Speaking at an event for Americans for Prosperity, conservative icon David Horowitz, head of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, took to the microphone to encourage conservatives to “fight fire with fire.”
Horowitz, who grew up in a Communist family and then spent his youth as a Marxist leader of the New Left, gradually became a conservative after recognizing that all of the measures he had fought for were wildly counterproductive – and recognizing that the leftist movement he supported was not a movement of the people, but of the elites. “Historically the upper classes have been movers of radical change,” Horowitz said. “The French Revolution was initiated by French aristocrats; Karl Marx was funded and promoted by a capitalist factory owner. And the Obama socialists who today threaten our way of life are swimming in wealth up to their eyeballs. The purpose of my making these observations is first to underscore how important the creators of wealth are to the battle facing us; they have to be active on the side of freedom and ready to support a grass roots army to fight in the trenches.”
How can conservatives fight back against a well-entrenched opposition? Horowitz explained: “character attacks can have a crucial impact on electoral outcomes; well-designed attacks on an opponent’s credibility can overpower well-crafted messages.” And Horowitz encouraged conservatives to argue on the basis of character: “Obama is the most brazen and compulsive liar ever to occupy the White House. He is a commander-in-chief missing in action — invisible at the budget negotiations in Washington and the withdrawal negotiations in Iraq, hidden from view in crisis after crisis. While Egypt and Syria burn, he golfs. His endless dithering and wrong-headed interventions to support the Muslim Brotherhood have set the Middle East aflame. Meanwhile, he and his wife carry on like French royalty, lavishing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on their family and dog while tens of millions of Americans suffer historic levels of deprivation because of policies he put in place. This is a leader who just doesn’t care. That’s how he was able to leave four brave Americans to die in Benghazi. He just doesn’t care.”
So why haven’t conservatives attacked Obama on character? Horowitz suggests:
The reason why we have not attacked him is obvious to everyone, but no one will say it out loud. I will. The reason no one is willing to confront Obama the way he deserves to be confronted is because the color of his skin is black. Actually he is half black, raised by whites and one Indonesian. But no matter, since racist liberals have made the color of one’s skin all that matters. It is because Obama is a minority that no one will hold him to a common standard; or confront him with what he has actually done. Any political consultant will tell you that you can’t. This is how race conscious and race-prejudiced our country has become. This is why we lose elections. Because what is true of Obama is true of the Democratic Party and the liberals and socialists generally. They present themselves as the defenders of minorities. Whenever they are attacked, they use minorities as human shields, so they can call their opponents racist. If we can’t hold Obama accountable, how can we hold any Democrat, any liberal or any socialist accountable? Because this is how they fight, and will do so until we have a counter-strategy to neutralize their attacks.
Horowitz continued, “How can we turn the tables on them? It’s not rocket science. We can beat back their attacks by turning their guns around. We can neutralize them by fighting fire with fire. In the real world, Democrat socialists have made the lives of poor Americans worse, much worse. We need to shove this fact in their faces every time we speak…. This is a social atrocity committed by liberals and democrat socialists against African Americans. If we spoke like they do, we would call this racism — the most appalling racist atrocity committed against African Americans since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts.”
“So here’s the strategy to beat them, remembering that the best defense is a good offense: Attack the democrat socialists for their wars against minorities and the poor,” Horowitz concluded. “Expose their empty promises and question their character and undermine their message by portraying them as hypocrites whose words cannot be trusted.”