Halloween may have just passed, but Donald Trump wasn’t wearing a costume when he worked at McDonald’s, stepped into that garbage truck, or when former Democratic presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard joined his campaign. Nor was it a disguise when Elon Musk and Joe Rogan helped Trump champion free speech.

This is as real as it gets. This is the kind of identity realignment that happens when one party openly supports tampons in the boys’ locker room while branding Republicans as Nazis or garbage. It also reflects the frustration with a pre-Trump GOP that failed to push back against such rising evil in the past.

We have no excuse if we abandon the fight or let it unfold without us.

This is a massive paradigm shift, whether you want it or not. If ideologues like me hope to join the fight ahead, we must come to terms with this new reality. Conservatism, as we inherited it, stands hollow as a stand-alone movement capable of challenging the spirit of the age.

For instance, where would we direct an outsider president with hundreds of thousands of federal positions to fill for the trusted manpower and expertise needed — especially after our failures to make headway in 2016, 2020, and 2022? Remember Mike Pence? Unchecked voter fraud? The “red wave” that never came? Ring a bell? The old-guard GOP sucked.

Or recall when my show ranked all U.S. senators earlier this year, and John Fetterman placed 12th best. I can’t even say with confidence that a single infanticide amendment will be defeated at the ballot box anywhere in the country this year. Conservatism, as we inherited it, is running on fumes.

The current populist movement has called our bluff, yet many on the right still cling to the illusions Mitch McConnell has fed them for years to keep them in line. I say this as someone who entered this field as a true believer — an Alex P. Keaton-type advocate of Ronald Reagan and true believer in a conservative Camelot. But decades of crappy results and betrayals by cowards and sellouts have left me a changed man.

We face a choice: embrace the New York City of the '80s and '90s (Trump-Vance) or accept the woke Minneapolis and San Francisco of 2024 (Harris-Walz). For all its flaws, the former was unmistakably American. The latter actively resents being American and will punish anyone who thinks otherwise.

Only one worldview will emerge victorious from this clash. If Trump wins, he’ll need support from people who love this country, its people, and its opportunities. He’ll need this support to govern effectively and give conservative principles a place at the table rather than in a prison cell. Our window for a different outcome has passed.

But we have no excuse if we abandon the fight or let it unfold without us. The cross-section of America that filled Madison Square Garden for Trump will need good leaders to guide it in the long run. What will happen to the American church if it doesn’t take a stand in the battle of good versus evil? How shameful and damaging to its witness would that be?

The endgame is here. Some may not fight this battle as I would, but at least they’re ready to fight. These are the people we belong with — not in a self-imposed intellectual ghetto of hollow piety but on the front lines, ensuring the good, the true, and the beautiful have a chance to shape our children’s lives instead of chaos and despair.

We must be salt and light. So this Tuesday, I urge you to manifest that destiny by voting for Donald Trump.