The 2022 Conservative of the Year
The 2022 Conservative of the Year
The most deserving conservatives of 2022
There are a lot of conservatives who persistently and consistently do a wonderful job of standing up for conservative principles. We could all certainly reel off a list of favorite conservative commentators, columnists, Supreme Court Justices and talk show hosts. There are even a few politicians out there that walk the talk. We also shouldn’t ignore conservatives who consistently do great work, but don’t necessarily get the credit they deserve for their contributions to the conservative movement. I’m talking about people like James O’Keefe (journalism), Scott Presler (voter registration), and Peter Doocy (White House correspondent).
However, in choosing the 2022 conservative of the year along with the runners-up, I wanted to recognize some of the conservatives that made particularly big contributions in 2022. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to comment or make your own list. The more people we have talking about who the biggest contributors to the conservative movement were in 2022, the better!
The Runners-Up (in alphabetical order):
Greg Abbott: Of course, Abbott did handily defeat Beto O’Rourke by 11 points to be re-elected as governor of Texas, but he did a lot more than that. This year, Texas awarded contracts to build part of the wall on the border, created its own border police force, and started busing illegals to places like Washington, DC, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Not only is Abbott a fantastic governor, but at a time when the federal government is actively working to subvert this nation’s border security, he’s stepping up to protect the citizens of Texas and the rest of the country.
Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee: It goes without saying that Dillon’s Babylon Bee is one of the funniest websites in America, but his decision to stand on principle and refuse to remove a joke from the Babylon Bee that Twitter suspended the website for is often credited with being one of the factors that influenced Elon Musk to buy Twitter:
Whether that was a big factor or not, Musk’s decision to push for free speech on the website definitely seems to be influenced by Twitter’s ludicrously unfair treatment of the Babylon Bee. As an extra added bonus, after Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok had her identity outed and risked losing her job, Dillon stepped up to make sure she’d still have an income while she continued to run her incredibly effective Twitter account:
Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok: If you’re looking for the one person who has done more than anyone else to expose grooming, children being put in front of drag queens and bad teachers trying to confuse small children about their gender or expose them to pornography, it’s Chaya Raichik from Libs of TikTok. By doing little more than pointing out the disgusting ways people on the Left are trying to groom children, she has created a political earthquake. The price of doing the right thing for her has been being outed, threatened, targeted with endless hit pieces, and even having people near the highest levels of Twitter fake claims that she broke the rules to try to stop her:
Matt Walsh: If Chaya Raichik was the Wonder Woman of the anti-groomer fight this year, Matt Walsh was Batman… in a special Wonder Woman/Batman team-up issue or something – okay, that’s terrible, but you get the general idea. Walsh stepped up to rally against gender mutilation and actually played a role in getting legislation passed:
Believe it or not, this wasn’t even the most impressive thing Walsh did this year because his successful, much-discussed documentary, “What is a Woman?” was also released:
Lee Zeldin: Although Lee Zeldin came up short in the race for governor, the fact that Kathy Hochul was only able to beat him by 5 points in NEW YORK of all places turned out to be highly significant:
When Republicans take control of the U.S. House next month, they'll have voters in New York to thank for roughly a third of their national gains.
In the midterm elections, one of the bluest states in the country saw a relative red wave that led to a net gain of three seats, helping give the GOP its razor-thin majority.
But many of these Republican victories were by narrow margins and came in moderate suburban districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.
In what turned out to be an underwhelming year for Republicans where the GOP barely took the House, Zeldin’s unexpectedly strong performance helped carry other Republicans over the finish line with him. Although Zeldin didn’t ultimately win his race in one of the toughest states in America for the GOP, he deserves some recognition.
The Winner…
Ron DeSantis: In a year in which the Republican Party underperformed, Ron DeSantis led the Florida GOP to a crushing win. Not only did he beat Charlie Crist by 19.4 points, he even managed to turn Miami-Dade County red, which was a surprise.
Of course, DeSantis certainly benefitted from his strong support of pro-freedom COVID policies, but he did a lot more than that. After Disney opposed a bill promoted by Florida Republicans that would have kept teachers from pushing sexually inappropriate material on children, DeSantis took on the most powerful corporation in Florida and won. Soon after DeSantis won a crushing victory last month, woke Disney CEO Bob Chapek was unceremoniously fired.
The Left is also still furious over the DeSantis decision to draw attention to the illegal alien issue by flying illegals to Martha’s Vineyard. Combine that with his willingness to stand against Critical Race Theory and his extremely competent handling of the aftermath of not one, but two major hurricanes, and DeSantis looks like the most competent leader in the country right now.
Hey John, I know it's easy to post the popular and high-level conservatives that we all know, but what about the local people who are actually doing things to keep the needle from moving any further left? I'd love for people to comment about lesser known people they know of who are doing amazing things so we can all expand our community and follow/support more great conservatives.
My example would be Darryl Cooper who produces the Martyr Made Substack and Podcast and also does a podcast with Jocko Wilink called The Unraveling that is always good.