Gary W. Houchens
Smoking tobacco is not of necessity one of the permanent things that conservatives should cherish, but it does symbolize an older way of life and a different sensibility. Choosing to smoke makes one immediately recognizable as one who is not “with the times.”

The incarnational element of “lighting up”

In a recent article for The Free Press, journalist River Page explored how cigarette smoking has become something of a conservative cause.
While noting that Americans’ use of smoking products has continued to decline, Page writes, “strangely, there’s a sense that nicotine has become more popular: a cause célèbre to be championed by a certain kind of conservative.” In fact, Page documents how until quite recently, Democrat voters were more likely to be smokers than Republicans, but that appears to have reversed with research that shows more than half of smokers in 2024 voted for Donald Trump.
Page credits this shift to a kind of libertarian impulse among smokers who are weary of a nanny state trying to dictate every facet of our lives and that has tried to regulate smoking out of existence.
Perhaps there’s some truth to this. I am not a cigarette smoker, and I am not a libertarian (any more). I am, though, a conservative, and a pipe smoker who also occasionally enjoys a cigar.
While libertarians may see smoking as an act of defiance against the overreach of public health bureaucrats, conservatives value it for deeper reasons. It is not simply an assertion of personal choice, but a return to the rhythms and habits of a culture that once valued leisure, reflection, and connection to the past.
After all, conservatism is not primarily a political philosophy or agenda. It is rather, as Russell Kirk famously argued, a way of life. Conservatism “is a state of mind, a type of character,  » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/04/smoking-conservative-act-gary-w-houchens.html