{"id":1544101,"date":"2022-07-08T08:05:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T12:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544101"},"modified":"2022-07-08T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T12:05:49","slug":"mcconnells-disastrous-culture-war-surrender-is-wrong-on-the-year-the-issues-and-the-nature-of-the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mcconnells-disastrous-culture-war-surrender-is-wrong-on-the-year-the-issues-and-the-nature-of-the-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"McConnell\u2019s Disastrous Culture War Surrender Is Wrong On The Year, The Issues, And The Nature Of The Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmcconnells-disastrous-culture-war-surrender-is-wrong-on-the-year-the-issues-and-the-nature-of-the-fight%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544101&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/12987949603_03257694e8_k-e1657228429853.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>\u201cMcConnell,\u201d a weekend NBC headline read, \u201cwants to win the suburbs by defusing cultural hot buttons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His goal, the carefully placed story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2022-election\/mcconnell-wants-win-suburbs-defusing-cultural-hot-buttons-trump-party-rcna36266\">reports<\/a>, is to \u201cdownplay the contentious issues on which suburban voters may be more sympathetic to Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those issues listed include guns, abortion, and Donald Trump, of course. That\u2019s not where it ends, though; that\u2019s never where it ends with D.C. Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Gender ideology and childhood transitioning? That\u2019s an uncomfortable fight for the retired businessmen who make up much of the national GOP. Critical race theory and intersectionality in schools? Another doozy. And if our bi-annual \u201cGang of X\u201d crews mean anything, even immigration is a lot harder for Republicans to talk about than, say, taxes and regulations.<\/p>\n<p>These sorts of articles don\u2019t just fall out of reporters\u2019 brains, though: They\u2019re placed by interested parties. In this case, it\u2019s Sen. Mitch McConnell and his team, who are now nakedly working to run a 2012 election strategy in 2022. They\u2019re not even hiding it anymore.<\/p>\n<p>Those old enough to remember 2012, however, might recall that it didn\u2019t work \u2014 and a divisive and then-unpopular President Barack Obama solidly defeated the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>The strategy was a disaster then, and there\u2019s even stronger reason to believe it will be more disastrous 10 years on. Why?<\/p>\n<p>For one, McConnell and his team have the wrong year. For another, McConnell and his team have chosen the exactly wrong fight to move their targets (suburban parents). And finally: McConnell and his team have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of \u2014 and source of \u2014 the very fights they\u2019re trying to disengage from.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s start with the wrong year: 2022 might be a year like any other for most Americans, but in politics, 2022 is a midterm year. That makes a difference in a number of ways, including that we\u2019re going to see fewer voters. Sure, turnout will be solid, but unlike with general elections (2020, 2024, etc.), only the most active and most motivated will turn out. Because of this, these off-year elections are decided by the party faithful more than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>November\u2019s winners will be the candidates who rev up their bases the most \u2014 and nothing excites Republican base voters like the issues McConnell so desperately wants to avoid.<\/p>\n<p>Even if it were 2024, however, there\u2019s a second thing wrong with McConnell &#038; Co.\u2019s get-out-the-vote strategy: The \u201ccultural hot buttons\u201d are exactly what have driven suburban moderates away from the Democratic Party in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Though suburban moderates (and women, in particular) were driven toward voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 general election by what they perceived to be an atmosphere of constant cultural conflict around the Trump White House, just one year later, Republican Glenn Youngkin was able to win the governorship in blue Virginia by diving head first into the culture war.<\/p>\n<p>While Youngkin is a corporate-friendly moderate by any stretch, his campaign stalled when he wore a mask and focused on grocery taxes and other economic matters. When he <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/11\/03\/in-virginia-the-consultant-class-fades-as-the-new-culture-wars-dawn\/\">overruled his high-paid consultants<\/a> and drilled down on contentious battles of transgender ideology, left-wing school boards, shuttered classrooms, and activist teachers, he pulled ahead, earning a surprise win.<\/p>\n<p>This win would not have been possible had McConnell and his men run Youngkin\u2019s campaign. Instead, they would have driven Youngkin\u2019s campaign past grocery taxes and inflation and right into an obscure page of has-been political history.<\/p>\n<p>Youngkin might have preferred those economic issues, sure. He is a retired businessman (like most of the rest of the national GOP) and is most at ease when speaking about economic issues. He didn\u2019t have that choice, however; nor did the moderate suburbanites who propelled him to the governor\u2019s manse.<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to the third problem with McConnell and the boy\u2019s election strategy: In the culture war, the GOP is not the aggressor. Far from it, the Republican Party (and the American people, more broadly) are fighting a defensive maneuver: Today\u2019s battles aren\u2019t about shutting down gay bars or raiding Black Panther meetings; rather, they\u2019re being fought in our kids\u2019 classrooms and bathrooms.<\/p>\n<p>And this isn\u2019t slowing down, either. Despite fireworks over their agenda, just this week the country\u2019s largest teachers union <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/restoring-america\/community-family\/nea-teachers-union-resolution-change-mother-birthing-parent-woke\">proposed<\/a> changing \u201cmother\u201d to \u201cbirthing parent\u201d in its contracts. This, from an educators\u2019 trade union. This, from all around us.<\/p>\n<p>The hard lesson that suburban parents learned in 2021 is despite the Democrats and the media blame game \u2014 and despite the GOP\u2019s hand-wringing \u2014 Trump was not the cause of the omnipresent American Culture War. Yes, he answered nearly every call to battle, but rarely did he instigate any major cultural conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps to moderates and McConnell\u2019s great surprise, in schools, professional sports, playgrounds, city halls, amusement parks, and entertainment companies across the country, the culture war has continued in his absence. In many places, it\u2019s even heated up.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why suburban parents from <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/7q9Tul_tbMo\">all types of political, religious, and ethnic backgrounds<\/a> are rebelling against woke policies. They understand who the aggressors are; they get it, yet the professionals in charge of the Republican Party don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a problem that reflects poorly on both McConnell\u2019s team\u2019s political acumen and on their political courage. Theirs is a strategy that will lead to anemic electoral gains at best, in what should (through no fault of their own) be a banner year for Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Theirs is a strategy that mistakes the nature of the 2022 election, misses some of the main issues motivating suburban voters, and most damningly, misunderstands the very nature of the fight the American people are engaged in: We can fight, or we surrender; there is no retreat.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Christopher Bedford is a senior editor at The Federalist, a founding partner of RightForge, vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at The Daily Caller News Foundation and National Journalism Center, and the author of &#8220;The Art of the Donald.&#8221; His work has been featured in The American Mind, National Review, the New York Post and the Daily Caller, where he led the Daily Caller News Foundation and spent eight years. A frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, he was raised in Massachusetts and lives across the river from D.C. Follow him on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CBedfordDC\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMcConnell,\u201d a weekend NBC headline read, \u201cwants to win the suburbs by defusing cultural hot buttons.\u201d His goal, the carefully placed story reports, is to \u201cdownplay the contentious issues on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":574,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1544101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/574"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}