The New Realignment in American Politics

The 2016 Presidential Election seems to have produced somewhat of a realignment in American politics.  If nothing else, it has shone a blacklight on the fake conservatives that have infiltrated the Republican Party for decades, in addition to exposing the radical nature of the new American left. 

While many conservatives opposed President Trump well into the 2016 Presidential election, most of them eventually came around and supported him in the general election, if for no other reason than to keep Hillary Clinton from appointing the next Supreme Court Justice.  However, more than a year into the Trump Presidency, many Republicans still cannot find anything nice to say about the 45^th President and their hysteria over everything he does and says equals if not exceeds that of the left.  Examples of these #NeverTrumpers include David Frum, who suggested that physical abuse at the hands of her husband might explain the extended absence of First Lady Melania Trump from the public eye following kidney surgery and Bret Stephens, who ended up writing an op-ed calling for the abolition of the Second Amendment.  Many of these individuals jumped ship from the GOP and now enjoy cushy jobs as cable news contributors or Washington Post bloggers.  While President Trump may have accelerated their departure from the Republican Party, anyone who actually studied their backgrounds should have seen it coming. 

Many of these so-called “conservatives” already had policy positions similar to those of the Democratic Party long before anyone thought President Trump had a chance to become the Republican Nominee for President, let alone the President of the United States.  Margaret Hoover repeatedly appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” as an advocate for the legalization of same-sex marriage, calling it the “Civil Rights issue of our generation.”  Christine Todd Whitman wrote a whole book, It’s My Party Too, encouraging the Republican Party to abandon its pro-life stance.  Kathleen Parker wrote a column accusing Sarah Palin of using a “dog whistle” arguing that southerners opposed President Obama because of racism. Ana Navarro belittled stay-at-home moms, describing traditional housewives as “kept women” who “want to lean back and be on a rocking chair drinking a mint julep.”  Navarro also compared opponents of same-sex marriage to GEICO cavemen.  It looks like these elitists had disdain for “the basket of deplorables” long before Hillary Clinton first coined the phrase.  Christine Todd Whitman, Richard Hanna, Meg Whitman, Steve Schmidt, David Frum, and Nicolle Wallace signed an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage.  Meg Whitman and Richard Hanna voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.  Should it really come as that much of a surprise that these people either voted for Hillary Clinton or actively rooted against President Trump? 

The mainstream media likes to make it look like the #NeverTrump movement will spell electoral doom for the Republican Party.  Recent polling shows that their wishes do not appear to have come true.  President Trump has the support of 90 percent of Republicans.  Most of the remaining 10 percent work at either MSNBC or CNN.   

The #WalkAway movement, the left-wing counterpart to the #NeverTrump movement, first began when Brandon Straka, a gay former liberal who admitted that he cried after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Presidential election, recently posted a video on You Tube that has amassed more than 100,000 views.  During the video, Straka explains why he decided to depart from the Church of Liberalism: “Once upon a time, I was a liberal.  But liberalism has changed. And I will no longer be a part of an ideology or political party that represents everything that contradicts my values of unity, equal opportunity, personal empowerment, compassion and love.  So I am walking away.  And I encourage all of you to do the same.  #WalkAway.”  Straka has created a Facebook page called “The Unsilent Minority” where he elaborated further on his discontent with the Democratic Party: “The Left has been allowed for so long to reinforce the narrative that everybody on the Right is a bigot, a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, etcetera. But the Left has become so extreme, it’s now time to fight back. I want people on the Right to use their voices and tell the world the truth about who they are.”  Should Straka decide to write a book about his experience, the mainstream media will definitely not shower it with the same favorable coverage that they gave to Charlie Crist’s  The Party’s Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat. 

Straka should have felt vindicated in his declaration that liberalism contradicts his values of “compassion and love” after a camera store refused to provide him with video equipment because they feared he would use it for “alt-right” purposes, specifically mentioning that they recognized him from the #WalkAway movement.  Straka decided to take the high road, specifically telling followers of “The Unsilent Minority” “do not retaliate” against the camera shop.  Another young Trump, 16-year old Hunter Richard, supporter faced the wrath of the intolerant left as a 30-year-old man with a rap sheet as long as the Rio Grande stole his Make America Great Again hat and dumped soda on him as he attempted to enjoy a meal with his friends at a Whataburger in San Antonio.  The assailant, Kino Jimenez, said “This is gonna go right in my f***ing fireplace, b***h.”  Following the incident at Whataburger, Jimenez’s career went into the figurative fireplace, as his employer,  the San Antonio Bar “Rumble” announced his termination on their Facebook page, saying “No matter your race, creed, ethnicity, sexual identity, and political stance, you are welcomed here!”  Jimenez now faces charges of felony theft.  It looks like the story will have a happy ending for Richard as Donald Trump Jr.  has offered to send the teen a signed #MAGA hat.  President Trump’s 2020 Campaign Manager, Brad Parscale, went a step further and offered to send Richard and his friends signed #MAGA hats after contacting one of them through direct message on Twitter.           

Liberals have traditionally stood for the preservation of civil liberties for all Americans but they seem to have abandoned that principle out of their blind hatred for President Trump.  Liberals who have not jumped on this bandwagon, especially Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, have faced ostracization from their peers.  Dershowitz wrote an op-ed for The Hill explaining how his defense of President Trump’s civil liberties has led to some of his “old friends on Martha’s Vineyard” To take a contrarian approach, perhaps Dershowitz’s so-called friends have decided not to invite him to these parties anymore because they fear for his safety.  During an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Dershowitz said that “At a party this week, one woman said ‘if Dershowitz were here tonight, I’d stab him through the heart.’”  Sadly, that woman probably would perfectly justified to inflict physical harm on the 79-year-old Academic.  After all, nothing constitutes a more serious crime in the Church of Liberalism than “doing the bidding of Donald Trump and by extension Vladimir Putin by attacking Robert Mueller III,” as MSNBC Host Joe Scarborough put it. How dare he question the all powerful wizard.    

In terms of policy positions, Dershowitz has much more in common with the people who no longer invite him to cocktail parties on Martha’s Vineyard than he does with the average run-of-the-mill conservative.  Dershowitz voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election and “contributed handsomely” to her campaign.  As Dershowitz pointed out in his op-ed, “That is not good enough for some of my old friends on Martha’s Vineyard. For them, it is enough that what I have said about the Constitution might help Trump.”  Dershowitz committed his greatest sin of all against the Church of Liberalism when he dared to write a book titled The Case Against Impeaching Trump.      

While liberals like to dismiss the #WalkAway movement, if they really saw it as a great big nothing burger, why would they feel the need to “Grant statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, and break California in seven, with the goal of adding 16 new Democrats to the Senate?”  The Democrats apparently see this as the only way for them to enact their legislative agenda.  Political Science Professor David Faris offers the following suggestions in his new book It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics:  “Expand the Supreme Court and the federal courts, packing them with liberal judges.  Move to multi-member districts to roll back the effects of partisan gerrymandering, Pass a new Voting Rights Act, including nationwide automatic voter registration, felon enfranchisement, and an end to voter ID laws. Grant citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants, creating a host of new Democratic-leaning voters. Republicans have always feared that immigration would change the character of American society.  Democrats should reward them with their very worst nightmare.” 

 

Democrats had a “very worst nightmare” of their own on Election Day 2016, when the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania supported a Republican President for the first time in nearly three decades because they found President Trump’s  “America First” rhetoric on trade appealing after watching manufacturing jobs move overseas thanks to the policies of both political parties.  The Democrats thought for sure they would never lose those states and thought that the changing demographics in the country thanks to fifty years of low-skilled immigration would ensure them victories in states such as North Carolina and Florida. They did not get their wish.  2016 looked like the beginning of a realignment in American politics.  The 2020 election will either confirm or deny the strength of this realignment that has effectively rebuilt the Reagan coalition that fizzled out after the 1988 Presidential Election; the most recent time prior to 2016 that Michigan and Pennsylvania voted for a Republican Presidential candidate. For the sake of America, let’s hope that a plurality of voters in these states have decided to join Brandon Straka and permanently #WalkAway from the Democratic Party.