Well the mainstream press is certainly excited. The giddy missives are still being published across the news spectrum as the announcement has gone out, courtesy of Axios, that there is another conservative political action committee formed to combat President Trump. This latest strongarm effort is called The Right Side PAC, and it is touted as being formed by former GOP operatives and influential Republican figures.
Yea...hardly. This newest crank outfit is headed up by Matt Borges, the former head of the Ohio GOP. Borges has long been embattled with Trump and his influence can be summed up by the fact that he is a longtime John Kasich operative. Backing a neutered candidate and eventually getting forced out of his state chairmanship by Trump is not exactly resume fodder.
The other face that The Right Side has put out for the sake of the media is Anthony Scaramucci. Calling him a ‘’former Trump White House operative’’ is as generous as it gets, given his tenure as WH Communications Director lasted all of 10 days. When your political career pales in comparison to Omarosa you can probably dispatch the title of ‘’operative’’. But these are the names that sees the press energetically reporting on a new wave of Trump opposition; a man who has spent years opposing Trump, and a money guy who previously was nuzzling Obama and Hillary before trying to latch onto Trump’s cape.
Each time one of these PACs mushrooms up there appears to be the same cycle; sour press releases couched in wan humor are sent out, the media energetically report how more conservatives are turning on the president, the new outfit preens with emboldened stature, and then it begins collecting money...from Democrats. All of the hype and import ends up amounting to preaching to the choir style of influence.
Note what the Right Side is promoting in its efforts. Get ready, this may come as a political electromagnetic pulse -- these Never-Trumpers are supporting Joe Biden. It remains a constant with these groups, such as the highly touted but lowly influential The Lincoln Project, that they cannot seem to do anything else but back Democrats in order to signal their distaste for Trump.
Very quickly you can see that messaging is not the strong suit with this outfit. Borges says Right Side PAC will stress Biden’s record as a moderate. Biden -- a moderate, according to Borges. You can only use that description if you have missed every single Democratic debate. Biden has Bernie Sanders to thank for being more extreme in his platform so that he did not come across as sounding entirely like a campus communist student activist.
They also intend to influence some evangelicals -- assuming this was said with a straight face -- by highlighting the fact that Joe Biden is a devout Catholic. That is the man who boldly supports abortion. He’s ‘’devout’’, we are being sold.
For his part, Scaramucci, a similarly devout conservative who was last seen partying it up on Martha’s vineyard for Bill Clinton’s birthday, says, ‘’I’m very confident that we can convince a large group of Republican voters that Biden is the right person to vote for if they want to stay true to their principles and to the legacy of the Republican Party." Spoken like the man who donated cash to Hillary and Obama.
All of these anti-Trump PACs work the same playbook. They come out with contemptuous language for Trump and describe how poisonous he has been for Washington, the Republican Party, and even conservatives in general. Then in the same lungful they note how the remedy to correct this toxicity is to vote for Democrats. What they can never explain is how voting for those with an avowed contempt for conservatism are going to become the conduit to returning us to a conservative place of power.
The vacancy of these groups is found not just in their opposition to Trump or their enthusiasm for Biden and the Democrats, but it is more revealing in what they fail to do. Their outrage and contrarianism would hold plenty more influence if they ever managed to promote conservative voices. Where are the conservative candidates? They never manage to come up with an alternative with the ideology, never offering up those names who can guide us back to their perceived notion of ‘’True Conservatism’’.
Instead they continuously tell us Joe Biden is the solution. The man who wanted to place Christians on the Terror Watch lists also once described the Tea Party as acting like terrorists. He is said to be the one to guide conservatives back to the proper stature. No wonder the press and the Democrats are the only ones impressed by these groups.