This is the first in an irregular series of articles that will give conservatives the tools and motivation to seize the initiative and define a set of issues that will nationalize the 2022
midterm election. For many years CHQ Chairman Richard A Viguerie has been telling the GOP establishment that Republicans never win a big election unless they nationalize the election around conservative issues – that means drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats and giving the voters “a tune they can whistle” on big conservative themes.
The Republican establishment has studiously ignored that advice and the defeats of Jerry Ford, George HW Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney, as well as the 1998, 2006 and 2018 congressional elections are proof that running a content-free campaign and refusing to nationalize the election is a losing strategy for Republicans.
We saw this problem on full display during much of the 2020 campaign, perhaps because President Trump was surrounded by establishment Republicans his campaign was practically devoid of the mention of the kind of big conservative themes that motivated the Trump base and could have closed the deal with the remaining swing voters.
And those errors were on top of the rampant fraud and organized election theft that has subsequently been demonstrated in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania and other states.
Nationalizing the election is especially crucial this year when Democrats have made it clear this is the ballgame – there won’t be another free and fair election in America if they are allowed to legalize millions of presently illegal aliens, pack the Supreme Court, do away with voter ID, allow national ballot harvesting and conduct all elections California-style.
Ronald Reagan nationalized the 1980 election on two winning issues; defeating the evil empire of the Soviet Union and convincing voters that government wasn’t the answer to our country’s ills, too much government was the source of those ills.
In 2016 Donald Trump effectively nationalized the election on three winning issues; border security, reviving the economy and Hillary Clinton’s culture of lies and corruption.
This year we conservatives have the opportunity to nationalize the election on an even brighter contrast; the MAGA Movement’s commitment to maintain the traditions of the limited constitutional government bequeathed to us by our Founders, versus the Democrats’ plan to fundamentally change America into an oppressive race-based socialist state.
And it not like no one at the Republican National Committee, the Republican National Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee gets this – DC Republican establishment knows the choice in this election is whether America will remain America – the question is will they campaign on that theme?
The problem is, all too often the Trump team makes everything about Trump, and the moderate Republican establishment-types around the President, and its insider clique of Washington-based political consultants, prefers to run a content-free campaign, rather than make the election a clear choice between conservativism and Democrat plans to fundamentally change America.
Mostly because it makes their friends at the country club bar squirm, the Republican establishment hates to talk about, let alone campaign on issues like the right-to-life, critical race theory, reducing immigration, preserving religious liberty and reining in the Deep State.
Democrats won’t be branded as the party of racism, socialism and abortion up to the moment of birth if the GOP establishment hews to the current strategy of running a content-free “prevent defense” campaign that “moves to the center” by touting meaningless show votes and minor issues that have nothing to do with the top concerns of real voters.
When we look at all the issues in this election, many of which are listed below, it is obvious this election isn’t about whether Congress will spend X or Y dollars on some program or whether there will be a new highway between East Overshoe and Podunk Junction -- the choice in this election is whether America will remain America.
Bottom line: What this election really comes down to is that contrast between maintaining our traditional individual liberties in the limited constitutional government bequeathed to us by our Founders, or surrendering them to empower violent mobs and their allies in government to create an oppressive socialist state where everything is decided on the basis of race and gender and no dissent or freedom of conscience is tolerated.
The Cultural Issues:
As our late friend and former Reagan administration official Jeffery Bell noted in, "The Case for Polarized Politics," social conservatism has a winning track record for the GOP.
"Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964," Bell wrote. "The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. . . . When social issues came into the mix – I [Bell] would date it from the 1968 election . . . the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections."
Today, the contrast between Democrats and MAGA Movement Republicans on the social issues, or what we now call the cultural issues, could not be clearer.
While Democrats have embraced “critical race theory” to divide the country with claims that all American institutions are products of “white privilege,” at the direction of the president, the Office of Management and Budget is ordering all federal agencies to “cease and desist” any government training programs that include any reference to the divisive fictions of “critical race theory” or “white privilege.”
Stopping this corrosive ideology from spreading is crucial to the future of our country. If Democrats remain in control of Congress you can count on critical race theory becoming mandatory instruction in our government offices and public schools, thus ensuring that your children will be taught to hate themselves and see racial bigotry in every human interaction.
Democrats have also made it clear they think that your religious liberty and freedom of conscience are not natural rights bestowed by God, and protected by the Constitution, but privileges bestowed by the State. And if you disagree with the State, then your right to practice your faith is forfeit, and should your conscience contradict the State’s demands then the State must always win.
The bottom line: The choice in this election is whether America will remain America.
The Right-to-Life:
In no other area are the positions of MAGA Republicans and the Democrats more at odds than on the right-to-life. Donald Trump has made the right-to-life one of the cornerstones of his domestic policy – and he went to greater lengths than any President, including Ronald Reagan, to use his executive authority to protect the right-to-life.
The Democratic Party has become synonymous with abortion on demand. Democrats have steadily purged pro-life candidates and officeholders from the Party. Since 1989, abortion-rights groups have donated $32 million to Democrats and $3 million to Republican candidates who support keeping abortion legal, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics. Groups that opposed abortion have given $14 million to Republicans and only $372,000 to Democrats over that time period.
Democrats want to make abortion up to the moment of birth not just legal, but a constitutional right, they want to abolish the Hyde Amendment, so Catholics and other abortion opponents are required to participate in the sin of infanticide and they want to guarantee a dead baby to any woman seeking an abortion by repealing President Trump’s Born Alive Executive Order and stymieing legislation to guarantee medical care to infants born alive in the course of an abortion.
The bottom line: The choice in this election is whether America will remain America.
The BLM & ANTIFA Revolution:
There is an equally stark contrast between Democrats and MAGA Republicans on how to approach the revolutionary movement that has inflicted more than $2 billion in property damage and cost the lives of more than 30 people, such as retired St. Louis police Capt. David Dorn, 77, who was fatally shot while trying to protect a friend's pawnshop that was being looted. Dorn's killing came during the same week that four police officers were shot and wounded in St. Louis and one in Las Vegas.
Among those Democrats instigating and coordinating the violence were sitting members of Congress and their families and the children of the Democrat Governors who are supposed to be quelling the riots.
Democrats have not just excused the rioting and looting, they have embraced the revolutionary goals of BLM and ANTIFA; defunding the police, “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear-family-structure” requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages,’ abolishing all prisons, progressive restructuring of the tax codes at the local, state and federal levels to ensure a radical redistribution of wealth, and the retroactive decriminalization, immediate release and record expungement of all drug-related offenses and prostitution and reparations for the devastating impact of the ‘war on drugs’ and criminalization of prostitution, among other radical utopian socialist policies.
While Democrats, such as Portland, Oregon’s Mayor Ted Wheeler and the state’s Democrat Governor Kate Brown have allowed ANTIFA and BLM free reign for years, President Trump sent highly trained federal officers to protect federal property when it has been threatened and designated New York City; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington as “Anarchist Jurisdictions” and began to take steps to force them to perform the basic function of government to protect their own citizens.
All those efforts were undone in the immediate aftermath of Joe Biden’s seizure of the reins of government. And, while the FBI and Department of Justice have relentlessly pursued over 500 Grannies and patriotic veterans for taking selfies in the Capitol on January 6, 2021 few of the George Floyd rioters have been charged, let alone prosecuted.
The bottom line: The choice in this election is whether America will remain America.
The Second Amendment and the Constitution:
The unalienable rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment have never been exercised more vigorously than they were during the Wuhan virus epidemic and the BLM – ANTFA revolution, when record numbers of firearms were sold. But at the same time, those rights have never been more vigorously attacked by anti-gun Democrats.
The 2022 Democrat ticket is easily the most anti-gun ever; Democrat candidates campaign on gun confiscation and both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris talk regularly about their plans to confiscate commonly owned guns.
Democrats continue to push gun control, a move that challenges the surge in gun buying. Since the coronavirus crisis struck, gun sales have hit a record, and industry officials said that new gun buyers include women, minorities, and Democrats.
The Democrat-controlled House has already passed an assault weapons ban and Biden has used his Executive Branch authority to try to ban certain kinds of commonly owned firearms and firearms parts.
What’s more, these actions aren’t outliers in the Democratic Party - 2020 Democratic Party Platform declared total war on Second Amendment rights. Most concerning to gun owners is what the 2020 Democrat Party platform omits – any recognition that Americans have a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The gun control section of the 2020 Democratic Party Platform is a perfect fit for today’s Democrats. Both the platform drafters and the Democrat Party candidates have put forward a radical gun control agenda that would further burden every aspect of gun ownership. Above all, both have exhibited a complete disregard for the Second Amendment.
Whether you are a longtime gun owner, or one of the millions of Americans who in the past six months have purchased their first gun, you should make no mistake about the unshakable commitment to gun confiscation held by Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Kamala Harris.
And it isn’t just the Second Amendment that Biden and the Democrats plan to erase.
Democrats have already handed over our First Amendment rights to the Far Left oligarchs of Big Tech, and they plan to expand Big Tech’s role in censoring and curating the news and information Americans are allowed to see online and through social media.
Using fear of the COVID-19 virus, Democrats are conditioning Americans to accept limits on their First Amendment rights of association and assembly, with Democrat Governors and Mayors using newly imagined executive powers to arbitrarily and capriciously shut down businesses, churches, synagogues, religious schools and religious gatherings, such as funerals and revivals, and arrest those who disagree.
The bottom line: The choice in this election is whether America will remain America.
Conclusion – Donald Trump Can’t Do It Alone
Conservative can’t wait around and hope that sometime in the next three months the establishment Republicans figure this out. Nor can we expect former President Donald Trump to get out on the campaign trail to carry the ball for us all by himself.
Starting today, starting right now, each conservative must commit themselves to making the choice in this election is whether America will remain America by drawing sharp contrasts with Democrats on these issues; the cultural issues, most importantly Critical Race Theory in our schools, religious liberty, pro-American education and traditional values, the right-to-life, law and order and the revolutionary movements of BLM and ANTIFA, the Second Amendment, especially preserving constitutional government and liberty.
You can start by focusing your conservative organization, if you’re part of one, on these issues: the cultural issues, most importantly Critical Race Theory in our schools, religious liberty, pro-American educations and traditional values, the right-to-life, law and order and the revolutionary movements of BLM and ANTIFA, constitutional government and liberty, and especially the Second Amendment. You can write op-eds, letters to the editor, blog posts, email and social media posts.
You can also exercise the First Amendment rights guaranteed in the Constitution and preserved by the Supreme Court and take out an ad calling out the candidates on these issues.
Finally, and most effectively, you can tell your friends and acquaintances where you stand, why this election is so important and why they should reject the Democrats anti-freedom agenda and vote for conservative candidates who have committed to ensure that America will remain America.
2022 Elections
Control of Congress
border security
economy
Republican establishment
Right to life
Critical Race Theory
illegal immigration
religious liberty
deep state
social conservatism
crime
Second Amendment
gun confiscation
free speech
censorship