Stop focusing so damn much on what a candidate believes. It’s the single most overrated, overhyped, overvalued metric in candidate evaluations. (Especially for conservative voters, who salivate over ideological purity.)

Instead, focus on priorities.

A candidate may believe a million different things, but he’s only going to do a (very) small number of ‘em. And that’s the best-case scenario: Most politicians won’t even do that!

And besides, priorities are a helluva lot more demonstrable than beliefs. More testable. A belief is something you profess; it’s an idea in your head. 

But a priority is what you actually do. 

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And here in the real world, that matters more. Like Mahatma Gandhi said, “Action expresses priorities.”

Since 1994, conservatives have been mystified: Why do we keep sending “conservative” politicians to Congress — yet keep getting left-wing policies? We’re winning election after election, yet our “conservative” politicians never seem to pass any “conservative” legislation. They just drift to the left at a (slightly) slower pace than the Dems. 

So our government keeps growing, our debt keeps spiraling, and our nation keeps drifting. Second verse, same as the first (but played at a slightly slower speed).

Some blame D.C.’s culture. And that’s part of it: Hey, cocktail parties are fun! Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of the velvet ropes. 

But honestly, it’s a cop-out. D.C.’s culture isn’t the real reason.

It’s mostly because we’re electing “conservative” politicians whose actual priorities aren’t very conservative at all.

Priorities matter more than beliefs, and actions matter more than ideas. In fact, I’ll even go one step further: Your priorities reveal the truth about your beliefs — and what you really stand for.

I’ll give you three examples. Let’s begin with “Doctor” Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat.

I put “doctor” in quotes because he’s never been licensed to practice medicine, completed his residency, or been employed as a doctor. He’s basing his medical claims on his college degree — just like Katie Zacharia, who had a cup of coffee as the White House press secretary, did with her legal claims. Yet the Republican was shamed by the media into resigning, and the Democrat was given a pass.

Of course, the mainstream media has a rather dubious track record of determining who’s a doctor and who isn’t:

Recently, news broke about “Doctor” El-Sayed’s college-level medical research. You’ll never guess what topic he pursued.

From my PJ Media colleague Catherine Salgado:

U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan Democrat, unlicensed doctor, and Egyptian citizen, conducted and published research in 2010 arguing that Arab women were at less risk for preterm birth if they married only Arab men instead of “interethnic mating.” Which is a pretty weird topic to research and write about — if not outright racist.

[…]

Is it just me, or does this read somewhat like an argument that Arab women need to keep their bloodlines pure by only "mating" with Arab men instead of with inferior white or black Westerners?

Yup.

It also reads like a Freudian minefield: El-Sayed is a “pure blood” Arab himself, but his Arab mother and Arab father divorced when he was very young, and he was raised by his Arab father and a white stepmom named Jacqueline Johnson. (They went on to have three more children of their own. I’m sure this paper made Abdul’s half-siblings feel wonderful.)

But I’m less interested in his psychoanalysis than his priorities. Because medical research is a vast, far-reaching, open-ended field: You can study anything you want! 

From social factors to genetic probabilities to life-saving solutions, the only limit is your imagination.

El-Sayed prioritized making a medical argument against Arabs “mating” with non-Arabs. It was, definitionally, a racist proposal, a racist theory, and a racist conclusion.

And it reveals the truth about his character.

Because he could’ve researched cancer treatments. Or how to make healthcare more affordable. Or how to lower costs. Or a million-zillion other things.

But he didn’t, because that’s not who Abdul El-Sayed is: His priorities are anchored in Middle East politics, Middle East peoples, Middle East conflicts, and Middle East hatreds. 

Those are his passions. That’s his character.

It’s not just what he says — it’s what he does.

Same goes for Tucker Carlson. He owns, writes, and stars in a podcast on the Tucker Carlson Network.

It’s not like Fox News, where he was merely the hired help. Tucker Carlson, presumably, has full editorial control over the Tucker Carlson Network. This means that he chooses the topics, approves of the guests, and asks the questions.

Yes, he professes a dazzling array of political ideas — some of which are conservative. For example, he’s admirably pro-life.

But some of his ideas are, ahem, a horse of a different color. Here’s Ted Cruz offering his horse sense:

Because most of the time, Carlson isn’t talking about abortion (or those irresistibly sexy equines). Nor does he waste time promoting conservatism. Instead, the Tucker Carlson Network is a hodgepodge of crackpot conspiracy theories, antisemitism, social grievances, and revisionism.

And his go-to topic continues to be Israel, Jews, and “Jewish control.”

Those are his priorities. Of all the many, many evils in the world, that’s what Carlson cares the most about: Israel and the Jooooos.

This is why he stopped being a conservative pundit and became an antisemitic propagandist.

Carlson can say whatever he wants. (And he usually does.) But his priorities give him away.

Our last and final example is just one small (goose) step away from Carlson, because it’s connected to a topic that he cheerleads on his network: The blood libel lie that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

I call ‘em Genocidiots, because the allegation doesn’t make a lick of sense: During this so-called “genocide,” Gaza’s birthrate was roughly double its deathrate. What the hell kind of “genocide” is that?

So instead, Israel’s critics point to other factors — like the destruction of Gaza’s buildings.

Yeah? You mean the buildings where the Gazans were hiding, torturing, and raping Israeli hostages? And where Hamas was storing weapons, firing missiles, building tunnels, and hiding behind civilians?

Do you understand that Israel could’ve left those buildings alone — and killed all the people instead?

The buildings were destroyed so the people would be spared! It’s why Israel notified Palestinians before buildings were targeted: The Jewish state was systematically removing Gazan buildings as staging grounds for Islamic terrorism, because it didn’t want to indiscriminately murder Palestinian civilians.

Israel was at war. Destroying the buildings to spare civilians was its most moral option.

Because the entire point was saving lives, and now Israel’s morality is being weaponized against it.

It’s weird: I don’t remember the Nazis dropping pamphlets on Jewish neighborhoods in World War II, advising them that it’d be a swell idea to flee. (Nor do I recall Hamas letting Jews escape on October 7.) 

But that’s because the Nazis and Hamas were really, truly attempting genocide.

And Israel isn’t. It simply doesn’t want millions of Jews exterminated “from the river to the sea” by Islamic terrorists who oppose Israel’s right to exist. 

(From Israel’s point of view, one Holocaust was enough.)

Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine War is still raging; the casualty count is already in the millions. The Sudan Civil War has displaced 14 million people. More than one million Uyghur Muslims have been imprisoned by China. And Islamic extremists have displaced and/or relocated five million Nigerian Christians to refugee camps.

Yet the Genocidiots only care about the 74,000 Gazans who died in a war that Hamas started.

El-Sayed hasn’t defended the one million Uyghur Muslims. That’s not his focus: He’s too busy attacking Israel and AIPAC — and railing against the dangers of “interethnic mating.” 

Tucker Carlson hasn’t defended Nigerian Christians. That’s not his focus either. He’s too busy joining El-Sayed’s Jew-bashing campaign, demonizing all things Israel.

And the Genocidiots don’t give a damn about the millions of innocent victims of war, famine, persecution, ethnic cleansing, and real, actual genocide. Because, if it doesn’t involve Jews, they couldn’t care less. No Jews, no news.

It’s not their priority.

El-Sayed, Carlson, and the Genocidiots insist they’re good, noble people — that they care mightily about morality, truth, and the American people. They say their only objective is caring for the less fortunate, protecting the innocent, and helping their fellow man.

They say lots of things. They think lots of things, too.

But their priorities say something else.