(The difference between how Liberals and Conservatives deal with the media is destroying freedom. )
By Oliver DeMille
The Left and Right approach politics very differently.
The Left
carefully encourages relationships with people of different groups and
proactively seeks out new members, while the Right expects people to just
accept "the obvious truth" and join them.
The Right tries to convince others using evidence and argumentation (see Fox News), while the Left seeks to engage the
heart, emotions and relationships (see MSNBC).
The result of this difference is that in the entire modern
era since World War I, we have been governed mostly from the Left.
The only significant exceptions were two Republican presidents who appealed to the heart, emotions
and connection with the voters.
Eisenhower was a beloved war hero, Ronald
Reagan a former actor who knew how to communicate with the masses, and both were
able to speak to the people in heartfelt emotional language.
The Good Ole' Days
During the century before
World War I, the people elected mainly conservative presidents--in an era of
written news where ideas and issues ruled.
But in the electronic age voters
prefer the "feelings" approach. Modern voters want a president who connects
with them, one they feel would deeply, truly care about them and reach out to
help them personally if he knew them.
But conservatives have a bigger problem.
A House Divided
Not only do they
struggle to connect with the voters because they seem stuck in their head and
intellectual arguments, they also have a bad habit of not even connecting with
each other.
In short, there is a major obstacle conservatives need to overcome
if they want to start winning most major elections.
Put simply, those on the Right need to be more unified.
The far Left has long known that beating conservatives is
easy.
All you have to do is watch for any conservative who really begins to be
effective, and then quickly follow the Alinsky rule: "target, isolate,
ridicule, remove."
Whenever potential conservative leaders arise, the Left
targets them. It ridicules, tears them down, and attacks their credibility.
The Right does this to leaders of the Left too, but there is
a huge difference in how this happens.
The Right tears down Democratic
candidates or liberal thinkers, but the Left keeps a close eye on this and
quickly rallies behind any left-wing person who is getting attacked by the
Right.
The Left basically assumes that if the Right is attacking the person, he
or she must be on the good side. This unity is extremely powerful, and it is
the reason few liberals are worried about conservatism leading the 21st
century.
In contrast, when the Left targets someone on the Right,
many conservatives seek to distance themselves from the individual under attack.
Many on the Right are so afraid of looking bad that they refuse to stand behind
other conservatives under assault.
There are, of course, exceptions to this pattern, and those
who stand behind others on the same side are the true conservative leaders.
But
they are in the minority.
Tea Party vs. Occupy
For example, when the Tea Party gathered huge crowds of
regular citizens to stand up against government overspending, far too many
conservatives found minor differences between the Tea Partiers and their own
views and used this as an excuse to distance themselves.
In contrast, nearly
all liberals publically supported the Wall Street Occupiers. Many on the Left
disagreed with the Occupy movement on various topics, but they still gave
strong public support.
After the 2012 election, Mitt Romney faced ongoing attacks
by a number of liberal pundits; but amazingly he also received a lot of attacks
from conservatives, including former supporters.
Dole, McCain and Palin endured
the same thing. In contrast, the last three losing Democratic candidates for
president were strongly supported by most liberals and eventually two of them
were made Secretaries of State and the other the head of the Democratic
Committee by President Obama and other Democratic leaders.
When a college girl was ridiculed by the Right for making a
liberal comment, President Obama called her to express his support.
President
Bush stayed away from such "controversial" things. Indeed, liberals frequently
use controversy to further their goals, while conservatives too often just shy
away from such opportunities.
Crisis Management
Most conservatives want to avoid crises, while
liberals see crisis as the best way to promote their views.
As a result,
liberals win more than conservatives.
There are many other examples of this difference between how
liberals and conservatives treat people on their own "side."
Of course, some
conservatives are loyal to each other and some liberals attack their own, but
on the whole the Left is much more unified than the Right.
For the staunch
conservatives reading this: say what you want about liberals, but they stick
together.
If conservatives were as loyal, they'd run the country. Literally.
This lack of conservative unity is rooted at least partly in
fear of the media.
Where there's smoke, there's fire
The mainstream media generally has a left-leaning bias, and many conservatives
want to avoid criticism at all costs.
But
if you haven't been criticized, you probably aren't making much of a
difference--especially in a field as important as freedom.
Just consider the alternative. What would happen if every
time a conservative was targeted and ridiculed by the media, the response was a
huge outpouring of strong, vocal support from all conservatives, independents
and freedom-loving people?
The Left does it. Why don't conservatives do it more
often?
If they did, more people would muster the courage to speak
out boldly for freedom, and we'd put forth very different candidates and elect
very different national leaders.
Moreover, a lot more regular people would
listen to the freedom message.
The Left wins more often because it is more unified.
How
obvious is this? If we are divided while the other side is unified, we will
surely fail.
The Definition of Insanity
Conservatives are losing the battle for America, and to turn
this around they must stop trying to impress the mainstream media. It will
never work anyway, and the more they try, the more splintered they become.
In
the process of attempting to avoid criticism, the Right is losing battle after
battle to the more unified Left.
The way this works is shockingly sad, and it bears repeating:
·
The Left attacks someone on the Right, precisely
because his or her ideas have merit.
·
The elite media joins the attacks.
·
Then (once the person promoting the new idea is
targeted and ridiculed by the Left and the mainstream media), others on the Right
do an amazing thing--they distance themselves or join in the attacks!
As long as this is the way conservatives do things, they
deserve to keep losing.
And lose they will.
The Right may win a few elections, mostly
in strongly conservative states, but overall the decades ahead will go to the
side that is most unified and loyal.
If conservatives become better at this
than liberals, they'll lead. If not, they won't.
Loyalty and unity are the
first keys to success and leadership. Those who don't understand this are
destined to fail.
*****
Insider Scoop:
Upcoming book: LeaderShift
Our own Oliver DeMille has teamed with entrepreneur and leadership guru Orrin Woodward to author an upcoming book - and you're among the very first to hear about it!
The
manuscript was picked up in Spring of 2012 by top publishing house
Grand Central Publishing (an imprint of Hachette, the second largest
publisher in the world), who fast-tracked it to release less than 1 year
later on 4/16/13.
The book is called LeaderShift.
It's a business fable about elite executive David Mercer, who's become a
successful turnaround specialist for failing corporations by applying
his understanding of The Five Laws of Decline.
He's
met his goals in life, and now sees that the freedom and opportunity
that afforded him success will largely be unavailable to his loved ones
of the rising generations. So he starts to apply his gifts to now
determine how to effect a "turnaround" for the declining United States.
Mercer assembles a team of colleagues and gets some help from an surprising,
otherworldly, source. The dialectical discussion and principles that
are bandied about in the fictional narrative are hopefully going to
become a part of the national dialogue.
It's
really quite a departure from Oliver's non-fiction style, although the
flavor will be familiar. His publisher is thrilled about the book, and
they will launch on 4/16/13.
More information to follow in upcoming communiques. Watch for it!
*******************
Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America's Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
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