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Rep. James Clyburn Engages in Some Wishful Thinking

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The Democrats seem to believe the outcome of the California recall election is evidence that the rest of the nation is on board with their authoritarian agenda — especially when it concerns vaccine and mask mandates. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) was the latest high-profile Democrat to put forth this idea. But when you take the bigger picture into consideration, it becomes clear that the lawmaker might be failing to read the room.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Clyburn addressed a series of issues pertaining to the infrastructure bill. But he was also asked about the “Justice for J6” rally at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, which was sparsely attended. In response, he said:

“You know, they made some political calculations that paid off last year in many parts of the country. But I think the American people in the last several months have begun to look at exactly what’s going on here, and they are rejecting that.

Now I know that people talk about California as being the left course of whatever they may call it, but California’s result, I think, shows that the American people are sick and tired of the posturing. They’re sick and tired of the lying.”

Clyburn continued, indicating that the result of the rally demonstrated that people believe the Democratic Party is the “future.” He said:

“They want to see this country in a place that they can leave something for their children and grandchildren as being left for them. That’s where we are.

So I think that what you saw on Saturday is a reflection of that. What you see with these Republicans not choosing to run again, some switching parties, all of those things are reflections of the fact that the American people see in the Democratic Party the future of what this country ought to be and where this country can go. I believe you’re going to see that time and time again.”

It appears Democrats like Clyburn are misreading the situation. Yes, Democrats won the recall election. But is it really unusual for the left to win in a state like California? Does it make sense to argue this is somehow indicative of what the rest of the nation believes?

Poll after poll has shown that Americans are not in favor of much of what the left is pushing nowadays. They’re not fans of wokeism being taught in the classroom. They don’t favor compelling people to take a vaccine. People are not in line with President Joe Biden’s open borders agenda.

Clyburn is also forgetting the myriad of failures that the Biden administration has experienced. From the migrant crisis to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the president has shown a remarkable inability to handle problems — and the American people are seeing his incompetence. If Democrats think the recall portends a bright future for them, they are in for a devastating disappointment in 2022.

The Republican “Pick Up Our Toys and Go Home” Mentality Has to Go

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Let me start by saying that I flat-out disagree with the “retreat” mentality the right exhibits in any given situation where the odds are stacked against it. Yesterday, my colleague Jeff Charles wrote a piece addressing the many calls to leave California and making it clear that abandoning the state won’t lead to victory there. This paragraph, in particular, really hit home.

“We don’t lose because the left is some all-powerful leviathan. We lose because we don’t fight smart. In many instances, we don’t fight at all. The GOP has become accustomed to campaigning only in areas in which they can win fairly easily,” he wrote.

And he’s right, and I don’t need to just focus on California to show you how right he is. Instead, I’m going to pull the camera back to show you just how bad the right indulges in the retreat mentality.

For ages, we on the right have considered certain battlefields completely unwinnable, and this includes the mainstream media and cultural wars such as movies, television, and video games. If you attempt to engage conservatives in a discussion about the entertainment industry you’ll have far too many people either tuning out or vocally shooting down any talk we might have about it in the first place.

“This discussion is moot! The left owns Hollywood! Just #turnitoff! There are more important things to talk about! Etc., etc., etc.”

I, and many others, from Dana Loesch to Andrew Breitbart, have made it very clear that the culture war is just as important, if not more important than the political war. However, conservatives have given it up for lost and have no desire to show up to fight there, thinking that any battle we dive into will result in a loss.

And you know what? They’re right.

We’re going to lose and we’re going to lose a lot. They’re so entrenched that driving them out will take years of hard-fought battles ranging from the legal to the physical. People will suffer character assassinations, cancelation, heartbreak, and threats to their well-being…but it’s a battle worth fighting because America is worth fighting for.

The final goal of the culture war isn’t to make someone pull a lever for a certain side, it’s for the very heart of the citizen. Currently, conservatives are appealing to an emotion that the left is starving out of Americans, and soon there won’t be anything left to appeal to. Gone will be the desire to keep freedom, capitalism, and true equality alive.

These losing battles need to be fought, but losing battles doesn’t mean losing the war. You can ask George Washington about that.

At some point, the constant pressure will cause holes in the defense to develop. Footholds will appear and methods of dealing with various attacks will be perfected. Hard targets will slowly soften and morale will drop in our enemies. Fortresses will change hands as minds change and hearts are affected.

As Charles made very clear, even Texas, a hard-red state, almost started to turning purple thanks to the left’s lack of fear in fighting seemingly unwinnable battles. They have a winning mentality and despite their losses, they don’t quit. They keep going. At some point, Texas will go purple, and then at some point further down the line, it will go blue.

But if they can do it, we can do it, we just need to learn our lessons about what does and doesn’t work. We need to stop fighting with old tactics that no longer have the effects they once did, and find new ways of conducting battle. We need to change as a party. We need to increase our aggression and stop fighting defense.

But most importantly, we need to stop picking up our toys and going home if the fight looks too difficult or if we lose a few battles because soon there won’t be a home to take our toys to.

Why Are Republicans Embracing Surrender in California?

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After the results of the California recall election came in, I began noticing a disturbing trend among conservative influencers on social media. Since the recall effort did not succeed, some of these individuals are advocating for full and total surrender to the far-left progressive machine in California and urging conservatives to leave the state.

Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro took to Twitter shortly after it became clear that Gov. Gavin Newsom would be keeping his job. He wrote:

The failure of the CA recall is a reminder to Republicans still in the state: the decline is now inexorable. Get out while the getting is good, and move to a purple or red state. Your life will radically improve.

Director and producer Robby Starbuck also chimed in. He tweeted:

California Republicans: It’s time to move and let the state continue to decline. If you all moved to swing states they’d become permanent red states where we’d be unbeatable in national elections. Let Dems destroy CA and make them come crawling back after they fully destroy it.

Conservative commentator John Cardillo also advocated for waving the white flag:

Conservatives and every other freedom loving American need to leave California.

Let those who did whatever they did to keep him get what they deserve.

These are only a few of those insisting that conservatives should roll over and flee from the battle. Several others echoed these sentiments.

I’ll be blunt: This is a horrible idea.

For starters, there were very clear reasons why the recall effort did not succeed. My colleague Jennifer O’Connell lays some of them out here, and Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar shares her thoughts here.

However, at least earlier in the process, polls were showing that the movement to remove Newsom had gained quite a bit of steam. The petition to push for a recall vote gathered a record number of signatures. Even though it was always a long shot, there were indications that it could possibly succeed. The fact that it also attracted Democrats is also an indication that, if effectively organized, conservative-leaning voters in California can make a difference.

The “abandon ship” mentality has cost the Republican Party dearly in the past. Those banging the drum of surrender sound much like Barry Goldwater did back in the 1960s when he said the GOP should no longer try to reach black voters and “go hunting where the ducks are.” He effectively stuck a dagger in the heart of Republican outreach to the black community by arguing that the party could not win a significant number of black voters.

We cannot afford to allow the same mistake to be made when it comes to California and other supposedly “unwinnable” areas. The issue isn’t the reality that the left has a stranglehold on these areas that is impossible to break. The issue is that the Republican Party has been feckless. It has chosen to avoid making concerted efforts in areas that are “too hard” to campaign in.

This isn’t to say that there are not many conservative individuals who are willing to fight. There were thousands of people involved in the recall effort. But overall, the GOP’s leadership has not bothered to pour resources into turning blue areas purple or red.

Indeed, the Democrats sent Vice President Kamala Harris and other high-profile Democratic politicians to come out in support of Newsom.

Who did Republicans send?

Exactly my point.

We don’t lose because the left is some all-powerful leviathan. We lose because we don’t fight smart. In many instances, we don’t fight at all. The GOP has become accustomed to campaigning only in areas in which they can win fairly easily.

Unfortunately, the Democrats do not have this same mentality. How often have you seen left-leaning influencers make a concerted effort to persuade Democratic voters living in red states to flee to New York or California?

Even further, how often have we seen Democrats insist they should only try to compete for voters in blue or purple areas? Not very often. The left is not afraid to enter into regions where they know they might lose over the short term because they know if they keep putting effort into it, they can begin making inroads even in red states.

Let’s not forget what happened in Georgia. Those two Senate seats did not go to Democrats overnight. It was a concerted effort on the part of failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her team that took almost a decade to achieve – and they are not stopping. If Republicans don’t figure out how to stop the Democrats, they will only gain more momentum.

Also, we have to remember the 2018 midterms. While many believe Texas is a solidly red state, I almost had to call fake Hispanic Beto O’Rourke my senator. To put it simply, the Democrats are working night and day to flip Republican-leaning states. They will not succeed overnight, and they know it. But they also understand is that this type of endeavor is a marathon, not a sprint. They are content with making gradual gains while the Republicans just want to do what is easy.

Those advocating for surrender in California don’t realize that Democrats will never give up on trying to flip states like Georgia and Texas. They will keep fighting until they win. Republicans need a major paradigm shift in their thinking if they want to remain relevant. They must be willing to go where they haven’t gone before. They have to possess the perseverance to fight even when they are the underdog. Many of us worry about how aggressively the left is pushing for a radical “progressive” shift. But Republicans will not be able to affect positive change until they realize surrender is not an option.

Larry Elder Was the Wrong Candidate

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The results of the California recall election are in, and Gov. Gavin Newsom is going to keep his job. Earlier in the campaign, polls revealed that the effort to oust the governor might just succeed. But over the past couple of weeks, the percentage gap between the “yes” and “no” votes widened in favor of those who wished to keep Newsom in office.

So, what happened?

We can rule out voter fraud. As of this moment, the official results show 63.9 percent of voters checking the “no” box and only 36.1 percent voting in favor of the recall. While that gap will surely narrow as in-person votes and mail ballots delivered to the polling place are counted, it makes no sense to argue that there was enough fraud to swing the result of the election. The reality is that a majority of Californians actually went to the polls and voted against removing Newsom from office.

There are several reasons why the recall effort failed. But there is no greater contributor to the loss than the fact that Republicans had the wrong frontrunner.

Elder entered the race two months before the Sept. 14 deadline, much later than the other candidates. Shortly after, he became the frontrunner, according to polling. It became clear that the race would essentially be between Gov. Newsom and Elder.

Unfortunately, Elder was the wrong choice for the race, a flawed candidate who did not have a chance of winning over California’s voters. Indeed, he became the Democrats’ perfect foil. They successfully cast him as another Trump and used issues of race to galvanize their base to turn out and vote against him.

The fact that throughout his career, Elder has made questionable comments – especially about the black community – made it easy for Democrats to cast him as a possible disaster for the state. In 2017 he posted a now-deleted tweet in which he implied that women marching to protest President Trump’s inauguration were too unattractive to worry about being sexually assaulted. He has also made a slew of controversial comments about women.

In a 2000 column, Elder wrote:

Women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events. Good news for Democrats, bad news for Republicans. For the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.

He cited a study conducted by Kathleen Hall Jamieson for the University of Pennsylvania. However, Jamieson also noted that women are “factoring in other information and consistently making decisions at the ballot box that are consistent with their self-interests.”

Elder has also argued that “women exaggerate the problem of sexism” and domestic violence.

During an interview with conservative media personality Candace Owens, Elder suggested that in the debate over reparations, people could argue that the descendants of slave owners could also be recompensed for losing their “property.” He said:

When people talk about reparations, do they really want to have that conversation? Like it or not, slavery was legal. Their legal property was taken away from them after the Civil War, so you could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose property was taken away after the end of the Civil War.

These are just a few of the remarks that the Democrats exploited to paint Elder as the ultimate villain. However, these aren’t the only reasons why he was not a decent candidate.

There was also the fact that Elder has no political experience relevant to the office he was seeking. Yes, the outsider appeal is very strong – Trump’s 2016 election proved that. However, the former president had vast experience in the business world; he knows how to run an organization. There were far better Republican candidates who could have potentially led the recall effort to victory, people who had been doing the work on the ground and in the state’s government for years.

It is also worth noting that for many people it seemed that Elder only jumped into the race 60 days before the day of the vote to clout chase. To them, his campaign did not seem like a serious endeavor. The bottom line is that not only does Elder not appeal to California voters, but he also gave the Democrats exactly what they needed to energize people to come out and vote against him even if they were not exactly happy with Newsom.

This election reveals a problematic tendency on the right to associate name recognition with electability. Elder’s fame on the right sucked attention away from others who might have actually lead to a “yes” vote on the recall.

Too many in the conservative realm have become enamored by the glitz, glamor, and celebrity to the point that we don’t focus on substance. If a candidate says the right things, pushes the right buttons, and has a level of notoriety, we don’t consider whether they will actually be able to win over voters or if they know which policies would appeal most to their constituents.

If Republicans had rallied behind a less incendiary candidate who had a history of working in California’s political system, there would have been no way the Democrats could have used them to galvanize their base. Sure, they would have pretended that any GOP candidate was a racist/sexist/Nazi/Puppy kicker. But the reality is that Elder made it far too easy for them to use this tactic. California’s voters might not have liked the other candidate, but they wouldn’t have cared as much about Newsom losing his job.

This is not to say California Republicans should have pushed a milquetoast Romnneyesque candidate. An authentic conservative who understands the Golden State’s political machine without Elder’s baggage could have appealed more effectively to the voting vase. At the very least, this type of candidate could have exuded competence without becoming embroiled in controversy. Of course, being that this is California, the effort could have failed even with a better candidate. But it is apparent that the recall would have stood a much better chance if had they backed someone more appealing.

Also, it is important to acknowledge that California’s GOP did not endorse Elder or ask him to run. Elder inserted himself into the recall election. His name recognition among conservatives is what pushed him to frontrunner status.

If conservatives are ever going to start making progress in blue states or cities, we have to learn how to fight smart. Putting up problematic candidates is, and always will be, a losing strategy. Instead of being taken in by celebrities, we need to elevate people who can fight effectively. Otherwise, the left will not only dominate in the areas they already control – they will continue making inroads in red states.

The Race Swapping in Popular Media Is Getting Ridiculous and the Reasons for It Are Insulting

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Diversity in art is a good thing, but when diversity starts injecting itself into art for the sake of diversity, it starts to just look silly.

There have been numerous examples over the course of time, but some of the more egregious examples of forced diversification with different races have happened lately. For instance, a recent controversy came when the new God of War Ragnarok trailer dropped and it was seen that the Norse jötunn Angrboda, the wife of Loki, was a black girl. Someone of African origin seems a bit out of place in the midst of a story set in Norse mythology.

Naturally, people couldn’t help but speak out about it, causing GoW’s Narrative Director Matt Sophos to defend his position by calling it an “interpretation.” Fair enough. The story does involve a Greek demigod and son of Zeus as the father of Loki, but then Sophos had to go and add this in his rant in choosing to make the character of African origin instead of Scandinavian.

When addressing the accusation that doing this was a political move, Sophos affirmed that, yes, it is political.

“As a writer, your job is to tell stories that are compelling & relatable,” he said. “You bring pieces of yourself to stories and your opinions shine through. So writing is *always* political—it’s just usually only called that if the politics aren’t agreed with.”

We’ll come back to that in a moment because before we move on I want to address a race swap that’s even more ridiculous.

The BBC decided to make a psychological thriller surrounding the historical figure, King Henry VIII’s second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. For some reason, the BBC decided to make Jodie Turner-Smith, a black actress, play her in the drama. An odd choice to be sure, and one that got people questioning why such a casting choice was made.

Giving a Norse mythological figure that never truly existed black skin already didn’t make a lot of sense, but now we’re going well into the territory of laughably try-hard when we’re doing it to well-documented historical figures.

Why was the decision about Boleyn made? No one is coming forward to say why Turner-Smith was chosen, but they do like to dance around it by saying that, personality-wise, she and Boleyn are a lot alike. Okay, but you can deduce the real reason based on what they’re avoiding saying, and thing everyone else who did things like this, like Sophos, already has told us.

It’s political.

Let’s run with these two examples and point something out that should be obvious; this isn’t about telling a good story, it’s about pandering and point-scoring and both are equal parts insulting and racist, and not even towards white people.

Firstly, these writers and creators believe they’re racking up favor with minority groups when they do this. Why? Because the ideologically social justice-heavy groups they belong to say they are and they’re backed up by online social justice mobs who defend them. These are the same social justice mobs who claim to fight the capitalist white patriarchy from their iPhones.

They’ve convinced themselves that decreasing whiteness in popular media and handing it over to minority groups is a morally good thing to do and nothing says you’re one of the good guys like thrusting a black actor or character where it makes no sense for them to be so. It earns them praise from their social justice-laden peers.

Do minority groups actually appreciate this level of pandering, though?

The mobs definitely do and there are those out there who enjoy seeing it to be sure, but many seem to see it for what it is; using minority communities as a way to virtue signal for a sense of self-gratification.

There are tons of minority characters out there that can be built upon and have stories told about them, and there’s also the opportunity to create more characters that people will fall in love with. Instead, they lazily race-swap a character for cheap approval points. As black culture critic Eric July labeled it, it’s “sloppy seconds” and white folks giving the black community a “hand-me-down” character.

“White folks saying ‘we already developed this character for decades, merchandise is out there, generations of people have grown up understanding who this character was…now we can pass this character to you even though everybody knows the original ain’t you,” said July.

Perhaps if it was done with creative intentions in mind, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing and at least the race-swap would be an honest retelling if it had more to do with a good story, such as the story of Anne Boleyn retold through the lens of a modern setting like a corporation.

It’s just political pandering by a group of artists that think they need to play the white savior to minority communities who don’t get enough “representation” despite there being a myriad of Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. characters to choose from.

There is no “creativity” behind it. It’s lazy politics and the rules they follow are the rules of the social justice left. The same people who cast Anne Boleyn as a black woman would never hire Chris Evans to play Shaka Zulu or Tom Hanks to play Martin Luther King. If they made Black Panther a white man there would be legitimate anger from fans who would, first and foremost, wonder how a character of African origin suddenly became European. We know people would get upset about a race-swapped Black Panther because someone already experimented with this concept on the internet.

It’s just more using of minority communities to virtue signal and people are seeing through it. I imagine as time goes on, more and more people will see this for what it is too, including in minority communities who will begin to wonder why they haven’t touched more on actual African/African-American characters or stories and continue to get these hand-me-down race-swapped characters.

The answer to that question is equally inconvenient to the social justice community and deserves its own article. Stay tuned.