A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
On Wednesday, conservatives assessed the impact of Roy Moore’s victory over Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary. The Resurgent’s David Thornton called Moore a maverick with a poor record of success:
Moore has a reputation as a maverick and a rebel. Moore was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court and was twice removed. In 2003, a panel ruled that Moore had violated the state ethics code and removed him from the bench after he ignored a federal court order instructing him to remove a Ten Commandments monument. In 2015, Moore was suspended again for ordering state judges to ignore the Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage the law of the land. While Moore has remained true to his principles, his actions have not been effective at advancing his agenda.
In the crimson state of Alabama, as the Republican candidate, the race is Moore’s to lose. Whether Moore wins or loses, the Republican problems in the Senate will not be resolved and it will still be difficult to advance the Republican agenda. The real loser is the traditional Republican establishment whose endorsements were rejected by voters even as the candidates fought over who was President Trump’s best ally.
In National Review, Jonah Goldberg argued that Moore is a clear liability for GOP leaders. “He will also almost surely say or do things that will encourage Republican senators in more moderate states to disassociate from Moore even when the actual policy position is right,” Goldberg wrote. “Republican senators who need votes from independents and moderate Republican voters will not enjoy being linked to Moore in ads from Planned Parenthood and being asked by hostile reporters whether they agree with their Republican colleague’s views. In this and in myriad other ways, Moore will make it harder for Senate leadership to get things done — whether that leader is McConnell or someone else.”
Also in National Review, Fred Bauer argued that Moore’s win demonstrates right-wing populism has a life and energy of its own beyond Donald Trump, who endorsed Strange.
[A] number of Beltway talking heads have insisted that the president can cavalierly fail to deliver on his campaign promises on immigration and other issues because the GOP base will gladly accept anything that has a Trumpian imprimatur. This argument was already somewhat undermined by the subpar polling support from Republican voters for many of the futile efforts at health-care reform this year. But the defeat of “Big Luther” underlines in bright red ink the fact that grassroots Republicans will not march to every tune the president calls.
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway agreed. “Trump once bragged that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn’t desert him,” she wrote. “The media tend to agree with his assessment of his base. But this race does show that Trump supporters are more resistant to the swamp than Trump showed himself to be in this race. He will ignore that at his peril.”
Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka hailed Moore’s victory on Breitbart News Daily. “At one time, when we won the campaign with President Trump, we had the establishment along with us,” Bannon said. “At that time, we could not have won without aspects of the establishment. But they’ve got to get with the program. The program is no longer going to be central control, as you saw yesterday with this resounding victory by Judge Roy Moore.” Gorka contended that Moore’s victory had already “changed American politics”. “The beautiful thing about last night is it demonstrates yet again that the establishment on the right, as well as the left, still has no idea what happened last year on November the 8,” he said. “As long as they don’t understand that, we are going to win every single time because you cannot buy Americans.”
In other news:
Barbed commentary on NFL protests continued on Wednesday. At National Review, David French criticized calls for mandatory deference to the flag and the national anthem, which the Supreme Court ruled against in the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette:
This week, a high official, the president of the United States, has repeatedly called for the punishment of American citizens for exercising the very right guaranteed by Barnette — the right to refuse to salute the flag. Or, more precisely, the right to modify their salute to the flag.
Oddly enough, many members of the Right endorse this move — including those who would be livid if a Democratic president called on the NFL to fire praying football players because that’s “injecting religion into football.” … Virtually all of these folks are outraged when private corporations and private universities enforce rules on speech that systematically disadvantage and silence conservatives. But then Trump acts in the same manner and the response is … Yay?
At Townhall, Brigitte Gabriel issued a call for an NFL boycott. “The hypocrisy from the NFL, the owners, coaches, players, and sports media is past alarming,” she wrote.
We are now in an age where nothing is safe from the leftist anti-American propaganda movement, and we better be prepared to fight back, or continue to see the most unifying aspects of our culture destroyed. Days after 9/11, a player taking a knee during the anthem to attack our first responders would’ve been rightly condemned and ostracized. But in the post-Obama presidency, it is not only tolerated, but expected, and if you’re a minority like me, it makes you a hero.
