Saving America: Why Blaming President Trump Has Little to Do With the Path to Victory in 2024 By Gwendolyn Sims
Like many voters on Tuesday evening, I watched with a fluctuating mixture of guarded optimism, anticipated resignation, and angry ambivalence as the voting data rolled crawled in. Nearly five days later, we still don’t know the final outcomes of key races. After the disaster that was the 2020 election, how on earth did we end up here in 2022?
Some political pundits were quick to enthusiastically point at President Trump and his meddling in races as the reason for such lackluster GOP results on Nov. 8. While it’s hard to know for certain, Trump’s insertion of himself into races that were fairly in hand did tend to complicate matters by shifting the focus from the race to Trump himself. Truthfully, a lot of us Republican voters are tired of always having to spend our time and money defending Trump instead of showcasing the candidates and GOP policies. Let’s just say that Trump’s tact doesn’t seem to help our candidates in the long run.
And of course, Trump’s already still up to his old tricks, attacking fellow Republicans like Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s also teasing a yuge announcement at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 15 despite the GOP’s current need to focus on the runoff race in Georgia. Will the former president delay his announcement and stop sucking the air out of every race? That remains to be unclear at this time.
Since Biden has promised to do nothing different over the remaining two years of his term, the GOP must do more than whine about Trump and his antics. Trump will be Trump, and the GOP’s focus should be on our candidates and a clear and concise articulation of our policies. As I’ve been saying since well before I wrote these PJ Media pieces last winter and spring, the GOP doesn’t necessarily need Trump on the ticket. We certainly don’t need yet another chaotic and distracting Trump campaign cycle enabling the Democrats to run against Trump and not on their own failed policies. We’ve been there. We’ve done that.
What we absolutely do need front and center on the ticket are (most of) Trump’s policies. Yes, let’s put America first and make her great again, but this time let’s do it in contrast to the Democratic Party’s disastrous policies and not need a personality to save us. And the best way to save America is to return to tried and true conservative policies of a strong economy, individual freedoms, a strong and prepared military, a secured and strengthened border, and support for parents, families, children, and life. We must stop the out-of-control spending that Trump and other Republicans and all Democrats have increased. Again, the GOP must be laser-focused on our candidates and a clear and concise articulation of our policies and solutions.
Next, since Biden & Co. duped — yes duped — the Gen Z voters by promising them [FREE!] student loan debt forgiveness, we must be willing to engage Gen Z in a targeted way we haven’t done before. Biden knew at the time he dangled college debt forgiveness in front of them that it was never going to come to fruition–and, as expected, mere days after the election, the courts said as much. He knew it was unconstitutional and he did it anyway just for votes. Gen Z should be mad about that betrayal–and rightly so.
Obviously, with Gen Z being one of the most heavily leftist-indoctrinated generations of our lifetimes, it didn’t take much prodding from Biden & Co. to get them to the polls on the mere promise of something for FREE!. Heck, I even had conservative friends chomping at the bit to have their kids’ student debt forgiven at the expense of us all, so it’s no wonder Gen Z fell for it. But now that the truth of its illegality has been exposed, the GOP must do all it can to not only point out this very personal Democratic Party betrayal, but also make sure Gen Z has a reason to vote for us in 2024. The promise of a robust economy and vast opportunities won’t be enough to bring them over, but a trustworthy path forward and real leadership just might be.
And in the meantime, we should stop decrying the unfairness and corruption that is backed into the voting system. Now is the time for action, not complaints. Now is the time for audits and autopsies of the voting system especially in any districts with obvious problems (looking at you Maricopa County, Nevada, and Pennsylvania) or districts where we have newly won Republican leadership (looking at you Florida). Now is the time to determine what went right and what went wrong. If 2020 and 2022 have made anything crystal clear, it’s that no politician will save America — not Trump, not DeSantis, not Ronald Reagan reincarnated. No one but us can.
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