Townhall Review | Commentaries

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s a good time to be reminded about the true history of the holiday.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that in an increasingly secular America, there’s confusion about the origins of Thanksgiving. Some kids are now actually taught that the Pilgrims held a feast to thank the Indians. Afraid of appearing too religious, some are now calling it “Turkey Day,” as if it all comes down to poultry.

The facts speak for themselves: In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated what they called “the goodness of God” as they feasted with local Indians. In 1789 President Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving—asking Americans to “unite in most humbly offering our prayer and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations.”

So much for a secular holiday. These Americans knew to whom they were praying.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 2022 election was certainly disappointing—especially for the cause of life, as we saw pro-abortion ballot initiatives pass while pro-life ones failed.
 
But there were bright spots—and we can learn important lessons from them. 
 
In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine won by 25 points after signing a heartbeat law. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis won by 19 points after signing a pain-capable law. Senator Marco Rubio was re-elected by 16 points after expressing strong support for a federal pain-capable law. Governors Brian Kemp in Georgia and Greg Abbott in Texas both won decisive victories after signing heartbeat laws.
 
When pro-lifers highlight how extreme the pro-abortion Left is, pro-lifers win.
 
As we head into the 2024 contest, we need to persuade our neighbors about the dignity of the life in the womb, and we need candidates who pledge to protect life at both the state and federal levels. Most important, we need to highlight the abortion extremism of the Left.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the 2020 election, Joe Biden and Democrats mistook a narrow presidential victory—and a loss of seats in the House—as a mandate for a sweeping progressive agenda that they couldn’t possibly pass, let alone make work. Two years later, two-thirds of Americans believe that the country is going in the wrong direction thanks to raging inflation, high crime rates and a border crisis.

Republicans narrowly won control of the House as a result. GOP leadership should learn a lesson from the last two years and focus on what they can plausibly get done rather than raise expectations. A promise to repeal the massive IRS expansion on Day One, for instance, could fuel voter cynicism when reality intrudes and Republicans fail to meet their own boasts.

Voters gave Republicans only enough authority to stop excesses from Biden and other Democrats for the next two years, and to investigate all of the improprieties of the previous two. 

Stick to those promises, and voters may well expand their mandate in 2024.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are a lot of reasons the Red Tsunami turned into a Red Trickle. In some places, one of them might have been the candidates.

Anyone willing to run for office deserves our appreciation. It isn’t easy to be the man—or the woman—in the arena. But sometimes, in our enthusiasm, a party’s base can fall in love and forget that politics is a game of addition. Deep red candidates, for example, rarely win a blue or purple state without demonstrating crossover appeal.

You can bet that appeal is going to be limited if a candidate hasn’t even been able to lock down his or her own entire party.

It’s important to nominate principled candidates. But it’s also rather important to win. That’s why William F. Buckley—no slouch in the principles department—created the Buckley rule: Nominate the most conservative candidate Who. Can. Win.

Not bad to remember as 2024 approaches. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's bad enough that five members of the Supreme Court wrongly claimed that the U.S. Constitution requires a new definition of marriage. But as the Senate looks to codify this redefinition of marriage, all it will do is add fuel to the fire of those harassing and penalizing citizens and organizations that hold to enduring and well-grounded truths about marriage. 

The Senate bill pays lip service to religious liberty and conscience rights, but it does not offer any meaningful protections for those rights. Had the Senate sponsors wanted to, they could have explicitly stated that no individual or organization could be penalized by the government for operating according to the conviction that marriage unites husband and wife—  particularly that the IRS may not strip any such organization of its non-profit status. 

The bill offers no such protections.

That’s not public policy for the common good. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Tuesday of this week, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy secured the support of an overwhelming majority in his caucus to become the party's choice to be the next Speaker of the House.

It's an appropriate time for a hearty congratulations.

California's McCarthy has been the de facto leader of the GOP House since then-Speaker Paul Ryan announced retirement in April 2018. McCarthy guided Republicans to increased numbers in 2020—and he did so against political headwinds as the GOP lost ground in the Senate and, of course, President Biden defeated Trump.

McCarthy's a coalition manager, a candidate recruiter par excellence and one of the hardest working leaders in D.C.

What this means is that when the gavel is banged in for the 118th Congress, it will be in the hands of a Republican in the House. That's not a small win. That's a huge win.

The best path to greater gains in 2024 would be for the GOP to rally around the new Speaker-in-waiting and use the narrow majority to maximum effect.

Congratulations, Leader McCarthy!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So: it’s time for the post mortems on the 2022 election to begin.

Two of the most important aspects have nothing to do with what actually happened on Election Day. It’s all about what happened before, and then after. 

First, before. In many states, it’s about Election Season, not Election Day. Republicans need to master the new rules. In Pennsylvania, for example, you can’t beat fifty days of collected ballots with one day of in-person voting. It’s impossible.

After the election, we need results in a timely and transparent way. If the left is concerned about democracy, it should act like it—by agreeing to reforms that enhance trust in our system. Even absent corruption, delayed results, long vote counts, ballot drops and the like undermine trust in the system. And that corrodes democracy.

Election Day should matter more than what happens before or after it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The surprising outcome of the midterms has certainly disappointed Republicans and conservatives who saw the environment as ripe for a red wave. A number of hard lessons will have to be learned about the failures to capitalize on historic levels of inflation, crime, and parental activism against radical indoctrination of their children and translate them into electoral victories from coast to coast.

However, we should not lose sight of the fact that Republicans likely won control of the House of Representatives. That alone will arrest Joe Biden’s progressive agenda. It will also restore accountability for an administration that has assumed imperial power, especially in its self-appropriation for a bailout of Academia.

The Rolling Stones said it best: You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. America needed a check on Biden, and Republicans did well enough to win one. If the GOP learns the hard lessons of this midterm, they can apply them for an even more critical presidential election in two years.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Republicans who are disappointed with the red wave stopping after Florida and New York need to recall that controlling the House—whether it’s by one vote or 31 votes—is the biggest victory as it effectively stops President Biden’s and the Democrats’ worst ideas, including expanding the Supreme Court and adding the District of Columbia as a state. 

This is a victory that’s been two cycles coming as the House GOP picked up many seats in 2020. The gains—in both cycles—are largely the result of the work done by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. 

Republicans in the House Caucus should move quickly to install the leader as the Speaker-designate along with Steve Scalise as Majority Leader. McCarthy has done a superb job of holding a diverse caucus together over many years in leadership and especially since 2018. 

McCarthy is a master coalition-builder and a superb candidate-recruiter, from his days in leadership in the California assembly through to his soon to be completed ascent to the Speaker’s Chair. 

Some in legacy media are thirsting for an internal battle with which to hobble the new Republican majority out of the gate. Salem believes strongly in McCarthy’s vision and ability and we urge every member to quickly coalesce around McCarthy and Scalise and then move on to the agenda laid out in the commitment to America. 

It’s taken four years to get back to where the business of the House is governed by Republicans. McCarthy led the effort over the past two cycles. Now it’s time for him to lead from the Speaker’s chair. 

He’s smart, good-humored and—crucially—hard-working.

Congratulations to every Republican who stayed the course and captured the majority. Our hope is their teamwork is the news of the next few months and not arguments about anything else. 

Unify your allies, divide your opponents is an old rule of politics.

It’s time to unify around Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve heard all too much about right-wing election deniers and conspiracy theorists. Set aside the fact that the left has its fair share—Hillary Clinton and Stacy Abrams among them.

There’s no excuse for ignoring issues that promote doubts about the fairness of U.S. elections. Why, for example, were results available by midnight 50 years ago—but today, it can take days or weeks for elections to be resolved? It raises suspicions, true or not, that vote counting continues until enough ballots are found for the “right” candidate to win. It doesn’t help when politicians preemptively warn of delays, especially when they know their party is in for a tough election cycle.

Worst of all, the kneejerk government response to voter concerns has been to stigmatize them as crazy. Enough. If we can put a man on the moon, our government can run transparent, efficient, fair elections.

Let’s press them to do so. Starting now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.