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Anthony Koch: Moral victories are for losers. Liberals know that. Tories need to learn

Conservatives are far more comfortable being right than being in charge

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In politics, there are winners and there are losers. And the difference isn’t moral, ideological, or intellectual. It’s practical. Winners govern. Losers write think pieces.

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Every time the right loses an election, a familiar script plays out. Pundits and operatives console themselves with talk of “moral victories.” We shifted the debate, they say. We planted seeds. We held the line. It’s as if losing would be acceptable, so long as we lose in a “principled” way.

Anthony Koch: Moral victories are for losers. Liberals know that. Tories need to learn Back to video

This is the tragic pathology of the modern conservative movement: we are far more comfortable being right than being in charge. Liberals, by contrast, like power the way alcoholics like alcohol — viscerally, instinctively, without apology or restraint. Conservatives, when we do seek power, pursue it like wine connoisseurs — swirling, sniffing, and discussing vintage, more obsessed with how it’s acquired and presented than what it’s used for.

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The left understand power is not something to be admired, but something to be seized and wielded. They don’t care if you think they’re hypocrites. They don’t care if they contradict themselves. They don’t even care if they’re liked. Because they understand something we don’t: that power justifies itself. When you hold the microphone, no one cares how you got on stage.

Meanwhile, conservatives hold symposia. We publish essays. We fight each other for ideological purity while progressives take over every institution that matters — from universities to HR departments, from media conglomerates to the courts. We complain that the rules aren’t fair. That the media is biased. That the system is rigged. And maybe it is. But guess what? They’re the ones rigging it — because they’re the ones in charge.

And we’re the ones writing post-mortems about how we “won the argument.”

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You don’t get to reshape a country by being right in theory. You do it by holding the pen when laws are written, the gavel when decisions are made, and the budget when the money is spent. Everything else is noise. Everything else is losing.

There is no prize for second place in a culture war. You either control the levers of power or you don’t. You either govern or you get governed. And no one remembers how noble the opposition was.

“Moral victories” are just participation trophies for political underachievers. They are consolation prizes for those too timid, too cautious, or too slow to do what it takes to win. But politics is not a seminar. It’s not a debating society. It’s not a philosophy class. It is, and always has been, a blood sport for the future of the country.

So spare me the nobility of principled defeat. Spare me the sanctimony of “changing the conversation.” The only conversation that matters is the one taking place in the Prime Minister’s (or Premier’s) Office — and you only get invited to it if you win.

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