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Where Are Conservative Leaders In This Moment?
The Federalist ^ | June 23, 2020 | Ben Domenech

Posted on 06/23/2020 5:31:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin

When I see the images from Lafayette Square last night or from the weekend across the country of radical leftists and anarchists tearing down or defacing memorials to some of America’s greatest heroes, what I keep wondering is: where are the conservative leaders who have said so much and done so little to defend our history?

For decades, the conservative movement has profited off the invocation of the American Founding. Multiple political analysts have said over the years that the biggest mistake Democrats made was letting Republicans have The Bible and the Flag, and the right has certainly profited from it. Wrapping themselves in the language of the Founding Fathers, filling their buildings with quotes, books, busts, statues, and artist’s renderings, conservatives have thrived by making themselves the defenders of American history against a verbally iconoclastic left. But in practice, they spent more time advocating for lower taxes, feel-good donor interests, and pro-business regulatory reforms than the cultural defense they used to make the money roll in.

Meanwhile, the left has marched through our institutions of power: the schools and the academy, the media, the creative arts, and the central authorities of our greatest cities, amassing near-total control and influence over our culture. They have tried to grasp permanent hold of the narrative, audit conservative activists, and subdue religious defiers. Now they intend to subjugate the nation’s children to a woke ahistorical conspiracy about our founding and inculcate them with the idea they are permanently stained by irredeemable acts of racism that happened long before they were born, and for which they are not guilty.

This is power, amassed intentionally over half a century, and they are wielding it now in destructive ways. Now that the left has become not just verbally iconoclastic, not just changing the names of streets or buildings but physically assaulting the past, why have conservatives gone quiet? Why are they standing back instead of standing up to defend our history? Why is it that a bunch of South Philly Italian bros have more gumption about a statue of Columbus than the people who have spent decades invoking Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and more to raise money for their causes and win elections?

Other than a handful of members of Congress, Republicans seem content to sit back and leave the response to President Trump. In Tulsa, speaking about the lawlessness in Seattle, Trump said: “All of these places I talk about are Democrat, every one of them. I have an offer out, any time you want, we will come in and straighten it out in one hour or less. I may be wrong, but it’s probably better for us to just watch this disaster.”

Well, that disaster cost lives and sexual assault. Now the mayor finally announced vague plans to dismantle the occupied protest zone after a shooting where cops were prevented from coming in to help. Sitting back and watching things simmer have consequences. If not for the intervention of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. last night, protesters would have pulled down the statue of Andrew Jackson. It is a priceless artifact sculpted by Clark Mills in 1852 – the first bronze-cast statue and the first equestrian statue in the history of the United States.

I used to eat lunch by it when I worked at the White House. At the base is an inscription from a toast Jackson once gave: “Our Federal Union, It Must Be Preserved.” So who will do the preserving? Not our conservative leaders in Washington, who are too busy gathering signatures for pointless letters. Last night it was a multi-ethnic group of working class DC cops who stood guard, their facemasks flecked with the spittle from woke white women. Being taunted by woke white men with man buns. And getting called a traitor to their race.

What I want to see right now more than anything is elected officials and community leaders who are willing and ready to link arms with these cops and physically take part in cleaning up this mess and defying the mob. Our culture editor Emily Jashinsky was in the midst of them last night.

Some protesters pleaded with others to stop throwing objects at police from the back of the group because it led to the people up front getting tear-gassed; others disputed that protesters were throwing anything. A rumor reached the front of the protest that demonstrators were telling on their overly aggressive peers. Seasoned veterans shouted that transgressors should be corrected, not exposed.

If any clashes broke out, the protest’s ostensible leaders wanted to make sure they could claim officers were in the wrong, lashing out disproportionately at supposedly peaceful demonstrators. It was a chaotic scene, but had an underlying sense of organization, suggesting the group is intentional and plans to keep the area formally dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” occupied, setting the stage for more conflict right on the president’s doorstep.

Last night our staff writer Tristan Justice tweeted: “MIA Republicans really face a crucial choice in a pivotal moment right now: stand up to the mob or surrender the nation to anarchists. Right now, I’m not so convinced Republicans are choosing the former.”

Who will take a stand to prove him wrong? And when I say that, I don’t mean sending out a tweet drafted by your comms shop. I mean proving to us all that you aren’t scared. The Shaun Kings of the world are so emboldened that they’re calling for destroying statues and stained glass of Jesus. Will Republicans wait around to find out that Catholic nuns have bigger stones than they do in defense of what they value? Because I assure you, they do.

Theodore Roosevelt, for whom they are coming now to complete the degradation of all the presidents on Mount Rushmore, was the 37-year-old president of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City when he wrote: “To sit at home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing.” So conservative leaders must stop doing it. Because if there’s one rule we’ve learned about the modern day woke mobs, it’s that they only start with the statues. Next, they come for the people.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: conservative
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"We need leaders who are willing and ready to link arms with these cops and physically take part in cleaning up this mess and defying the mob."
1 posted on 06/23/2020 5:31:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

No, let those affected stay affected for awhile longer so they reap what they voted in as their leaders. Then we ride in and restore law & order. Timing is important.


2 posted on 06/23/2020 5:36:49 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
They are sitting at home, watching the destruction of America on TV, while collecting a 174,000 salary.

In a few month, they’ll be loudly campaigning, “Vote for me!” (even though I am a worthless pile of ....).

3 posted on 06/23/2020 5:37:56 PM PDT by Cobra64 (Common sense isnÂ’t common anymore.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I’ve seen 3 marches in brooklyn, been threatened and I’m going back.

I have reasons to be there and we can’t show fear.

They need to know some of us don’t care about their movement and aren’t afraid of them.

But if you see a fat white guy on a stretcher on the news in brooklyn cursing in Italian, that’s me :)


4 posted on 06/23/2020 5:39:36 PM PDT by dp0622 (The very future of tihe Republic is at stake. We no that makes sw know dems will do ANYTHING to win.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

That’s the thing we’re lacking: leaders. Or even one leader.

Trump blusters and tweets but doesn’t do anything. I was encouraged by his protection of veterans monuments, but that’s really too little, too late.

He’s got to get a grip on this chaos and he’s got to end the lockdown. That is, end the federal declaration of emergency that has empowered these governors. It’s clearly not an emergency, if it ever was.

Cases? Yes, people who have antibodies and didn’t even know they had had the disease whenever they had it (which could have been months ago). People dying...virtually none at all, the ICUs are empty, hospitals are begging for patients...some “emergency”! End it.


5 posted on 06/23/2020 5:40:49 PM PDT by livius
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To: Robert DeLong

I agree completely! This is one time I want conservative leaders to sit on their hands and keep their mouths shut. Let that whirlwind be reaped and, when it is, let the cavalry come to the rescue.


6 posted on 06/23/2020 5:42:47 PM PDT by Retrofitted
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

sitting back watching hitler and the brownshirts take over

or if not your taste

sitting back watching lenin and trotsky and the bolsheviks take over


7 posted on 06/23/2020 5:45:19 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Robert DeLong

“Timing is important.”

Yes it is. This should have been shut down on Day One.


8 posted on 06/23/2020 5:47:00 PM PDT by River Hawk
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Cops are openly asking us to back them up. The communists actually staged an ambush on cops today in Tampa. I say it’s high time we start turning up at some of these
events. It’s not hard to find out where they will be— just mark & monitor the antifa & other flash mob twitter feeds, listen to police scanners, get a large group organized in your area— don’t go alone. But dont announce to the world who *you* are.


9 posted on 06/23/2020 5:49:17 PM PDT by mumblypeg
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Democrats are always down with the struggle.

Republicans are always looking for an angle.


10 posted on 06/23/2020 5:50:37 PM PDT by Bratch (If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Good post. I was thinking the same thing.


11 posted on 06/23/2020 5:52:51 PM PDT by Mr. N. Wolfe
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To: mumblypeg

I’ll gladly back them up ... if and when they stop enforcing all gun control laws.


12 posted on 06/23/2020 5:55:41 PM PDT by bankwalker (groupthink kills ...)
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To: livius; Secret Agent Man; All

I agree; this Wuhan Flu wasn’t any MORE of a crisis than any regular flu season.

That said, I think President Trump is handling it correctly. ‘We The People’ are not USED to being guided by the Constitution and a State’s Right to Eff it up totally and completely. And boy, the Blue States have - in spades!

We’ve been programmed toward the Feds managing everything from the top, down. The LESS Government in my FACE 24/7, the better. But, that’s just me. My ‘Little Inner Libertarian’ has been screaming at the top of her lungs for MONTHS, now. Not even CHOCOLATE is shutting her up, LOL!

I think in this Election Year, this will be to our benefit, showing the error of the Dems and their ham-handed handling of this Plan-Demic. I’ll take the win. What is our alternative? *SHUDDER*


13 posted on 06/23/2020 5:56:38 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'hobbies.' I'm developing a robust post-Apocalyptic skill set.)
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To: Mr. N. Wolfe

i’m sure most conservatives are thinking something like this

spineless cowards

we’d still be a phucking colony today if the founding fathers were led by these cucks


14 posted on 06/23/2020 5:56:40 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

cwii/rwii is the alternative

only thing left

socialists have said and proved they want to murder us and change the country


15 posted on 06/23/2020 5:57:54 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Robert DeLong
Everyone of the destroyed statues has been photographed many times from many angles. I'm certain that there are also plenty of records detailing the composition of each.

Maybe some conservative patron of the arts could hire sculptors to recreate all of the statues that have been destroyed and place them in a great hall somewhere where people who still care about history can continue to view them.

16 posted on 06/23/2020 5:58:32 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Trump, Cotton and Cruz are the only ones speaking up.


17 posted on 06/23/2020 5:58:40 PM PDT by jersey117
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To: dp0622
"I have reasons to be there"

Do not get in between a New Yorker and his Slice.

18 posted on 06/23/2020 6:00:09 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Robert DeLong

Very Good Point!

19 posted on 06/23/2020 6:00:58 PM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: dp0622

Vafaunculo!! To the punk ass rioters.


20 posted on 06/23/2020 6:02:49 PM PDT by Levy78
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