August 5, 2023

The conservative mindset apparently is just not genetically oriented to playing political hardball. Time and again, progressives take the initiative and mount political and PR offensives against conservatives, rocking them back on their heels, defining the narrative in terms favorable to progressives and pre-emptively shaping public opinion in the minds of the persuadable voter. The notion of “facts” or “accuracy” doesn’t matter in the progressive playbook. The only thing that matters is going on offense.

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Conservatives are forever playing an inadequate game of catchup. That is, when conservatives even bother to fight back at all. Too often, they simply absorb the blows unanswered, pleased with themselves for simply surviving the round until the bell.

As an experienced political observer, I’ve witnessed this for years on the national level. But just recently, I saw this first-hand in my home state of Massachusetts, a blue-dominated state where Republicans are outnumbered 135-25 in the State House of Representatives and 37-3 in the State Senate.

There are currently two “Women’s Health” bills pending before MA lawmakers. One of them would remove any age restrictions whatsoever concerning access to abortion and simultaneously eliminate any parental notification requirements. The other bill would severely infringe on the First Amendment free speech rights of pregnancy/resource centers to advertise their services to women and offer medical services and pregnancy counseling for expectant moms. In a state where “choice” is already carried to the extreme, these new bills would push matters well past any remote semblance of rational thought.

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A well-respected family advocacy group, the MA Family Institute, organized several in-person meetings at the offices of Republican lawmakers around the state in an effort to rev up their support to oppose these bills. I attended one of these meetings at our local representative’s office. (We happen to live in a somewhat conservative enclave and our representative is one of those 25 Republicans.) Our rep is a nice enough individual, but he is clearly a “soft” Republican, with no stomach for real fighting. In 2016, he was a John Kasich supporter, which pretty much sums up his approach to politics. His favorite saying is that as a member of such a small minority, the best that MA Republicans can do is “Make a bad bill a little less bad.”

The in-person attendance at his office was quite impressive, so large that we had to move the meeting outside to the parking lot. He meandered through a very milquetoast presentation and voiced his tepid, conditional opposition to the bills. When his remarks concluded, I raised my hand and said, “We’re your constituents. You represent us. What you ought to do is call press conferences, write guest columns in the newspapers, send out blogs, anything you can do to raise the visibility of these bills to the average person on the street before these bills make it to the State House floor. These bills are so extreme that even the typical progressive voter in Massachusetts would oppose them if they knew about them. But it’s up to you to get out in front of these and help drive public opinion.”

What he said next was stunning, and typical of the “no stomach for combat” attitude displayed by far too many conservatives. He said, “No, the last thing I want to do is to show the Democrats that we’re looking at this, that we’re really aware of this. We don’t want to put this on their radar. If we just kind of ignore it and play for time, we can probably get these to die in committee.”

“Don’t want to put this on their radar”? It’s already on their radar — they wrote the bills! What an anemic, cowardly response. I pushed back and said — with the utmost courtesy and respect in my voice — that he owed us effective, aggressive representation and that there’s a way to take a difficult stand as a minority-party member without ticking off your opponents or the liberal Massachusetts media. “After all, you’re a skilled communicator and a veteran State House member, right? You know how to do this, don’t you?” He stared daggers at me while the rest of the assemblage nodded and murmured their approval. But it was painfully obvious that our representative didn’t have the slightest intention of actually fighting back.

This happens all the time on the national level as well. Progressives impeached President Trump — twice! — over totally bogus, nonexistent charges, yet even after the sworn, indisputable, factual testimony of whistleblower after whistleblower against the Biden crime consortium, Speaker Kevin McCarthy remains reluctant to take action. An “impeachment inquiry” is the most he’ll say and there is no start date for even that ill-defined action. Very soon after the inquiry idea was proffered, several very high-profile Republican senators, like Rand Paul, conspicuously announced that they would not support any impeachment inquiry against President Biden, citing some nervous excuse about not wanting to subject the country to partisan disruption.

Progressives never seem to have even a nanosecond’s reluctance about what their actions will do to the country’s spirit of unity and sense of calm. They don’t care one whit about societal harmony. Indeed, sowing racial/demographic division is part and parcel to the progressives’ overall goal of cementing ever-greater political power and control for themselves.