It’s time to take issue with some conservatives.  They need to change their language.  That’s not nitpicking.  Language shapes actions, and actions create outcomes.  Language -- as much as information -- is a primary weapon in this intensifying cold war to save or destroy liberty. 

With the FBI’s brazen politically motivated raid on Mar-a-Lago, we’re hearing a lot from our side that the republic is gone.  The rule of law is kaput.  Ours is now a banana republic.  The sentiment is understandable, but the language is self-defeating.  And it’s not true. 

While I rarely disagree with Victor Davis Hanson, I have to take exception to what he said on Mark Levin’s Fox show, August 14: “We’re no longer a republic anymore.  We’re in a transition to a radical democracy.”    

No blinkers here.  Yes, the republic is imperiled, but is it finished?  Unintentional, no doubt, but saying that America is cooked is tantamount to waving a big, white flag.  Where’s the righteous indignation and warrior spirit so necessary to winning this fight? 

Do we want to send messages of defeat to tens of millions of patriots?  Mission accomplished for Democrats and their allies?  Bye, bye, rule of law?  Good luck maneuvering through all the antiliberty landmines?  

Got it.  After a long march, Democrats and the Left (one in the same) and their moneybags backers occupy major institutions across the land.  The Deep State isn’t potboiler fiction.  The bad guys -- and they’re bad -- hold the high ground. 

From 1776 throughout the American War of Independence, the British weren’t a second- or third-rate power, easily and quickly dispensed when patriots got around to it.  The British were, well, giants bestriding the colonies.  Yet with a big assist from God Almighty and, finally, the French, the American David slew the British Goliath.  You know the story.         

Of course, we shouldn’t stay mum in the face of hard realities or speak untruths.  As baseball umps used to say, “We calls ‘em as we seez ‘em.”  But though the late innings approach, the game isn’t over.  We’re in the midst of this historic struggle.  The stakes are astronomically high -- higher than even the Civil War, which was waged by the South to secede, not to make revolution aimed at conquering the rest of America.  Democrats and their allies are, in fact, pursuing conquest.       

As we communicate to our fellow Americans, we need to take our cues from history’s greatest fighting document, the Declaration of Independence.  As the revolutionary generation did, we’re being called upon to act “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, [and to] mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  Perceptions will, of necessity, catch up with tough realities as they develop.  We’ll arrive sooner rather than later at a point where patriots must elect to be all-in.     

Maybe that’s the sticking point now.  Too many Republican leaders want a return to the good old days, when the GOP was a permanent minority but Congress was clubby.  Republicans could run their “We’re fighting for you” kabuki theater, while making nice with Democrats in exchange for scraps. 

This breed of Republican is unlikely to ever pledge anything more than buying a round of drinks on the 9^th hole.  Real sacrifices to defeat the packs of wolves trying to shred our rights and liberty would crimp their comfortable lifestyles. 

But the day is approaching when guys like Lindsay Graham will be shoved to the sidelines.  Graham is an inveterate trimmer whose wet finger is permanently stuck in the wind.  Mitch McConnell, a D.C. club member whose record on judicial nominations -- supporting and opposing -- is, granted, solid but who, otherwise, is glad to let Democrats run the show.

Per Breitbart, August 8, Donald Trump rightly charged:

“Mitch McConnell got played like a fiddle with the vote today by the Senate Democrats,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday evening. “First he gave them the fake Infrastructure Bill, then Guns, never used the Debt Ceiling for negotiating purposes (gave it away for NOTHING!), and now this.”    

Imagine Graham and McConnell at the Battle of Lexington telling scribes and anyone who cared to listen that George Washington wasn’t above the law?  Yet Graham said that about Trump in the wake of the FBI’s abuse-of-power invasion of Trump’s compound.  As typical, Graham hedged his bet: he added that he had suspicions about the raid.  The FBI is trying to frame Trump?  Of course.  Graham knows but refuses to declare the FBI a rogue enterprise. 

Who, pray tell, is going to follow McConnell and Graham into hell to save the republic?  Democrats and their allies are playing kick-ass while establishment Republicans play slip ‘n slide.

J.D. Rucker, The Liberty Daily’s proprietor, made this brutal but valuable observation, August 15:

There’s a false notion going around that if there’s a “red wave” and Republicans take back control of the House and/or Senate, things can be made right. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no indication that the Republican Party has any real fight left in it. In DC as well as in Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, there’s a whole lot of bellyaching but very little action. Meanwhile, Democrats seem willing to sacrifice their careers for their cause.

Trump and DeSantis are men to follow into hell.  Josh Hawley is coming on strong.  There are others in and out of Congress with the stones to lead the forces of liberty in this epic fight.  But as of now, not enough of them are arrayed at the top of the heap.  Florida’s Rick Scott would be a vast improvement over McConnell as Senate Republican Leader.  But could Scott muster a majority inside the GOP caucus to dispatch Mitch?  Mitch, who detests big ideas and bold agendas?  Mitch, who controls a lot of money and can ace caucus members out of plum committee assignments and chairs?  Tough pull for Scott.     

But petty insider games are about to draw to a close.  Harder times will give rise to new leaders.  Remember, that until the late 1850s, Lincoln was an obscure political figure.  Grant and Sherman were ciphers until after the Civil War began.  Many of the men and women who will lead this fight to save and fully restore this republic are unknown to us today.  

And note: We ain’t seen nothing yet.  The balance of this decade promises to be roiled with greater conflicts.

Do we honestly think that anti-liberty forces will take the Democrats anticipated midterm shellacking with grace?  Will they stand for Republican efforts to legislate against their gains and investigate them?  And, yes, both will happen despite McConnell and his pusillanimous allies.  Minority status won’t stop the aggressions.  Democrats and their unsavory allies will employ an assortment of weapons and deceits to try to waylay a GOP Congress. 

Looking further ahead to 2024, assuming Trump heads the GOP presidential ticket -- or DeSantis, if you prefer -- expect the political and cultural equivalent of the Battle of Midway.  This hot cold war won’t end by installing Trump or DeSantis in the White House.  It’ll merely open the decisive phase in this fight for this great nation’s heart and soul.      

The days ahead will surely “try men’s souls.”  Those trials will escalate and intensify.  Necessity will bring forward pro-liberty leaders with steel in their spines.  In the meantime, however inadvertently, let’s not speak of the republic in past tense.  Let’s not lay flowers at the grave of a free nation that is a long way from dead. 

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.               

Image: Pixnio