My convictions cannot be so fragile that someone else’s bad behavior gets to rewrite them. Recently, I watched a woman I follow describe being asked to leave a Ken Paxton campaign event. Thelma Louise, a Black conservative content creator, said she had traveled to support a candidate whose campaign she had promoted. Instead, she found herself outside, hurt and bewildered.
Reporting confirms that she publicly described being removed. The campaign’s reason was unclear in the initial coverage. In a subsequent account, she said she had been told she might have been mistaken for a paid agitator, while acknowledging that she did not know whether that explanation was true.
Those distinctions matter. We should establish what happened before claiming certainty about why. But the response to her experience raised a question that reaches far beyond one campaign. Some critics treated her humiliation as proof that her politics were fraudulent. In the responses I saw, the implication was unmistakable: How could she still support Republicans? How could she consider accepting an apology? Had she finally learned that she was being used?
My question is different. What, exactly, did her mistreatment disprove about her principles?
An Insult Is Not a Political Argument
If I believe limited government protects liberty, how does a campaign employee’s disrespect establish that government should become more powerful? If I believe free enterprise creates opportunity, how does being embarrassed at a rally disprove the value of entrepreneurship? If I believe unborn children deserve protection, which part of that belief becomes false because someone treats me badly?
There is no logical bridge between those propositions. An unpleasant encounter can reveal something significant about an individual, a campaign, or an institution. It may warrant an explanation, an apology, disciplinary action, or reconsideration of a particular candidate. But a conclusion about someone’s conduct is not automatically a conclusion about the merits of an entire political philosophy. The person making that leap still has an argument to make. Humiliation cannot do the intellectual work for them.
Black Americans Have Minds of Their Own
There is something particularly condescending about the suggestion that a Black conservative’s beliefs must be explained by manipulation. Perhaps she has considered the issues. Perhaps she has examined competing ideas. Perhaps her views reflect faith, experience, family priorities, and independent judgment. Why is that possibility so difficult for some people to accept?
When a Black voter chooses conservatism, critics sometimes insist that the choice cannot possibly be authentic. There must be confusion, payment, self-hatred, or some desperate hunger for approval. That framework denies the very agency its advocates claim to defend. I refuse to accept a political arrangement in which my independence is celebrated only when I reach someone else’s preferred conclusion.
My skin color does not relieve me of the responsibility to think. It also does not give anyone else permission to think for me. If you disagree with my positions, challenge them. Explain why my understanding of liberty is mistaken. Show me where my economic reasoning fails. Contest my interpretation of the Constitution. But do not point to someone else’s misconduct and announce that my convictions have been canceled.
Accountability Belongs Inside the Movement
Republicans should hear this clearly: principled supporters are entitled to respect. Anyone who mistreats a person attending an event owes an honest account of what happened. A security concern should be grounded in evidence and handled with basic dignity. If assumptions were made without verification, those responsible should acknowledge that failure and correct it. If racial prejudice played a role, it deserves unequivocal condemnation. A movement that speaks about individual dignity must practice it.
The fact that I remain conservative does not mean a Republican campaign receives immunity from criticism. My principles give me a reason to demand better conduct from people who claim to represent them. That is why the conservatives who defended her mattered to me. They demonstrated that supporting a movement can include confronting wrongdoing within it. A healthy coalition needs people willing to insist that its behavior match its stated values. Protecting a campaign from accountability at every cost eventually costs the movement its credibility.
Forgiveness Is an Exercise of Agency
Another part of the reaction troubled me: the contempt directed toward her willingness to hear an explanation or accept an apology. Apparently, even the possibility of reconciliation offended some observers. But the person who was wronged gets to decide what a meaningful resolution requires. She may demand a public apology. She may conclude that an explanation is inadequate. She may accept sincere remorse and continue supporting the candidate. She may decide otherwise. Those decisions belong to her.
My Christian faith teaches me to take wrongdoing seriously and leave room for repentance. Forgiveness requires neither pretending an offense was harmless nor surrendering discernment. An apology must be assessed honestly. Changed behavior matters. Still, reconciliation can reflect strength, maturity, and confidence in one’s own judgment. Outsiders do not acquire authority over a person’s conscience merely because they witnessed her pain. Someone who demands that she remain wounded until she changes parties is attaching a political price to her recovery.
Conviction Must Remain Open to Evidence
Let me make an equally necessary distinction: principles and parties are not interchangeable. I am conservative because of what I believe about human dignity, responsibility, ordered liberty, faith, family, and government. I support candidates insofar as their records and proposals advance those convictions. No candidate owns my vote. No party deserves unconditional loyalty.
Conduct matters. Repeated abuse, tolerated prejudice, corruption, or institutional indifference can provide serious reasons to reconsider political support. A person need not wait for a policy paper to recognize that character affects leadership. But that evaluation requires judgment. There is a difference between examining evidence that an organization has betrayed your principles and being told that an insult obligates you to abandon them.
My standard is not whether a politician makes me feel appreciated every day. It is whether supporting that politician remains consistent with the responsibilities I owe my family, my neighbors, and my country. Courtesy matters. So do consequences. The future of a nation deserves more consideration than the emotional temperature of a single encounter.
Make the Argument
I will not pretend that every liberal bases political allegiance on emotion. Many hold sincere convictions and would remain committed to them after mistreatment by someone on their own side. They should be capable of recognizing the same seriousness in conservatives. That is the standard I am asking for.
If you believe my principles are wrong, demonstrate it. If you believe a candidate betrays those principles, present the evidence. If you believe another political approach better serves the country, explain how. Mocking a wounded woman does none of those things. Neither does treating her willingness to forgive as proof of intellectual inferiority.
For my part, I will continue to demand accountability from people I support. I will listen when facts challenge my assumptions. I will distinguish the mission from the personalities who temporarily represent it. And I will encourage others to do the same: know what you believe, understand why you believe it, and evaluate political leaders against that standard.
America needs citizens whose judgment can withstand both flattery and rejection. My goal is to advance principles I believe will help people flourish. Anyone seeking to change my mind must engage those principles. Someone else’s disrespect does not get the final vote.
“Anyone can disrespect me. No one gets to decide what I believe because of it.”
— Alma Ohene-Opare