“We’ve got your back.” This phrase once had potency as a reassuring promise of support. Over time, it has become meaningless with overuse. But at a recent event, it was spoken with such conviction and in such an inspiring context, that for the first time, I felt its empowerment to my core.
The event was a “Politichicks Forum” held at the Hollywood Congress of Republicans at their April meeting. Actress, author and activist Morgan Brittany, Politichicks.tv national director and editor-in-chief Ann Marie Murrell, and psychology expert, author, radio show host and pundit Dr. Gina Loudon, were the panelists of the forum and it is hard to imagine a more powerful trio.
It may have been that the purpose of the forum was to for these dedicated (ok, can we call them obsessed?) and informed (again, obsessed) women discuss the topics of the day, and they did this admirably. But the real take-away was this: we, the conservative majority, have been silent for far too long and it’s time, past time, to speak up.
It is a truism that our media is nothing but a propaganda arm of the leftist (or Statist, Dr. Gina’s preferred term) agenda, and our schools, too, are indoctrination centers. Conservatives have ceded these all-powerful domains of influence to the “statists” and what we are seeing now is the product of decades of neglect on our part, indoctrination on theirs. As a nation, we have lost our “moral compass,” we reject the idea that such a thing might be a good idea, or even that it exists. We have become valueless, even perhaps anti-value; we are told that global solutions are better than American ones, that Federal government programs are better than local ones, and that anything the government does is better than anything a church, charity, business or individual does. We are being infantilized and weakened to where too many yearn for a benificent Big Brother to take the reins from you and me, and are under pressure to be grateful for his guiding hand.
This is the message at every layer of our lives, from every aspect of our culture. From not permitting parents to provide their children with school lunches, to accusing white Americans of racism even while denigrating the office of the presidency, to belittling our faith (where to start with references for this! ), not to mention preventing us from exercising it, to …well you know the litany. We each have our list of those incursions of government, those erosions of our rights and freedom, that chafe us, outrage us the most. Every day there are more; every day is another cover-up by the media, another Law and Order episode that shoves some progressive narrative down our throats or that denigrates the right (or both) ; every day a new Hollywood film uses its megabuck budget to wow us with celebrities and special effects while they tell a story line utterly counter to those values we once held, hijack those parables that once meant something but now are vehicles for an entirely different agenda, or raise up for admiration and adulation story lines, characters and tales that are utterly counter to traditional morality and virtue. Culturally, everything of value is being degraded, even as the line between politics and culture is being demolished, to the detriment of every one of us.
So given these tentacles into our lives and the cancer-like invasion of all our systems that communicate cultural norms, values and ideas, what can we do?
In short, we need to stop being silent. We must seize every opportunity to speak the truth about the damage being done by Obama’s policies, to be clear about the facts of today’s events, to give our own thoughts about what conservatism means, why local solutions are better than centralized ones, what compassion really entails – in other words, to wake people up from the Soma-slumber of Hopey-Changey Kumbayah hypnosis. By starting up conversations with people in lines at the supermarket (“Who are they to tell me I can’t use a plastic bag! What kind of Big Brother government is this!”) , at the store (“HOW much was the tax on that? I’ll take the cheaper one, thanks.”) , the gas station, the library, our children’s schools, anywhere and everywhere, we can jolt people into perhaps one independent thought. Some of us have tactics (Assume the person you’re talking to is already on your side! Let them argue what they think they believe – odds are good they have no idea why they believe what they believe, which is why they turn to personal invective), others have plans. Evan Sayet, for example, urges us to “Adopt a Democrat.” Amar Salgia teaches how to discuss conservative issues. By speaking out in various ways, by “being the media” ourselves, we can try to pierce through the relentless narrative that liberalism is good, conservatism is bad, that Obama is the Messiah and the only thing in the way of this nation reaching perfection is obstructionist, hateful, racist, cruel, xenophobic Republicans.
Yes, the media projects this image of us – as do textbooks and Hollywood. Which means that the front lines of this fight is populated by US – by “we the people.” Their armies are organized and systemic; ours must be guerilla-like. And this is why this forum was unique.
Each of the Politichicks panelists, in her own way, conveyed the urgency of recognizing our roles in this fight – and it is a fight. They each acknowledged that it’s not in our nature to engage in these kinds of conversations, this kind of battle. We are the party guided by a “live and let live” philosophy, and intruding into people’s lives in our discourse, our policies, our laws and our dinner tables runs counter to who we are. But by ceding all of these for so long through our silence, we have allowed ourselves to be backed into a corner, and have got to start fighting back.
As Ann Marie Murrell said, it’s also time to take back OUR words, Hope and Change and YES WE CAN. We are the party of empowerment, and it’s up to us, one at a time, to do this.
It won’t be easy. These courageous women have put themselves right on the front lines and hearing their story is inspiring. And while we each feel we’re alone, Ann Marie also reminded us of one reason they do these forums, why they do speak out: to let us know we are NOT alone.
And when Morgan Brittany said “We’ve got your back” by golly, I believe her. I have never felt such power in those words before. That we even NEED someone to have our backs is a sign of how polarized, belligerent and hostile this Obama era is. That the eloquent, intelligent and courageous Politichicks have ours gives me strength.
One day at a time, one conversation at a time, one person at a time.
“We can do this.” Yes we can.