by Judson Phillips
2020 and the gentle art of herding cats
If there was ever an appropriate metaphor for getting conservatives to work together, it is herding cats. For 2020, conservatives are going to have to herd their cats or do whatever it takes to win.
2020 is the Flight 93 election part two.
For this election, for conservatives, there are three goals. They are not negotiable and in the immortal words of the movie Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option.” First, conservatives must make certain that President Trump is reelected. Second, the Senate must be held and third, the House of Representatives must be retaken.
None of those goals are really optional and if conservatives fail in either of the first two, it will be a disaster.
For three years, Democrats have tried to undo the results of the 2016 election. What would they do if they took the White House, now that the Party is controlled by the Bolshevik Bernie wing? Losing the Senate would put a complete stop to one of President Trump’s greatest successes. That is the remaking of the Federal Judiciary.
To keep the Senate, conservatives are going to have to do something they don’t like to do.
Compromise.
That means supporting and helping candidates conservative may not agree with because their election or reelection, will help keep control of the Senate and gain control in the House.
In 2014, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was running for reelection and was challenged by then, rookie candidate Matt Bevin. Bevin attacked Senator McConnell as being insufficiently conservative. Tea Party Nation was the only national Tea Party group to endorse Senator McConnell for reelection. And Tea Party Nation was widely criticized for that decision by much of the conservative establishment that lined up behind Bevin.
Senator McConnell won and became the Majority Leader. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016. Then President Barack Obama wanted to replace the conservative justice with liberal Merrick Garland. Senator McConnell stopped that nomination and also stopped confirmation of Obama judicial nominees in 2016, creating a huge backlog of judicial openings that President Trump has now filled. Thanks to Senator McConnell, President Trump has put two Justices on the Supreme Court and in just under three years, has put almost as many judges on the federal bench than Barack Obama did in eight years.
None of this would be possible without the actions of people conservatives don’t care for. Ask conservatives, and Senators Cory Gardner and Martha McSally are not high on their list of heroes. Yet holding these two Senate seats in crucial.
Does any conservative believe that gun grabbing Mark Kelly would be better than Senator McSally? Does anyone believe that former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper would be better than Cory Gardner? Does anyone believe Kelly or Hickenlooper would vote to confirm Trump judges?
No, they would vote to stop the Trump agenda.
Conservatives may not be thrilled with someone like a Kevin McCarthy as the Speaker of the House. He might end up being just like John Boehner, but regardless, he would be an infinite improvement over Nancy Pelosi.
If the Democrats were to hold the House and take either the Senate or the White House, we would go warp speed into the full, hard left agenda. We are seeing what they are doing in New York, Virginia and California. What would they do if they actually held real power at the national level?
When Michael Anton wrote his essay, “The Flight 93 election,” he did not realize, he was addressing the new reality. It isn’t just 2016 that was the Flight 93 election. It is now all of them. It is 2020. It will be 2024. Either we charge the cockpit, take control and keep control, or we watch the insane left kill this nation. We fight or we watch them turn this nation into Venezuela.
For conservatives, it means we work with people we don’t want to. We help candidates we aren’t thrilled about. We help them because they help President Trump. Fighting means we can no longer afford the luxury of a purity test. Fighting means we need allies and we need a majority in the House and the Senate.
Until the Democrat Party is not controlled by the far left, Marxist radical fringe, every election is a Flight 93 election.
And to win the fight, we all have to work together.
Tell that to Sharon Angle, who won the GOP Primary in Nevada running up against “Sen. “Dirty Harry” Reid. Once she won the primary, the local GOP supported Reid.
Tell that the Ken Cuccinelli – a well-regarded immigration hardliner and former AG for Virginia. In his gubernatorial race against long-time Clinton acolyte Terry McAuliffe, the local GOP left him swinging in the breeze.
Tell that to Matt Bevin of Kentucky, or to Ron Paul, or to many, many others.
Nope, nope, nopity nope – look at the individual candidates and tell these party hacks to go straight to hell, which is where they belong.