The revival of the conservative movement began on August 29, 2008 when John McCain introduced America to Sarah Palin. It had been a long slog between 1988 and 2008, a period which saw a hardly noticeably slow decline in the conservative movement. This was born more out of complacency than any loss of favor with the movement. Bill Clinton’s triangulation and America’s unified response to the 9/11 attacks were seen as indicators that despite our political differences, Americans were Americans and that most people would shy away from outright liberal or radical candidates.
In many ways, the progressive movement was in our shoes during the 2000s. The 9/11 attacks renewed a patriotic nationalism that this country had not seen since the Reagan years and the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was the antithesis of progressivism which sees America as a super power in a world which should be full of equals, even if the maples and the oaks have to be kept at level heights by hatchet, axe and saw. Progressives seized an opportunity to open the wedge when there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. From there they found their messiah in Barack Obama and went to work at rebuilding their movement.
Liberals believed that their movement had finally come out from under the shadows of Ronald Reagan and went full steam ahead in destroying conservatives through the pop culture, in the academia and in the press. After nearly a century of working in the weeds and infiltrating the institutions, the progressive movement bet the farm on an inexperienced community organizer from Chicago. They believed the days of hiding one's liberalism were gone. But their bet didn't work out. By the time Obama is done, they may want to go back into the shadows again.
The liberals got so good at marginalizing George W. Bush that his approval rating dropped into the 30’s shortly before the 2008 election. Bush and the conservative movement dismissed the liberal tactics thinking that most rational people would never buy the nonsense about him betraying our country and lying to us about WMD. As conservatives dozed off at the wheel, a network of well financed people (think George Soros types here) were gaining traction in an area traditionally owned by conservatives: business.
They thought they had the Alinsky technique perfected after honing and toning it on George W. Bush. So, when Sarah Palin scared the living crap out of them, they figured okay, marginalize. They pulled out the playbook and called an "86 wide left." It worked on Bush. It will work on Palin they figured. They figured wrong, even if it did work at first.
Al Gore and General Electric became heavily involved in the green movement. Liberals were finding business opportunities as well as pollitcal ones in the new media, which was originally going to be a place where liberal citizens could form an informal “Journolist” type of relationship to continue to build on the destruction of conservatism.
They came so close to defeating conservatism outright. They also came so close to defeating Palin.
Conservatives were on the ropes and never realized it until Palin's spark was followed by the formation of the Tea Party. Republicans and conservatives were reading the "Rules for Radicals" and studying the media. How did liberals get such on a hold on America? The answer to this question was in reading their playbook and doing the research that Glenn Beck did. The solution to this problem was for conservatives to understand their playbook and realize they were playing the wrong game. Once conservatives figured out the nature of the game, they set out to win it.
They took the new media from the liberals and set up base. They took to the streets, holding Tea Party demonstrations - peaceful demonstrations that showed those Molotov cocktail throwing hippies of the '60s how to do resistance right. They marched on Washington over a million strong in 2009. They formed websites and media outlets. They wrote books, released documentaries and exposed liberal hypocrisy at every turn. Had conservatives not figured this out, we’d all be eating peas right now.
Today, conservatives are defeating the liberals in nearly all facets of the game. Even the hold on the mainstream media is losing its effectiveness. The last bastion of liberal information and mind control just put out a fair piece on Sarah Palin in Newsweek. Liberal heads are exploding. The bricks in their wall are starting to come out. The conservative movement gets closer with each passing day to the city on the hill which no longer shines and is in need of return to its luster.
Liberals succeed when they infiltrate and lull people into a sense of complacency or turn people’s outrages and frustrations on the traditional establishment. Liberals fail when their philosophy is discovered to be morally and intellectually bankrupt because it cannot be backed by any historical proof of success. What liberals didn’t count on was that their tactics (many of which conservatives now use to beat them at their own game) only work so long as people don’t realize that there is no substantive underpinning to their philosophy. For conservatives, matching or outplaying them at their own game can keep it close. But winning requires the truth; and that is the key ingredient the conservatives have that the liberals don't.
Sarah Palin has turned Twitter and Facebook into her own personal tools of mass communication, completely sidestepping the traditional means used by other candidates. With the release of “The Undefeated” tomorrow, conservatives will be able to watch how Stephen Bannon was able to lay the charges and push the detonator all the while having worked in the film industry, a normally liberal bastion of left wing ideology.
The movie is the final death blow to the media myth about Governor Palin. In a review of the film, Jennifer Stefano writes (h/t Conservatives4Palin):
"The Undefeated” will not only change minds about Palin but also bring shame to those who added to the vitriol against her. Through this film, the conscience of a conservative is awakened once again. Viewers will be forced to reconsider Palin and her role as Reagan’s heir apparent. As the film opens in this theaters this week, somewhere, Goldwater is smiling as the revolution rolls on.In 2008, the “Alaska Mafia,” a handful of hateful bloggers from Palin’s home state were nearly unchecked in their ability to participate in the marginalization of Sarah Palin all the way through the frivolous ethics violation charges which they fueled with their rhetoric and underground networking. Today, these blog sights are crusty old remnants of a now well understood “Axelrodian” tactic of how to gin up hatred against your opposition by using spin, false or sketchy information and by creating the illusion that a small group of malcontents’ beliefs are shared by an invisible many. Tomorrow, they and those in the Palin hating complicit mainstream media will whither away after all they have written and said about her is vaporized by Bannon's movie.
Sarah Palin was once bloodied and nearly out. In anticipation of her resignation, she told her followers "politically, if I die, I die." No one doubts that the woman would have went to her final public breath espousing the truth of conservatism no matter what. But her minions would not let her die. They rallied around her, forming the hundreds of websites, thousands of twitter pages and millions of Facebook followers who will draw sword and give blood if necessary to defend her.
She has not let them down. She has done more than just the work to revive her image and her standing in American politics. The truth of Sarah Palin is finally making through the smokescreen put up by the media. She is turning a corner now as she prepares to run for president.
Conservatism is also back on track. The Republican Party has been getting stronger because of the influence of the Tea Party. Americans are getting to finally see the real Obama and they are having serious buyers remorse. People have lost faith in the media and are turning to alternative sources of news.
Taking back the shining city on a hill is far from a done deal, but we grow closer with each passing day. People are gaining trust and faith in the process again because they can influence it through the Tea Party and soon more and more people will come to trust Sarah Palin again when they find out the truth about her and the media caricature is dismissed.
There is nothing else that the Left and the media can do to destroy Sarah Palin. There are three groups of people: Palin supporters, those who have not decided yet and the hard core kool aid drinkers who will never like her anyway. "Media derision only feeds those who don't like her already," Andrew Malcolm writes at the Los Angeles Times. "It actually strengthens Palin with a wide swath of overlooked Americans who don't trust mainstream institutions but do identify with the mother of five."
If Sarah Palin is going to have a shot at the presidency, she will have to beat the media monster first. "The Undefeated" is going to be Palin's biggest weapon in that battle. Three years ago (even a year ago) so many were saying that she could never win because of the media. Now, people are starting to marvel at how she's been able to overcome that.
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