You Cannot Fight Ghosts
Why Conservatives Must Choose Battles That Build, Not Break
A divided movement cannot defend a free nation.
Every movement, every army, every church, every coalition, must choose its battles with clarity, unity, and purpose. But today, within the conservative movement I love, a dangerous drift has taken hold. It is not an attack from the outside, nor a policy disagreement, nor even a clash of personalities. It is the quiet, corrosive force of unmoored suspicion, conspiracy without compass, cynicism without anchor, and division without cause.
And here is the truth we must confront with courage: you cannot fight ghosts.
The Rise of Ghosts in the Movement
By “ghosts,” I do not mean supernatural beings. I mean the shadows of conspiracy that begin with the noble impulse to seek truth, but quickly mutate into bottomless pits of speculation and endless trails of digital breadcrumbs leading nowhere, yet devouring time, attention, and the will to act.
Ghosts cannot be pinned down. They cannot be measured, confronted, disproven, or satisfied. And once they take hold in the heart of a movement, they do not merely distract—it is far more sinister than that. They divide, they weaken, they consume and they paralyze.
A ghost begins as a question. But it grows into a conviction. And once fully formed, it becomes impervious to evidence, because every fact that contradicts the narrative becomes, in the mind of the believer, further proof of the conspiracy itself. This is the tragic irony of ghost-chasing: it is a maze without exit where every door leads back into the labyrinth of suspicion and confusion.
The Bigfoot Syndrome: Always Searching, Never Finding
We see a perfect analogy to this every day on television. How many Bigfoot-hunting shows have been produced over the years? Dozens. Maybe hundreds. And what happens in every single episode? The team gets close, so very close, to finally proving Bigfoot is real. They hear a rustle. They spot a shadow. They find a footprint. The narrator’s voice deepens with suspense.
But after years and seasons of investigation, they never actually find Bigfoot. Not once. And yet, at the end of every episode, the narrator assures us that the quest must continue. “Join us next time as we dive even deeper into the mystery…” The invitation is always to invest more time, more attention, more energy in a cause with no end, no evidence, and no real destination.
This is the same trap many patriots fall into when chasing political ghosts. The promise of the next big reveal keeps us hooked. The illusion of progress keeps us watching. But in the end, we have spent years searching for something that never materializes, while real threats and real opportunities go unaddressed.
Ghost-chasing is the Bigfoot industry of politics: always searching, never finding, but forever demanding another season.
The Conservative Movement at a Crossroads
Over the last few years, several popular voices within the conservative world, many with vast platforms, loyal audiences, and undeniable influence, have sown seeds of distrust within the ranks. Instead of strengthening the movement, they have deepened suspicion of fellow patriots. Instead of calling us to unity, they have called us to battle lines that should not exist.
And the result is predictable:
Factions lobbing accusations at each other.
Influencers attacking fellow conservatives more viciously than they attack the Left.
Patriots becoming so jaded they lose the ability to believe anything—not even truth.
A movement so consumed with internal firefights that it forgets the real opponents standing just beyond the smoke.
This is not discernment. This is not vigilance. This is not patriotism. It is spiritual, emotional, and civic exhaustion disguised as righteousness. And exhausted people don’t fight for freedom. They retreat. They disengage. They fall into the deadly quiet of apathy.
The Enemy Loves When We Chase Ghosts
Every moment a patriot spends chasing a conspiracy that cannot be proved, defined, or defeated is a moment not spent defending liberty, strengthening families, restoring virtue, or unifying the movement around what is true, good, and just.
Every hour poured into ghost-hunting is an hour not spent expanding the coalition, persuading independents, or preparing the next generation to love and defend America.
And every accusation leveled against a fellow conservative without clear evidence and without a righteous objective, accomplishes something the opponents of liberty could never achieve on their own. Think about that. Sit with it for a moment. Let it settle.
If your actions undermine the movement you claim to support, are you truly advancing the cause of freedom?
If your voice sows division among those standing on the same battlefield, are you any different from those who would gladly see this movement fall?
If your suspicions produce more destruction than the plans of the actual opposition, who benefits?
And at the end of the day, when the dust settles and the movement lies fractured at your feet, will you stand proudly atop the rubble and say, “I did something noble”?
Truth vs. Suspicion: A Necessary Contrast
Truth is a solid road, firm, knowable, and leading somewhere. Suspicion is like fog, shapeless, shifting, and impossible to grasp. Truth requires evidence, humility, accountability. Suspicion requires only a whisper, a feeling, a rumor. Truth builds movements. Suspicion breaks them. Truth calls us to courage. Suspicion calls us to fear. Truth is stable. Suspicion is addictive.
One of the great deceptions of our time is the idea that fighting ghosts—fighting rumors, shadows, possibilities, theories—is the same as fighting corruption or defending liberty. But the two are not the same. Not even close.
There is a reason Scripture warns against being “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.” Not every wind is the breath of truth. Some winds are just storms sent to keep you from seeing clearly.
Choosing Our Battles Wisely
Patriots cannot fight every battle. We cannot expend our finite passion, attention, emotional energy, and social capital on disputes that have no foundation and no productive end. Our nation desperately needs engaged, hopeful, courageous defenders of truth, not disillusioned warriors whose strength has been siphoned by shadowboxing phantoms.
We must learn quickly to ask better questions:
Is this battle real, or is it a ghost?
Will this fight build the movement or break it?
Does this accusation have evidence, or just emotion?
Does this path lead to resolution, or just endless suspicion?
Will this make us more unified, or more divided?
Does this glorify God, or just my pride?
A mature movement knows the difference between vigilance and paranoia.
A wise movement knows when to fight and when to walk away.
A principled movement knows that unity is not weakness, it is strength.
How Ghosts Steal Our Purpose
When patriots become distracted by endless conspiracy trails, something tragic happens: we lose sight of the real work required to preserve liberty.
Ghost-chasing:
pulls us away from serving our communities,
erodes trust within our coalitions,
distracts candidates and leaders,
fuels online warfare instead of real-world action,
and ultimately drains the soul of the movement.
And here is the painful reality: The end result of ghost-chasing often mirrors the goals of those who actively oppose liberty. We do their work for them while convincing ourselves we are bravely defending truth. This is why ghost-chasing is not merely unproductive, it is dangerous.
The Call to Return to Solid Ground
The conservative movement must return to a place of clarity—moral clarity, spiritual clarity, civic clarity.
We must once again become a people who:
love truth more than clicks,
cherish unity more than outrage,
value evidence more than rumor,
and build bridges instead of burning down allies.
The work before us is too important for us to be distracted by shadows. Our nation is in desperate need of principled voices, courageous leaders, and hopeful patriots who can see beyond the fog and focus on what is real, what is true, and what is necessary. Let us end the ghost hunts and return to this crucial mission.
The Hope Ahead
The good news is this: ghosts only survive when they are fed. When patriots return to truth, purpose, and unity, the fog begins to clear. And when the fog clears, we find each other again, not as enemies, but as brothers and sisters in the fight for freedom.
We can rebuild trust.
We can restore focus.
We can rekindle the fire of hope.
We can move forward together, stronger, wiser, and more united than before.
Because at the end of the day, America is worth fighting for.
And to fight for her, we must first stop fighting shadows.
“A movement that chases ghosts will lose its way, but a movement anchored in truth will reshape the world.” — Alma Ohene-Opare