They Think You're Stupid (15 page)

In 1858, President Abraham Lincoln stated in his "House Divided" speech,

Our cause, then, must be entrusted
to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work--who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen thousand strong.

We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now? Now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful.

We shall not fail--if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

President Lincoln's encouragement to fellow Republicans to continue the fight against Democrats who opposed the abolition of slavery should likewise serve as a rallying cry today to Republicans. They should pursue aggressive policy solutions that guarantee economic freedom for all citizens and protection of our nation's moral foundations, despite the difficulty. It is our collective right and responsibility.

Earth to Republicans! Voters are smarter than you think. History and the facts are on your side. Use them!

• Many of the ideologically moderate but politically homeless found a temporary home in the Republican Party in 2004, but Republicans still cannot convince many of these temporary residents to identify themselves as Republicans. The majority of Black, Latino, Asian, and ideologically moderate voters have still not been persuaded by the Republican Party to embrace the Republican policy agenda.

• The top three issues for voters in 2004 were moral values, the status of the economy and job growth, and the global war on terrorism. Of these three issues, President Bush received overwhelming support from those who view moral values and the war on terrorism as most important.

Republicans Have a Brand Identity Problem

• Whereas the Democratic Party has an ideology problem, the Republican Party has a brand identity problem.

• When people stop and really look at the primary tenets of what it means to be a Republican, they quickly realize that they are more ideologically aligned with the Republican Party. But they quickly go back to their perception of the party and denounce any formal affiliation. That's the weakness of the brand.

• Connecting with voters, like connecting with customers, requires a marketing and communications plan that adequately describes your superior product and inspires potential consumers to buy it.

Perception Is Reality, but Reality Matters

• If the Republicans solve their brand identity problem, they will have an expanded voter base for decades. This will not be accomplished by simply loudly criticizing the Democrats during election time; it will require a deliberate plan between elections to inform and inspire voters.

• Republicans damage their brand identity when they repeatedly attack the Democratic Party and Democrat candidates. They are in effect attacking the party where many of the politically homeless once belonged. In addition, since Democrats have co-opted most of the credit for civil rights gains, an attack on Democrats is viewed by many and especially Blacks as an attack on positive civil rights - legislation.

• Perception has to be deliberately managed. This is true for business and it is true for politics.

Winning Voters Is Not Black and White . . . It's Green

• At the heart of most people's version of the American Dream is a desire to achieve economic freedom.

• Our potential for achieving economic freedom is diminished further every day that we do not demand a complete replacement of the federal tax code and a complete restructuring of the Social Security system.

• Republicans must seize on the current opportunity they have for leadership on economic policies and enact the reforms that will demonstrate to loyal Republicans, curious Democrats, and the politically homeless that they are serious about our nation's economic future.

History and the Facts Are on Your Side--Use Them!

• In fighting the war to protect our nation's economic and moral foundations, as well as individual liberties and civil rights, the Republican Party has on its side the unparalleled weapons of history and facts.

Chapter Five

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, reminded us that we are a nation of individuals who share many of the same hopes and dreams. We are all pursuing economic freedom and our versions of the American Dream, yet we share in the consequences of political decisions that either strengthen or further weaken our economic foundations. In a crisis we unite. In times of prolonged prosperity we fight among ourselves like cats and dogs. Terrorism is a crisis. We must unite behind both the global war on terrorism waged by enemies in foreign lands and the war against our economic foundations waged by enemies of economic freedom within.

Will the twenty-first century be a time that sees the American public consumed with fear and doubt? Fear of another, devastating terrorist attack, and doubt in our ability to enact aggressive policy solutions? Or will history judge this as a century filled with inspired unity and hope--a nation united behind defeating the terrorists who want to forever alter our way of life and a nation filled with hope in its ability to protect its borders and achieve economic freedom for all citizens?

In April 2002, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a captivating speech to the U.S. Senate in which he called on his lifetime of experiences in confronting the evils of terrorist states and encouraged the United States to remain resolute in the global war against terrorism. Portions of that speech are included below.

I have come here to voice what I believe is an urgently needed reminder: that the war on terror can be won with clarity and courage or lost with confusion and vacillation.

This moral and strategic clarity was applied with devastating effect to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that supported Al Qaeda terrorism.

Soon after the war began, the American victory over the forces of terror in Afghanistan brought to light the third principle in the war on terror--namely, that the best way to defeat terror is to defeat it. At first, this seemingly trite observation was not fully understood. Contrary to popular belief, the motivating force behind terror is neither desperation nor destitution. It is hope--the hope of terrorists systematically brainwashed by the ideologies who manipulate them that their savagery will break the will of their enemies and help them achieve their objectives--political, religious, or otherwise.

Faced with the quintessential terrorist regime of our time--a regime that both harbors and perpetuates terror on an unimaginable scale--the free world is muddling its principles, losing its nerve, and thereby endangering the successful prosecution of this war.

The question many in my country are now asking is this: Will America apply its principles consistently and win this war, or will it selectively abandon those principles and thereby ultimately lose the war?

If not destroyed, this madness will strike in your buses, in your supermarkets, in your pizza parlors, in your cafes. Eventually, these human bombs will supplement their murderous force with suitcases equipped with devices of mass death that could make the horrors of September 11 pale by comparison.

That is why there is no alternative to winning this war without delay. No part of the terrorist network can be left intact. For if not fully eradicated, like the most malignant cancer, it will regroup and attack again with even greater ferocity. Only by dismantling the entire network will we be assured of victory.

But to assure that this evil does not reemerge a decade or two from now, we must not merely uproot terror, but also plant the seeds of freedom.

Because only under tyranny can a diseased totalitarian mindset be widely cultivated. This totalitarian mindset, which is essential for terrorists to suspend the normal rules that govern a man's conscience and prevent him from committing these grisly acts, does not breed in a climate of democracy and freedom.

The open debate and plurality of ideas that buttress all genuine democracies and the respect for human rights and the sanctity of life that are the shared values of all free societies are a permanent antidote to the poison that the sponsors of terror seek to inject into the minds of their recruits.

History has entrusted this nation with carrying the torch of freedom. And time and time again, through both war and peace, America has carried that torch with courage and with honor, combining a might the world has never known with a sense of justice that no power in history has possessed.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's opening sentence is a strategic declaration: "That the war on terror can be won with clarity and courage or lost with confusion and vacillation."

His impassioned plea to the U.S. Senate and all U.S. citizens was borne from direct interaction with terrorist states and their leaders as a citizen, soldier, elected official, and statesman, and from years of observing the unique, humanitarian nature of U.S. foreign policy. Netanyahu understands that the U.S. does not seek to overthrow nations and impose dictatorial or totalitarian regimes on conquered peoples, a la the former Soviet Union. On the contrary, U.S. foreign policy has generally focused on bringing freedom and the prospect of self-government to oppressed people throughout the world.

Netanyahu's speech was not aimed specifically at Republicans, nor was it targeted to Democrats. It was aimed at all U.S. citizens who might question for even a second the necessity of waging war against terrorist networks on their home turf. There can be no doubt that terrorists all over the globe seek to disrupt and destroy our way of life, our values, and our freedoms. Generations of Americans have fought and died to protect our values and freedoms, and we must continue to do so when we are attacked.

Global terrorism did not begin on September 11, 2001, nor did our efforts to combat it. Most Americans did not pay much attention to terrorism, however, because terrorist attacks on U.S. soil were rare and certainly not of the magnitude of the World Trade Center bombings. September 11, 2001, was our biggest wakeup call to the threat of global terror since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Following the September 11 attacks, churches were packed across the country every Sunday. People were calling others they had never met before "brother" or "sister." An unmistakable sense of patriotism and pride in our great nation filled football stadiums, baseball stadiums, and anywhere people rallied in support of the United States and our military personnel.

Fear has a uniting influence, but as Americans we sometimes quickly forget that the factors still exist that once caused us to fear. It did not take long after President Bush committed troops to wipe out the Taliban in Afghanistan, and set in motion policies that would eventually allow Afghan citizens to hold their own elections and select their own leaders, for congressional Democrats and some squishy Republicans to restart their partisan bickering by complaining that the president rushed to war and was going it alone without support of other nations.

There are always people who believe the U.S. should never go to war. They believe that somehow we can reason with totalitarian dictators who have no qualms about strapping suicide bombs to women and children under the ruse of martyrdom. The fact is, no sane American ever desires to go to war prior to exhausting all available diplomatic options. War is ugly, war breaks up families, and war causes many children to grow up without a parent.

War, however, is sometimes the only solution to ending or preventing destruction of American lives and attacks on U.S. soil. The preeminent charge of the U.S. government is to defend its borders and its citizens. Those who oppose U.S. prosecution of the global war on terrorism following the attacks of September 11, 2001, offer no reasonable alternative and obviously have an agenda separate from protecting U.S. interests, freedoms, and lives.

Clearly, all aspects of the war on terrorism have not gone as planned. For example, the intelligence provided by our CIA and FBI to the president and other leaders has not always been accurate. The U.S. military, however, has achieved in a relatively short amount of time what no other nation has ever accomplished--the imprisonment or killing of thousands of the worlds' leading terrorists and their leaders. Military personnel have secured much evidence of terrorists' plans to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and chemical weapons. Successful elections have been held in Afghanistan and Iraq. Girls are now allowed to attend schools in those countries, and people no longer live in constant fear of their own leaders. For the first time in their lives, people in the Middle East have hope for the future.

The strength of our nation, the greatest country on Earth, is that it has always represented a beacon of hope for the entire world. In 1630, upon the deck of a boat off the coast of Massachusetts, John Winthrop said, "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."

There have been some dark moments in our nation's history, but because of our freedoms, not despite them, our nation persevered, became stronger, and we understood a little more why God created this beautiful land and gave us the opportunity to live here.

I have read recently some of the chilling and frightening accounts of the brutality toward slaves during the horrible time in our history when slavery was permitted. Often a Black man or woman was brutally killed for no reason at all.

Growing up in Atlanta during the 1950s and 1960s, I can still remember the painted rules on the public buses that said, "Colored seat from the rear. Whites seat from the front." It was humiliating and demeaning, especially when the bus got full and the Blacks were supposed to get up and yield their seat to any White person. During segregation, a Black person was beaten or killed for getting out of line toward a White person, even if the accusation was baseless.

Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi during summer 1955. While on a trip to a grocery store with his cousins, he allegedly whistled at a White woman, who went home and told her husband. Several nights later, the woman's husband and others kidnapped Emmett from his relatives' home in the middle of the night. They severely beat him, shot him, and threw his body in a nearby river. They were later charged with the murder of young Emmett Till and faced seemingly insurmountable evidence of their guilt. The jury deliberated less than an hour, however, and acquitted all the accused.

Several months later, a journalist covering the case offered the woman's husband and his accomplice money to tell the true story of their involvement in the murder of Emmett Till. The two could no longer be prosecuted for a crime of which they had been acquitted, so they told the reporter in detail how they had beaten and killed Emmett. Their story was published in 1956.

Soon after the true story of the murder of Emmett Till became public, the two men responsible for his brutal murder were forced out of their community and moved elsewhere. Young Emmett Till became an icon for the civil rights movement across the country. Justice may not always prevail in the courtroom, but sometimes it prevails in different ways.

Justice may also take a long time, but justice usually prevails in a free society. On Sunday, September 15, 1963, four little Black girls were killed while attending Sunday school class when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, like Emmett Till before them, came to symbolize the struggles of Blacks in the segregated South.

Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declined to investigate the case, saying that the possibility for a conviction was remote. In 1971 the Alabama attorney general's office reopened the case, and by 1977 a man named Robert Edward Chambliss was convicted of one count of murder in Carol McNair's death. In 1980 the U.S. Department of Justice released a report stating FBI Director Hoover had blocked evidence that could have been used in the investigation into the bombing.

The FBI in 1997 reopened its investigation. In May 2000 two more men, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, surrendered after an Alabama grand jury indicted them on first-degree murder charges for their roles in the bombing. One year later, a jury found Thomas Blanton guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Bobby Frank Cherry was in a Texas prison serving time for a separate crime.

Most of us have moved past racial hatred and understand that we are all God's children, blessed with the ability to live in America and pursue economic freedom, and charged with protecting those freedoms our nation's Founding Fathers declared, fought, and died for. We know from the terrorists' own words that they hate all of us and our freedoms: Republicans and Democrats; Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians; Christians and Jews.

Now is not the time for the petty, divisive backbiting waged every day by congressional Democrats. We must stand together on the issues that transcend partisan politics, as Americans stood together following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Support of President Bush and our military should not be partisan as they prosecute the war on terrorism. Otherwise, the terrorists will be victorious in their mission to instill fear, divide, and destroy our great nation. Former Ambassador Andrew Young echoed this sentiment when he stated, "Foreign policy must be bipartisan. The enemy is violence and chaos in regions critical to global survival" ("Elections are Iraq's best hope,"
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, 28 January 2005).

Unfortunately, liberal media outlets and Democratic officials continue to bash President Bush and our military personnel for their successes in fighting to end terrorism across the globe. They claim the U.S. is less safe under President Bush's leadership, that we have no reason to fight a portion of the war in Iraq, and that the elected leaders of liberated nations are "puppets" of the U.S.