If Republicans want to combat a progressive agenda in civic life, they must understand how and when to use political power, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told students at a Federalist Society event Tuesday.

“We have not infrequently had moments where we had political power, but we have been extraordinarily reluctant to use it,” Yost said. “The goal is to be able to have enough power, and once you have the power, you must have the courage of your convictions because the people who gave you power gave it to you for a reason.”

The Republican attorney general said he feels the conservative movement has not yet reached that place. In Washington, D.C., he pointed out, Republicans control only one-half of Congress.

“Conservatives frequently don’t have the power they think they have,” he said. “If you’re going to exercise power, you need to know how much power you actually have. Conservatives frequently kid themselves about it.”

Elliot Gaiser ’12, Ohio’s new solicitor general who was Opinions editor of The Collegian in the 2011 to 2012 school year, joined Yost for the talk in the Heritage Room.

Gaiser noted that even though conservatives might have to adapt their political strategies to check their opponents’ successes, doing so should never come at the expense of their principles.

“I categorically reject Machiavellian thinking that because some faction is using power in some respect, we therefore need to use power in an equal and opposite way without connecting that to some higher and truer principle,” Gaiser said.

The two discussed the ways the evolution of America’s prevailing civic theory has affected the political process and institutions more broadly. Their conversation approached these issues from a distinctly philosophical perspective.

“Freedom is not merely the absence of boundaries,” Gaiser said. “It is, in fact, defined limits that can create the certainty that you need to order your affairs in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s God.”

Yost stressed that our institutions no longer impress the ideals they stand for upon the individuals within them. Rather, they have become captive to the ambitions of partisan actors, he said.

“Those institutions are no longer formative. We are actually deforming them because they’ve become platforms,” Yost said. “The institution is their platform for promoting their career, their identity, and their ideas — from there it’s a very short journey to the creation of an oligarchic system that overrides the idea of popular sovereignty.”

In his mind, young Americans can combat this shift by living and working according to the values those institutions were built to defend.

“Ask yourself, what do your jobs and the institutions that you’re a part of limit how you should live, rather than asking how they can promote the way you want to live,” Yost said. “I think it’s necessary if we’re going to once again build institutions that will hold together a pluralistic society.”

He also said that a more genuine kind of statesmanship in line with that mindset was once much more common.

“Believe it or not, there was a time when politicians wouldn’t do certain things just because they might be able to get on the evening news,” Yost said.

Federalist Society secretary and junior Tobias Klooster said he feels a more active approach to using government power does not necessarily conflict with limiting the scope of government according to the Founders’ vision.

“I think that the general idea of demarking where the state’s power is and reinforcing that power when it’s necessary and proper, and making sure that the federal government stays within its enumerated powers, is especially important,” he said.

Yost made sure to note that these specific aims align with the broader pursuit of good things in our society.

“Don’t let the mob convince you that the beautiful is actually ugly or trite,” Yost said. “Never give up on finding what is true.”