by Jeffrey A. Rendall
There’s mystery in what lies beneath.
Or at least it’s true in conservative Republican circles, since the average citizen doesn’t go around shrieking, clutching offensive and abusive signs, disrupting formal government functions or carrying on like a spoiled five-year-old kindergartner who won’t lay down at nap time. Conservatives generally don’t confront senators in elevators or claw at Supreme Court chamber doors when a new justice is being sworn in either.
For better or worse conservatives and Republicans’ behavior is dignified – almost to a fault. Preferring peaceful protest and speaking through the ballot box to violence in the streets, America’s silent majority simply permits events to swirl around with simmering anger contained and impulses suppressed. Even 2010’s mass tea party rallies were relatively tame compared with the left’s unglued and hateful mob mentality; there were no swear words from the conservative speakers, no threats to burn down government buildings, no anarchists with sledgehammers and bricks running about Helter Skelter shattering store windows — and the liberty-loving participants even cleaned up after themselves when they left. Boring, right?
Perhaps not anymore. After the contentious confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh conservatives are surging with excitement and seeking ordered retribution. What lies just below the surface will reveal itself at some point. Maybe it’ll just inspire more folks to speak up for themselves and their friends – or even better, to act on their newfound motivations.
The “high tech lynching” of Justice Clarence Thomas awoke one such individual who made a huge impact on the fighting spirit of the “new” conservative movement. Now there could even be more examples to follow. Conservative radio host Larry O’Connor wrote at The Washington Times, “Anyone who knew the late Andrew Breitbart knew that there was one seminal moment in his youth that altered the course of his life and, by extension, the course of American history: the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings of 1991…
“Ben Shapiro, Dana Loesch, John Nolte, Stephen Crowder, Kurt Schlichter, Derek Hunter, Andrew Klavan and yours truly were all directly influenced, encouraged and discovered by Breitbart. Thousands more were inspired to ‘walk toward the fire’ and engage in the fight through blogs, social media, new media, podcasts and YouTube. His legacy continues to inspire new warriors who read the website that bears his name even six years after his death.
“None of it would have happened without the Democrats’ gambit against Judge Thomas in 1991. How many of tomorrow’s Breitbarts are watching today? How many will be inspired by what they see? How many will be radicalized by it? Does the Democrat media complex never learn? Do they have any idea what they have unleashed? ‘War.’”
It certainly feels that way. Democrats and leftists completely misread the temperament of the American public if they believed they were making inroads with voters during the recent spectacle over Kavanaugh. Naturally Democrat powers-that-be assumed everyone empathizes with a victim who comes across as sincere and damaged. Human nature leads to compassion.
But not everything’s as it seems. It turns out Christine Blasey Ford’s story had more holes than a shotgun pattern at 40 yards. Going into Ford’s testimony Americans knew she didn’t remember much about the alleged confrontation between her 15-year-old self and some boy who her foggy memory indicated was 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh, but they also didn’t realize just how readily Ford would fib and bend the truth over her non-fear of flying, her past familiarity with polygraph machine exams and how she’d been manipulated by senate Democrats and her leftist lawyers to blurt out whatever they wanted her to say.
These people only wanted to display Ford as the next trophy of the #MeToo movement before she’d even publicly uttered a syllable.
Wrapped up in this faux debacle was an incredulous Brett Kavanaugh whose sole hope was to serve on the Supreme Court — the crowning achievement of a lifetime spent faithfully and fairly judging cases and helping others without expectation of recompense. In addition to his impressive resume Americans discovered Kavanaugh was much closer to a “regular guy” than the typical elitist swamp dwelling fame-craving narcissistic DC creature.
Heck, Kavanaugh likes beer and major league baseball and seems to be more at home in blue jeans and a t-shirt gripping a red solo cup full o’ brew than wearing a suit under a long black robe and wielding a judge’s gavel…or a pen… or whatever Supreme Court justices hold in their hands.
Calls to local radio shows sometimes indicate how closely citizens are following a particular news story but the Kavanaugh inquisition generated much more than its fair share of folks who demanded to have their say. Listening to O’Connor’s (WMAL) show the past month was instructive on how ticked off Republicans and conservatives were during the senate’s circus confirmation sideshow. Most striking was the number of women who spoke to O’Connor and his audience about how they couldn’t stomach the notion of the men in their lives being subjected to the kind of unfair due-process-deprived pseudo trial Kavanaugh endured.
You could almost detect the sound of the anger bubbling below the surface, emotion that fortunately won’t reveal itself by gunning down unarmed Democrats on a baseball diamond (like “Bernie Bro” James Hodgkinson did) or crying out rhythmically and hysterically in the lobbies of Democrat senators’ offices. But such sentiment will lead to conservatives and Republicans opening their checkbooks, volunteering at campaign offices, walking precincts, putting up yard signs and doing whatever they must to ensure Democrats pay for what they’ve inflicted on Kavanaugh and America.
(Lucky for us the good folks at Breitbart.com compiled almost 600 instances of leftist violence against Trump supporters – and these are just the known cases. How many more attacks have regular folks suffered through just for mentioning they like Trump?)
Most political issues are too esoteric and complex to be easily digestible for the average person. Others just aren’t relevant. Tax rate cuts, for example, are great for the economy but they’re not likely to rouse people who haven’t paid income taxes in years to schlep to the voting booth. But voters understand things like illegal immigration, homeland security, law enforcement and how unfair trade practices devastate their communities.
They also appreciate and recognize when someone’s being railroaded by the powerful – as Brett Kavanaugh was sitting before his Democrat “job” interviewers.
Even the visual dynamics of the tribunal suggested favoritism. Kavanaugh sat at the witness table alone with his wife and friends as a backdrop deflecting pointed and biased questions from half the senators (after they’d finished pontificating about “victims” and other Democrat talking points). In contrast, during her time Blasey Ford was flanked on either side by sneering and scowling lawyers who presented the appearance of shielding her from answering any difficult questions.
Again, it all contributes to the feelings of angst bubbling just below the surface. Is O’Connor right, is the next Andrew Breitbart now energized and activated for action? Time will tell.
For now we’ve got an election to plan for upcoming in just a matter of weeks. Some Democrats see the undercurrent of conservative fury over Kavanaugh and are attempting to shift the narrative away from the unfortunate way Democrat senators handled themselves of late.
This week liberal Juan Williams tried the old “the GOP can’t govern” line of argument, suggesting the GOP House caucus is too fractured to be successful irrespective of the impending election results. Williams wrote at The Hill, “Conservative voters were given a lot of red meat on the campaign trail and in their media diet but only now can see they bought the sizzle and never got the steak.
“A McCarthy-led House GOP would have one job and one job only: to defend Trump from Democratic attacks, investigations, and impeachment proceedings. They have already shown they are willing to do that…
“Since Article One of the Constitution requires impeachment proceedings begin in the House of Representatives, the most consequential political battle of 2019 will not be between Donald Trump and Bob Mueller. It may well be between two Californians — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) and McCarthy — as they try to control their members in the 116th Congress.”
Far be it from me but I agreed with some of what Williams wrote. The longtime Fox News liberal commentator stated plainly that the Republican House didn’t deliver on its promises of holding down federal spending, cutting the deficit and eliminating taxpayer dollars for Planned Parenthood. Bravo, Juan – you are correct – it doesn’t happen often!
Make no mistake, conservatives haven’t forgotten about the House GOP leadership’s failings though Williams doesn’t quite grasp exactly what’s gotten the party grassroots so up in arms about it. And it’s doubtful Rep. Kevin McCarthy will be the post-Ryan Republican leader anyway, even if the Californian has President Trump’s okay and a preponderance of GOP members ready to elevate the next-in-line to the top spot.
Simply put: the next GOP House leader must have the assent and enthusiastic backing of the House Freedom Caucus. The most logical choice for Republicans would be to promote Congressman Jim Jordan to the post since the Ohioan has impeccable conservative credentials, shares the party’s newfound combative brashness and Trump likes him too.
Jordan’s anti-establishment campaign faces obstacles in Congress, however. Unlike with typical elections the grassroots won’t be choosing the new House leader (like they do with the president). That job falls to the individual House members to decide. McCarthy would appear to have the upper hand, but again, no one wins without the approval of the large bloc of conservatives giving the go ahead. It’s the same on the Democrat side with the Congressional Black Caucus.
It’d also be a tremendous boost to Republicans’ chances of retaining the majority if they’d just get it over with and announce Jordan as the Speaker-in-waiting; if the Kavanaugh matter got people going, just think of how the prospect of voting for a true conservative for congressional leader would send enthusiasm exploding through the ceiling.
Forget bubbling to the surface – it’d lift off like a rocket launched towards outer space.
For now, President Trump is doing all he can to ignite the grassroots’ afterburners. W. James Antle III wrote at The Washington Examiner, “[A] full-throated embrace of Kavanaugh and rejection of the women who made accusations against him — Trump called those who disseminated the allegations ‘evil’ in remarks earlier Monday and previously told reporters in a press conference that the accusations he had faced made him skeptical of claims against Kavanaugh — risks turning off the suburban women who may determine which party controls the House.
“Nevertheless, Kavanaugh seems to be paying immediate dividends in the red-state Senate races that give Republicans their best chance of defending and even expanding their majority in the upper chamber…
“Other polls showed Republicans pulling away in red-state Senate races. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., both broke 50 percent in the CBS/YouGov polls. Blackburn is running to replace Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who voted against Kavanaugh, is down by nearly 9 points in the RealClearPolitics average. The Cook Political Report has shifted the Montana Senate race in the GOP’s favor.”
This would be huge. To rid the senate of those red state Democrats who always campaign as “moderates” then morph into Chuck Schumer’s frontline liberal fighting drones (whose only purpose is to satisfy the big government establishment and serve as cannon fodder to protect the jobs of the higher-ups). These phony “moderate” Democrats are the first losers into battle and the first to fall – because they don’t believe in anything other than what the leadership tells them to think.
They’re useless. Needless to say, these sorry Democrats don’t represent the folks back home. Getting rid of them would tip the upper chamber further in the direction of fulfilling its constitutional purpose – checking the popular big spending ways of the House and representing the interests of the individual states.
And of course to provide sound “advice and consent” for executive nominations. Now that Democrats have instituted the mass witch hunts it’s unlikely they’ll ever stop but should the GOP gain a larger majority in the next Congress, it might help to quell some of the leftists’ more ridiculous excesses.
In addition, if the wishy-washy “moderate” Republican faction is marginalized by adding two or three principled conservatives, the Democrats’ chances of stopping any nomination decreases markedly. That way, the next time Lisa Murkowski goes off the reservation or a future Jeff Flake stonewalls for more media face time, conservatives will enjoy the comfort of knowing better days lie ahead rather than living on pins and needles wondering whether the Democrats’ tactics will finally draw blood.
It’s only a matter of time before we find out if there’s another Andrew Breitbart out there or how many Democrats will be defeated in a few weeks due to the party’s outlandish treatment of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. What comes around goes around, a principle Democrats have yet to absorb.
