In the wake of a generally bitter-sweet night for Republicans, who hoped for an unprecedented red wave on Tuesday night, Columnist Marc Thiessen of The Washington delivered one of the most damning lines of the evening: "We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history."
He continued, "We have Joe Biden, who is the least popular president since Harry Truman, since presidential polling happened, and there wasn’t a red wave."
A Stark conclusion, yes. Is he wrong? No.
In almost every facet of American life things have taken a turn for the worse.
Whether Democrats care to admit it or not, our economy has entered a recession, crime has skyrocketed across our cities; at rates we haven’t seen in decades.
There's an an unmitigated humanitarian crisis at our nation's southern border.
All the while, American families are struggling to stay afloat, while fending off inflation.
Despite the disjointed messaging efforts we saw from the left (vis-a-vis: Putin Price Hike, Inflation is a Good Thing, etc.) in this cycle, the left owns each of these crises.
Only one party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House when voters stepped into the polls on Tuesday. Conservatives, myself included, believed we had all the evidence we needed to "convict" Democrats at the ballot box.
If you’re tuned into liberals on Tikok, on Twitter — or tuned into Fox News in the evening, you know precisely what I mean.
It’s a non-stop stream of stores being looted, crime — enabled by radical left-wing prosecutors; that includes the overtaking of city streets accompanied by general lawlessness and anarchy.
It’s almost impossible to hide from or ignore any of these realities the average citizen faces daily. Sadly, Tuesday Nov. 8, 2022 showed all of us that they aren’t enough to outright indict the party in power, as well as turn the tide on Election Day.
For that, we need to offer voters a way out of our current socio-economic depression.
The 2022 midterms proved Republicans cannot rest on referendum.
It’s incumbent on us to proactively message our vision for getting America back on the right track. The silver lining of Tuesday Nov. 8, 2022's election is that we have every opportunity to show voters we are a movement of principles and not just reactions and talk.
The conservative movement is built around prosperity and Reagan’s vision for a "shinning city on a hill." Yes, we have a platform and a way forward to offer.
It's high-time we began clearly ccommunicating it.
If there’s a hard lesson to take away from last Tuesday, it’s that we must focus our messaging to reflect what we stand for, not just what we stand against.
Employing COVID-era lockdowns as a backdrop, we’ve shown that we're the party of freedom and individual liberty.
We fight for small businesses and their right to earn a living.
The results speak for themselves.
Judging from the outcomes in Texas and Florida, two governors who ran extensive messaging campaigns centered on keeping their states open, were overwhelmingly a winning message.
In recent cycles, both states had highly contested statewide elections decided by razor-thin margins. Florida’s gubernatorial was decided by less than a full percentage point in 2018 and DeSantis ran up a double digit victory in 2022.
These aren’t "outliers," they’re proof positives.
- We are the party moving school choice forward and giving children in struggling communities a better future, regardless of their circumstances.
- We fight for parents’ rights in education.
- We are the mothers and fathers who fought to keep schools open and ensure children weren’t discriminated against when all else failed.
Take for example the well-documented Glenn Youngkin victory in Virginia (2021).
His campaign didn’t just underscore how dire things had become in public schools, it brought parents directly into the fight and offered them hope for a better future.
Youngkin's was a fight for parents to ensure their children had access to a quality education — without indoctrination.
We stand up for the men and women of law enforcement safeguarding our communities.
We don’t cave into pressure from radicals to defund them.
There's hope in fighting the good fight. The pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis has left countless of innocent Americans behind.
But morning is coming to America.
- There is a future where students are learning and excelling in the classroom again.
- There is a future where streets are safe from violent crime and families are safe.
Americans will reopen family businesses that were unjustly lost and "Help Wanted" signs will go up in towns. We have a better way forward. If we give voters the confidence and hope that there are brighter days ahead, we can win in 2024.
Dave Vasquez is a conservative strategist and communications adviser based in Washington, D.C. Most recently, Mr. Vasquez has served as Press Secretary for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. A Florida native, Vasquez served previously as spokesman and Press Secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla.
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