As midterm spending intensifies, Republicans should prepare to talk about Democrats’ green agenda as another front in the elite culture war on America’s middle class. Amid the GOP’s struggle to bridge pre-Trump establishment politics with post-Trump populism, Democrats’ class warfare makes that task much easier.
Establishment Republicans who cut ads and cash checks are inclined to talk about dollars and cents, assuming it’s enough to motivate voters in a bad economy. They see this approach as one that is mutually exclusive with the culture war, allowing them to avoid the issues that make cocktail parties uncomfortable while also amassing power in Washington and keeping special interests happy. It’s a win-win!
Trump-aligned populists, on the other hand, saw vindication in Glenn Youngkin’s blue-state gubernatorial victory last year. One lesson of that election, as we’ve written here for years, is to understand the culture war as “the big tent” — a narrative that when properly framed is more moral and more politically expedient than avoiding the matter altogether.
This is at least somewhat fueling the ongoing feud between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. As Federalist Senior Editor Christopher Bedford wrote last week, McConnell “is angry the base didn’t choose his guys” in midterm primaries. Scott then took a shot at McConnell for publicly grumbling about certain candidates. But McConnell’s distaste for culture warriors like Blake Masters needn’t linger into the fall.
When California asks people to buy electric vehicles, then tells them not to charge the cars, we witness more than fiscal stupidity. The middle class is being forced to shoulder the burden of a haphazard green agenda that squeezes regular Americans in the short term for the sake of achieving foolish long-term energy goals. California’s clumsy attempt to transition to renewable energy is mirrored
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