The Blip is behind us. We had our big crossover event where team lines blurred, rosters were shuffled, and irreparable harm was done, but now most everyone is back to their own regular features. The Mad Titan is defeated, yet the scars his actions left on society linger to this day.

Indeed, despite his relatively short tenure, Trump’s presidency has changed the political landscape of America in ways we don’t yet fully understand. During this blip in our regularly scheduled governance by career politicians, the old boundaries that restrained our actions, thoughts, and allegiances seemed suspended. Now, as we regroup with a more visceral understanding of the stakes of politics, we find ourselves in search of meaning, grasping for validation and grappling for control of this movement or that.

We find ourselves asking, what does it even mean to be conservative or liberal? Which am I? Whom should I follow? Who deserves to lead?

Sam Wilson found himself asking a similar question when Steve Rogers bestowed upon him the iconic Captain America shield. How could anyone but Cap carry it, with all the history and all it had meant to so many? Thinking the symbol inseparable from its initial owner, Sam opted to enshrine it rather than wield it.

Unfortunately, not everyone has such respect, and before you could say, “Isn’t that Ego’s boy?!” the shield was in the hands of John Walker, a soldier who excelled in all the same ways as Hodge. You know, the guy Erskine passed over for Rogers, the foil against which his integrity was demonstrated?

Before we get all bent out of shape over who’s shouldering which mantle, though, we need to understand what they stand for, and for that, we need to know what they truly are. Conservatism, for example, is a term that infers a preservation of tradition. Obviously, context matters. Conservatism in 21st Century America is not necessarily the same as a conservatism in 18th Century Britain. The shield is, like the country for which is stands, an experimental alloy meant for defense, but with formidable offensive capabilities.

Instead of vibranium and adamantium, though, ours is an alloy of conservatism and liberalism, or at least the versions of each that prevailed at America’s founding. As such, America’s core values look different to different people. The nature of compromise is that both sides can claim victory. Classic conservatives wishing to retain as much of the British way as American society would tolerate, have, through Henry Clay’s American System and Lincoln’s eventual realization if it, endorsed centralization and government/market collaboration. Classic liberals favored a focus on natural rights, limited/decentralized governments, and enumerated powers.

So which is the true heir to the American spirit? Who can rightly call themselves conservatives, preserving the founding? Who should wield the shield? To answer that, one must ask what Cap fought for. What did we fight for? What rallied thirteen disparate colonies to risk everything in what must have seemed a hopeless fight? The same thing that made a 90 lb weakling stand up and defiantly wipe the blood from his lips when he was outnumbered by thugs in an alley.

Neither Steve Rogers nor the American colonists could abide a bully. Britain, despite its merits, had demanded America’s lunch money one too many times and we’d had enough. Sure, some of us wanted to mend fences, tried to placate both sides to preserve the status quo, but once the writing was on the wall, even these conservatives threw their weight behind the ideals outlined in the Declaration of Independence and gave their all to the fight.

Now, a cynic might say that this was an opportunistic, fair weather allegiance considering that almost immediately after independence was secured, these classical conservatives set in motion plans to consolidate a supreme government only nominally distinct from that we’d just seceded from. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, though, we can surmise that their objections to arbitrary state power & their ratification of the Articles of Confederation were genuine.

The Articles, America’s first constitution heavily weighted toward states’ rights, is often characterized as weak and insufficient. However, just like Cap’s first shield, it got the job done. The original shield held up, keeping Cap safe behind enemy lines and the Articles essentially mirrored the arrangement that oversaw the war, and more effectively, the diplomacy that made victory possible. Neither had much of a chance to prove itself beyond its initial outing as each was replaced soon after.

When the time came to draft a new Constitution, even the conservatives who sought a national government dared not frame it as such. While significant authority was granted to the central government, the extent of which would not be fully realized for generations to come, every effort was made to reassure the liberals of the day that this was no return to the British model. The federal government’s powers were limited & enumerated. Ratification was conditioned on the adoption of a written Bill of Rights. In short, the American Revolution conserved the rights the colonists had enjoyed as English subjects but departed from tradition in a written Constitution which served primarily to curtail the scope of government.

Thus American conservatism, the preservation of distinctly American values and political philosophy, serves these ends. If conservative and liberal are contextual, though, what’s the point in digging in on one definition or another? Why not let the ideological heirs of Hamilton, Clay, and Lincoln have the title of conservative? Why not abandon a sinking ship and hitch a ride on a more aptly named vessel?

Because, imprecise as they may be, isms matter to much of the electorate. They serve as a form of shorthand, identifying at a glance what one represents and who one can ostensibly trust to represent oneself. When that shorthand get muddled, when the symbol changes hands, there is potential for generation loss. Eventually, what you have may appear to be a genuine successor, but could very well be a pale imitation, or worse, an impulsive bully masquerading as a champion of liberty.

As John Walker ultimately proved, even a shield can be lethal in the wrong hands. Our Constitution, our shield against tyrannical government, was forged strong enough to pose a serious threat to liberty if wielded by the wrong people. Those we entrust with this power, especially those who would claim to honor and preserve what it represents, cannot simply be the best and brightest. To truly embody American values we can’t simply be super strong or seek justice, much less have some vague notion of wanting to do better. We have to be committed to continually strive for liberty and prepared to shoulder the responsibility that comes with it.

Cap chose Sam over his super powered super best friend Bucky because he saw in Wilson the determination to pick the difficult battles; not just the obvious ones against Nazis, but the ones that don’t come with doting dames and medals. Steve knew that he could trust Sam to delve deeper, to navigate the intricacies of right and wrong with a constant moral compass; to see in the damaged what they don’t even see in themselves; to see the good in those who have been led astray.

Symbols ultimately are abstracts and can be ephemeral, but what they represent isn’t. They stand for real people, real movements, real time and effort. Who wields these symbols, who leads, matters. Whether out of reverence for our forebears or disdain for our contemporaries, if we abandon these mantles they will be shouldered by others with less integrity. In the wake of such upheaval, with Flag Smashers and anarchists attracting more adherents, their grievances salient and their ends not altogether unreasonable, such dereliction will only result in the worst representatives of all isms escalating things until we have no choice but take up the shield.