I admit that I am increasingly incapable of thinking of anyone as “worthy of contemporary political lionization” at all.  Nonetheless, I agree that the apodosis follows to whatever extent one is capable of affirming the protasis:

If we are to regard the founding generation as being worthy of contemporary political lionization — and we most assuredly should — then we must consider those who marched at Selma to be so, too.

(source: On the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma – The Washington Post)