Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Jim McCoy.
In Part 1 we detailed the myriad reasons why conservatives have felt so anxious after the 2020 election. Much of it was tied to the sharply contrasting values of conservatives and progressives. Here we wish to lay out a road map for conservative ascendency in American politics. The fact is that we were snookered in the 2020 election because of our beliefs that truth and goodness would prevail; in some cases, it did but mostly it didn’t. Here is how we win back these values.
Conservatives should withdraw complete support from all news media that offer politicized opinion in place of carefully documented fact.
Don’t subscribe to or buy progressive newspapers like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or even your local newspaper if it panders to the left. There are really good conservative daily newspaper alternatives like the New York Post, Epoch Times, Conservative Daily News, American Thinker and Washington Examiner. Pew Research reports newsroom employment dropping 51% over the past decade. Force them to downsize to even further. Falling readership will force advertisers to take their business elsewhere and these newspapers will fail.
The same can apply to major television and cable news channels. Be very selective in choosing which to watch.
Punish companies and their CEOs that virtue signal by stopping your purchases of their products and services.
Be it the NBA, pro football, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Nike, Levi Strauss, Intel, Peloton, etc., choose an alternative or go without. Choosing Dunkin Donuts over Starbucks, for example, will save money and you will be doing your part, as Nancy Reagan said, by “just saying no.” If you own stock in one of these leftist companies that support progressive causes, send a letter to the Chairman of the Board (not CEO) and tell him/her of your disgust at their sponsorship of Marxist causes and that you will relieve your 401K and investment portfolio of their stock and reinvesting your hard earned dollars in their competitors’ stock. Some professional athletes have taken center stage expressing their opinions and prejudices on social issues. We should be very leery of such social activists. Being athletic entertainers doesn’t mean they have the intellect or moral character to become trusted oracles. In many cases they are more representative of the problem than the solution.
Organizations like 2nd Vote can help you discern which companies and organizations align with your beliefs.
Stop using social media and Amazon
Unburden your social media life as well as your reliance on Amazon. They are physically, psychologically and financially addictive! We have laid ourselves at the feet of leftist, BigTech gazillionaires who only have their own interests at heart. They are drunk with vainglorious power and self-importance, and are buying off Congress to stay unregulated. Our world would become a better place when we connect meaningfully with real people. Unsubscribe or simply wean yourself off all but the most vital social media usage. When in doubt, pick up the phone and have a real conversation with your friends; group text rather than Facebook them. Twitter is an ego trip that you don’t need to take. Frequent local stores when buying things, supporting your local economy; you can get comparable goods at reasonable prices at big box stores or product websites. Use UPS or Fedex to ship.
Don’t send your children or grandchildren to left-leaning schools because if they are not yet, they will likely come home brainwashed.
Conservatives must become more involved at all levels of public and private education. The National Education Association (NEA) voted to focus teacher in-service programs on “white fragility” rather than quality classroom educational practices. It holds monopolistic control over public education as a labor union, strongly aligned with liberal Democrats. Most parents prefer quality teaching in math, English, reading/writing or science over K-12 leftist indoctrination. Public boards of education must be reclaimed by conservative parents. With the Covid pandemic, many parents are eschewing regular schools dominated by teachers’ unions for charter schools, homeschooling and teaching pods, less influenced by left-leaning politics. New data show that these alternatives provide a superior choice and so are under attack by the NEA. The Biden administration will double down on these attacks.
The vast majority of colleges and universities are completely leftist. State legislatures must become more vigilant of the prioritization of Marxism in higher education over democracy and the free enterprise system. Influence your children to attend politically conservative colleges like Hillsdale and Claremont, pursuing degrees in engineering, accounting, finance and STEM programs. Note, even medical school programs are now becoming woke as Stanley Goldfarb has opined, “A new wave of educational specialists is increasingly influencing medical education. They emphasize “social justice” that relates to health care only tangentially. This approach is the result of a progressive mind-set that abhors hierarchy of any kind and the social elitism associated with the medical profession in particular.”
Conservatives must consider the possibility of peaceful civil disobedience to protect our most cherished principles.
Liberal leftist Democrats gave full support to the rioting and protesting by the BLM and Antifa Marxist movements in American cities. We must be prepared to support conservatives who may conduct Ghandi-esque peaceful civil disobedience actions.
All these actions will help conservatives stand up against the far-left. Because what Democrats can never take from 73 million Americans is the love we have in our hearts and minds for this great country and the power of peaceful protest. God bless the USA!