conspiracy culture, corrosive cynicism, and a Marxist-style obsession with exploding “the system” instead of fixing our own lives — is how conservatism loses its soul. Shapiro warns that the Right’s biggest threat isn’t the Left anymore. It’s us falling into the same victimhood trap. “You don’t want to solve your problems,” he told host Peter Robinson, “because you say, they’re not my problems, they’re society’s problems and I can’t solve those problems unless society is exploded. It’s almost a Marxist vision of history.” This turns the Right away from traditional American ideals of individual agency and toward emotional, anti-institutional rage. I see this with my friends: it’s hurting relationships, crushing success, and handicapping personal ambition. Young men specifically are suffering, and the Left bears real blame. Male suicide rates remain four times higher than women’s. For men ages 15-24, rates jumped 26% between 2010 and 2023. Millions of young men are falling behind in education, struggling to launch careers, and checking out of relationships. The Left’s oppressor-oppressed matrix, its war on masculinity, its celebration of broken families, and its assault on merit have left a generation of boys, and more and more females, feeling like the villain in their own country. That pain is legitimate. But wallowing in it, embracing black-and-white “they all lie” thinking, and letting resentment replace agency, is surrender.  Shapiro calls this “depixelation” — the collapse of nuance after three trust-shattering blows happened near-simultaneously: the media’s Russiagate lies, COVID’s contradictory mandates, and the Black Lives Matter double standard that let cities burn while the rest of us were locked down. Suddenly, everything became binary. No evidence needed; just rage. That’s dangerous. Shapiro illustrates this perfectly using an episode of  Joe Rogan’s podcast. In it, Michael Shellenberger debunked Jeffrey Epstein blackmail claims against Trump. Rogan’s response? “Just because there’s no evidence doesn’t mean they won’t find it later.” Ben Shapiro’s apt reply: “The moon is made of cheese? Well, have you been to the moon? Do you trust the people who went?” Herein lies the danger. Once you are in that logical framework, accepting unfalsifiable logic — the same kind Karl Popper warned destroys real inquiry — you can be sold anything. Conspiracy theorizing without evidence isn’t just wrong; it’s a grift that turns people into marks for clicks, bile, and personalities over principles. Ask yourself if these voices have strengthened the conservative movement or improved society. The answer is no. Instead, they’ve left a trail of anger, resentment, bitterness, and hopelessness. They raise questions but never offer answers. They push dark narratives instead of teaching what actually works. The end result is paralysis — a generation left stagnant and vulnerable.   This is the horseshoe theory in action: The far Left and the grievance Right meet in the same dead end of inertia and despair. It’s why so many young men I know are single and sluggish. Ambition is crushed. Relationships die. Society gets weaker. The evidence is all around us; dating apps are flooded with it. The problem with today’s populace is that too many of us no longer know how to defend an idea. We follow personalities — blindly, willingly — because we like the way they speak and the anger they validate. But when asked why we believe what we believe, or the logic behind it, we fall silent. This is the trap of following people instead of ideas. Shapiro’s solution — and what I’ve been echoing — is a return to true conservatism: personal responsibility, evidence-based thinking, and relentless problem-solving. We must return to our foundational principles and place reason over raw emotion. We need to read, learn, and embrace a coherent set of values rather than a rotating cast of influencers. But none of that yearning for knowledge and truth can happen until we first reclaim autonomy over our own lives. As Shapiro puts it, “Individual responsibility is the lodestar of a successful society.” He’s right. Yes, institutions have failed many people — especially young men. But the answer is not to burn everything down or retreat into conspiracy. The answer is to rebuild on principle, agency, and honest analysis. Pure anti-Left reactionism or personality cults will never save conservatism. We won’t save conservatism by worshiping personalities or “owning the libs.” We can defend it by knowing why it’s right — by reading the Founders, studying evidence, and choosing reason over emotion. Institutions failed us, yes. But the solution isn’t burning them down. It’s rebuilding.