It’s impossible to win a war with an army of weaklings, cowards, and traitors.

It’s time conservatives realize that the country moving to the tune of liberals, no matter who wins elections, is due not to the domination of the mainstream media (MSM), but to the weakness, dishonesty, or cowardice of Republican politicians.

Media frenzies like the recent one about religious freedom in Indiana are like push polls; they don’t last long.  How many anti-conservative MSM outbursts occurred prior to the 2014 elections, which the Republicans resoundingly won?  If MSM magic were determining elections, Republicans wouldn’t have won.

When the Republican speaker of the House surrenders to Nancy Pelosi and sets up a vote where a Democrat/RINO coalition overrides the majority of Republicans to fund something most Republicans ran against in the last election, we have to realize that it’s not the media that’s the problem.

Think about it: Obama, Reid, and most other Democrats claim to be conservatives at election time.  Obama was for improving the economy and being bipartisan.  No mention of socialized medicine.

The congressional sweep in 2014 resulted from Republicans articulating conservative values: lowering taxes, ending ObamaCare, opposing executive amnesty.

Why do you think that Obama has always put off his biggest liberal actions until after an election?  If the MSM had convinced the voters that liberalism is good, then Obama would have brought out the liberal moves before the election.  Instead, the Democrats realize that the voters aren’t liberal, so they hide, or lie about, what they do.

While the impact of the MSM is real, it’s not what people think it is.  The real impact of the media is on the politicians.  Living in Washington and moving with the Washington cultural “elite,” too many Republicans begin to believe that what they hear from their consultant class friends and the Washington Post is true.

Those politicians begin to think they can’t get re-elected unless they downplay their conservative values.  Or they, like human beings everywhere, start drifting toward the positions held by the people they see and socialize with every day.

The vast majority of people in D.C. depend on big government for their jobs and their wealth; it’s no accident that D.C. is now the richest city in the country.  For every conservative Republican politician, there are probably hundreds of nice people who need a big government to thrive.  That’s the culture Republican politicians live in; they spend far more time in D.C. than back home where their conservative values are nurtured.

Think of how many good teenagers go to liberal colleges where they transmute into irrational liberals.  It’s the same phenomenon we’re seeing with Republicans in D.C.

The problem is that too many Republicans who go to D.C. as conservatives lack the support structure or moral fiber to stick to their beliefs when immersed in the D.C. culture.

Essentially, conservatives need to ensure that Republicans don’t “go native” in D.C.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to speak conservative truths in D.C., where doing so will result in being mocked and reviled.  Cowardly Republicans will change their stands to avoid that sort of bullying.

Weak Republicans will succumb to the constant drumbeat of liberalism they hear from their D.C. “friends” and the MSM and become liberals.

Traitorous Republicans never believed in conservatism but have no problem lying to the voters in order to get elected.

We’ll never end the MSM faux firestorms – emotions and lies are liberalism’s lifeblood, – but we can work to select strong people for office and build them an environment where their beliefs can be nourished, not condemned.

Three key steps need to be taken to ensure that conservative votes count:

1) Make sure we pick candidates who have the guts to stay the course.

2) Provide a conservative cultural infrastructure for Republicans in D.C.

3) Make sure Republicans realize that no matter how nice a person a liberal might be, the causes that liberal pushes are bad.

The first point means conservatives need better vetting at the primary stage.  Republican candidates have to be principled first and politicians second.  In addition, it means that we need to throw out people like Representative Ellmers who have one set of beliefs at election time and another when they vote in Congress.  It’s better to have a Democrat with Democrat baggage in office than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The second point means that conservatives have to work to create a bubble of “flyover country” in D.C., ensuring that Republican politicians aren’t constantly being bombarded by liberal “friends.”  Conservative think-tanks and other groups should get together to provide a climate where Republican politicians can go to parties, play golf, etc. without being condemned in subtle ways for their “backwardness.”

We should also get Republican candidates to eschew the MSM. Between the blurring together of reporting and editorializing and the liberally slanted selection of what news to cover, no one can know what’s really going on in the world by reading the Washington Post or any other MSM source.  With the huge staffs that congressmen have and the information revolution of the internet, there is no reason why Republicans have to use last-millennium news sources.

Additionally, conservatives should work to find ways to keep politicians in their home states a larger fraction of the time.  It’s less likely that Republicans will be corrupted in the real America than in D.C.

The third point means that we need to realize that just as we can’t fight Islamofascism if we can’t even name it, Republican politicians can’t stay conservative and think that liberal politicians are not the enemy.

Sadly, it’s been a long time since the differences between conservatives and liberals were about things decent folks can honestly disagree about.  Liberals in D.C. want to grow poverty, keep blacks poorly educated, bring in millions of foreigners to keep wages down, kill the unborn, destroy marriage, abandon Israel and our allies, fund their cronies Chicago-style, and promote hedonism.  Sure, they’re nice to their wives and children, and to their animal companions, but so were plenty of dictators.

Republicans have to realize that even though Democrats are “nice,” they are not sources of anything trustworthy.  Republicans don’t need to demonize Democrats – just view them as being less reliable than used car salesmen.

To win the war with liberals, conservatives need to elect strong people and armor them with a conservative-friendly environment in D.C.

You can read more of Tom’s rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter.