The country is currently in the midst of perhaps the most intense back and forth political battle of my lifetime. Over the top rhetoric has been used for a quite some time now in the political arena, but it’s reached a fever pitch over the last few weeks. On one side, you have President Trump, and on the other, you have the “squad”,our 4 favorite radical leftist congresswomen. Everyone else is caught in the middle either playing PR for their side or trying to ignore the insanity altogether. Trump’s “controversial” tweet thread on Sunday was the spark that ignited this massive dumpster fire.
As the week has progressed, Republicans have been grilled by the media about Trump’s thread and subsequent “send her back chant”. While some have shown frustration with the President’s tweets, most have been hesitant to condemn them. This has led many on the left to call these Republican politicians sellouts, or even worse, complicit in Trump’s racism and xenophobia.
I see it differently.
I, like many on the right, do not consider the President’s tweet thread to be racist. I’ll hear arguments for xenophobic, but I’m not really on that page either. The way I see it, he attacked them for their repeated anti-American rhetoric, their affinity for socialism as well as identity politics. They just happen to be women of color. Were the tweets nice and did they make you feel warm and fuzzy? Hell no. Were they insensitive? Hell yes. But as I said before, this is why so many people voted for Trump.
In the past, I would not have had much faith in many republican politicians to stand firm in the face of a far left onslaught. For so long, people on the right tried far too hard to not look _____ist or _____phobic. Sure, of course you don’t want to be those things, but you also don’t want to give in to baseless accusations or apologize for no reason just to “appease the mob”. While some will still try to save face (looking at you, Mitt Romney), more have been rushing to Trump’s defense and putting themselves out there. Because of this, conservatives may find themselves winning increasingly important victories in both the political and the culture wars now and in the future.
On any given day, for better or worse, we can always count on the orange man to never back down or apologize. One can’t help but think that since he’s been in office, the GOP has once again dared to fight back against leftist tyranny. Just take a look at this latest video from the RNC!
For some reason, it took having Donald Trump in the White House for those on the right and the GOP they elect to fully realize that they weren’t just up against their democratic counterparts, but media, big tech, entertainment, and academia as well. This was never a fair fight of opposing ideas, no matter how much it was made to look as such. Taking the “high road” would be great, but it doesn’t work when your opponent doesn’t hold itself to the same standards. If you want proof, just look at how the GOP handled Steve King, a GOP representative from Iowa who said some things that could be construed as sympathizing with white supremacists, and juxtapose that with how the DNC handled Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib after they’ve shown a pattern of saying things widely believed to be anti-Semitic. Also, just look back a year to the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. I think we can all remember seeing a Democratic Party willing to completely ruin someone’s life and reputation for a political victory.
You can’t show weakness when your opponent has shown that they don’t care about anything but winning, and at any cost.
They say in sports that teams take the personality of their leader. While there is clearly only 1 Donald Trump, much of the GOP has followed his lead. They have once again been willing to punch back when necessary. This is not to say that you cant apologize, or can’t try to work and get along with people on the other side. We all (not just politicians, but everyone) need to be willing to work with people with whom we disagree, and we should all hold ourselves to high standards and conduct ourselves with integrity. But we need to be realistic, and understand that the playing field ain’t always even. With some of the important issues at hand right now, we must play to win. If we do, conservatives may actually start conserving things again.