Conservatism Inc. is stepping aside while the socialist Left runs the field, just as Dutch soccer captain Virgil van Dijk stepped aside for a crucial World Cup penalty kick and watched his country lose.
As the Daily Caller reports, Democrats are in open rebellion against their establishment, with socialist candidates and newly minted kingmakers like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani leading the charge to overthrow the DNC apparatchiks and bring the donor class to heel. Meanwhile, the Republican establishment—a permanent class of think tanks, lobbying groups, and consultants—is either whistling past the graveyard or just screaming about it on podcasts. They serve their donors, not their voters. Until America First conservatives take the fight to their own party's leadership, nothing changes.
The Caller details how the Left's rebellion is remaking the party, but the establishment right's response is pure denial. Some think socialist success in New York’s “Commie Corridor” can't translate to swing states. Others, like Christopher Rufo, frame it as the importation of “Third Worldist” ideology, while Batya Ungar-Sargon dismisses the movement as overeducated, downwardly mobile gentrifiers “LARPing as revolutionaries.” But as the Caller argues, they are missing the big picture. Conservatism Inc. refuses to look in the mirror and admit that they helped sow the seeds of this left-wing populism. The revolution threatening to devour the Democrats also threatens the Republican consultant class, because it exposes their total failure to deliver for working Americans.
This is where the Van Dijk parallel gets sharp. According to GIVEMESPORT, when the Netherlands needed their captain most in a World Cup shootout against Morocco, van Dijk “stepped aside” and let Crysencio Summerville—who was suffering from cramps—take the decisive fifth penalty. Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou saved the shot, eliminating the Dutch. Dutch journalist Valentijn Driessen didn't mince words, saying the captain and his manager “betrayed everything our national football stands for” and that it was time for a “fresh start” without him.
Conservatism Inc. is pulling a Van Dijk. When the fight gets tough, they step aside, letting the grassroots take the hit while they protect their consulting contracts and donor relationships. They aren't leading a counter-revolution; they are managing the decline.
Van Dijk’s international future is now in doubt because he wouldn't step up when his country needed him. The same fate awaits Conservatism Inc. if they keep stepping aside while the Left runs the table. The question isn't whether the socialists are coming—they are. The question is whether America First voters will finally bench the establishment players who refuse to take the shot.
