Do Conservatives Want to Win?
It might seem the question posed is easy to answer. Of course, we want to win you will say.
Well, maybe not.
Like the Left in this country, people on our side of the argument perform their own version of “virtue signaling.”
That term is often used by those of us on the center-right side of the political spectrum as a term of derision. It usually is applied to corporations or institutions that deviate from their primary goal of serving the public needs or making a profit for shareholders to instead make vacuous political statements that appeal to a very narrow sliver of fanatical supporters, hip Leftists. As a result, they fail in their primary mission but look good among the Hollywood set and readers of the New York Times.
Are conservatives doing the same thing, in a somewhat different context?
Ryan Girdusky writes an interesting Substack column called the National Populist Newsletter.
The interview Girdusky has with Buck Sexton below is worth your time.
In his May 10th letter titled “Why I Said Trump Can’t Win”, he outlines his argument.
Unlike critics of Trump who are just looking for excuses to dump him, Girdusky usually has few policy disagreements with the former President. Therefore, he is not trying to derail the MAGA agenda, he is in fact trying to get it implemented.
Few of us may realize that Trump may now be the chief impediment to getting MAGA back in the Executive Branch of government.
It boils down to the map of the Electoral College.
Now it is true that a lot can change, both positive and negative, for our side between now and election day. But if we examine things as they sit right now, it is not looking so good.
To win Republicans must take Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. It is possible he says in a “great year” that we could take Nevada, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
Recent electoral losses in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania make this even more difficult, and in Arizona, weak Republicans and Independents elected a radical Democrat as governor. Georgia may come our way if actual fraud during the recent election is uncovered but the party is also divided in Georgia with hostility between the Governor and Trump.
Arizona may come along easier if Kari Lake can prove the incompetence and/or perfidious actions of Republican officials in Maricopa County. Note in both Georgia and Arizona, anti-Trump Republicans played a role in the Trump defeat.
In short, unless Republicans can convince their more moderate (some might say treacherous) wing, Independents, and urban women, we can’t really change the outcome from the last election.
Some will answer that this is not true, that Trump actually won, and that the real problem was the election was “stolen”. If that is true, who is to say those kinds of things won’t happen again in the states concerned? One must win by a wider margin to overcome electoral dishonesty. It would seem Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona may be worse off in that regard now than in the last election cycle given the result of recent elections.
Ironically, the claim the election was “stolen” is a contributing factor in turning off Independents to our general MAGA message. It may be irritating, but the reality is we need a greater portion of the independent vote to win in these key states.
The constant refrain of “stolen” obscures the real work Republicans must do to convince more voters. In fact, we need both effective outreach and election integrity. One without the other is not going to do the job.
We think a better case can be made that the election was “rigged.”
Recent revelations that past and present members of the FBI and CIA directly involved themselves in the domestic election are a case in point. Between the Adminstrative State and the giant tech companies, negative stories were created out of whole cloth (Russian collusion and constant legal harassment) all the while giant tech companies suppressed information negative to Democrats (the Biden Crime Family) and amplified stories negative to Republicans.
These governmental institutions and corporations clearly interfered in the electoral outcome, just like the infamous Time Magazine article stated shortly after the election. Of course, the election was “rigged”. This rigging was done sometimes within the law, and sometimes outside the law. But a lack of concrete wins in court has not convinced the public the election was “stolen.” The Fox News/Dominion case didn’t help.
We stand ready to accept documented information of outright fraud or incompetence that Kari Lake’s legal team might develop and we have never seen a good answer to the geopositioning argument made by Dinesh D’Souza in his documentary film, 2000 Mules. Why did certain individuals hit remote drop boxes repeatedly and where did they get their bogus ballots, and why were not signatures properly verified? Why haven’t these Mules been identified and arrested?
But readers of The Prickly Pear are not the people who need to be convinced. It is the Trump-hating McCain/Romney Republicans and Independents that need convincing and it is likely that has not been done.
Anecdotal experience suggests that Trump supporters are dug in and Trump opponents likewise are pretty much stuck in intellectual concrete. Those who love him or hate him are not likely to change their minds. That leaves us pretty much where we were after the last election.
However, a candidate like DeSantis has already proven he can change minds in Florida. That state was always an electoral cliffhanger as you might remember and DeSantis has proven he can convert Northeastern liberal transplants in his state to Republican conservatives.
Further, Democrats have poured so much hate into Trump, and invested six years in his demonization, it would be discombobulating to try to pivot their hate machine onto DeSantis and Ramaswamy. They will try, but other candidates simply don’t have the burden of a multi-year effort to smear Trump. Attempts at CNN to maul Ramaswamy didn’t go well for Don Lemon, did it?
Further, if Trump were to be elected, he starts as a lame duck because a second term is not possible. Two terms would be minimal to try to root the Marxists out of our Federal bureaucracy and remake the EPA, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
And don’t forget cleaning up the Department of Defense and expanding the Conservatives on the Supreme Court.
Further, it will take all of 8 years to fight off the lawsuits they launched that ham-strung his first term.
We must win the next election and get two terms.
So, conservatives need to ask themselves, do you really want to win and advance the MAGA agenda, or are you as hung up on the persona of Trump just as our Leftist adversaries are?
In conversations we have had, many simply don’t want to abandon Trump under ANY circumstances because it hands an unjust moral victory to the Left.
One can certainly understand why many feel that way. The Durham Investigation showed what many of us long thought: Hillary Clinton paid for a lie, and the FBI and the press amplified it. Two impeachment proceedings were based on lies. Likely, it is the dirtiest trick and the most dangerous political conspiracy in the history of the nation. Federal agencies used their police powers to directly interfere in an election, and mislead the courts, which is the opposite of “democracy.” They even interfered with the operation of his Administration when he held office, engineering a silent coup.
The press amplified the lie and then awarded themselves Pulitzer Prizes. They even hired many of the conspirators to be talking heads on their networks. It makes one want to vomit. Righteous anger pleads for re-electing Trump. But electoral math may not be changed by your justified righteous anger.
The fact that these Democrat bad actors will not be held accountable, makes it doubly galling. And the press will continue to ignore their own incompetence and bias. They are not professionals capable of self-examination. Many are revolutionaries who will commit any moral atrocity that advances their cause. Others are just intellectual hacks. The same can be said for the academia that produces them.
The best way to strike back is to win. The problem Trump has with urban women is visceral. Durham revelations are not really the factor. Much of this is because of Trump’s own behavior and that is not likely to change either. Trump Derangement Syndrome seems impervious to either logic or evidence. It is not rational. Because of that, it is doubtful even recent revelations confirming his mistreatment will change many minds.
And if we don’t change the vote of at least some urban women and get more independent voters, we can’t win. That is the Electoral College math.
That is why we pose the question: Do you want to win? Are we looking for cosmic justice, or are you aiming to win and change policies?
The mission should be to advance the MAGA agenda in the broadest political way feasible, gain power, change the Administrative State and crush “wokeness.” That is the mission. It is to save the country, not to save any particular candidate, no matter how unfairly he may have been treated.
If running Trump is the best way to do that, we are all for it. But what if that is not the best way to advance the MAGA agenda? What is more important, the agenda and winning elections or our own version of virtue signaling that you will not be cowed by the Left?
