Conservatives have plenty of enemies. Mainstream media, elected Democrats in Washington who control the brute force of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government along with their tyrannical counterparts in governors' mansions, radical leftists including the likes of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, most educational institutions, Hollywood, Big Tech…the list goes on and on. But there are liberals who disguise themselves as 'conservatives' among us that are working just as hard to undermine the mission.
Despite the hurdles created by most American institutions that are becoming increasingly more intolerant toward alternative points of view, happy conservative warriors have continued to win battles in the arenas of government, media, and elsewhere. Fox News as a network beats liberal media handily in almost every metric. Conservatives such as Greg Gutfeld beat the golden (but liberal and unfunny) calves of late night TV. Talk radio is overwhelmingly dominated by conservative voices. The federal judiciary has been reshaped to not be a monolithically liberal check on conservative policies.
All these and other achievements were done in spite of unhinged opposition from the left. But it's not always liberals — at least in name — that try to undermine conservatives and their point of view. No, sometimes it's liberals who disguise themselves as conservatives who work to stifle conservatives and their ideas. And that's a phenomenon that's becoming easier to see.
In Congress, it's the likes of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, "Republican" members of the House of Representatives who are less conservative than Joe Manchin. They give legitimacy to Democrats and other radical leftists by playing nice with those who'd just as soon see them crushed but need to use them for a finite amount of time.
These faux-servatives claim to want conservative victories, then undermine or attack conservatives whenever an opportunity presents itself. For his work on behalf of liberals, Kinzinger was rewarded by Illinois Democrats with… being redistricted into oblivion. Cheney, who once helmed the House Republican Conference, is now well on her way down the path to irrelevance, though not quickly enough.
It's a tale almost as old as time: Republicans say one thing — to win primaries and get elected to represent their communities — and then do the opposite once in the lofty halls of Congress. From allowing President Biden's tax-and-spend policies to move forward as they drive inflation to record highs to helping radical and woke nominees get confirmed, sometimes supposedly conservative Republicans have made the difference that put President Biden over the finish line and able to take a victory lap. But it's not just Congress where conservatives have enemies among them.
In the media, there's more of the same grift going on. As Townhall covered recently, Newsmax — a network that gained an audience by claiming to be a further-right alternative to Fox News — has apparently been telling their staff to "go easy" on the Biden administration and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Asking conservatives to muzzle their fair criticism of a disastrous presidency is antithetical to what Newsmax peddled as their values. And it wasn't the first time Newsmax has played nice with liberals or Democrats. Newsmax earlier this fall published an endorsement of Gigi Sohn, President Biden's nominee for commissioner of the FCC. The same one who had called Fox News "state-sponsored propaganda" and suggested that conservative broadcast networks should have their licenses revoked. Apparently, that wasn't enough to concern Newsmax, though. Because "despite all of that, though, I trust Gigi to get it right when it comes to protecting my free speech," reads Newsmax's endorsement. Right.
Newsmax's CEO also praised Biden's handling of the Wuhan coronavirus back in July, shortly after Biden failed to meet his Independence Day goal for vaccinations. And worse, the piece on that topic credited Biden for saying he wouldn't mandate vaccines at the federal level, something both Biden and Newsmax would go on to do anyway.
It's important to note that calling out those who undermine conservatives doesn't mean that ideological diversity isn't allowed or lively debate about the best way for conservative principles to develop a solution is a bad thing. If anything, conservatives' ability to take their cornerstone principles and apply them to a changing world through rigorous debate has been what made the conservative movement strong and able to solve evolving problems. But intellectual diversity doesn't mean shifting principles. The whole point of the conservative movement is preserving the principles of freedom and liberty, not adapting them to fit what's in vogue or considered palatable by the ruling party.
So what gives? And what's a conservative to do in a movement that has a few too many suspicious characters in it? Conservatives have to hold each other accountable for what they promise. Did a conservative member of Congress do what they said they would? If not, they've got to go. Are outlets that promise to hold liberals accountable actually doing that? Or are they using kid gloves in their treatment of a radical president and urging favorable, applauding coverage of an administration that's damaging America's economy, national security, and global reputation?
It's time for conservatives to do what they say they will and excise those who undermine the movement from within. Stand and fight with us against these traitors.
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- Spencer Brown
Managing Editor, Townhall.com
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