John Eberhard
There is a crisis in conservatism and overall in American politics right now.
The last eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency have left conservatives feeling ignored and betrayed, by among other things:
Passage of Obamacare- Politicization of government agencies that have traditionally never been politicized before, including: Use of government agencies such as the IRS to attack conservatives and conservative groups, and the Department of Justice and FBI refusing to prosecute clear crimes by Hillary Clinton
- Massive increase of the welfare state, including a 45% increase in food stamp recipients
- Non-enforcement of immigration laws
- The President issuing an executive order favoring illegal immigration
- An agreement with Iran giving away the store and paving the way for their development of nuclear weapons
- The President having a clear bias in favor of Islam, and refusing the even use the term “radical Islam,” making excuses and apologies for all radical Islamic terrorist attacks on US soil, and even having his attorney general threatening Americans not to speak out against radical Islam
- Repeatedly insulting Israel and our other long-time allies
- Worsening race relations by Obama insisting over and over that racism is everywhere, increasing resentment among blacks and among whites
I could go on, but the point is that our President has steered the country farther to the left than any previous President.
The American people have responded to Obama, by giving Republicans a majority in the House in 2010 and a majority in the Senate in 2014. Many of those Republicans promised to fight against Obama, stop his executive overreach, and some even promised to repeal Obamacare, a measure that has never been supported by a majority of Americans at any point.
But despite having that power, Republicans have steadily refused to use it. Conservatives ousted House Speaker John Boehner for being too compliant with Obama’s wishes. But replacement Paul Ryan has done virtually nothing to oppose Obama or stop his far left actions, despite having the entire power of the purse.
So Obama has had virtually no opposition to his policies despite facing a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.
This leaves me, and many Americans, wondering what is happening?
Surveys have shown the following political persuasions in the American public for decades:
Liberal – 20-25%
Conservative – 35-40%
Moderate – 40%
With conservatives outnumbering liberals since the 1960s, how is it that liberals are running the show and even with Republican majorities in Congress, have no opposition? We would have to conclude that one of the following is true, or perhaps combinations of these:
- The Republicans fundamentally agree with what Obama is doing
- The Republicans are afraid of being destroyed by the far-left mainstream news media
- The Republicans are afraid of some other force being applied to them
Certainly the far-liberal mainstream news media distorts the entire political process. For many Americans, that’s all they are exposed to, so the media’s actions of doing anything they can to destroy Republicans and protect Democrats has a massive effect. I would not have believed that Obama could be re-elected, but I had access to lots of information about his actions, that unfortunately, the majority of Americans did not.
The media has abandoned all pretense of political impartiality, since about 2004. And they have found that by and large, they have gotten away with it and there has been little if any negative consequences for them. It appears that most Americans have so little understanding of politics that they don’t even notice. Newspapers and TV networks are all suffering from decreased readership and viewership, and I’m sure some of that is due to people being sick of their liberal bias, but it also may be due to the Internet and cable TV.
So a lot of Americans are getting tired of Obama “ruling” over them, doing things that they don’t support, and they seem mostly powerless to do anything about it. And they feel more than a little betrayed by their Republican representatives who promised to stand up to Obama and stop his lurch to the far left, but have done nothing.
It is not much of a political game, if one side always wins. It is an even more perverted game, when one side (conservatives) has greater numbers, but the other side (liberals) seems to always win. Of course the liberals have the media on their side. And the liberals have been very successful, perhaps because of the media being on their side, of creating narratives that support their cause.
So what happens when a lot of Americans are tired of the lefties running the show, and who do pay attention, and do understand at least some of the issues?
The answer is that they want a candidate who will do something about all of this, who will prevent illegal immigrants from committing crimes against Americans, who will prevent terrorist attacks instead of apologizing for it every time one happens, who will actually enforce laws, and who won’t politicize government agencies.
Enter Trump.
One of the things that Trump has done, which I have not seen a single Republican do successfully in the last 20 years, is to defeat the liberal “outrage machine.” Here is how the liberal “outrage machine” works:
- A Republican says something
- Liberals express outrage about what he or she said, usually saying that what the Republican said somehow violated some politically correct rule or offended someone
- The mainstream liberal media repeats the outrage endlessly
- Liberals demand that the Republican apologize
- The Republican usually apologizes, which unfortunately basically confirms that he was guilty of whatever liberals accused him of
- Liberals continue to express outrage and say that the apology wasn’t good enough
- All this is continued until the Republican is forced to resign or withdraw from the public square
Above I said we weren’t sure why Republicans have failed to stand up to Obama. The liberal “outrage machine” could just be the reason, as this extremely effective machine has probably left every single Republican in the United States in a state of terror at being targeted.
The first time this happened with Trump, he stated that criminals were coming into the US as illegal immigrants from Mexico. The outrage machine (liberal politicians and media) went into outrage mode, expressing outrage, distorting what Trump said, making it appear he was against all Mexicans or all Hispanics or all immigrants, etc. This worked to the degree that many people today who are liberals or who don’t pay close enough attention believe that Trump is racist and against all Hispanics.
But Trump refused to apologize, and in fact doubled down on what he had said. And when someone refuses to apologize, it weakens the entire outrage machine to the point where it can’t destroy the target.
This has happened repeatedly with Trump:
- He says something
- Liberals distort what he says to generalize it
- Liberals express outrage and demand an apology
- Trump won’t apologize
- Liberals and “low information voters” believe the generalization/distortion about what he said
- Trump’s supporters love him even more for standing up to the outrage machine
So as the campaign has gone forward he has gained more and more support. But at the same time, those who listen mainly to the liberal mainstream news media think that he is a horrible person, and that he has no chance to win.
This gives us a new rule in American politics that Republicans need to learn:
ANY REPUBLICAN, TO SUCCEED ON THE NATIONAL STAGE, MUST LEARN FROM TRUMP, AND STAND UP TO THE LIBERAL OUTRAGE MACHINE, AND REFUSE TO APOLOGIZE
Liberals are so practiced at using the outrage machine at this point to destroy Republicans, and are so entrenched in the mainstream news media, that no Republican will succeed in Presidential elections from now on if they do not learn these lessons.
One other thing we need to learn is that, through creating narratives like “anyone opposing Obama is a racist,” or “racism is in our American DNA,” or “white cops shooting unarmed black men is happening everywhere,” or “hands up, don’t shoot,” liberals are creating the rules.
They create these narratives, to a large extent people accept them, and then Republicans can be attacked for failing to following these rules.
Here are a couple of other narratives that have been created in recent years that Republicans have to tiptoe around:
- Anyone who opposes illegal immigration for any reason is a racist, bigot, xenophobe, etc. (This didn’t used to be the accepted reality.)
- Anyone who points out the centuries-long history of violence of Islam is a racist, bigot, etc.
Republicans who accept all these “rules,” these narratives, are basically in terror of offending people and being targeted. So they accept the “rules” and basically liberals get to do anything they want. We call these Republicans who accept all the liberal “rules” RINOs (Republican in Name Only) or Elites. This could be the reason that conservatives have made so little progress in the last 20 years.
So all that is why I support Trump. I think the conservative pundits, columnists or commentators who don’t like Trump, fail to see that he is the only politician in this election who has a chance against the liberal outrage machine (during the campaign and afterwards, if he is elected). They concentrate on his faults (of which he has some, as does everyone), and I think they listen too much to the media distorting what Trump actually said. And the media demonizes Trump endlessly, exactly because he is so effective, can’t be killed off, and he has so much support.
So I support him and I think you should too. For one thing, the alternative is Hillary, who would continue Obama’s actions to destroy the very fabric of America. With Trump, we have a chance.