These are treacherous times. Our principal institutions have been overtaken by the left. However dysfunctional and disturbed they may be, leftists rule us, and they grow more authoritarian and imperious as we speak.
The latest example of their audacity and command of our dominant institutions is the response to Georgia's modest election law (S.B. 202 or the Election Integrity Act). It included ID requirements for mail-in ballots, banned the practice of giving food or water to voters in line at polling stations, limited the number of "drop boxes," and shortened early voting, none of which was racial or restrictive in the least. But the carefully orchestrated mass rollout of hair-on-fire outrage was classic leftist agitprop, perfected through the decades. So absurd were the accusations that, absent an utterly compliant press, a political movement could never get away with it.
Shortly after Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law, President Joe Biden on ESPN referred to it as "Jim Crow on steroids" and supported Major League Baseball moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta, where it was scheduled this year. MLB rolled over instantly. This year's summer classic also planned to honor the memory of Hank Aaron, one of baseball's greatest players, who passed away recently and played with the Atlanta Braves. That Hank Aaron was a black man and that Atlanta is a heavily black-majority city that would be negatively impacted by the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars seemed not an afterthought. Biden later called the bill "sick," "un-American," and an "atrocity." Former president Barack Obama agreed with the sentiments, as did the entire Democrat party apparatus and its poodle media.
American Airlines and Southwest came out against a similar such election bill in Texas.
The various election laws passing through Republican states are a result of the election debacle that occurred on November 3, 2020. Particularly in battleground states, election laws were unlawfully changed in the lead-up to the election because of lawsuits by Democrat lawyers, generally bypassing the state legislatures, who constitutionally have the final say on election law. Criticisms by leftist groups and the Democrat party invariably accuse the bills of being "restrictive" and causing "voter suppression," by which they mean the suppression of blacks and other minorities.
The bills did nothing of the kind. They were intended to prevent election fraud, which Democrats depended on to win elections.
The over-the-top reaction to the Georgia legislation was merely a prelude to the passage of the "For the People Act" (H.R. 1 and S. 1), in which Democrats at the federal level, engaging in typical doublespeak, seek to nationalize election law and enshrine the changes they engineered in 2020 in perpetuity, thus ensuring a one-party nation under Democrat rule forever.
How should conservatives respond?
It is up to the states.
The response should be vigorous and unapologetic. Each state dominated by Republicans, where Republicans hold both houses of the state Legislature, of which there are 31, and then the trifecta, which would also include the governorship (24 such states), should pass election integrity laws. All should eliminate unsolicited mail-in ballots, something done unnecessarily because of COVID, but allow for "absentee" ballots, as always, which must be verified well in advance with proper explanation (illness, disabled, out of state, in the military). Eliminate same-day registration and motor-voter registration. Abolish computer systems. Return to paper ballots, hand-counted with poll- watchers from both parties present. Require proof of citizenship. Limit early voting to two weeks, or consider eliminating it all together. Mandate one election "day," as was standard until relatively recently, not election "season." Declare it a holiday. Clean up voter rolls regularly. And, of course, mandate photo ID, something that for Democrats, is akin to daylight for vampires.
The Democrats may never win a national election again.
But there is more.
No longer can conservatives sit by and allow companies and sports entities, professional or otherwise, to bully and abuse us. It is time for red states to pass "anti-bullying" legislation against the left and its corporate minions. Any company, sports entity, and individual athlete or celebrity who disrespects our nation and flag or threaten to or implement a boycott of a red state for passing entirely legitimate legislation should be banned from all future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set-asides, anti-trust protections (where appropriate), and further business dealings with the state. Legislation considered within the purview of the state, wholly reasonable, would contain laws and protections involving religious liberty and protecting children and students from the various and sundry depredations of leftist theories and policies, including such gems as transgenderism and Critical Race Theory, bogus refugee and illegal alien resettlement, and ensuring the integrity of our elections. Consider also forbidding companies, athletes, sports leagues, and entities that have business ties with China's totalitarian regime from business relations or other benefits, tax breaks, and contracts with the state. Attorneys general of red states should aggressively pursue litigation against left-wing corporations that infringe on the rights of their states' citizens, including the enforcement of speech codes; "canceling" individuals who espouse conservative or traditional beliefs; and otherwise prohibiting normal, free, and open expression. Similarly, they should file suits against corporations that engage in boycotts and threats against the state.
Red states must coordinate their efforts as the left does to be more formidable. In particular, states like Texas and Florida, with their large populations and economic clout and with supportive governors — notably, Ron DeSantis of Florida — can take the lead, but any state so inclined can move aggressively. Finally, Republican officials at all levels, state and federal, should demand that woke corporate hypocrites boycott the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
The conservative, pro-founding, pro-American, nationalist movement has for decades been inattentive to our culture and commanding organs. As a result, it has largely ceded them to the left who have been diligently infiltrating them. They have completed their long march through our institutions and now control them, as they do the nation. But we still have power at the state level. We must fight back as viciously as the left using the tools that we have.
That means the red states.
It is time to save the country, if it is to be saved at all.
Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, IN, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written A Surgeon's Odyssey and Matilda's Triumph, available on amazon.com. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.