Don't Feed the Alligators
Conservatives always lose when we play the left's disavowal game
Have you ever noticed that left never disavows their own extremists? During the summer of 2020, as BLM and Antifa burned, looted, and murdered their way across the country, did Democratic leaders denounce these people? Of course not. They made excuses. They justified. They rationalized. Kamala Harris promoted a bail fund to get rioters out of jail so they could resume their terror spree as quickly as possible.
The right, on the other hand, is very concerned with appearances. They worry about what the Washington Post, CNN, or even the Idaho Statesman will say about them, and so they are very careful about who they endorse or even associate with. Conservatives often spend more time policing their own side than fighting the other. If the media calls someone a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, an anti-Semite, a white supremacist, or a Nazi, many on the right will obediently repudiate the target.
In 2019, then-Congressman Steve King of Iowa spoke about how American media was demonizing Western Civilization by lumping it together with racism and white supremacy. The New York Times wrote a hit piece on Congressman King, twisting his words to accuse him of defending racism and white supremacy. The House of Representatives voted to condemn his remarks, and GOP leadership compliantly ostracized him, stripping him of his committee assignments and supporting a primary campaign against him.
Around the same time, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota (or is it Somalia?) made statements that many construed as anti-Semitic. There was outrage within conservative media, and the House convened to condemn her remarks as well. However, by the time the resolution made it to the floor, all references to Congresswoman Omar specifically were gone, replaced by a denunciation of… white supremacy. Uncanny, isn’t it?
This is the difference in how the two parties react toward their own extremists. Republicans are extremely worried about what the mainstream corporate media will say about them, and so every time a journalist calls them “racist” they grovel and supplicate themselves in penance. The left quickly learned that this was a magic word that could be used to make the right do what they wanted, and have used this tactic ever since.
Too many conservatives have subconsciously adopted the attitude of the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters. We tend to see the left as a legitimate part of the national conversation while anyone to our right must be read out of the movement. TP USA, for example, will eagerly debate outspoken Communists on stage, hoping to sway the audience with their facts and logic. However, they have done their best to expel the far right from the movement, not wanting to give immigration restrictionists, for example, the validity of debate. TP USA likes to mock the left by saying: “They call us racist, because they can’t debate our ideas!” Then they turn around and call outspoken conservatives such as Nicholas Fuentes and Patrick Buchanan “racist,” presumably because they cannot debate their ideas.
Michelle Malkin is a longtime conservative commentator who has been ousted from polite society for being too right. Despite once writing for respected conservative publications such as Townhall and Newsmax, Mrs. Malkin has been “canceled” because of her views and her associations. Just this week, AirBnB deleted her account without appeal after learning that she had spoken at the 2021 American Renaissance conference.
Far-left hate groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have labeled American Renaissance and its founder Jared Taylor as “white supremacists” and demand that they and anyone who associates with them be completely cut off from American society. Too often, conservatives comply with these demands for fear of being made guilty by association. If you switch the words white with black, however, nothing that Mr. Taylor has said is any more offensive than the mainstream discourse on the left by such commentators as Ibram X. Kendi, Van Jones, or Stacey Abrams. Even so, most conservatives treat Ms. Abrams as a legitimate part of the discussion, while Mr. Taylor is exiled to the fringe.
I will neither condemn nor endorse Mr. Taylor’s views in this piece - that is for readers to decide on their own. Yet it should worry every patriotic American that Michelle Malkin was blacklisted by an American corporation - not to mention numerous media outlets - simply for associating with this group. While conservatives who go along with this cancel culture might believe they are properly policing their movement, they must understand how this is part of the left’s grand strategy for taking over our culture.
You see, they get you to denounce and disavow people to your right. They call them racist, sexist, homophobic, and white supremacist, and insinuate that if you do not ostracize them then you will be likewise attacked. So you comply. Soon, the left comes after someone a little closer to you, repeating the same slurs, and making the same demands. Again you comply, for fear of being next. But you are inexorably next on the chopping block. It is as if you keep tossing the next person to your right into the swamp, hoping the alligators will not eventually eat you too.
I unequivocally praise the Ada County Republican Party for their bravery in inviting Michelle Malkin to speak at a fundraising event this evening. Giving in to the demands by corporate media to disavow anyone to your right is often the easier path. Standing up to the media and their left-wing masters takes courage.
Last night, the great Tucker Carlson defended Malkin from the attacks by the SPLC and ADL:
"The amoral liars at the SPLC get to decide where your family stays ... whether you have housing or not. That's the Chinese standard. Are you comfortable with that?"
Michelle Malkin has been a tireless defender of Americans, of Christians, and of the unborn. She has done tremendous work over the last ten years in exposing the way NGOs and charitable organizations have sold out American sovereignty and raked in tons of taxpayer dollars by flooding our country with refugees and illegal immigrants. This, more than anything else, is the reason she has been blacklisted by so many conservative outlets. In 2019, she gave a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in which she called out by name the Republican leaders who were allowing and benefiting from the immigration racket. Matt Schlapp, the big money GOP lobbyist who runs CPAC, made sure she was never invited again.
The conservative movement needs people like Michelle Malkin much more than it needs Matt Schlapp. Unacceptable voices like Patrick Buchanan have been right about most everything over the past three decades while acceptable voices like Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, and David French have been wrong. The longtime leaders of the conservative movement have lost every battle they have fought; they have allowed the left to take over every aspect of our culture; they cannot even muster the courage to defend people like Steve King or Michelle Malkin who exhort us to fight for Western Civilization and American sovereignty.
It is time to stop kowtowing to the left and the corporate media when they demand we denounce our own extremists.
It is time to stop allowing them to use words as magic totems to get us to do their will.
It is time to move forward - unbowed, unbroken, and unafraid - with a positive vision for America’s future.
Well written. Semper-Fi