Neocons Strike Back
by William S. Hahn, Chief Executive Officer
The Republican Party is in flux. Historically, the party has helped to shape candidates. However, once Donald Trump took office he helped to shape the party — and continues to do so by endorsing candidates, holding rallies, criticizing President Biden, and remaining in the public eye. For the most part, Trump’s rhetoric matched his record (granted, there certainly were exceptions such as his globalist USMCA trade agreement).
Yet, as the JBS has pointed out over the years, certain factions within the Republican Party seek to gain control over the party. Of course, the Democratic Party also has factions vying for control, as we currently see with the hard-left “progressives” led by the “Squad” versus more “establishment” Democrats as represented by Nancy Pelosi.
A notable example of this in the Republican Party is the Never Trumpers, led by neoconservatives, who eschew the conservative principles of noninterventionism, limited government, and federalism. Neoconservatives were originally disenfranchised Democrats who defected to the Republican Party. As pointed out in our 2016 video Altering the Republican Party: NeoConservatives, these Dems may have changed their party, but they didn’t change their views.
One way to help identify these neoconservatives is by the votes they cast in Congress. TheFreedomIndex.org offers the latest scores for Congress. U.S. Representative Liz Cheney is a prominent example of a neoconservative and Never Trumper. Her votes earned her a 44 percent on the latest Freedom Index, and she has a lifetime score of 60 percent.
These scores indicate a congressman’s adherence to the Constitution. If marriage vows were similarly tallied, would their spouses put up with such low scores? Why do the electorate?
U.S. Senator Mitt Romney is another example with a Congressional Scorecard rating of 50 percent and a lifetime Freedom Index score of 41 percent. Pathetic. However, the Heritage Action Conservative Scorecard offers a different perspective. In its most current scorecard, Cheney received a 96 percent and Romney scored 63 percent.
As U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (99 percent Freedom Index lifetime score) told us at the JBS 60th Anniversary Celebration in 2018, The New American has the best scorecard because they don’t tell members of Congress which votes will be scored, while Heritage and others do.
Perhaps it tells us a little something about the brand of conservatism at Heritage when Massie and Cheney have the same scores. Any Bircher can immediately tell that there is a large difference between the two.
Consider newly elected Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations, who has tapped into the Heritage Foundation to help him find members of his administration. Remember that Heritage attacked the idea that there is a move to build a North American Union, calling it a conspiracy theory. The World Tribune reported in December 2021 that “ex-Carlyle chieftain Youngkin has extensive cash ties to George Soros, the Clintons and the Deep State.” In 2020, he attended the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. The WEF is the chief cheerleader and organizer behind efforts to recreate civilization via a “Great Reset.”
Meanwhile, the Daily Caller and Daily Wire reported that Youngkin’s nominee for secretary of education, Aimee Rogstad Guidera, founded an organization that pushes for a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” agenda, received nearly $26 million from the Gates Foundation, and supports collecting data on American schoolchildren.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Youngkin’s pick for secretary of natural resources, Andrew Wheeler, said during a committee hearing that he “faulted Congress for not passing laws on climate change.”
Plus, Kay James, Youngkin’s choice for secretary of the commonwealth, shares the Left’s narrative that America is racist, writing in a 2020 Fox News op-ed that racism “has been embedded into our culture for 400 years.”
Youngkin has plenty to prove, but don’t stop at the rhetoric. He’s off to an interesting start as on day one he used executive orders and directives to ban Critical Race Theory, rescind school mask mandates, request follow-up investigations into the Loudoun County public-school sex scandals, and stop the COVID vaccine mandate for state employees, among other actions.
Did he just throw constituents a bone on his first day, or will the globalist influence creep in later? Only time will tell, and it probably won’t take too long. Follow the record.
Now that we are officially in midterm season, politics will once again heat up the landscape. The parties will roll out their familiar messaging and will seek help and resources from anyone. The John Birch Society does not get involved in partisan politics, but members can certainly be as active as they want on an individual basis.
The most successful election campaigns are those that are educational in nature. If you’re a candidate, what lessons are you instilling into your local electorate with your ads, emails, direct-mail pieces, letters to the editor, interviews, and speeches? What technology are you using to help you (not the party!) connect directly with voters? The late Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Ga.) was a longtime JBS member who eventually built 50 chapters and organized about 1,000 members in his district. His campaign was focused on building the JBS by educating the electorate. His record of being the best constitutionalist in Congress continually proved to members whom they should vote for. Although he was named chairman of the board for JBS, the organization never politically endorsed him.
Congressman McDonald took JBS founder Robert Welch’s advice to heart when Mr. Welch suggested that 1,000 active members in a congressional district would be what was needed to put constitutionalists in office. (Later the number was decreased to 500 due to the strong influence 500 Birchers could wield.)
Use your influence in your electorate to hold your elected officials accountable. As we’ve been recommending over the last few months in the Bulletin, use the Congressional Scorecard for your U.S. representative and your two U.S. senators. Download for free, print, and distribute this valuable tool throughout your electorate to give voters a way to cut through rhetoric. Show them the record! Also, be sure to give these to both candidates and incumbents. Sometimes all it takes is a little sunshine on one’s record to help adjust it for the better. Watch Robert Brown’s success with a similar tool in The Power of 500 video.
These scorecards can have tremendous influence. We wish we had them for state legislatures. Wait, hold that thought! We’re laying the groundwork to do just that. We estimate it’ll take four additional full-time legislative researchers to undertake such a large project; we’re beginning with two. Think of the possibilities of having state legislatures being more constitutional. We are also establishing a project-based pool of researchers to expand our capabilities and bring the best information to members. All disciplines are welcome to join this pool, and researchers would work on a contract basis. If this is something you are interested in, please let us know ASAP, and see the “Help Wanted” ad in this Bulletin for more information.