AMAC Exclusive – By David P. Deavel
The prospect of a red wave landing comes ever closer. Though we can’t get cocky, it is appropriate to feel our spirits rising. The rebuke of a Democratic Party that promised us a rose garden and then gave us scorched earth is itself a powerful adrenaline shot.
A Biden Administration and Democratic Party rule was sold to the American electorate as a supposed return to “decency,” “normalcy,” and “moderation,” it has instead been an unmitigated disaster from the beginning. Instead of moderation, Biden capitulated to the far left of his party immediately. Instead of normalcy, that capitulation to the left has resulted in humiliation abroad, a cratering economy at home, a crime wave engulfing major American cities, a politicized federal law enforcement that over half of the population thinks of as “Biden’s gestapo,” and a government-big tech censorship program. Instead of decency, we have now been told that, oh, by the way, the Hunter Biden laptop was not simply “Russian disinformation” and Joe Biden’s connections to his son’s misdeeds probably ought to be looked at. Oh, also, they say, our Democratic COVID policies were mostly useless and destructive to the American people, but you know, mistakes were made on both sides.
That doesn’t even begin to cover it all. To do so, as the internet commentators say, we’d need a much bigger blog. Or, if your tastes are more biblical, we can say in the style of John’s Gospel that there are many other terrible things the Democrats did in those days, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
But I don’t think my spirit or that of those around me is rising merely from some partisan feeling. The reason the red wave is coming is that it is not just composed of “rock-ribbed Republicans,” “right wingers,” and “Trumpers” who are coming to the polls to vote for the GOP and against the Democrats. Look carefully at that massive wave as it is cresting and landing. You will see that what is being carried back to our shores is true American diversity. It is people from every possible ethnic, racial, religious, and socio-economic background who are yearning for the ordered liberty and prosperity that is why they or their ancestors came in the first place.
It is Latino voters who are fleeing the Democratic Party they once thought was about “the American dream” but now realize is about the woke causes of “economically secure whites.” The immigrants among them especially are worried about the chaos of our unsecure borders.
It is black voters—especially black men—who are increasingly tired of Democrats taking them for granted and talking down to them. They bear the brunt of Democratic crime policies, which are made in the name of racial “equity” but cause a disproportionate and inequitable risk to their own safety, especially for those who live in urban areas. “Seriously,” one commentator asks, “can anyone name a well-run Democratic city?”
It is Asian voters who are also affected by urban violence, by inflation that is ravaging their small businesses, and by the “diversity” regime that discriminates against them in college admissions and hiring. They don’t want “equity”: they want safety, fiscal sanity, and equality of opportunity.
It is Muslims who agree that the progressive ideology on sex and “gender” is utterly destructive. Given that it is being pushed on their children in public schools and through laws and policies that attack the family, they are turning to the GOP. “Family values” have been mocked by secular Democrats as a Christian oddity. But guess what? Most other faiths share them.
Indeed, it is religious voters of all persuasions who have seen the Biden Administration roll back protections for religious organizations and religious believers. They have gathered that the secular left thinks what they hold true is simply primitive superstition. They want the freedom to live out their faiths in witness to and argument for the truth as they understand it, educating their children and operating their businesses and charities according to their understanding of what God wants of them.
It is suburban women of all races and religions, especially independent women, who want safety and good education for their children. These women were often demonized by Democratic politicians and treated as domestic terrorists for advocating for their children at schoolboard meetings and refusing simply to accept the COVID protocols that damaged their children’s learning and mental health. They especially see the threats made to their livelihood, their communities, and their families.
It is independent voters, men and women alike and in remarkable numbers, who are refusing the Democratic-Biden narrative that Republicans are extreme. They too see the betrayal of the moderation, decency, and normalcy that many of them thought they were voting for in 2020.
This election is not some purely partisan affair. The red wave is a coalition of voters who reject Democrats’ extremism and their failure to fulfill the basic functions of government.
It is a coalition of voters who know that voting right is not sufficient to heal America or make it great again. But they also know that it is a necessary first step toward protection of the exercise of the freedoms of religion, of speech, of the press, and of political association that are the tools by which a free people seeks what Tocqueville called “liberty under God and the laws.” They know that we have serious and difficult challenges to America’s life, its liberty, and the pursuit of a happiness that is made by people who see their rights as the means to fulfilling their duties to God and their fellow Americans. They are willing to work hard in their own families, businesses, houses of worship, towns, counties, and states to meet these challenges, to fulfill their duties, and indeed to go beyond their duties on to a kind of charity.
It is a coalition that looks at the successes of red states such as Florida and Texas and sees the failure of blue states such as New York and California. They want all Americans to enjoy the prosperity that comes from the protection of those freedoms and the opportunity to enjoy justice delivered impartially.
It is a coalition of voters who know very well that they are e pluribus or “diverse” but who also want to be unum: one America. They want what both Barack Obama and Joe Biden promised but did not really attempt to deliver: not red America and blue America, but one America that is red, white, and blue.
Some people see only a red wave. I see a red, white, and blue wave. Its spirit is the best of what America promises and what Americans seek. This spirit will demand much from the Republicans. GOP leaders had better be prepared to keep their promises and then some.
Americans are angry right now. But they are also filled with hope and with a readiness to act. They don’t want to be ruled. They want to be led. They want freedom, impartial justice, equality, and the protection necessary for them to be a self-governing people. They want inspiration from their leaders, too, but they already have it as a people. Even amid the chaos of the last few years, the American spirit has been rising.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, and is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative.