Conservatives Fall For It All The Time
It wasn’t the first time it happened. As a Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty in my county, I am proud to share who we are and what we do. We fight for parental rights to guide the educational, health, and social lives of their children. This means that parents have a right to both encourage their child’s exposure to their family’s values and at the same time shield their children from those ideas they find harmful or antithetical to family beliefs. It seems fairly simple.
Unfortunately, as the left often does when they wish to denigrate any organization that has conservative values that stand in the way of the progressive agenda, our organization has been unfairly tagged with many allegations such as book banners, anti-gay, racist, extremist, and any other label they feel will harm our credibility. Progressives have even gone so far as to accuse our local chapter of taking dark money from the Hungarian government. It’s obvious they haven’t seen our bank account.
The problem is that this strategy not only works with other leftist organizations, it seems to work with other Conservative groups as well.
The other day, our group was participating in a meeting with two political actions committee reps on how best to fight a statewide ballot measure in November. It was a meeting that our group had initiated.
At some point in the meeting, both of the PACs solicited our group’s help but added this caveat. It went something like this: “We’d love to have your help but we can’t list your organization in our materials since the left has labeled you an extremist hate group.”
At that point, we should have ended the meeting. Any discussion past that point was useless, since the two PACs had clearly stated that they were going to let the left define our organization for them. Not only that, but their words also indicated that they were implicitly validating the left’s label and promoting it. They were allowing the left to do exactly what they wanted to us, isolating and erasing us in Conservative initiatives.
The two PACs, who I won’t name here because I don’t want to demean them like they did us, showed their true character. They defined the relationship they wanted as an “alliance “but it was really going to be exploitation. They wanted to use us and our members but didn’t have the guts to defend us publicly.
This is not an isolated incident, but one fairly common in Conservative circles. As soon as the left calls a politician or a group a nasty, unfounded name, groups on the right run to cover and disavow that politician or group for fear they will be called the same name. They use the excuse that aligning with us will hurt them with certain other groups or constituencies. The Left knows that many Conservative groups want to protect their public image instead of doing the right thing. It’s how the Left divides and neuters us.
We can’t forget that many of these Political Action Committees exist to raise money for their cause and any perceived negativity, real or imagined, hurts their bottom line. They also don’t want to share their donors with anyone else. As always, follow the money.
It seems to be working.
I had a reporter interview me the other day regarding some mailers that went out regarding our local school system, mailers our group didn’t create, pay for or send. After asking my opinion, he asked, “How do you want me to identify you, as a citizen of the county or the Chairman for Talbot Moms for Liberty?” He implied that maybe I wouldn’t want people to know I led our group. I told him “both.”
I’m not afraid of what I do, in fact I’m proud of it. I’m proud of it because I KNOW who our group is, who I am, and it’s not who the Left wants people to think we are. Anyone who has come to our meetings or met me or members in person have been impressed with our beliefs and actions.
These PACs are probably doing some very good things. But I won’t work with them because they don’t have the back of Moms for Liberty or any other person/group that the left chooses to denigrate. It’s as simple as that.
Of course, there are groups NO ONE wants to be associated with. These are groups who have a long history of nefarious acts. We have to be completely sure of the groups we do work with. But the progressive left has discovered that if they equate any group who disagrees with them to NAZIS or White Supremacists, other Conservatives will go along and avoid these groups like the plague.
The left doesn’t do the same. They get in bed with truly extremist hate groups like ANTIFA and Hezbollah and use them to their advantage. Is it right? No. They don’t care. To them, the ends justify the means.
I don’t suggest that Conservatives do that. There is no way we can justify working with true evil. But, if we want to win this moral battle, we need to do better than let the left divide us by demeaning and isolating honorable groups who fight with us. We need to stand with those who do what is right, despite what the left says or does. Unless we do, the Left will continue to sabotage us with this strategy.
For all those organizations who don’t abandon the rest of us every time you her a rumor or we get targeted, thank you.
Jan Greenhawk, Author
