Advice, Sort Of
“The time for talk is over.” —Barack Obama, many, many times
Welp, looks like we’ve made it. We’ve reached the point in the book where we, as your sagacious authors, are charged with drawing important conclusions and imparting brilliant advice that addresses some of the problems we’ve enumerated over the course of this book. Here’s the thing, though: many of the challenges we discussed are too entrenched, too irresistible for demagogues, too insidious to uproot in three easy steps. Which is not to say that we believe conservatives and defenders of true dialogue ought to throw their hands up in despair. What follows isn’t a satisfying, tidy conclusion along the lines of the “if only everyone else were smart enough to agree with us, everything would come up roses” variety. But there are things we can do. Let’s start with the fun stuff.
Many of our peers will be familiar with the 1990s children’s cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Looking back on the show today, it’s blindingly obvious that it was left-wing propaganda to the point of parody. The cartoon’s opening sequence explains, “Our world is in peril! Gaia, spirit of the earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet. She sends five special rings to five special young people…when the five powers [earth, wind, water, fire, and heart] combine, they summon Earth’s greatest champion, Captain Planet!”
This squad of “special young people” is, needless to say, composed of an approved mix of ethnicities and genders, hailing from all over the world. They summon the show’s superhero by slipping on their magic rings and pointing them skyward. Their “powers combined” would awaken Captain Planet, who would rocket up from the depths of the earth, joining them to beat back the show’s villains: unscrupulous factory owners, greedy businessmen, “deforestation,” “smog,” and “hate,” natch.
Although we could go on, we’re not here to bitch and moan about a long-canceled afternoon cartoon.2 But we’re captivated by the entertaining, if wildly implausible, image of conservatives employing a similar model to hunt down and harass the Left’s Outrage Circus across the country. Whenever a pop-up outrage emerged, a team of carefully selected conservative provocateurs would be dispatched to ground zero of the controversy to address the Left’s arguments head-on and force the media to cover the other side. Team members would be selected based on criteria typically valued by the Left: take-no-prisoners attitudes, Absolute Moral Authority status, and “diversity.”
We don’t have the whole cast and script quite worked out just yet, but we’re thinking about folks like radio host Dana Loesch (female, media personality, gun rights champion), radio host Tammy Bruce (female, gay—double points), syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock (black, gay—double points), and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (female, black, atheist, victim of misogyny, fighter of male privilege—quadruple points). Perhaps additional specialists could be called in, depending on the nature of the hoopla. Thomas Sowell might be the on-call economist, the Federalist Society founders could head up the legal department, while attorney John Yoo and former CIA clandestine service chief Jose Rodriguez would run the national security shop. We’re open to additional candidates and suggestions for this undertaking.
Now, on a slightly more practical level, may we suggest the creation of a…
COALITION TO CHILL THE HELL OUT
The sound, fury, and economic impact of a boycott—or even jitters associated with the threat of a boycott—can serve as salient societal change agents. In our view, as we hope we’ve made clear by now, such tactics should be employed very sparingly. Some on the Left go to this well with alarming regularity, whipping up “outrage” and demanding punishment for even the slightest departures from their current acceptable standards. Their efficacy depends on the degree to which their targets fear the consequences—which, in turn, is often linked to the volume and intensity of organizers’ outrage output. The resulting state of play allows a relatively small handful of agitators, sometimes posing as “grassroots” activists with untold hordes of supporters at their back, to create the impression of a popular groundswell that targets ought to take seriously.
As Juan Williams can attest (see chapter 4), even a trickle of emails can do the job. We’re not suggesting that boycotts and social media campaigns can’t be righteous and important from time to time. We are suggesting that they’re overused and allow small circles of zealots to wield disproportionate influence by purporting to speak “for America.” In many cases, what America would probably prefer is for people to chill the hell out. Feel free to voice your displeasure with business decision X, or individual Y. But let’s dial back the scalp-claiming business. To that end, perhaps it would be edifying and worthwhile to develop a vast e-mail list or a turnkey petition function that would allow millions of ordinary people to affix their signature to a document declaring their profound neutrality/apathy/indifference on the latest dustup. Such a system could give voice to the silent vast majority in most circumstances and imbue pressured parties with the confidence associated with a timely reminder that their tormenters aren’t necessarily speaking for a significant chunk of consumers.
To wit, “We the undersigned hold differing views on same-sex marriage, which we understand to be a controversial political issue. We also enjoy the delicious chicken prepared six days per week by the fine employees of Chick-fil-A and would prefer that they concentrate their efforts on cooking their delectable offerings, which we will continue to purchase and consume—even as we agree and disagree with the ownership’s political or religious beliefs. Signed, the Coalition to Chill the Hell Out and Eat Mor Chikn.™”
George Will cited Chick-fil-A as one reason to, well, chill the hell out about the Outrage Circus in general. The merchants of outrage “shout at the margins of public discourse,” Will said in an interview with us. “We should view this with a bemused disdain because they’re making a ruckus, perhaps noted by people of similar persuasions, but I don’t think they’re having many consequences. Remember, not long ago, when the CEO of Chick-fil-A expressed support for the traditional understanding of marriage, taking the position that Barack Obama held when he ran for election in 2008. There was an immediate outcry from a small but clamorous minority that people should boycott Chick-fil-A. So while the spirit of these people is disreputable, their effect is often negligible.”
Yep. In the year following the Chick-fil-A boycott, the family-owned restaurant surpassed KFC’s market share for the first time ever and was identified in internal McDonald’s documents as a “serious and growing competitive threat.”
We’re still a bit less sanguine than Will is on the topic, but some of his points are well taken and should be instructive for those who may find themselves in the center of a future whirlwind. Our alliance of shruggers could offer a shot-in-the-arm reminder to the besieged that while self-reflection is healthy and sometimes needed, this too shall pass. The disreputable few’s bark is louder than their “often negligible” bite. Chill the hell out.
WHEN “OUTRAGE CIRCUS” TENTS COLLAPSE
We’ve spent much of this book warning about the growing influence of the conversation-ending demagogues, so we think we owe it to our conservative readers to cite a few encouraging examples of the Outrage Circus throwing everything they’ve got at political opponents—and going down in flames. On that score, we were keen on tracking the respective fates of two candidates for office in the 2014 elections: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Colorado Senate candidate Cory Gardner. Each was subjected to relentless and often dishonest fear tactics from the Left—and we’re delighted to see that each man stuck to the issues and prevailed.
We’ve already reviewed liberals’ extraordinary opposition to Governor Walker, chronicling Wisconsin Democrats’ obstructionist efforts that culminated in a mass exodus from the state in an ill-fated attempt to block votes. When that failed, they gathered signatures and spent millions to try to recall the governor from office—not over an alleged crime or ethical breach, but over an ideological dispute in which they’d lost fair and square. The climate surrounding the collective bargaining fracas3 and subsequent sore-loser-do-over election was chaotic. Mass protests. Squatting in the Capitol. Death threats. Hitler comparisons. Madison had it all.
After Walker thwarted them a second time with his recall triumph (the first time in U.S. history that a sitting governor won a recall election), Democrats geared up to defeat him in his 2014 re-re-election campaign. Their nominee, Mary Burke,4 began her campaign with an ad flagrantly lying about Walker’s jobs record, earning a “Pants on Fire” rating from left-leaning PolitiFact. DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz—the Cal Ripken Jr. of political lying—visited the state to denounce Walker’s record on “women’s issues” (sigh—see chapter 6), which she graphically compared to domestic abuse. She mused that the governor’s policies had dragged women around by their hair, and that Walker had given female Wisconsinites “the back of his hand.” Because Democrats take violence against women very seriously, you see.
Perhaps the most enraging component of the Left’s “kitchen sink” anti-Walker outrage fest was the media’s treatment of a so-called John Doe investigation by partisan Democratic prosecutors into Walker-allied groups in the state. The secret probe imposed gag orders on its targets, including organizations like the Wisconsin Club for Growth, and kneecapped a large component of the Right’s activist network in the state leading up to the 2014 election. It even featured dramatic predawn raids at private homes, designed for maximum humiliation and retribution. Two separate judges—one federal, one state—looked at the prosecutors’ evidence and effectively ordered the investigation halted in its tracks for lack of evidence. (This led to much legal wrangling, including a series of appeals, which are ongoing as of this writing.)
The federal judge even allowed a lawsuit by targeted conservatives against the prosecutors to move forward. Months later, as that pushback lawsuit pressed ahead, reams of documents from the original thrown-out-of-court case were made public. This cache of papers spelled out old allegations that had been advanced long ago, and that had been tossed out of court by two judges because the persecution team couldn’t establish sufficient probable cause. But you’d never know any of that from the resulting media coverage.
Local and national media outlets breathlessly plastered this “bombshell” story across front pages from Madison to Manhattan. Much of the coverage misleadingly adopted the present tense: “Prosecutors allege x, y and z…” No, prosecutors alleged those things, then two judges reviewed their case and basically said “Get lost.” Oh, and Walker himself had never even been the target of a single John Doe subpoena, let alone a candidate for indictment or conviction. Yet all that humongously relevant context was either buried deep within stories or elided altogether. When some of us raised these issues, Walker’s critics responded by sniffing, “When you’re explaining, you’re losing,” a familiar and often-accurate political adage. Seriousness of the allegation, and all that. Naturally, the Burke campaign cut an ad on the alleged shocking development within hours. The investigation—spearheaded by a man whom respected journalist and Brookings scholar Stuart Taylor later revealed to be a hard-core partisan whose wife’s hatred of Walker bordered on the pathological—had served its true purpose.5
The Outrage Circus emptied their tactical clip on this guy. They tapped the full arsenal. And he beat them, for the third time in four years. How’d he manage that?
“All too often, people get freaked out by the people who are right there in front of them, and they forget about everybody else,” Walker tells us in an interview, recounting a story that illustrates his point. “At the height of the [anti-budget reform] union protests, when we were approaching 100,000 protesters at and around the Capitol, I finally got wise. I started holding press conferences at 5:00 because I knew that if I kept it concise, local television and some national outlets would cover it live. So I had an unfiltered way to talk to the state for about ten minutes. The protesters figured it out, too. They started to get really loud right around 5 p.m. I’d be speaking to the press, and they’d make lots of noise. On one particular day, they were louder than they’d ever been, and a reporter asked me if those people had a right to be heard. And I said that they had every right to be heard, but that I wasn’t going to let tens of thousands of people—and some were bused and flown in from other states—drown out the voices of millions of people around Wisconsin who elected me to do exactly what I was doing.”
So he had the courage of his convictions and chilled the hell out and kept in mind his duty to the millions when faced with the screeching few.
Walker said that the darkest days of the battle over his Act 10 reforms steeled him for future challenges, making recall and reelection campaigns seem tame by comparison. “I was getting lots of threats [at the time],” he recalls. “One day, the leader of my security team came to me with a letter they’d intercepted that had been sent to my real home, our private home, that was addressed to my wife. It said that while there had never been a Wisconsin governor who’d been assassinated before, there was a first time for everything. It told my wife that she needed to stop me, and that the sender knew where my boys attended high school and where her father lived. It was scary, but it made me furious. I decided I’d be damned if I was going to let these people terrorize me. Rather than retreating, I was resolved to move forward, and I realized that if I could get through this, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t sustain.”
The governor calls the Madison meltdown of 2011 a “case study” in the Left’s tactics of outrage and intimidation. “They were trying to rattle us. They literally tried to shut down the legislative process and the debate by disrupting votes and trying to block entrances to the chambers. There were times when lawmakers, including myself and my staff, legitimately felt threatened. I’m not talking about political risks, I’m saying we were literally afraid that people were going to physically attack us.” Walker says protesters trailed him everywhere, sometimes learning where he was planning to hold official events in advance. At one ceremony, agitators had filled the entire room and began shouting when the event’s official program began. “You couldn’t hear anything,” he remembers. An elected Democrat in attendance got up to address the crowd, telling the mob that although he disagreed with Walker on big issues, it was wrong to shout him down and ruin an event. “He was booed and called a traitor just for asking that we be able to speak,” Walker says.
Asked what he’d say in a short pep talk to fellow conservatives who find themselves in the Outrage Circus’s political crosshairs, Walker doesn’t flinch. “Be bold, be firm and be united.” He said that some of the more moderate Republican members of the legislature who may have been more reluctant in the past were able to withstand the fire and hold the line because of the unity of purpose the party maintained in the crucible. “[The Left] is never going to treat you better if you retreat,” Walker says, at least not in the long run. “They went after people regardless of what their past track record had been.” He adds that conviction and guts in defense of a strong policy doesn’t have to be a political liability. “Being bold and sticking with it doesn’t just help you with your ‘base,’ ” he says. “It also helps you with general voters. A lot of times, voters don’t want moderation. They want leadership.”
As Walker was fighting and winning his 2014 contest, Democrats halfway across the country in Colorado were applying a full-court press to defeat Republican Senate challenger Cory Gardner, a conservative congressman who was seeking to unseat incumbent Senator Mark Udall. Gardner has been widely credited with running a virtually flawless campaign, beating back the Left’s deranged and dishonest attacks with almost otherworldly positivity. He proved uniquely adept at fighting back against Team Udall’s comically relentless focus on birth control, and Gardner’s nonexistent scheme to “ban” it. Gardner ran several ads setting the record straight from the get-go, highlighting his actual position, which entailed expanding access to affordable contraception by making the pill available for adult women over the counter, without a prescription. When Udall refused to let it go, Gardner began challenging the hapless Democrat on the issue of OTC birth control, knowing full well that Udall couldn’t embrace the plan because his Planned Parenthood benefactors opposed it, largely out of financial self-interest. Consequently, Udall looked like a mumbling buffoon in debates, as Gardner grinned ear to ear. It’s no small wonder that the Udall campaign had taken the extraordinary step of declining to participate in a single televised statewide debate.
Udall’s fixation on birth control became so one-note and stale (The Hill reported roughly a month before Election Day that approximately half of all Udall ads focused on the issue) that the left-leaning Denver Post editorial board lambasted the candidate in its eyebrow-raising endorsement of Gardner. The money line: “Udall is trying to frighten voters rather than inspire them with a hopeful vision. His obnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.” We practically did backflips when we first read that sentence.
In the home stretch of the campaign, a report published on the Gawker-owned sports blog Deadspin—which is often quite funny—accused Gardner of having fabricated his high school football career. Democratic operatives virtually high-fived online, with some crowing that the story was a crushing game changer. Except it was nothing of the sort. Within minutes, Gardner personally tweeted two contemporaneous photos of himself in his…high school football uniform, accompanied by good-natured quips about his unimpressive athletic career. Real journalists followed up with sources and quickly dismantled the core of Deadspin’s “scoop,” which was ultimately retracted. What appeared to be a potential threat was reversed and pounded into dust within hours. The Republican once again turned an attack line to his benefit. Team Gardner approached both the serious “war on women” challenge and the silly-season football nonsense with a smiling, but determined, game face.
“On the issue of birth control, we recognized early on that too many Republicans had lost because they’d played defense,” Senator Gardner explained in a postelection chat. “We’ve tried to win on a message of ‘oh, no, no, no—I really do support birth control!’ What we recognized was the need to have an offensive message. So what we did was talk about the good policy of over-the-counter contraception, and by doing this focused on policy, not politics. The drive of the Democrats was always about politics. There’s an old saying that good policy is good politics. So we were able to push back, on offense, with a very popular thing, and the people of Colorado looked at that and said, ‘That is a good idea. And if he’s for that, we obviously cannot believe the charge that [Democrats] are making, which is outrageous, that he wants to ban birth control.’ So we had something to be for. To stand on. Instead of just denying a negative charge.”
When his high school football career was called into question by Deadspin’s article, Gardner knew the real attack was on his integrity and honesty. He recalls how his campaign deployed its masterful and nimble rapid-response strategy that afternoon: “I knew that I did play football, obviously, but the only proof that I could think of was at home. I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, this is a very, very important thing, and I hope you’re not busy. But I need you to immediately go over to my house and find my high school [yearbooks] down in the basement, and find the pictures of me from football and take photos with your iPhone and text them to me. Please.’ And within ten minutes, she had done that. We determined that we couldn’t handle it from a sense of outrage because that’s what they wanted. The best way to fight back to the absolute snark and cynicism we were seeing on Twitter was to be humorous and make fun of myself. It ended up resulting in days of good press for us.”
Gardner eschewed the angry/indignant temptation and used a pair of self-deprecating tweets to demolish a potential problem. He estimates that the whole tumult went from red-hot controversy to the discredited butt of jokes in the span of forty minutes. Spending even a short time with Gardner reveals that his earnest, upbeat sunniness is his secret sauce. Though it comes naturally to him, Gardner believes a positive outlook can help conservatives connect better with people and neutralize the outrage peddlers. “We need to remember that the people of this country have plenty to worry about. Plenty to worry about at work, at home, abroad. One thing they do not need is for conservatives to give them more things to worry about by being too negative or fear-driven. Or being too shrill. We believe in what we stand for as conservatives. We should be excited and energetic and enthusiastic. If people perceive you as energetic and enthusiastic about what you believe in, there’s a contagion there that can spread. And it results, ultimately, in an optimistic worldview. You can’t just do it as a campaign persona. You have to carry it out in real life, too.”
So there you have it. Two candidates. Two sets of challenges. Two wins. After several hundred pages of outlining the frustrating, pernicious obstacles the Left erects for conservatives, we felt like we owed you some good news in our conclusion. So take heart, friends. All is not lost. At least in the electoral politics realm, if Republicans can train themselves to confront the Outrage Circus in a smart and disciplined manner, employing the right mix of targeted cold-bloodedness and good cheer, sanity can still win the day. Just ask thrice-elected Governor Scott Walker, or freshly minted United States senator Cory Gardner.
ADVICE, SORT OF
Perhaps the biggest challenge in writing this tome was the task of crafting actionable advice to impart in our farewell chapter. The core tension we’ve grappled with from the earliest writing stages is whether or not conservatives should attempt to fight the Left blow for blow, “outrage” for “outrage.” On one hand, recusing ourselves from getting our hands a bit dirty amounts to unilateral disarmament. Losing with honor is still losing.6 On the other hand, diving into the outrage arms race is depressing. It’s exhausting. It’s soul-crushing. And, thanks to the mainstream media’s heavily documented double standards, it’s often counterproductive. The deck is stacked. The correct approach entails striking an appropriate balance, wherein the Right declines to cede the playing field altogether without needlessly escalating the outrage wars, which would threaten to officially push our national conversation over the “beyond repair” Rubicon. So, without further ado, here are our closing thoughts.
To Everyone
(1) Stop narcing on each other. It’s not our job as friends, family, coworkers, or even political adversaries to spend all our time picking out what is wrong with someone else. Yes, you have a recording device at your disposal at all times in the smartphone era. No, that does not mean you should record every incidence of boorishness you come across and send it to TMZ. If we take it upon ourselves to tattle to authorities about our fellow citizens’ every moment of weakness, questionable behavior, and “incorrect” thought, we’re just opposition researchers in this campaignlike existence we’re creating. We should not view ourselves as agents of the righteous state, or a righteous activist group, or a righteous media, rooting out minor infractions to make the world a better place. Sometimes shining a light on misbehavior is important, but it is the right of every American to occasionally be a jerk, to occasionally say the wrong thing, especially in the privacy of their homes, without being reported. If you enjoy such a courtesy, extend it to others. Let’s not elevate the tattletale to a place of cultural exaltation he does not deserve.
(2) Don’t allow yourself to be cowed into silence. Sometimes keeping your thoughts to yourself is the polite and proper thing to do. Sometimes it’s best to do further research, or to self-edit a bit, before spouting off. But it’s unhealthy for our society if you self-censor out of fear of crossing the self-stylized thought police. Finish that sentence. Post that status. And if your friend, relative, or coworker sputters, “But that’s ___ist!” try to avoid default defensiveness. Consider that they may not have any earthly idea how to refute the point you’re actually making. Ask them simple questions like, “Why do you say that? Without calling me a ___ist or getting upset, why do you think I’m wrong on the merits? I want to have this conversation, don’t you?”
(3) By the same token, don’t be afraid NOT to have an opinion on something. (This goes doubly for us, as people who are literally in the business of having opinions.) The outrage mongers thrive on making every single American act like a political candidate, declaring his or her position on every subject no matter how big or small. It’s ludicrous to try to keep up. Attempting to do so causes more context-free opinions, more groupthink as citizens simply pick the side to which their political affiliation seems to be migrating, more fatigue, and less fun. We’re a free people who have every right to say, “meh.” Hold that dear. It is more honest and more healthy than handing your life over to the outrage brigades.
To Our Fellow Conservatives
(1) Pick your battles with wisdom and great care. This means letting some things go. Figure out what’s important, and why, and don’t sweat every single thing that comes down the pike. Your blood pressure will thank you.
(2) Stop taking yourselves so superseriously. Enjoying interests beyond right-wing politics, and, you know, laughing, aren’t signs of weakness or betrayals of “the cause” or whatever. To convince normal people who are not political junkies, it helps if we at least seem relatable. Anger, like desperation, is not a political aphrodisiac.
(3) Quit spending much of your time and energy attacking one another. This may be slightly beyond the scope of this book, but good heavens. If the center-right spent half the time focusing on winning as we do on RINO-huntin’ and TrueCon-bashin’, who knows what we might manage to accomplish?
(4) Ask yourself, “Might I fit the lefty stereotype of a close-minded conservative?” Do you tailor your media consumption habits such that you almost exclusively consume viewpoints with which you’re heavily disposed to agree? What is the last issue on which you’ve genuinely listened to a left-of-center friend, and perhaps changed your opinion? If you can’t answer that, do you really, truly believe that your ideological canon is that infallible? That our “side” is right about literally everything? Occasional self-examination is healthy. It’s a rare person indeed who isn’t some kind of political hybrid. We all have our ideological oddities. We should be honest about them and unsurprised and understanding when others have them, too.
To Moderates and Independents
We imagine that you’ve found yourself nodding along through portions of this book, while gritting your teeth at other passages. We’re not asking you to agree with us on every single issue (although we certainly wouldn’t object!); that’s not the point. The point is that the core American value of free exchange is under sustained, deliberate attack. If you agree with the overall warning we’ve issued, please consider actively joining the Coalition to Chill the Hell Out, and perhaps try to be more skeptical and aware consumers of future political and cultural controversies. Beyond contemplating “Which side do I agree with?,” then moving along, also ask questions like “Regardless of my own personal feelings, is either side trying to shut down this debate altogether?” And “Is the other side’s stance so fundamentally unacceptable that it doesn’t deserve a reasonably fair hearing?” We can’t imagine the answer to the latter question will often be yes.
To Our Open-Minded Friends on the Center-Left
Thanks again for reading. The mere fact that you did so suggests that you’re probably not part of the problem we’re addressing in the book. Though an ideological conversion would be splendid, you can absolutely stand firm on your liberal principles while reminding your brethren what tolerance and open-mindedness (some of the most admirable, if decreasingly applicable, tenets of liberalism) truly look like in practice. Also, see item four in our message above to our conservative colleagues, and challenge yourselves with the same questions.
To Those Currently in the Crosshairs
Stop giving in so easily. The storm is probably not as bad as it seems. The boycott is not as effective as its perpetrators hope. Sometimes apologies are truly necessary, and when you offer one, it should be complete and sincere. But our society demands them far too often for far too little, precipitating nonapologies and insincere apologies. Many are under the impression that an apology will stop the outrage, but it often feeds, rather than quells, the storm. Take a page from the late great Joan Rivers and employ your middle finger liberally, in spirit if not literally. Guess what happened when Rivers refused to apologize for a joke? The outrage purveyors looked at her, confused, screamed briefly about her stubbornness, and moved on to the next outrage. Our short attention spans aren’t good for much, but perhaps we can harness them to save us from ourselves. Like so many cranky magpies, the perpetually aggrieved will move to the next shiny offense. And there will always be one.
To the End-of-Discussion Outrage Circus
Please stop, or at least replace your “Coexist” bumper sticker with an aesthetically similar one that reads “Coerce.” Be honest about who you are and what you’re really trying to accomplish.
And with that, we’re done here. Thanks for listening. This is the end of our discussion, but let’s all keep talking. For America.
1 If this chapter title puzzles you, that means one thing: you ignored our previous exhortation to search Al Sharpton vs. the teleprompter on YouTube. For shame.
2 We have blogs for that.
3 Which was really rooted in unions’ terror over a provision in Walker’s reforms that made it—gasp!—voluntary for many government sector union members to pay dues. Since those objectively successful reforms were implemented, dues-paying public union membership in the state has cratered. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that membership “has declined by 50 percent or more” in some public sector unions since the passage of Act 10. It seems that many working folks think they can spend their earnings better than Democrats and their union boss benefactors.
4 Burke ran on her business experience at Trek, her family’s bicycle business. It emerged just before the election that she’d been…“downsized” at said family bicycle business, with several former executives confirming that her leadership had been shambolic. Ouch.
5 If conservatives really wanted to fight dirty, they’d recruit unscrupulous lawyers who are willing to deploy the frivolous indictment/ethical cloud playbook against elected Democrats. The negative headlines created by Representative Tom DeLay’s (later-reversed) downfall, or Senator Ted Stevens’s (later-reversed) conviction days before an election, or Governor Rick Perry’s (truly groundless) indictment, or the sundry outlandish claims that grew out of Governor Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” brouhaha (after which three separate inquiries found no evidence he’d been untruthful) take political tolls. Find some yahoo prosecutor to indict a public figure, then drone on about “abuse of power” and “corruption” until the intended target’s polls take a hit. The media would surely go along with that GOP smear project, right? Right??
6 Nope, we’re not saying that one side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on dishonorable people or tactics. If you think that’s what we’re saying, you might be a lazy opposition researcher who hasn’t read the book you’re holding, or who has suppressed entire elements of it. Don’t be that guy. (We acknowledge that “that guy” is a heteronormative and sexist microaggression that likely merited a trigger warning.)