Being a conservative is about many things, chief of which is free-thinking. We are free to challenge many things in ways that the left cannot or will not, and that’s what makes being on the right so liberating and freeing. Like the left, the right comes with its own set of challenges, chiefly: the lure of the online echo chamber. I’m currently being “unfollowed” by many people right now for certain stances I’ve taken in the aftermath of the DC Capitol protests.

I’m being called a “traitor,” “grifter,” and accused of not being “loyal.” Wait…I thought we LIKED challenging the prevailing narrative? I thought being a conservative or on the right was ABOUT being free-thinking or, in my own words, problematic.

And yet, so many of us are no better than leftists, stamping our little feet and responding in outrage at anyone or anything that goes against the prevailing narrative. And this is a dangerous path. As conservatives, we value truth over fiction and reason over hysteria. Yet, in the emotions of the current moment we’re in, we see so many of us succumb to the snowflake-like behavior we’ve spent the past few years laughing at the Left for.

My theory is that social media while being a wonderful tool, can too quickly inoculate us from reality if we allow it to. If there are certain facts, we don’t like? Well, it’s FAKE NEWS. If someone tells us a hard truth, we don’t want to hear it? Well, they’re a TRAITOR and not a PATRIOT. It’s time to UNFOLLOW them…in the place of what, exactly?

I became a conservative when I was exposed to more information, and I got wise to the mainstream media’s lies. However, when getting involved in the conservative movement, I realized that the fake news isn’t only coming from the left; it’s coming from many people who engage in hyperbole and rhetoric not meant to inform but to incite and engage an audience. That’s not good. We have to be careful who we follow, and if we’re TRUE believers in the truth and FACTS, we have to be careful not to allow ourselves to exist in social media echo chambers.

Conservatives and the movement, in general, are in a tough place right now. The only thing that will guide us out of this moment – as it has guided us out of many similar moments – is the truth. And we can’t find that when we cut ourselves off from anything and anyone who tells it to us, even when it hurts.