I spent 20 years in Congress and for much of that time Barack Obama was president. We were almost always on defense and victories usually meant stopping the Obama administration from advancing its left-wing agenda.
That’s why today it’s so important for the GOP to keep sight of the bigger picture: President Donald Trump is on offense. He’s turning around the culture. He’s undoing the damage wrought by woke policies, particularly during the Biden presidency.
One recent and very important win came when Netflix dropped out of the bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery. Had Netflix succeeded in acquiring Warner Bros. — a massive producer of movies, TV shows, and other media — it would have been able to push its liberal agenda into hundreds of millions of homes.
Netflix is an unabashedly left-wing company. Its employees contribute something like 99 percent of their political donations to Democrats while its content often reflects woke priorities, even its children’s programming.
Thankfully, President Donald Trump saw the threat and pushed back. Warner Bros. has since announced it will be bought instead by Paramount, a deal that will be financed by Larry Ellison, an outspoken pro-Trump donor. Ellison is even reportedly discussing axing CNN hosts with the president (CNN is owned by Warner Bros.).
It’s an important win for conservatives tired of dealing with a media that’s slanted against them. And there have been plenty more culture war victories too.
The “diversity, equity, and inclusion” ecosystem, which mandates racial discrimination in hiring and other practices, is being dismantled. This began on day one of Trump’s second term when he issued an executive order that directed his administration to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.”
Many large companies have followed Trump’s lead and begun to dismantle their DEI initiatives. Goldman Sachs recently dropped a diversity mandate among companies it plans to take public. Goldman Sachs in 2020 had launched a $10 million “Fund for Racial Equity” to support groups “addressing racial injustice, structural inequity and economic disparity.” The turnaround came largely thanks to Trump.
Trump has also made it acceptable to push back against transgender surgeries for minors. Shortly after taking office, he issued an executive order stating that the United States government would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.” He also pledged that the federal government would “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
Last month, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons came out against gender-related surgeries for people under the age of 19. The American Medical Association endorsed that position the following day — a striking development since it had previously supported such surgeries.
Suffice to say, these groups never would have taken this position if Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or any other Democrat was sitting in the Oval Office.
There have been countless other wins for Republicans. Trump signed an executive order to provide a balanced perspective on American history at museums and parks. He canceled wasteful grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He defunded NPR and PBS.
Trump has not been afraid to take on the cultural elites and the policies they’ve foisted on the American people. No doubt there will be more victories ahead if the GOP can stay united, keep their congressional majorities, and ensure a Republican stays in the White House after Trump’s term ends.
Trust me: it beats playing defense. Republicans should stay focused and make sure the wins keep coming.
Joe Pitts is a former Republican member of Congress representing Pennsylvania’s 16th District.
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