AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
In recent weeks and months, a cascade of debunked media narratives, Republican electoral victories, and growing resentment over woke dogma have created serious vulnerabilities in the left’s political and cultural armor. As the liberal worldview begins to collapse, the once powerful institutions the left controls have now become distrusted and mocked by the public, suggesting that their grip on American society may be more tenuous than people think.
- The January 6 “Insurrection” Narrative Falls Apart
For the better part of two years, Democrats used their control of Congress to construct the narrative that the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, was a Republican-aided “insurrection” that nearly toppled the U.S. government. They then attempted to use a series of highly politicized hearings and sensationalist media coverage to damage Republicans politically.
Polling data from July 2022 showed that the hearings had no impact on public opinion. Moreover, Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s release of the full January 6 surveillance tapes to Fox News host Tucker Carlson has revealed that the Democrat-dominated “January 6 Committee” cherry-picked footage and deliberately suppressed facts about the riot in order to push their desired narrative.
2. The “Russia Collusion” Hoax Has Been Completely Debunked
“Russiagate,” the story that dominated mainstream media coverage for nearly three years of Trump’s presidency, has begun to be exposed even in liberal news sources as a fabrication. A report earlier this year from the Columbia Journalism Review revealed that mainstream outlets like the New York Times knowingly abandoned all journalistic standards and distorted the facts when it came to the story in order to damage Trump politically.
This repeated violation of public trust by mainstream outlets has further tarnished their credibility and undermined the left’s capacity to promulgate their desired narratives.
3. Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal Continues to Grow
Ahead of the 2020 election, nearly every major news outlet claimed unequivocally and without evidence that the infamous Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
Just over two years later, all of them have been forced to admit that the laptop is indeed real as the FBI continues its investigation into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. On Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced that the Treasury Department was giving the committee access to suspicious activity reports related to Hunter Biden and the Biden family’s foreign business deals. The incident is another major embarrassment and blow to the credibility of the mainstream press and the Democrat Party.
4. Republicans Vindicated on “Lab Leak” Theory
The Wall Street Journal’s bombshell report last month further confirmed that the theory that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese lab was not only possible, but likely. After mainstream media pundits, Democrat politicians, and even former top NIH officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci derided the idea as “racist” and a “conspiracy theory” when Republicans – most notably former President Donald Trump – suggested it in 2020, they have all now been forced to backtrack.
The saga has dealt another blow to the credibility of the left’s “expert class” and undermined the left’s ability to use appeals to authority to manipulate the public.
5. “The Twitter Files” Exposes Government-Big Tech Censorship Operations
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and subsequent release of company emails and communications to a few journalists has finally confirmed what conservatives long suspected: a revolving door between government agencies and Big Tech and the dominance of activist-minded liberals in senior positions means that social media sites have for years engaged in systematic efforts to silence and censor conservative voices.
More than that, platforms like Twitter have deliberately smothered debate on important issues like the efficacy of COVID-19 lockdowns and the dangers of hormone therapy for minors.
After years of liberals downplaying and dismissing concerns over Big Tech censorship, conservatives have once again been vindicated.
6. Nobody Is Watching CNN and MSNBC Is No Winner Either
Ratings for CNN and MSNBC, the left’s most important mouthpieces on cable television, have declined precipitously in recent years, pointing to the fact that people simply don’t trust these outlets as they once did to provide anything close to honest coverage. Without the illusion of objectivity, the left’s control of news coverage is in serious jeopardy, threatening their ability to determine what information Americans do and don’t see.
7. Biden Has Utterly Failed to Deal with Multiple Crises
In just the past few weeks, President Biden has repeatedly proven that he is incapable of dealing with a crisis. First, he looked completely inept as a Chinese spy balloon lumbered across the entire country. Then, when a train carrying toxic chemicals crashed in an Ohio town, Biden failed to respond at all, instead traveling halfway around the world to Ukraine.
With Biden looking either incompetent, uncaring, or both, his approval ratings are dismal for an incumbent president.
8. Democrats Have a Looming Leadership Crisis
For Democrats, the only thing worse than Joe Biden at the top of the Democrat ticket in 2024 might be not having him at the top of the ticket.
Despite the fact that just 37 percent of Democrats want Biden to seek a second term, there do not appear to be any strong contenders waiting in the wings if Biden surprises everyone and declines to run for re-election or has a medical crisis that prevents him from running.
His natural successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, is even more unpopular and prone to gaffes than he is. Pete Buttigieg, once a mainstream media darling, has been revealed as incompetent and out-to-lunch through his mishandling of multiple crises as Secretary of Transportation.
9. Supreme Court Deals Multiple Blows to Liberal Overrreach
Despite big wins on trade and tax policy, former President Trump’s most significant legacy to date might be his nomination of three originalist judges to the Supreme Court, creating a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority.
Since Trump left office, that majority has been crucial to upholding Americans’ constitutional freedoms in the wake of an onslaught of liberal policies from congressional Democrats and the Biden administration. The Court has, among other important decisions, blocked Biden’s vaccine mandate, struck down unlawful regulation of the energy sector, upheld the right of a football coach to pray with his players, and of course returned the power to legislate on abortion to the states.
All of these decisions were major blows to the left, which has long relied on an activist bench to impose policies – like a “right” to nearly unlimited access to abortion – that they cannot enact democratically. With the Supreme Court now controlled by individuals committed to the institution’s intended purpose of interpreting laws rather than writing them, leftists have lost a major weapon in their political battles.
10. Republicans Retake the House and Look to Favorable Senate Map in 2024
The 2022 midterms were not the “Red Wave” that conservatives had hoped for. But Republicans did manage to retake the House of Representatives – a critical check on Democrats’ radical agenda.
Moreover, the 2024 Senate map looks favorable, with 20 Democrats facing reelection compared with just 10 Republicans. With President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and failure to address a slew of crises, the predictions of a historic Red Wave may have just been a couple years early.
11. The Economy Is Still Bad
Despite marginally better economic numbers recently, inflation is still over three times higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent. Americans are still very pessimistic about the direction of the U.S. economy, and most investment banks believe a recession is on the horizon.
The left assured Americans that Democrat control in Washington and liberal policies would mean an economic revival. Instead, the recovery that began under President Trump has slowed and the future economic outlook is grim. This is bad news for America—but as is usually the case, there may be a silver lining for the party out of power.
With all of these forces now aligned against the left, it may well be the case that the tide of history has turned and conservatives have serious political and cultural momentum – if they can only capitalize on the opportunity before them to secure more lasting victories.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_.
