WATCH: Kassam Blasts Never Trumpism, Corporate Conservatism at Fiery Hillsdale Speech.
Staff Writer
National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam delivered a speech, “The Future of Anti-Trump Conservatism,” at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix, Arizona.
Noting there is “no future” for the Never Trump sect of the Republican party, Kassam draws parallels between Conservative Party infighting in the United Kingdom and the U.S. and encourages Americans to fight to reclaim the GOP.
“It’s more useful to take this party over because we can and we have the numbers and we have the bodies and we have the moral imperative than to split right now and to fissure off. But that does not mean compromising with the Never Trumpers. It means they have to leave the tent,” he adds.
The Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse dived into his experiences of internecine political warfare, stating: “despite the Conservative Party being scarcely interested in conservatism, despite the Conservative Party promoting and employing just ardently representing the most culturally Marxist, anti-Brexit, anti-sovereignty people out there in my country, despite that, Brexit happened.”
And Kassam sees a similar struggle playing out in the U.S.
“You have the phrase outside the tent pissing in or inside the tent pissing out. The Never Trump movement are inside the tent pissing in. And at that point, you think well that’s why the walls of the tent exist. That will provide me some shield if you’re outside it trying to piss in, so get out.”
“And that’s what this is going to come down to. Who’s going to get out,” he emphasizes.
“Never Trump isn’t just about Donald Trump. Donald Trump would tell you it’s not about Donald Trump. It’s about this room. It’s not even about this room – it’s about your children and your children’s children. […] The Never Trump movement is about never nationalism. It’s about never patriotism. It’s about never populism. It’s about never a fair shake for the ordinary person ever again,” Kassam expounds.
“The litmus test for every single Republican that asks for your support, or your vote, your check, your attendance at their events is simple: is Joe Biden the president fair and square? Anybody that will not tell you that answer should not get anything from you,” Kassam emphasizes before pointing out the faults of the Republican National Committee and even the Trump campaign.
“What did the RNC do, frankly what did the Trump campaign do about the playbook that was given to them, handed to them in advance saying we are going to cheat you out of this election,” in reference to exclusive National Pulse reporting on the efforts of the Transition Integrity Project.
But he notes that the party appears to be heading in the right direction, highlighting how Trump wouldn’t take a meeting with Nikki Haley.
“That’s important. That shows where we’re going,” he reacts.
“The point can only be found when you take over the Republican Party, not when you send the Republican Party letters of complaint,” he adds before encouraging Americans to fight to kick out Never Trump Republicans from the party.
“I will happily cancel any of these big corporate entities and institutions that continue to do business with the Chinese Communist Party while screwing the ordinary American,” before slamming groups profiting from America’s managed decline.
He also calls for organizations that have taken “our cash and our capital and our time for decades and built these big buildings” to do more, inquiring “where is the bang for the buck?”
Kassam also participates in a question-and-answer session.
Missouri Senate Bill 528 Would Establish Minutemen of the State
Current Bill Summary
SB 528 - This act establishes that there shall be the minutemen of the
state which shall be called into service by the governor for use in
defense during a state of emergency with consent of two-thirds of the
General Assembly.
Any legal Missouri resident who
is eligible to be a lawful firearm owner may voluntarily join the
minutemen by enrolling with the Department of Public Safety. Only the
volunteer's name and address shall be collected by the Department. The
volunteer shall keep his or her address current with the Department.
The list of enrolled minutemen with the Department is not subject to
disclosure under law and shall not be shared or disseminated. Any
person responsible for any unauthorized disclosure of this list, in part
or in whole, shall be subject to a $1,000 fine per each name that is
disclosed and a Class E felony. A volunteer may resign at an time prior
to being called into service under this section.
All
volunteers shall be required to secure themselves with firearms, firearm
accessories, ammunition, uniforms, equipment, and supplies necessary to
perform any duties as assigned by the governor. Any such firearms,
firearm accessories, ammunition, uniforms, equipment, and supplies shall
be property of the state for purposes of sovereignty and jurisdiction
in matters of judicial, taxation, and police powers exercised by the
state when a member is called into service. All firearms and equipment
of the minutemen shall not be subject to an tax or registration
requirements.
This act also provides that governor shall
make and publish such regulations governing the organization,
discipline, and training of the minutemen of the state as may be
necessary to its efficiency and such regulations shall have the
authority of law. The governor is the commander in chief of the
minutemen of the state. The governor shall be charged with the
supervision of all matters pertaining to the administration, discipline,
mobilization, organization, and training of the minutemen of the state.
This act does not include members of the organized or
unorganized militia pursuant to current law. Additionally, the state
shall have immunity from liability for compensatory damages for
negligent acts or omissions of any volunteer of the minutemen and from
any criminal act committed by any volunteer of the minutemen while
enrolled in the minutemen or while acting in the course of his or her
duties.
State-sponsored instruction that makes your child a dogmatic racist relativist is not worth any benefit you feel schools give in return. Not a single one. Being Mowgli would be better.
To obtain or keep teaching licenses, Illinois now requires all K-12 teachers to indoctrinate their students in critical race theory, destructive lies about sex and gender, and other leftist mind poison. The rules clearly communicate that in Illinois public schools are no longer places to learn, but places children will be lied to, manipulated, and warehoused as wards of a corrupt and malevolent state. And this kind of schooling is spreading nationwide.
Every decent parent, family, and church should refuse to allow this kind of instruction to be inflicted upon the children in their care, and assume personal responsibility for securing their genuine education outside such anti-public schools. Those who do not are abdicating their sacred duty to teach their children to love and know the truth.
Thenew Illinois rulesrequire teachers to demonstrate that they “embrace and encourage progressive viewpoints and perspectives.” It clearly specifies that these include incorporating intoalltheir teaching and curricula neo-Marxist falsehoods about race and sex, and actively discriminate based on religion, viewpoint, and race. The rules require teachers to:
Directly oppose and undermine the concept of objective truth: “Understand and value… that there is not one ‘correct’ way of doing or understanding something, and that what is seen as ‘correct’ is most often based on our lived experiences.” This is an exercise in forcing people to affirm two contradictory things, as the rest of the requirements are extremely dogmatic, not open to any other “way of doing or understanding something.”
Treat themselves and students as a determined product of their race, sex, and sexual behavior: “Recognize how their identity (race/ethnicity, national origin, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical/developmental/emotional ability, socioeconomic class, religion, etc.) affects their perspectives and beliefs about pedagogy and students.”
Believe and preach cultural Marxist identity politics: “Assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).”
Agree the United States is systemically racist: “understand that there are systems in our society that create and reinforce inequities, thereby creating oppressive conditions” and “work actively against these systems.”
Support different behavior standards based on race: “Know and understand how a system of inequity creates rules regarding student punishment that negatively impacts students of color.”
Engage in and support cultural Marxist activism: “Be aware of the effects of power and privilege and the need for social advocacy and social action to better empower diverse students and communities.”
Push students into leftist activism: “support and create opportunities for student advocacy and representation in the content and classroom” and “Create a risk-taking space that promotes student activism and advocacy.”
Introduce and promote adult sex behaviors and gender identity confusion: “Implement and integrate the wide spectrum and fluidity of identities in the curriculum.”
No joke: Illinois’s state school board and legislature also deleted requirements that teachers prove they have learned any traditional curricular content or subject-matter knowledge. Social agitation uber alles.
“What’s more,” notes Stanley Kurtz, “the Illinois experience is about to go national.” A coalition of leftists is working together to make rules like Illinois’s operate in every state under the guise of “civics,” as Kurtz documents in depth. They intend to co-opt and subvert the grassroots recognition in America that education institutions use public resources to teach the next generation to hate the country that gives them more than every other country in the world does.
The goal is to use the label “civics” to make people think the plan is teaching children to be more patriotic and literate about history, while accomplishing precisely the opposite: doubling down on young Americans’ well-documented anti-American animus undergirded by their historical ignorance.
Obviously this transformation is occurring as majorities of American children have endured frequently disrupted and lower-quality education than usual nearly an entire school year, with half completely online and another quarter partially online now. It is clear that school “as normal” will not soon return even though many schools’ “safety” rulesare contrary to evidenceand the seasonal flu is truly a higher risk to childrenthan COVID.
If your child is one of the three-quarters “doing school online,” you can do it better yourself. If your child is being taught lies instead of truth in school, you can definitely do it better yourself. Just read good books and talk about them.
Schools’ increasingly open function as indoctrination factories and massive ineptitude at effective and reliable instruction — which long predates COVID — mean it is past time for parents to stop with the wishful thinking and get their kids something better before it’s too late. Community organizations, primarily churches, must come to their aid.
State-sponsored instruction that makes your child a dogmatic, racist relativist is not worth any benefit you feel schools give in return. Not a single one. Being Mowgli raised by wolves and bears would be better for your child than this. Thankfully, unlike the therians or human pups your children could meet under instruction like this, you realize you are not a wolf or bear, so you can do a lot better than raising Mowgli.
Truly, it would be better for children to be feral in their backyards than manipulated with false COVID fears and dangerous lies about how racist they are for being born white. It would be even better for a child to have a library card and a large supply of craft materials than to attend this kind of “school.” It would be ideal for children to have truly excellent schools to attend instead, but one step at a time, okay? First, stop the bleeding.
It’s easy to compete with stupid and evil. Just don’t be stupid or evil. This is one key reason homeschool kids whose parents don’t have a teaching degree do better than public-school peers whose teachers do: eating grass is better than eating poison, and any person who isn’t indoctrinated can see that.
Instruction of the kind Illinois has committed itself to is a code red for people to get children out of such schools by any moral means possible. It’s not as hard as you think. Remember: Even Baloo can do better than this. So can you.
Now that teacher licenses are hinged not on curricular competence but the affirmation of false political creeds, a loving parent is clearly better than a teaching college-certified critical race zombie. Many parents who thought they could never homeschool are finding out that even doing it while also working from home is better than trying to substitute teach the garbage local public schools are calling “online instruction.”
Many parents are finding that the little education “pods” they put together are actually a tiny private school that almost any church or community organization could host, and are accessible at very affordable costs, especially if parents’ mortgage bill is freed from the upcharge of living in a “good” school district gone woke and others like grandparents pitch in on tuition.
It is churches, parents’, and charities’ moral duty to step up to the plate, and not only in Illinois. American public schools are not much better than this across the board, except for a few outliers, and they are likely to get a lot worse under a Biden administration committed to accelerating critical race theory, forcing boys and girls to shower and sleep overnight together, imposing different school rules for different races, and keeping schools closed as long as possible.
The time has come for people who love their country to begin building and investing in parallel private social institutions to replace the institutions the left has corrupted beyond restoration. The people who control public schools, public health, our energy grids, you name it have proven they are willing to teach the next generation the greatest country in the world needs to be burned down and looted and uphold COVID superstitions rather than perform basic safety checks on crucial energy infrastructure.
It’s time for all people possible to divest from these corrupt institutions and invest their resources — time, children, money, buildings, whatever you’ve got — in sound ones, for the sake of the common good for the country we love. The Titanic is hitting an iceberg, and it’s going to need a cultural Cajun Navy to set sail and haul up as many stranded people as possible. I’ve got my little boat — where’s yours?
Leaked Emails Confirm UN Gave Names of Dissidents to CCP
Leaked emails prove that, contrary to United Nations
denials, UN human-rights officials did in fact give the names of
Chinese dissidents to the communist regime in Beijing before those
activists were set to testify in Geneva against the Communist Chinese
Party’s abuses.
In fact, it appears from the leaked documents that the practice of
handing over names of Chinese dissidents to the dictatorship was viewed
as a “usual practice” by all involved. The whistleblower told The Epoch
Times that it continues to this day, despite UN denials.
Chinese communist authorities used the names received from the UN to
prevent the dissidents from leaving China. At least one dissident
identified by the UN and detained by the CCP before leaving for Geneva, Cao Shunli, died while in detention.
If the dissident expected to embarrass Beijing at the UN was already
abroad, the CCP frequently threatened or even kidnapped and tortured the
person’s family, according to UN whistleblower Emma Reilly, who first
exposed the scandal.
Critics of the regime whose names were handed over by the UN included
activists concerned about Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Islamic Uyghur
minority in Western China—all of which are being targeted by the CCP for
various reasons.
Prominent human-rights organizations around the world have slammed
the UN practice for endangering the lives of dissidents and their
families.
In comments to The Epoch Times, Reilly described it as “criminal” and even argued that it made the UN “complicit in genocide.”
For years, the UN denied that its agents were providing the names of dissidents to the CCP.
Thanks to leaked e-mails about the practice, however, it is now clear
that the UN misled its member governments and the press surrounding the
scandal.
One of the explosive emails in question was sent on Sept. 7, 2012,
from a diplomat at the CCP’s Mission to the UN in Geneva requesting
information on Chinese dissidents set to testify at the UN Human Rights
Council.
“Following the usual practice, could you kindly heip me [sic] to
check whether the persons on the attached list are requesting the
accreditation of the 21st session of the HRC?” asked the CCP diplomat in
an email to a UN liaison with non-governmental organizations. “My
delegation has some security concern [sic] on these persons.”
The UN official, whose name was redacted from the leaked email,
responded by confirming that two of the dissidents on the CCP’s list
were in fact accredited and planning to attend.
“As per your request, kindly be advised that Dolkun Isa and He Geng
were accredited by the Nonviolent Radical party, Transnational and
Transparty for the 21st session of the Human Rights Council,” the UN
official confirmed to the regime, with no apparent concern for the
safety of either dissident or their families still in China.
Isa is the president of the World Uyghur Congress, which advocates on
behalf of the Uyghur population of Western China’s Xinjiang region that
is being brutally targeted by the CCP.
Numerous official sources around the world say the regime is holding
more than a million Uyghurs in “re-education” camps. Former detainees
who spoke with The Epoch Times revealed that they were being raped, tortured, brainwashed, and savagely abused.
Isa also serves as the vice president of the Unrepresented Nations
and Peoples Organization (UNPO), which seeks to be a voice for nations
and people groups without representation from a nation-state of their
own.
The year after that email, at the request of the regime’s delegation,
UN security attempted to remove Isa from the Human Rights Council
chamber. However, Reilly—and only Reilly—intervened and prevented his
ouster.
The other dissident identified by the UN in its email to the CCP
mission, Geng He, is the wife of imprisoned Chinese human-rights lawyer
Gao Zhisheng, a Christian who wrote a book about the severe torture he
was subjected to by the CCP for his work and beliefs.
One of the reasons for the brutal torture of Gao was the fact that
his wife was speaking out at the UN, as revealed to the CCP in advance
by the UN officials in that email.
Another leaked email, this one from 2013, showed the same CCP
diplomat again seeking to confirm the identities of Chinese dissidents
expected at the Human Rights Council to expose CCP abuses.
“The Chinese Mission had very good cooperation with you and your
section in previous sessions,” the CCP diplomat said in to the UN
official in the email obtained by The Epoch Times and other media. “We
appreciate it a lot.”
“This time, I need you to do me a favor again,” the CCP diplomat
continued. “Some anti-Chinese Government secessionists are trying to
participate the HRC session [sic] under the disguise of other NGOs. They
might pose a threat to the United Nations and the Chinese Delegation.”
“Could you please check and inform me whether the persons I list
below have got accreditation for the 22th session [sic] of the Human
Rights Council?” the CCP diplomat asked. “If you have any information,
please contact me through email or at [number redacted].”
Among the names on the list was Dolkun Isa, again.
According to Isa, CCP agents have showed up at his house overseas to
try to get him to stop speaking out. CCP operatives also arrested his
family in China, including his mother, who died in a Chinese
“concentration camp” in 2018. His older brother was also arrested. And
his younger brother has been missing since 2016. CCP media outlets
reported that Isa’s father died, too, though Isa does not know when or
where.
The Epoch Times attempted to reach the CCP diplomat in question at
the Swiss cell-phone number listed in the email, but was unsuccessful.
UN human-rights officials responded to that CCP mission email with
the names of four activists who were expected to attend the Human Rights
Council.
The Epoch Times is withholding the names of the activists that are not yet public for their protection and privacy.
Reilly was furious and horrified at the same time.
“This is a hideous practice, but if the UN is going to do it, at
least they must make sure it’s public so people know the danger they are
going to be put in,” she told The Epoch Times in a video-conference
interview from Geneva. “This is basic decency and basic standards of
humanity—don’t secretly put these people in danger. Is that too much to
ask?”
Right from the start, the emails reveal that Reilly argued against
giving the names of dissidents to the CCP. Instead, she advocated
informing the targeted individuals.
However, Chief of the UN Human Rights Council Branch Eric Tistounet
argued that the list of names was public and that the CCP requests could
therefore not be resisted.
Indeed, Tistounet suggested acting as quickly as possible to avoid “exacerbating Chinese mistrust,” the emails show.
“When did that become part of the considerations?” Reilly asked rhetorically in comments to The Epoch Times.
News of the emails confirming that the UN was in fact handing over
names of Chinese dissidents made a major splash in Turkish media.
However, in Europe and the United States, the scandal has barely been
mentioned in the press.
In remarks to The Epoch Times, Reilly urged journalists worldwide to
examine the documents, transcripts of internal court cases, and other
evidence to see who was telling the truth—and then to report that truth
so the people of the world can see what is happening.
But Reilly said this is a systemic issue with the UN.
“The problem with the UN is there are no adults in the room, and
there is no external oversight,” she said, citing other examples of
whistleblowers who have been persecuted for trying to do the right
thing. “Unless the member states act, this is going to continue.”
Reilly also expressed deep concern about the close relationship
between CCP agents and senior officials within the UN human rights
system charged with protecting human rights.
For years, senior UN officials attempted to mislead UN member states,
the media, and the public about the name-sharing scandal, Reilly told
The Epoch Times.
From 2013 to 2017, the UN claimed the practice was not happening.
Much later, in January of 2021, a spokesman for the UN was quoted
telling the Anadolu Agency that the practice was stopped “since 2015.”
However, in a Feb. 2, 2017, press release
aiming to deflect the escalating criticism, the UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) admitted that it was indeed
confirming to governments the identities of individuals being accredited
to attend its human-rights events.
“Chinese authorities, and others, regularly ask the UN Human Rights
Office, several days or weeks prior to Human Rights Council meetings,
whether particular [non-governmental organization] delegates are
attending the forthcoming session,” the UN OHCHR said. “The Office never
confirms this information until the accreditation process is formally
under way, and until it is sure that there is no obvious security risk.”
Reilly said she was shocked by the language used in the release.
“The only security checks that are ever done are those done by the Chinese diplomats,” she told The Epoch Times.
Indeed, transcripts from the case show that Reilly challenged the UN
to show any evidence of its supposed “security” checks before handing
over the names. None was provided.
“It was all about whether these people would cause problems for the
Chinese diplomats at the UN,” she said. “It had nothing to do with
keeping anyone safe.”
This is a major violation of the UN’s own rules as well, Reilly said,
noting that if governments want to know who is attending they are
supposed to ask the plenary in front of other UN member states.
Despite the escalating scandal surrounding the practice and the UN’s
retaliation against the whistleblower who exposed it, Reilly told The
Epoch Times that the practice of handing dissident names to the CCP
continues to this day.
“It has now become my personal mission and responsibility to prevent this UN complicity in genocide,” she said.
Documents obtained by The Epoch Times reveal that some of the
highest-ranking officials within the UN system have been involved in an
effort to silence, discredit, and retaliate against Reilly for her
efforts.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights did not
respond to requests for comment on the leaked emails or the broader
scandal.
In early 2020, the UN OHCHR declined to comment to The Epoch Times,
citing ongoing litigation. However, Reilly told The Epoch Times this
week that she has given them full permission to comment on the case to
the media.
Multiple spokesmen for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also declined to comment.
As of approximately 8 hours after the bombing of Syria, there is no statement from the White House on their official website [SEE HERE] or from the JoeBama spokespeople.
The cognitively disconnected pretend president is being cited for authorizing the bombing.
However, there’s just as much reason to believe he thought he was ordering more jello pudding before nap-time.
The preferred narrative term “Iran-backed” is also so disengenous it is quite silly.
WASHINGTON – The US on Thursday launched an airstrike in Syria that targeted facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups — the first military action taken by the Biden administration, officials said.
The Pentagon said the strike was in retaliation for a Feb. 15 rocket attack against a US military base at Erbil International Airport in Northern Iraq that killed a US-led coalition contractor and left others wounded, including an American service member.
“I’m confident in the target that we went after, we know what we hit,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters after the airstrike.
“We’re confident that that target was being used by the same Shia militants that conducted the [Feb. 15] strikes,” he said.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the attack “destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point used by a number of Iranian- backed militant groups.”
The groups included Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, according to Kirby.
Kirby called the retaliation a “proportionate military response.” (read more)
….And that was the problem for the Pentagon. President Trump was undoing the industrial war machine; and there are trillions at stake on that policy issue alone. Now the war machinery is back to operating without civilian oversight and paying the politicians to just shut up and sit down.
It will be interesting to see how the JoeBama administration handles the questions tomorrow about the bombing of a sovereign Syria; considering their prior 2017 position below:
Obama Blames Whites for Failure to Enact Reparations
In typical lead-from-behind fashion, our 44th president is now weighing in on an issue he failed to address as president.
'I’m in favor of reparations, and it’s all whitey’s fault that we don’t have ‘em yet.'
Barack Obama might not have expressed himself quite so candidly.
After all, he’s a man of great depth and nuance — or, as Joe Biden would
say, “articulate and bright and clean.” But this is the essence of his
thoughts on the matter. He told us as much yesterday.
As Peter Heck writes,
“On the 'Renegades’ podcast he co-hosts with Bruce Springsteen, Obama
shared his views on race relations and the part reparations might play
in improving them. The former president expressed that while [in] office
he considered pursuing reparation payments to black citizens as
compensation for the [generational] wealth lost as a consequence of
slavery, but ultimately decided it would be a fruitless venture. Obama
said that while he has always thought reparations would be ‘justified,’
he knew that ‘the politics of white resistance and resentment’ would
prevent any meaningful action.”
Ah, the ol’ “politics of white resistance and resentment.” Why, it’s as if he thinks
white people “get bitter and they cling to guns or religion or
antipathy to people who aren’t like them as a way to explain their
frustrations.” (If you aren’t down with turning over trillions more in
transfer payments to non-victims of atrocities you never committed,
Barack Obama thinks you need to listen more closely to your white
guilt.)
How fitting, though, that two of our nation’s foremost narcissists
have come together to collaborate on a wokecast called “Renegades: Born
in the USA.” As if anyone but the dimmest of dim bulbs believes there’s
anything even remotely renegady or patriotic about this ultra-privileged
leftist duo.
As for our nation’s debt to the descendants of slaves, where was Obama when it mattered? When he was, oh, president? We’ll tell you where: He was cowering behind a carefully cultivated image of electability. As Fox News reports, “He opposed
reparations during his 2008 presidential campaign, arguing that ‘the
best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and
jobs for people who are unemployed.’”
Apparently, good schools and good jobs are no longer good enough.
Remember: This is the same slippery guy who was in favor of same-sex marriage back in 1996, but then lied about it
during the 2008 presidential campaign in order to get elected, and then
ultimately came back around in 2012, when he figured the sands had
shifted sufficiently for him to “rediscover” that long-ago support.
In much the same way, Obama now says
reparations are “justified” and that “there’s not much question that
the wealth … [and] the power of this country was built in significant
part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it, but a large
portion of it — was built on the backs of slaves.”
Bravely spoken, now that he’s more than four years out of office.
Seems Obama just can’t stop leading from behind. Of course, he’s also
emblematic of one of the many intractable problems with reparations:
namely, Who owes what to whom? After all, he’s half-white, and
so are millions of other Americans. For the Obamas, would the bill for
slavery simply be moved from his checking account to Michelle’s?
As to the merits of reparations, our Thomas Gallatin addressed the issue
earlier this week, covering Democrat Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson
Lee’s recently submitted HR 40, as well as some principled dissent from
the likes of Utah Representative and former NFLer Burgess Owens.
“Reparations are not the way to right our country’s wrong,” Owens said.
“It is impractical and a nonstarter for the United States government to
pay reparations. It is also unfair and heartless to give black Americans
the hope that this is a reality.”
Another strong conservative voice within the black community, that of another former NFLer, Herschel Walker, is also against reparations.
“Where does the money come from?” he asked “Does it come from all the
other races except the black taxpayers? Who is black? … Who is the
guilty party? Should we start at the beginning where African Americans
sold your African American ancestors into slavery? And to a slave trader
who eventually sold African American ancestors to slave owners?”
Finally, it was some 20 years ago when former
hard-leftist-turned-conservative David Horowitz addressed the issue of
reparations, and his 10-point argument, which took the form of an advertisement and caused a furor when it ran in nine college newspapers, has aged remarkably well.
Each of his 10 points is powerful on its own, but perhaps the tenth
one is the most powerful: “The reparations claim is a separatist idea
that sets African-Americans against the nation that gave them freedom.”
“For all America’s faults,” Horowitz writes, “African-Americans have
an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage
that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The
reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial
separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white
Americans, but on all Americans — especially African-Americans.”
Regardless of what Johnny-Come-Lately Obama might think.
In response to that, Rep. Chip Roy delivered a scathing public message that you might not otherwise expect from him. Mollie Hemingway provides commentary.
Chip Roy, while never being “anti-Trump,” has routinely disagreed with the former president on policy. I point that out to note that he didn’t say what he said out of some slavish devotion to Trump. He did it because he recognizes how toxic Cheney’s current approach is and that wish casting is not a path forward for the party.
Here’s the issue that everyone should pay attention too. Liz Cheney can have whatever opinions she wants as a congressional member. She can even share those opinions in whatever way that she wants. But as the third ranking member of leadership, a position she apparently wants to maintain, she must actually be a leader. That means building bridges, not burning them to the ground over some petty crusade. Cheney doesn’t like Donald Trump. We all get that, but that’s not an excuse to continually push devisions while trashing the vast majority of the party’s voting base. Like it or not, those voters hold the controlling share of the GOP, and they want Trump to have a role going forward.
That is a situation which can be navigated, but that’s not going to come in the form of lecturing Trump voters about the evils of the orange man. The GOP is simply not going back to Cheney’s Bush-era view of the party. That’s true on foreign policy and a variety of other issues. If Cheney can’t accept that, she has no place as chair, and as Roy notes, purposely trying to tear one’s own party down is not the role of someone in leadership. If Cheney wants to be that kind of “maverick,” she can do so as a regular congresswoman.
This is where so many Republicans (for or against Trump), end up yelling past each other. Cheney doesn’t have to be a cheerleader for Donald Trump. But what she can’t do is allow her dislike of him to tear the party apart via her own rhetoric. Leadership positions require a person to transcend their own personal grievances. McCarthy understands that, though he’s clearly no Trump fan. Cheney doesn’t, and it’s why Roy went after her the way he did.
In the end, this isn’t even really about Trump in the sense that it’s much more about how Cheney conducts herself as a leader. If she can’t put her personal issues aside and help unite the party going into 2022, then she needs to step aside. Better yet, she needs to be forced to step aside.
In
a trail of observations that began with Trump's campaign in 2015 and
peaked during the last year of his life, the late Rush Limbaugh, as he
was in and out of the studio battling cancer, was on a path to the
previously unthinkable. He was ready to let go of the ideology he'd
spent three decades promoting — Reaganite conservatism — and replace it
with right-wing populism. Specifically, the right-wing populism of the
just-defeated Republican president. Why?
Limbaugh,
the self-proclaimed "mayor of Realville," was constantly trying to see
around corners. What he saw was a political movement that offered more
staying power and strength against the left than the ideological one
he'd been associated with since 1988. That calculus wasn't based on
election outcomes. It was informed by the first Republican voter
realignment to occur since Reagan's election. Here is how Limbaugh described it in the days after Trump's Republican convention speech on the White House South Lawn last year:
Now,
what emerged was the new Trump Republican Party. And it's a
fascinating change. It's the party of the little guy. It's the party
of working America, not politicians, not elitist think-tank
denizens. It is literally the party of working Americans.
Limbaugh
never missed the chance to rib what might be called Cruise Ship
Conservatism. As an entertainer with a massive following, he found it
ridiculous that other media personalities would cultivate the small-time
celebrity role. But "elitist think-tank denizens" was a stand-in for
the country club set, too. With a small-town upbringing and blue-collar
audience, Limbaugh relished the idea of his being "the party of the
little guy."
Limbaugh
realized that right-wing populism was more appealing than conservatism
to the little guy. This was a counterintuitive conclusion for a
movement conservative like him to reach. The Reagan coalition was heavy
on union members and other disillusioned Democrats. But for all its
success through the 1980s, it didn't survive the end of the Cold War,
something Limbaugh would rue for the rest of his life. He even took it
personally. This was his response just six weeks ago to one of the many listeners who called in to credit him with the listener's political conversion:
You
know, I'm not gonna sit here and deny that. But, folks, I gotta tell
you, there's a large part of me that feels like I have failed in such a
major way, in a political sense. I've had 30 years here to try to
convince people, to try to persuade people, to try to encourage people
to think — critically think — on their own, to realize the difference
between conservatism and liberalism, the difference between the
Republican Party and the Democrat party as it relates to conservative
versus liberal.
This
was a lament not that conservatism has lost to liberalism, but that
most people weren't voting by ideology in the first place. He
recognized over the Obama and Trump years that voters are situationally
rather than ideologically oriented. Along the way, in a conversation
with me in April 2016 for his Limbaugh Letter, he recounted a lunch with
Ted Cruz ahead of that year's Republican presidential race. Limbaugh
warned the conservative hopeful that most of his own 25-million-member audience didn't even identify with the conservative movement.
My
message in conversation with Limbaugh was that conservatives could use
Trump's success to achieve big ideas, a thought that was considered
unconventional at a moment when many Republican leaders dreamed of
sabotaging Trump's nomination. But even that prediction proved
shortsighted. Trump would remake the GOP. By 2020, it had changed from
a conservative party to a right-wing populist party.
Is
the difference between conservatism and right-wing populism really more
than just nuance, or the presence of Trump? After all, conservatism
won with a populist coalition under Reagan. And much of Trump's agenda
from tax cuts to deregulation to judicial nominations came straight from
the conservative playbook.
A
look under the surface of these outcomes shows fundamental
differences. Using my mentor the late Jeff Bell's definition of
populism as "optimism about people's ability to make decisions about
their lives" (from his 1992 book Populism and Elitism), it's clear that a reckoning was coming once the foundations of postwar American politics collapsed.
Conservatism
demands an allegiance to institutions rather than to a public. For
powerful conservatives, it could be whatever institution they called
home, whether that was the U.S. Senate or a magazine that took
subscribers on cruises. Limbaugh, like Trump, was never part of an
institution that needed to be conserved. Each owed his platform to
massive consumer followings that presaged the rise of digital
media. Eventually, those and all the other followings that formed the
public superseded institutions in politics.
Until
that happened, elitism, which Bell defined as essentially the opposite
of populism — "optimism about the decision-making ability of one or more
elites, acting on behalf of other people" — had not yet outlived its
usefulness. Cold War presidents were on average several years older and
better credentialed than their predecessors. Public trust in the media
was strong. White-collar bosses often lacked college degrees like
their employees. The economic power of any one set of elites was
limited in pre-internet times by regional geography. Elites and
ordinary people related relatively well with one another.
Limbaugh
came of age politically under the three-legged stool conservatism that
Reagan had cultivated out of post–World War II America. It was a
challenge to the liberal-moderate consensus on economics, social issues,
and foreign policy of the earlier Cold War years that was itself the
reaction of both parties to the four presidential elections won by
FDR. Postwar conservatism called for an ideological change of American
positions on various issues, not class-based change.
Conservatism
won the Cold War but struggled to find traction in peacetime. The
1990s conservatism that Limbaugh is closely associated with is now most
remembered as an effective check on Bill Clinton. George W. Bush was
re-elected during wartime in 2004 as a legacy conservative, but Reagan
revivalism was finished off by the 2008 financial crisis. So was the
political momentum of elitism.
Bell lamented two decades after the publication of Populism and Elitism
that the book had mainstreamed the concept of elitism in American
politics but not populism. He only had to wait a few more years for
vindication in 2016.
What
changed? Was it when management jobs finally ran out for the
uneducated? Was it when the technology revolution consolidated
corporate power after manufacturing jobs has been offshored? Or was it
when broadband internet allowed voters to instantly scrutinize
politicians, and smartphones enabled them to become informed by one
another rather than just by media elites? Former CIA analyst Martin
Gurri in his book's title calls this technologically-driven
redistribution of elite and populist power The Revolt of the Public.
Suddenly,
a Republican frontrunner was winning primaries in rich and poor ZIP
codes alike by trampling on the reputation of every party leader who had
come in Reagan's path. A party that had a tradition of giving its
presidential nomination to the previous runner-up and been respected for
its conservative institutional pedigree was now up for grabs.
What would Limbaugh do?
Contrary
to popular framing, Limbaugh and Trump were not friends before
2016. Limbaugh's decision to back Trump's hostile takeover was the
result of methodical analysis. His radio program in the Trump years
became a search for the political movement that respected conservatism
while acknowledging that it was essentially over as we knew it. As
Limbaugh said on that show after Trump's 2020 convention speech:
You
know the old concept of conservatism might have gone into the chasm,
too, 'cause it's time to maybe rethink how conservatism's existence is
going to evolve and how conservatives mature into whatever this new
party is.
Limbaugh
had forever demanded, especially after Republicans lost presidential
elections, that the party accommodate conservatives, not the other way
around. Yet there he was, saying conservatives had to "mature" into
their party. But it wasn't the party establishment he was referring to
this time; it was a "new party" of the same name but changing voters —
blue-collar but also multiracial, nationalist, and consumerist.
Unlike
the white professional class that underpinned the post-Reagan
Republican coalitions, these voters weren't deluged by left-wing
programming in offices or college classrooms. Their detachment from the
four institutions most captured by the left — corporate America,
academia, mainstream media, and mainline Protestantism — made them
valuable holdouts to the critical theory version of liberalism sweeping
the culture in 2020. They were more likely to be anchored on the right
wing of populist appeals than the left wing.
If this was true, it had the makings of a durable Republican realignment that could outlast even its standard-bearer president.
Limbaugh
claimed that he knew the left better than anybody. It seems likely he
concluded that liberalism with its ambition to politicize everything
could not be contained by conservatism. It was not a fair
fight. Conservative critics have said Limbaugh became darker in the
Obama and Trump years. In the moments when that was actually true, it
was a recognition of this reality that they didn't have.
Limbaugh
also knew there are many more conservative voters than liberal voters,
even though conservatives sometimes voted for liberal candidates because
they voted situationally rather than ideologically. Right-wing
populism held the potential to turn latent conservatism into reliable
Republican voting.
The
only way Limbaugh complained about his terminal illness during the last
year was that it threatened doing what he loved every day —
demystifying politics for his audience. That role must fall to others
now. But Limbaugh left behind enough clarity to see beyond the horizon
— to see how far a realignment from conservatism to right-wing populism
could take this new Republican Party.
