Commentary: House Republicans’ First Mistake – Playing On The Democrats’ Field

by George Rasley

 

The House Republicans first day in the minority got off to an inauspicious start via Rep. Liz Cheney’s introduction and nomination of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House.

Cheney began the speech by pandering to liberal feminists by citing what an honor it was to speak in the House Chamber where the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote was passed. Setting aside the fact that the 19th Amendment passed 99 years ago, what that had to do with Kevin McCarthy, a fairly obvious male, the House Republicans’ agenda or anything else was obscure to most listeners.

It’s not that Rep. Cheney didn’t proceed to list a bunch of things House Republicans are (more or less) for or against – it is that she failed to articulate those things into a coherent worldview that could be weighed against the Democrats’ worldview.

This was a great disappointment because when Rep. Cheney ran for House Conference Chairman, we had high expectations for her based on the agenda she set forth before and after the vote.

Just this past Sunday Cheney vowed on Sunday to “fight hard” against socialist policies Democrats may pursue as the majority party in the House next term.

Specifically, Cheney pointed to members of the incoming class of Far Left Democrats who may force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take up such an agenda.

Yes, Every Kid

Appearing on Fox News with Chris Wallace, Cheney said “We have a lot of Democrats now coming in who are socialists. I’m not exaggerating, they are socialists,” Cheney said during a panel on Fox News Sunday. “And I think that it’s very important that we actually do have very aggressive and clear policy debates. We’ve got to make sure that we understand the grave national security threat that’s out there, as well as the threat that we’re facing from the perspective of our debt.

“And the socialist set of agendas, set of issues, which I think leader Pelosi is probably going to be compelled to have to push forward, are ones that would be disastrous for the nation. So I think we’ve got to fight and fight hard on those issues.”

“I think it’s very important that we actually do have very aggressive and clear policy debates. We got to make sure that we understand the grave national security threat that’s out there, as well as the threat that we’re facing from the perspective of our debt,” the Wyoming congresswoman continued according to reporting by The Daily Caller’s Molly Prince.

“I think we’ve gotta fight, and fight hard on those issues,” Cheney said.

But yesterday that willingness to fight hard was pretty much missing from Cheney’s remarks, and there was no coherent branding of the Democrats’ agenda of:

1. Impeaching President Trump

2. Impeaching Justice Kavanaugh

3. Opening wide our borders with Mexico, giving citizenship, voting rights, and welfare to tens of millions of illegals

4. Raising taxes and increasing regulation of individuals and businesses, which will throw America back into a recession or a depression

5. Abolishing private health insurance and put all Americans into government controlled and operated Medicare, which will quickly lead to its bankruptcy and rationing for seniors

6. Abolishing our 2nd amendment rights

7. Abolishing our 1st amendment right of religious liberty, given that many Democrats have become anti-God, anti-Christian, and especially anti-Catholic.

As CHQ Chairman Richard A. Viguerie observed just before the 2018 election, Democrats have become a radical, dangerous, mean-spirited, and violence-prone political party.

When they are told what Democrats are really for, Americans don’t want the Democrats’ agenda of higher taxes, bigger government, more bureaucracy, less national defense, put everyone in Medicare which will bankrupt Medicare and lead to rationing of healthcare for seniors and opening our borders, legalizing all illegal aliens, including giving them citizenship, welfare and voting rights.

The reason President Trump has held his base and remains as popular as he is, is because he fights. If the House Republicans can’t articulate an alternative, conservative worldview to the Democrats’ increasingly socialist policies they are destined to fail and remain in the minority for a long time. This is not just dangerous for the future of the Republican Party, it would be a disaster for the country.

When she was elected House Republican Conference Chairman, Rep. Cheney said, “We need to own the daily news cycles… We need to lead and win the messaging wars. Too often we have found ourselves playing catch up without access to useful information, and we have not been on offense. Constantly playing defense in the battle of communications is a recipe for failure. We need to work as a team to use all our messaging tools to drive our agenda.”

Our recommendation is that Rep. Cheney fire whoever wrote the McCarthy nomination speech for her and go back to what she said when she was running for House Republican Conference Chairman because there was certainly nothing in what she said yesterday that would drive any news cycle.

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George Rasley is an editor at Conservative HQ.
Photo “Liz Cheney” by Fox News. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Reprinted with permission from ConservativeHQ.com

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