While it is ever more late in the day, the fight has not gone out of those upholding what is good, right and true

Thought-provoking Noah Rothman piece at Commentary on the disconnect between the Trump administration's views of how the notion of states' rights plays out with regard to marijuana policy vis-a-vis "transsexual" bathroom "rights" policy.

The question remains: Why does the White House think transgender bathroom rights are a state’s rights issue but recreational intoxicants are not? What is the logic? It’s surely not legal and it’s definitely not deference to political expediency. If the administration was truly committed to eschewing all forms of prosecutorial discretion, why does Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) remain on the books? What we are left to conclude is that the administration is displaying fealty to the traditional views of the vastly underestimated social conservative.

President Donald Trump is many things, but socially conservative isn’t one of them. Although he does have a healthy antipathy toward substance abuse, the president initially expressed dissatisfaction with a North Carolina law compelling its citizens to use the bathroom of their gender at birth. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no such qualms about policing virtue. After all, “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

Social conservatives have been woefully misjudged and unduly dismissed. In embracing a compromising figure like Trump, they have sacrificed consistency for power—a tradeoff many no doubt feel is a desperate measure called for by these desperate times. Yet the social conservative’s tendency toward martyrdom by fighting long ago lost cultural conflicts has not abated. The fact that a new offensive is coming does, however, communicate clearly to their detractors that social conservatism’s days are far from numbered. Maybe that’s the whole point.

One point on which I would take issue with Rothman is his use of the term "long ago lost cultural conflicts." You either conduct yourself in your role as an engaged citizen based on furthering God's kingdom, or you surrender to the dark force.

Yes, that is an absolutist position.

There is no other worth embracing.

That said, I would urge caution where the effective way forward appears to be that of "sacrific[ing] consistency for power."  Consistency is in such short supply today in post-America that it wouldn't take much at all for such a tactic to render moot any gains achieved thereby.

This nation is starved for clarity. Let not the record show that it was us that finally killed it off.