Secession: Confederacy of Dunces Plays into Media's Hands

In the wake of a brutal election loss, some of us are disappointed and want to lodge a protest — I’m not unsympathetic to that, I get it, I really do. I got it in 2000 and in 2004 when my favorite sport was mocking left-wing movie stars who threatened to flee the country after Bush won. But therein lies the point: If conservatives are going to mock the disappointed who want to flee the country after an election loss, shouldn’t we be doing the same thing now?

While it’s not fair, sometimes we really do have to take responsibility for our own and even those who claim to be our allies. Because if we don’t, the left-wing media’s going to do it for us. But only after it’s too late and we’ve walked into the trap.

Step 1: Some who share some of our political views overreact and do something dumb.

Step 2: The left-wing media picks it up and turns it into a mainstream story — a trap.

Step 3: The trap works because the media exposure brings it to the attention of a bigger audience and suddenly 675,000 on our side overreact and do the same dumb thing.  

Step 4: Some on our side, while not agreeing with secession, treat the idea as something worthy of discussion. Now the issue has even more attention and even a whiff of credibility.

Step 5: Now that hundreds of thousands are doing this dumb thing, the media and left (but I repeat myself) use this dumb thing to tarnish and marginalize the Right as a whole.

Step 6: Just like with the Birther movement, suddenly, the only sound bite that comes out of Eric Cantor’s appearance on “Meet the Press” has nothing to do with his intelligent, logical, and fiscally sound thoughts on tax increases — instead, it’s his never quite exactly suitable denunciation of the secession movement.

Step 7: It’s Katy bar the door with the Right’s “secession problem” and all the racial connotations that go along with it.

Step 8: Here we go again. 

How many Americans have died to protect this country and to keep us united? But what… because we lost a couple of elections and gained an ObamaCare we’re going to grab our marbles and crybaby all the way home to Texahomastan? Wanting to cut and run from the fight for your country is cowardice.

I’m sorry we live in a world where a biased media can take a fringe movement and tie it like a can to our tails, but this is the world we live in, which means that sometimes we have to very publicly point to these crybaby cowards and laugh at them, as though they were Alec Baldwin in 2004, packing for Canada.

Because if we don’t do this, the media’s going to make us own them, whether we want to own them or not.

These people are not only cowards for giving up the fight; they also get in the way of the fight, because the media uses them to constantly put us on defense and define who we are.

Let the secessionists leave the Republican Party, or whatever the threat is this time. We have to immediately mock and marginalize these people, not coddle lunacy and sympathize with stupid. At least if they can’t be associated with the conservative movement, they’re somebody else’s problem.

 

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC