Conservatives are those with positions supported by the left ten years ago

Mark Steyn notes why "Conservatives" have been losing the culture wars, well, forever.

Indeed. In 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court mandated same-sex "civil unions", American conservatives were outraged. By 2010, when the left had moved on to gay marriage, conservatives were supportive of civil unions but insisted marriage was an ancient institution between a man and a woman. Now, the left having won that one and moved on to transgenderism, conservatives profess to be a bit queasy about transitioning grade-schoolers.

So you can take it to the bank that by 2030 rock-ribbed Republicans will be on board with penises in the girls' changing rooms, but determined to hold the line against whatever the left's next cause du jour is: human cloning, the state appropriation of parenthood, voting rights for animals.

There really isn't much point to conservatism that's just leftism ten years late, is there? ... If you're considering on which side to bestow your tribal loyalty, the left is right quicker; the right is left behind - but only for a few years until they throw in the towel. If you're all headed to the same destination, why not ride first class ...? Justin Trudeau's vapid modishness was perfectly distilled by his campaign catchphrase of four years ago: "Because it's 2015." But that beats waiting till 2025 to say "Because it's 2015"....

It is surely telling that the only issues on which the right has made any progress at all in moving the ball in its direction - Brexit in the UK; illegal immigration and a belated honesty about the rise of China in the US - had to be injected into public discourse by two outsiders, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. And indeed in the teeth of opposition by the establishment's catch-up conservatives.

Catch-up conservatism gives the game away: The right has lost the knack of persuasion, and increasingly doesn't even bother to try.

He's right, you know. Today's "conservatives" - the Never-Trump rump of Conservatism in particular, are busy defending gay marriage from the LGBTQ crazies. How supine do you have to be to defend yesterday's heresy from tomorrow's insanity?