TRS Sunday Post | Crumbling Democrats Are Desperate For New Narratives
Need further proof? Just look across the pond to the United Kingdom.
The Washington Post is on fire this AM talking about three Virginia Republicans — former Representatives Barbara Comstock (VA-11), Scott Rigell (VA-02) and Denver Riggleman (VA-05) respectively — joining a call for a common consensus in the wake of national narratives.
Of course, the Washington Post needs this.
They need to see Republicans fighting amongst one another after the Youngkin-Sears-Miyares win in Virginia for one reason only — their national narrative is crumbling and they know it.
Before we get into the weeds, let’s drop the leftist kaleidoscope for two minutes and look at the battlespace the way it actually is, shall we?
Across the pond in the United Kingdom, UK Labour was dealt some of the worst municipal defeats in its long history. We are not just talking about a minor upset, nor are we talking about “revolutions” such as the election of 1994 or 2010 or 2014. We are talking about a backbreaking rejection of socialism and leftism in the wake of what could only be termed as a mild fever version of BLM/Antifa in places such as London.
What has them caught? Instead of the party of class elites and lower class workers, UK Labour has found themselves in the odd place of becoming a party of middle class and middling cubicle dwellers all huddled around the bureaucratic establishment. They’re trapped and can’t redefine themselves.
Look around on the left. Progressives are hammering the institutions the left has mismanaged and hijacked for the purposes of political indoctrination as incurably racist. Conservatives meanwhile are tired of having Critical Race Theory (among other things) crammed down our throats and being asked to accept mediocrity as the new normal. The same problems that plague Labour in the UK are the precise problems attacking Democrats here in the US.Youngkin at the top of the GOP ticket in Virginia wrecks a lot of narratives nationally. Not just Youngkin, but the fact that Sears and Miyares complete the circle to create the most diverse ticket in Virginia history? National Democrats can’t have that at all. Which is why they are focusing on Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) in an effort to re-create the narrative…
National Democrats can’t rescue themselves with Orange Man Bad (TM) so long as the price of everything continues to rise. How bad is it, you ask?
That bad. That’s Rain Man bad (very bad).
When the price of gasoline, lumber, energy, corn, foodstuffs, and the lifeblood of an economic resuscitation continues to be pressured by Biden’s clean energy and green economy proposals remain artificially high thanks to Democratic policies maximizing the printing press in order to avoid tax hikes? Orange Man Good, not Orange Man Bad.
Something else to keep in mind as we see the Washington Post et al. attempt to rip apart the Republican coalition in service to socialist shibboleths.
Despite their uncontained glee at this possibility of a center-right third party, they still cannot contain their bile and contempt for those who simply do not think and believe as they do:
“Have I told you how much I ... hate politics?” [Riggleman] said, using an expletive for emphasis as he made the point for the third time in a half-hour interview.
They … simply cannot … abide anyone who isn’t a … progressive, folks.
Sure, such individuals are useful for a time. But they aren’t to be given anything even remotely akin to respect.
What’s more, the WaPo goes out of their way to mention specifically that each and every single one of these candidates ran with the president. Which seems like an odd thing to mention until one realizes that their cardinal sin — no matter what presupposed atonement they offer to the secular inquisitors — isn’t that they ran alongside Trump, but rather that they are Republicans.
RPV Chairman Rich Anderson had the best line of the interview, which the editors of the WaPo perhaps intended as a means of sandbagging Comstock, Rigell and Riggleman respectively — but it doesn’t work the way they intended:
“We are a broad-based party, and they are bona fide Republicans,” Anderson said, noting that he knows Comstock and Riggleman personally and considers them friends. “There is a place for them in our party. Politics is about addition. And I believe in an individual in our party having freedom of thought and expression.”
People forget this part: Anderson not only has worked with all three individuals as a former delegate, a state chairman, and a personal friend.
What’s more, the Democrats are counting on us being anything but the party of free minds, free ideas and a free society.
What they miss — critically, in fact — is that though Republicans may indeed be a coalition of disparate ideas, our diversity of opinions allows us to adapt to the straightjacket and iron-clad regimentation on the left. We can fight back precisely because we enjoy the sort of freedom Anderson champions here.
If each party were knives? We would be the Swiss Army; they would be the Red Army.
You will notice that Virginia Republicans aren’t having the sort of national fistfights that the Washington Post is willing into existence by means of propaganda disguised as journalism. Gone are the Never Trump and pro-Trump distinctions when you are paying $4.00/gal for gasoline and $20 for something that cost $5 just a year ago.
This is what is scaring the Dems to death.
NYT: Belarus Forces Flight Carrying Telegram Founder to Land in Minsk
BBC: Rare Black Fungus Infection in India Linked To PCR Tests
Freedom by Sebastian Junger
Junger’s journal entries make up a resounding little book on the nature (or perhaps, mirage) of freedom and how it impacts our conceptions of ourselves as individuals in society. Great afternoon read in the tradition of his earlier book entitled Tribe.
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
The last item I read of Gordon-Reed’s was the conclusion of Jon Meacham’s In The Hands of the People, a half-jeremiad about Thomas Jefferson so typical of the tourism of white leftist historians. Over the top, insensible, and pleading are the three best words to describe Meacham’s work. Yet the $18 was completely worth it for Gordon-Reed’s observation at the very end. One might leave off whether, if Meacham actually believed anything he pretended to believe, whether Gordon-Reed should have been on the masthead with Meacham’s commentary tacked on to the end, but I digress. Gordon-Reed is not a historian by background, but her observations as a native Texan on the importance of Juneteenth are worth every page. Recommended especially for the reason that she will challenge others to see a different perspective in a firm but inviting manner.
Nine Nasty Words by John McWhorter
Dr. McWhorter is perhaps the most prominent and public linguist in America today, and well worth reading, not least of which is his leadership against cancel culture in academia as well as the notion that language can be restricted by the little Robespierres of the day. McWhorter does an excellent job of peppering an accessible text with intelligent observations about how words and phrases come to be and how rich the English language truly is.
Ruin and Renewal by Paul Betts
The premise of this book is the restoration of Western Europe in the wake of the Second World War, yet Betts takes us on a tour de force of both Iraq and Afghanistan. To the point, when we talk of Western Civilization in the wake of post-war Europe, what sort of pathologies are we carrying forward when we impose ourselves on the non-Western world? Material needs vs. cultural reckoning in the wake of a post-imperial world? Appropriately dense and excellent starting point for geopolitical thought.
The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King
If we have had a conversation over dinner or a pint or coffee over the last month that has included the question “So SVK, what are you reading?!” you have had to endure a 10-15 minute effusion over the ideas in this book. In short, the Florentines knew they did not have the erudition or sophistication of the ancients and desperately sought to recover it as early as the 14th century.
How did they rescue Cicero, Quintillian, and Martial? How did the collapse of Byzantium reintroduce Plato to the West? How did Italy in the span of 100 years go from manuscript on parchment to the printed word on cotton paper? Many of us instinctively know what passes for education today isn’t leading anyone forward (ex ducare = leading forth) as we mindlessly entertain ourselves to death. There is a theme in this outstanding book — and a warning. Eminently worth the read.
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As always, thank you for being a part of Virginia’s Public Square!
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.