'Time to Accept Failure': Why Republicans Are Losing the Battle for America

 BY ROBERT SPENCER

Recently I had an experience that brought home to me why the Left is so decisively winning the culture war. It involved local politics, but the same kind of thing is happening all over the country.

A few weeks ago I spoke up in New Hampshire at the invitation of the Sullivan County Republican Party, and the whole incident showed in microcosm how the far left has gained control of the media, the educational system, and the culture in general, without any significant pushback from those who are supposedly committed to the freedom of speech and a free society.

My appearance led to what has now become the usual firestorm that ensues whenever someone who challenges the prevailing leftist narrative speaks anywhere. I was smeared by "journalists" Kevin Landrigan of the New Hampshire Union Leader and John Gregg of the Valley News, neither of whom bothered to ask me for comment while printing as unquestioned fact defamatory and false charges about me. Raymond Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs, and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, called me a "white supremacist," apparently having confused me with Richard Spencer, and refused to retract when repeatedly asked to do so. Democrat State Senator Martha Hennessey, after the manner of Nazi Brownshirts in the early 1930s, led a smear campaign on Twitter.

Two venues, the Eastman Community Center in Grantham and the Elks Club in Claremont, caved in to this and canceled the event; the Elks, at least, were directly pressured to cancel by Hennessey.

The event went on in a third venue. Here is the video. You can see for yourself if it's full of "hate."



Buckley is a liar and Hennessey is a fascist, so neither should be in positions of public service, but they're typical in the Democrat Party these days. What was far worse was the cowardly response on the Republican side. Instead of investigating the false charges being made about me, discovering I wasn't really any of the things that were being said, and standing up for the freedom of speech, all too many Republicans were ready to kowtow and do everything the Democrats wanted.

Sullivan County Republican Committee Chairman Keith Hanson, who invited me in the first place, stood firm and kept finding new venues when one would cancel, but some prominent local Republicans just stood. Hanson picked me up at the airport and drove me to the venue, and on the way told me about how the Democrats had gerrymandered themselves into total control of Vermont and were trying to do the same thing in New Hampshire; in response, Republicans are doing nothing. They don't seem to realize or care what is happening, and have ceded all the initiative and control of the narrative to the Democrats.

In the face of the left’s smear campaign against me, some of the Republicans showed this again, demonstrating that they were totally cowed and ready to surrender, happy to allow the left to dictate what they can do or can’t do. They don’t even seem to realize what is wrong with this.

James “Jim” Beard is the former Sullivan County Republican Committee Chairman and failed candidate for New Hampshire Executive Council. The night before the event, he wrote this in an email to Hanson:

"Time to accept failure....Keith, it is time to send a email blast to everyone who responded, everyone who bought tickets with 100% refunds and accept your mis-management for bringing this event to Sullivan County. Tomorrow evening, you will be alone with 10-20 people inside the VFW Hall in Claremont with a group of maybe 50 protestors outside. This is not how SCGOP candidates wish to be portrayed, nor how they will win elections.

This entire charade is an embarrassment for the SCGOP and I suggest you step aside. Let us return to good ole' [sic] fashioned hot dog roasts on the Newport Common where people came together from all works of life in the community, socialize and build common understanding. That is how we Republicans solicit votes...interaction with the public.

You can write your own resignation..."

Yes, that's right, "let us return to good ole' fashioned hot dog roasts." Facedown the protestors? Stand on principle? Not good ol' James "Jim" Beard. The Democrats are at open war against the freedom of speech. They're stigmatizing and silencing all opposition to jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women and others. They are forcing a radical socialist agenda on the country. And this clown thinks he is going to beat them with hot dog roasts. Or rather, he is happy to lose, as long as he gets his with mustard.

Then there is Representative Steven Smith, senior Republican advisor in the NH House and chairman of the Sullivan County delegation, Sullivan County District 11. Nadir Ahmed, an Islamic apologist whom I bested in debate years ago, wrote to Smith, apparently offering to speak in Sullivan County and spread some soothing lies where I had told uncomfortable truths. Smith's response to him, which Ahmed then gleefully sent to me, couldn't have been friendlier (in sharp contrast to his rude and arrogant tone with me when I wrote him after this), and shows where Smith stands.

"I saw your messages to the SCGOP Facebook page and did not want you to think you were being ignored. Thanks for your offer. I am currently trying to sweep up Mr. Hanson's mess. He may not be with the organization much longer and he is not responding to messages. Your offer is interesting, but the timing is terrible. Let me think about it once this all dies down. I watched the video. The think [sic] is, I am losing faith that minds can be changed these days."

Did Smith attend my event? He did not. Does he have the first foggiest idea of what I actually say? Almost certainly not. But he knows the Democrats and the establishment media don't like it, so he is ready to carry water for them and help further their agenda. Rep. Smith, I'd be glad to come back to New Hampshire at my own expense and debate your friend, or anyone else you choose. But somehow I doubt you have either the courage or the goodwill to sponsor such an event.

Why do jellyfish on the order of Beard and Smith rule in the Republican Party? The Democrats are fighting a war, and the Republicans are playing jacks. Where are the men with spines? Where are people standing up to this totalitarian agenda of the left, and affirming that opposition to jihad terror is not morally wrong or evil, and that such opposition should be allowed a platform? Not, for the most part, in the Republican Party, not just in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, but all over the country. Instead, Republicans keep roasting their hot dogs, and hoping that their leftist masters won't demand too very much of them.

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Lynching Hypocrisy

"Lynching" is a provocative word, given America's history of an estimated 4,400 blacks murdered in lynchings over a roughly 70-year span. Being provocative is what animates Donald Trump, so it's no surprise that he chose the word to describe what Democrats are doing with impeachment. "So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights," Trump said. "All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!"

There are times when Trump takes to social media with reactionary, petty, vindictive, and ridiculous things. This is not one of those times.

We're going to go out on a limb and speculate that, before Trump's thumbs got to typing his tweet, he already knew what media outlets were soon forced to report: A slew of Democrats — led by Joe Biden — used the word "lynching" to describe Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998. We don't recall a flood of Leftmedia stories back then slamming Democrats for that deliberate word choice or giving historical lectures about the awful history of lynching. But here we are, swamped with such stories now. Of course, these sanctimonious lectures leave out the inconvenient truth that actual lynchings were perpetrated mostly by Democrats.

Biden provided the most humorous "gotcha" for Trump. "Impeachment is not 'lynching,' it is part of our Constitution," Biden huffed. "Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It's despicable."

But then CNN grudgingly went to the 1998 tape of Biden telling Wolf Blitzer, "Even if the president should be impeached, history will question whether or not this was a partisan lynching."

Confronted with his own words, Biden was forced to apologize, saying, "This wasn't the right word to use and I'm sorry about that." But, he insisted, Trump is the real sinner because he "chose his words deliberately" (as if Biden hadn't) and "continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily."

Poppycock. Trump isn't "stoking racial divides"; Democrats are.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues, "No President should use the word in the off-hand and self-indulgent way that Mr. Trump did in his tweet." The Journal adds, "The more he forces Republicans to defend words or actions that don't deserve defending, the more their resentment will build and the more political trouble he will be in."

That may be true, but it's also Beltway-New York echo-chamber pablum. Trump was elected precisely because he wouldn't behave like other presidents and because voters were fed up with other Republicans refusing to stand up to Democrats. In any case, his "trolling" consistently provides one important service to the country: revealing the shameless hypocrisy of Democrats and the Leftmedia.

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Elizabeth Warren's Health Care Pickle
 
From the beginning, the 2020 Democratic race has been a different kind of contest. Candidates aren’t competing to see who can run America the most efficiently. That’s the old politics. Instead, they’re pledging to remake this country entirely: rip out the old America — irredeemably tainted by racism, sexism and free enterprise — and replace it with something completely new and different. At the heart of this effort is the promise of Medicare for All. You may have heard the phrase. The most popular Democratic candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have both endorsed it. But what exactly does “Medicare for All” mean?

You should know. It’s not a tweak to some regulation. It’s not even Obamacare, which, once upon a time, Republicans denounced as “socialism.” Medicare for All is actual socialism. Health care spending amounts to about a fifth of the entire U.S. economy. Warren is demanding total control of all of it immediately. If Medicare for All became law, it would amount to the biggest expansion of government since World War II, by far. So, it’s worth asking how exactly this would work and who would pay for it. Warren has been asked that question repeatedly. Each time, she has refused to answer.

No matter how hard she’s been pressed — and even some fairly strident Democratic partisans have asked her — Warren has refused to explain what it would cost or who would pay for it. We now have a credible estimate.

According to a study by the Urban Institute, in just its first 10 years, Warren’s Medicare for All plan would cost an additional $34 trillion. Keep in mind that the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that the United States will collect just $46 trillion in taxes over the same period. In other words, Warren’s health care plan alone will consume the overwhelming majority of all tax dollars in the United States. That’s before we spend a single dollar on Social Security, education, national defense and everything else.

The Urban Institute has no motive to attack Warren. It’s a progressive think tank. They likely didn’t even account for the cost of Warren’s pledge to give free health care to every illegal alien who sneaks into the country. Who’s going to pay for all this? Divide $3.4 trillion a year by 320 million Americans and you get more than $10,000 per person. Not per taxpayer. Per person. That includes every child, every retiree, every prison inmate. That would be the largest tax ever assessed in American history, by far. It would change everything. An awful lot of people would just leave the country.

How do you pay for Medicare for All? That’s not a minor detail that can be settled later. It’s the single most important question. Under pressure from the other Democrats in the field, Warren has now promised an answer: “I plan over the next few weeks to put out a plan that talks about, specifically, the cost of ‘Medicare for all’ and, specifically, how we pay for it,” she said last week at a town hall event.

At some point in the last few years, Warren stopped functioning as a conventional senator and became a kind of messiah. Details like what things cost, whether something is constitutional, whether the majority of Americans even want it — none of that seems to interest her anymore. Warren has seen the future, and in that future, she has complete and unquestioned control of America; she is the most powerful person in the world. You can almost hear her repeating the phrase to herself: “the most powerful person in the world.” It’s intoxicating. And scary.

Warren is to be commended for issuing highly detailed policy proposals in a number of areas. This ironically makes her refusal to provide details on Medicare for All that much more noteworthy. She details the little stuff but thought she could get away with proposing to fundamentally change our country without explaining who would pay the price. Her bluff has been called, and she’s now on the line to explain her way out of this jam.

She hasn’t provided a date for the new details she’s promising. Given the costs involved, we can’t imagine any funding proposal that wouldn’t destroy our economy. As far as the election goes, it’s also hard to imagine how any honest funding proposal of the scale needed to meet Warren’s ambitions would not destroy her political candidacy, at least in a general election. We’re waiting on the edge of our seats for this one.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here

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