The Republican "Pick Up Our Toys and Go Home" Mentality Has to Go

(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Let me start by saying that I flat-out disagree with the “retreat” mentality the right exhibits in any given situation where the odds are stacked against it. Yesterday, my colleague Jeff Charles wrote a piece addressing the many calls to leave California and making it clear that abandoning the state won’t lead to victory there. This paragraph, in particular, really hit home.

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“We don’t lose because the left is some all-powerful leviathan. We lose because we don’t fight smart. In many instances, we don’t fight at all. The GOP has become accustomed to campaigning only in areas in which they can win fairly easily,” he wrote.

And he’s right, and I don’t need to just focus on California to show you how right he is. Instead, I’m going to pull the camera back to show you just how bad the right indulges in the retreat mentality.

For ages, we on the right have considered certain battlefields completely unwinnable, and this includes the mainstream media and cultural wars such as movies, television, and video games. If you attempt to engage conservatives in a discussion about the entertainment industry you’ll have far too many people either tuning out or vocally shooting down any talk we might have about it in the first place.

“This discussion is moot! The left owns Hollywood! Just #turnitoff! There are more important things to talk about! Etc., etc., etc.”

I, and many others, from Dana Loesch to Andrew Breitbart, have made it very clear that the culture war is just as important, if not more important than the political war. However, conservatives have given it up for lost and have no desire to show up to fight there, thinking that any battle we dive into will result in a loss.

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And you know what? They’re right.

We’re going to lose and we’re going to lose a lot. They’re so entrenched that driving them out will take years of hard-fought battles ranging from the legal to the physical. People will suffer character assassinations, cancelation, heartbreak, and threats to their well-being…but it’s a battle worth fighting because America is worth fighting for.

The final goal of the culture war isn’t to make someone pull a lever for a certain side, it’s for the very heart of the citizen. Currently, conservatives are appealing to an emotion that the left is starving out of Americans, and soon there won’t be anything left to appeal to. Gone will be the desire to keep freedom, capitalism, and true equality alive.

These losing battles need to be fought, but losing battles doesn’t mean losing the war. You can ask George Washington about that.

At some point, the constant pressure will cause holes in the defense to develop. Footholds will appear and methods of dealing with various attacks will be perfected. Hard targets will slowly soften and morale will drop in our enemies. Fortresses will change hands as minds change and hearts are affected.

As Charles made very clear, even Texas, a hard-red state, almost started to turning purple thanks to the left’s lack of fear in fighting seemingly unwinnable battles. They have a winning mentality and despite their losses, they don’t quit. They keep going. At some point, Texas will go purple, and then at some point further down the line, it will go blue.

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But if they can do it, we can do it, we just need to learn our lessons about what does and doesn’t work. We need to stop fighting with old tactics that no longer have the effects they once did, and find new ways of conducting battle. We need to change as a party. We need to increase our aggression and stop fighting defense.

But most importantly, we need to stop picking up our toys and going home if the fight looks too difficult or if we lose a few battles because soon there won’t be a home to take our toys to.

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