Conservatives have an opportunity, although I fear it will be short-lived, to win over some center-left liberals who are waking up to the fact that many of the people they have been allied with are in fact enemies of their values.
I have no illusions that the people at the top of the Democrat Party don’t know that they are allied with terrorist-lovers. They know, just as the leaders of the French Revolution understood who the sans-culottes were. They believe they can ride the wave of passion and control the mob, and they are very very wrong.
That’s why conservatives should focus their energies on recruiting the moderates to our cause, as happened during the 1970s when many on the anti-communist left woke up to the fact that their party had allied itself with the radical Left-supporters of the communists.
The focus here shouldn’t be on Leftists.
It should be on the ‘reasonable libs’ who have abetted and incubated this ideology in the institutions they lead.
For the last decade, the libs have ceded moral authority to deranged and malevolent sociopaths.
… https://t.co/ICv1UZCmAX— Coddled affluent professional (@feelsdesperate) October 17, 2023
A fraction of Democrats have been getting restless about the Leftward lurch of the Democrats, the media, and academia. What they see in their allies is not something they recognize in themselves. They believed their movement was about justice, compassion, and lifting people up, not shooting them down.
We can argue they have no excuse to believe that–anybody who listened to the rhetoric and lived through the past few years should have grasped that today’s liberals have nothing in common with the image the Democrats project.
But we underestimate the importance of trust in how people see the world. Liberals trust the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the MSM, so they have bought into the “Republicans are radicals” and “Democrats just want a just world” rhetoric. It takes a major slap in the face for people who grew up in a world that made sense to them to suddenly realize that they have been lied to by people they trust.
This is how con artists get the mark to do stupid things. We can laugh at the marks, but that only makes things worse.
I freely admit that my style of writing is not designed to appeal to the center-left. It isn’t aimed at them. But those of us with enough liberal friends who might be appalled need to reach out to them and invite them into our coalition. Chances are that the major area of disagreement will turn out to be abortion–in the few conversations I have had with center-left friends, abortion was the major sticking point. It will take a lot of time to overcome that one, but I think Youngkin and DeSantis have threaded the needle on that one.
That is an issue on which we will have to take time, chipping away one week at a time. Push too hard and history shows we can lose that battle even in pro-life states. Get what we can and keep plugging away.
Liberals–good liberals–are waking up to the fact that the Leftists have meant what they have been saying all along, and not using hyperbole. They really do hate Western civilization, and for many liberals that is a bridge too far. Look at Bill Maher, who is waking up. Lots of liberal Jews are seeing the same thing he is.
Now is the time to strike back at DEI, CRT, and alphabet ideology. “Queers for Palestine” provides a wake-up call to liberals who think it is only about peace, love, and acceptance. They see the hate. Now is the time to invite them in.
Will that cause problems? Sure. But look at what happened in the 1980s. A lot of Democrats came to our side, and in the process, they came to see that our side is better on a lot of issues. Even ones the liberals thought they were right on.
Once the red-pilling happens, momentum can build. At least that is my hope.
Does that mean the Republicans will endure having more RINOs? Sure, in the short run. But a winning coalition that includes some RINOs is, contra many purists, better than a losing coalition that screams ineffectively but in unison. If the Republicans had 30 more seats in the House we would be better off, even if 20 of those extra seats were filled by moderates.
There is a large group of disgruntled liberals right now–look at the polls. Let’s get as many as possible to come to our side.
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