Topic: Politics & Elections
In response to the Democratic Party’s recent barrage of smears—Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., etc.—some conservative pundits have opined that the GOP should forego tit-for-tat retaliation. That would coarsen the country’s political culture, you know! Well, that’s high-minded of them. Also dead wrong.
Republicans and conservatives generally should give as good as they get when faced with such slanders—and they have the ammunition to make their counterblast highly effective. For the stinging charges that can be leveled against Democrats have the added virtue of truth.
For example, to the charge of Republican racism, the Party of Lincoln might well respond with a rhetorical question: What have the Obama Administration and the Democrats done lately for black Americans? Item: Over the Easter weekend, eight people were shot dead and 44 were wounded in Chicago. Though of course the media shrank from indentifying victims by race, the police statement that most of the shootings were gang related tells you all you need to know in that regard. And item: the black unemployment rate is around 12%, twice the national average. But America’s first black president—a Democrat—has done precisely nothing to deal with the moral and economic crisis of black America.
Then there’s the populist card. The recent standoff between a Nevada rancher and the federal Bureau of Land Management shows how deeply estranged from the government ordinary Americans have become. That’s hardly surprising. More and more, the Washington DC establishment has come to see itself as the agent of special interests and grievance groups. At a time when chronic, long-term unemployment is trampling the dreams of more and more American families, official Washington spends its time on such petty issues as same-sex marriage and immigration “reform.” And while it’s true that Republicans share the responsibility for this state of affairs, it’s mainly the left-liberal establishment that caters to the whims of the special interests. Obama’s recent decision to delay the Keystone pipeline yet again is proof of this. For fear of offending the influential environmental lobby, the President raised a middle finger to hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans whom the pipeline could put back to work. The truth is that Democrats and the progressive establishment give short shrift to the problems and priorities of ordinary Americans. Here’s your food stamps—now shut up. That may as well be the motto of the Obama Administration. Time for Republicans to start pointing that out.
Of course such tactics would be met with cries of outrage and redoubled slanders from Dems and their media enablers. But what have the Republicans got to lose? Whatever they say, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the usual clutch of progressive horribles will squeal racist, sexist, homophobe! In the political arena it’s not the earth the meek inherit—it’s the dirt.
