The Old Normal is New Again

Regular Contributor Musket (@Patriot_Musket)

Challenging assertions normalized by the left is the first line of battle in any culture war. No longer would we permit the normalization of things that are only deemed normal simply because the left says it is. Beginning in 2008, the left began the drumbeat of making normal what is clearly not, and by granting female and minority status only to those whom the left deemed worthy of them.

Beginning in 2008, the Democrat Party decided it had no further use for rural voters, especially rural white voters, and began an extended campaign to lure immigrants and immigrant-friendly voters. That was the future of America, they reasoned, and they bet much political capital upon it. A member of their very own fringe, radical wing had just been elected president, after all, so that must be an effective strategy. And so the voices of the radical left grabbed hold of an entire political party that just ten years ago was controlled by a political family that campaigned with the Confederate flag in their campaign literature. It was in those days that the splintering and radicalization of the Democrat voter base began.

Assertion one: All women are pro-abortion. This is not, and never has been true, no matter how many people you get to attend a Planned Parenthood rally under the guise of “women’s rights.” Any politician or Facebook user quickly understood that to be pro-life was to be anti-woman, and any woman who dared to be pro-life was a traitor to her gender. Any man who held a belief that abortion was wrong was promptly advised that his status as a penis-bearer denied him any input into the matter at all. As this narrative begins to dissolve, the Democratic Party’s affiliation of loosely-bound fringe movements starts to unravel, and that, under any circumstances, cannot be allowed to happen. Their party made that decision in 2008.

Assertion two: Young people are inherently liberal and are thus going to vote Democrat no matter what. But wait, is it? Do young people automatically buy into the belief that abortion must be available “on demand, free, and without apology?” Not so much it seems. From Gallup:

This survey, conducted in 2010, indicates that the left’s prized angels, Millennials, are more in favor of restrictions on abortion than they might have hoped for. Remember of course, that any position short of “on demand, free, and without apology” falls well short of any definition that entitles a female to the leftist’s title of “Woman.” Americans outside of liberal strongholds on the coasts appear largely against this narrative simply parroted by the media as truth.

Assertion three: Americans are in favor of gender-identity normalization. An interesting example of leftist overreach here. By 2010, it was abundantly clear that the majority of Americans either supported gay marriage or were merely indifferent to it. (Some of us wonder why government has a say in marriage at all). This victory was not enough for the Lunatic Left™. I’ll give the Democrat Party one thing, they know how to pounce on a narrative and advance it to the point where it becomes accepted terminology (when the heck did taxes become “investments” or “revenue?”), but I digress. In this case, their assumption that America was at the very least tolerant of same-sex marriage turned into an all-out assault on what defines a man or a woman. Famously, several companies were put on the spot and were expected to allow someone who simply “identified” as a woman to be allowed into public restrooms and dressing rooms, even going so far as to demand this behavior be permitted in public schools. One company, Target, joined this wave and announced a “trans friendly” bathroom policy. I suppose that in New York City or Seattle, Washington, this normalization was but mere common sense.

The rest of the country disagreed.

We can get into the weeds about North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, but that’s not the point here. The point here is that to 90% or more of the country, men who are pretending to be women should not be granted access to facilities designed for use by women. Women across this country looked at their daughters, and suddenly the trans-friendly narrative became markedly clear to them. No matter how many celebrities or media types told them this was normal, they know that it is not.

Assertion four: Americans are pro-immigration. (With the additional addendum that all Latinos are pro-immigration.) Simply put, conservatives are not anti-immigrant, we are pro-process. Come here within the process and with a sincere desire to assimilate into American culture and succeed. The left’s narrative, of course, is the good old standby that being pro-process is merely racist.

This was a critical strategic move for Democrats, and it was based on the assumptions that ALL Latinos are Democrats, and that their fragile base would stand together on this all-in bet on Latinos being the largest ethnic group in America. In 2012, Barack Obama won 71% of the Latino vote, who ran against a man, Mitt Romney, who did not promise much in the way of clamping down on illegal immigration. Curiously enough, in 2016, Latino voters, while still siding with the Democrats, did so in much smaller numbers, 65%. What happened? The assumption that all Latinos want complete, and unfettered access to our country because they share a Latin heritage was shattered. Large numbers of Latinos waited in line and jumped through the immigration hoops because they wanted to be here, and the prospect of criminal aliens being allowed to stay was insulting to them. Remember that when a political party goes all-in to draw in one group of voters, it has to do better than 65%.

But something else happened, and really this happened around 2010. Black turnout for the Democratic Party candidate dropped. Now, dropping from 93% to 88% isn’t exactly seismic, but it does tell you that African-American voters saw what the Democrat Party decided to do, which was to continue to take them for granted as Democrat voters in exchange for increased votes from Latino voters. The strategic decisions were simply based on an electorate that won’t exist in America for at least another two generations. And the Democrat Party, which is wholly controlled now by angered fringe movements picking at it like vultures on a dying carcass, will respond with the old belief system that Marxism is so dependent upon: “We just didn’t do it right the last time.”

And so as old assertions about women and abortion and Latino voters become new again, so will the tactics of the left, resorting to acts made famous in the 60s. Riots. Protests. Resistance. An era which gave birth to, eventually, the “New Democrats.” In the meantime, their efforts to primary Joe Manchin are building.

​Long live The Republic.