I am still sickened by the fact that more than 3 million conservatives did not vote in the last presidential election. Obama won by 2 million votes in strategically critical voting districts and states.
A non-vote was a vote for Obama. Now I want to say suck it up and let's not let it happen again, but it has already started because the administration and the liberals understand something that conservatives overlook.
Namely, you do not have to win every media-sponsored political battle. Obama keeps a lot of his voters energized just by talking about things – even though he knows he can’t actually accomplish them. He gives them the perception that he cares about their big issues, and that’s enough to win their loyalty at the ballot box. When he never achieves the things he talks about, he blames Republicans and stirs the loyalty of these same people once again.
Some examples:
First, the Department of Justice sued the State of Arizona over its illegal immigration practices to show that the Democrats want open borders and do not want to enforce the current immigration laws. To millions of illegals in this country, that's music to their ears. They do not care how the legal process actually ends, because it will be years down the road.
The pending immigration reform legislation working its way through Congress will not make one bit of difference to how advocates of open borders will vote, because the Democrats fought the battle in their minds and that's enough. And as for those illegals who will one day be able to vote, they are going to be Democrats for life, as will all their friends and family members who already can.
Second, the Obama administration directed the DOJ to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which caused the LBGT community to celebrate until DOMA was overturned by the Supreme Court. The fact that it was overturned doesn’t mean that much since this is still a state issue, but the Democrats will have those votes forever.
Third, the President lobbed a grenade during his State of the Union Address by proposing to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour, knowing it has no chance of passage. But the minimum wage workers think Obama can make it happen. He cares about them. So he has their votes.
Fourth, with the help of the lapdog media, the administration has begun to brainwash the public into accepting a 7.5 percent unemployment rate as the “new normal,” along with an anemic GDP growth rate of less than 2 percent. Low-information voters hear that unemployment “went down a point” or that “100,000 jobs were created” and that sounds good because they have no frame of reference for whether these numbers are good or bad. Obama hasn’t accomplished anything from a policy perspective. But he’s convinced a lot of people he’s making things better when in fact he is not.
There is so much more. He lambastes “the rich” for not paying their “fair share” (even though the rich pay far more than their fair share). He fans the flames of racial tension by weighing in on the Zimmerman/Martin verdict, and by going after Texas following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act. He dismisses the many scandals surrounding his administration as “phony” and puts those trying to hold him accountable on the defensive.
None of this represents any kind of governing accomplishment. None of it benefits the American people in any way. But by hitting the right notes in his messaging, Obama keeps the faithful motivated to go out and support him and other Democrats, regardless of whether any of this will ever become more than talk. It is simply the politics of distraction.
Now I am not suggesting that conservatives respond in kind – by talking a lot of nonsense just to stir up the faithful. But conservatives need to be smart about getting drawn into debates that are really about nothing. It makes no sense to take Obama’s bait and debate him in the media about points that have nothing to do with relevant or achievable policy. All we do then is reward him for changing the subject.
For conservatives to win in the future, we need to know what we are prepared to do and make the case for it. Rather than debating everything Obama says, we need to call him out for attempting to distract us with talk that bears no relation to action. We need to explain why his actual policies have steered the country in the wrong direction, not debate the pros and cons of his latest distraction speech.
Distraction politics encourages liberals and discourages conservatives. It discouraged over 3 million in the last election and some of you are falling for it again. Conservatives, don’t take the bait.
