Republicans need to stop Joe Biden’s progressive assault on America
President Biden has gone too far.
His executive order creating a commission to study packing the Supreme Court is an outrage. Even if it is just another sop to the left, opening the door to such an attack on our system of government is unforgivable.
Not everyone seemed outraged by Biden’s proposal. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) tweeted: “Gun restrictions. Court packing. Each executive order gets more regrettable than the last.”
“Regrettable”? That’s the best Issa can do? That’s an insufficient response to a proposal that should have people lying in the streets and blocking traffic.
It is time for Republicans to turn up the heat on President Biden, and stop being so polite.
Historically it has been Democrats who march in protest, Hollywood elites who gleefully call for boycotts and leftist social media warriors who terrorize businesses online. In response, Republicans tsk-tsk and tweet scathing criticisms using words like “regrettable.”
There’s a reason the word “activist” is most often used to describe Democrats.
The GOP is changing; maybe it’s time for Republicans’ behavior to change, too.
Kim Strassel noted recently in the Wall Street Journal that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recorded record-breaking fundraising in the first quarter, with 50,000 online contributions, up from 6,000 in the first quarter of 2019. The average amount was less than $540.
More ordinary people are waking up to the dangers of Biden’s presidency, getting involved and funding his opposition. Meanwhile, the big corporations that have traditionally backed the GOP have migrated to Democrats; only 2 percent of McCarthy’s haul was from that group.
Biden is president thanks in large part to the money he raked in from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and other big corporate interests — a haul much larger than what Donald Trump took in from that group.
In addition to a torrent of cash, Big Tech contributed their stranglehold on the nation’s discourse. Twitter and Facebook protected Biden by squashing negative stories that might have hurt his campaign, like those tying the candidate to his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings.
As Big Business has exited the GOP, middle-class voters, including union workers and minorities, have moved in. These are voters who may be willing to organize and protest, and eager to use the financial clout of 74 million people to make a point.
The time is now. The further we move into Biden’s presidency, the more damage he will do. And Biden is vulnerable.
Just in the past few days, Biden was humiliated by some of the very people he claims to represent. Workers at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse in Alabama, largely black and female, dealt a severe blow to organized labor by voting overwhelmingly not to join a retail workers union. Of the 71 percent who voted “no,” many said in interviews that they could not see any advantage to joining up when they are already receiving good benefits and being paid twice the minimum wage in Alabama. They had nothing to gain except losing a chunk of their paycheck to union coffers.
But for the intervention of Biden, this failed election might have been just a routine setback for Big Labor, whose private sector membership has shrunk to only 6 percent over the past several decades. But, before any votes were cast, union officials talked with senior Biden advisers, telling them the Amazon fight was pivotal and begging the White House to help.
Consequently, Biden posted a video on Twitter before the vote extolling the benefits of joining a union and specifically encouraging workers in Alabama (without mentioning Amazon’s name) to organize, saying “It’s your right…so make your voice heard.”
Workers made their voices heard all right — and turned the president down flat.
Similarly, Biden recently waded into the controversy over Georgia’s new voting law, which he called “Jim Crow on steroids,” even though the rules are more lenient in some regards than those in his home state of Delaware. Biden even encouraged Major League Baseball to move its all-star game out of Atlanta, costing the city (and many minority-owned small businesses in that town) a potential windfall.
Biden’s dive into turbulent waters shows him to be a president who deserves to be rebuffed.
What can Republicans do? Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) recently called for a boycott of Coca-Cola in response to its attacks on Georgia’s voting laws.
“If they want to boycott us, why don’t we boycott them?” Paul asked. “This is the only thing that will teach them a lesson… We’ll see how well they do when half the country quits drinking Coca-Cola.” Paul has a point.
Similarly, it’s time Republicans showed their fury with the authoritarianism and censorship of Big Tech. The recent move by YouTube to squash a video showing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking with respected doctors from Stanford, Oxford and Harvard on the efficacy of masks to fight COVID-19 is just the latest attack on our freedom of speech. This suppression of opposing views cannot be tolerated.
Republicans should sponsor a “Time Out for Tech day,” asking 74 million people to sign off of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Not a boycott — just a one-day show of force.
At the same time, Republicans should rally in Washington to show their support for the Supreme Court. They should stop donating to schools and colleges that promote anti-American propaganda and tell the officials at those schools why their checks have dried up. They should also get involved with local politics, so that a progressive such as Bill de Blasio cannot be elected mayor of New York City by only 8 percent of residents.
If Republicans do not adopt the effective playbook of Democrats, future generations will wonder how the Silent Majority was silenced, how our freedoms were lost and how the American dream became a nightmare. The answer must not be that we were too polite.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.
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