Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.) says it is time for the “Silent Majority” to find its voice and speak up loudly. Banks — who has been vilified in the liberal press as a “Trump Republican” — credits President Trump with having “emboldened” the GOP to “fight back against the Left.” Banks is issuing a battle cry and his message is simple: “Lean into the culture war.”
If the Republican Party follows that advice, it may just find its way home. After a generation of boasting about the “Silent Majority,” at least some within the party are beginning to realize that the silence of the majority has not only relegated conservatives to minority status, but has also allowed progressive liberals to take the lead on important social issues. While the “Silent Majority” remained silent, Loud Liberals were busy remaking America into a socialist dystopia. In an interview with The Daily Signal, Banks said that silence has allowed “the Left to drag our culture in an anti-American direction.”
This is not the first time Banks has urged his party to engage in the culture war. In June 2021, Banks — as chairman of the Republican Study Committee — authored a memo to roughly 154 Republicans imploring them to “lean into the culture war” as a “winning” issue. And from a purely pragmatic point of view, Banks is correct: America already has one party on the left; It doesn’t need two. By acting as “Left Lite,” the Republican Party has placed itself in a losing position. And poll after poll (not to mention actual elections) show that conservatives want a conservative party.
In his June 2021 memo, Banks wrote that “the good news” is that “we are winning.” He cited polls showing that a very small percentage of Americans want Critical Race Theory taught in schools. And the recent election of Glen Youngkin as Governor of Virginia demonstrates the wisdom of taking the culture war to the enemy. Initially, Youngkin avoided social issues and was polling way behind Clinton Comrade Terry McAuliffe in the governor’s race. But when McAuliffe — who has great political clout as a former governor of Virginia, former chairman of the National Governors Association, and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee — made social issues part of his campaign, Youngkin responded by standing up and speaking loudly in defense of traditional values.
During their second debate, Youngkin raised the point that McAuliffe had vetoed legislation that would have required schools to inform parents about sexually explicit content in educational materials. McAuliffe replied, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions — I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Youngkin seized the moment, making social issues such as Critical Race Theory, transgender ideology, and abortion major themes of his campaign. Almost immediately, Youngkin turned around in the polls, eventually beating McAuliffe by a margin of 63,000 votes (or two percentage points.)
In this, Youngkin went against decades of advice from GOP leaders.
As Banks told The Daily Signal, “Our party leaders for too long preached that we shouldn’t be involved in cultural fights,” adding, “I can remember Republican leaders at the state and national level, throughout the early 2000s, they stressed that these issues weren’t important, that Republicans should shy away from that.”
Had Youngkin followed the “Silent Majority” advice and shied away from social issues, it is likely that McAuliffe would have beaten him by a wide margin. Banks told The Daily Signal that the Virginia victory proves that leaning into the culture war is a winning strategy. He also said that point has “also been proven in a lot of other ways” and that he believes “the upcoming November midterm elections can prove it in the biggest way of all.”
And while waging battle in the culture war is paying off for Republicans, the same cannot be said of Democrats. It is not as though Democrats have shied away from social issues — in fact, while the “Silent Majority” was busy patting itself on the back for remaining silent, Democrats have made cultural issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and race major talking points in election after election.
And that may just be the problem for them.
Last week, Politico — usually a safe harbor for Democrats — reported:
Democrats’ own research shows that some battleground voters think the party is “preachy,” “judgmental” and “focused on culture wars,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
And the party’s House campaign arm had a stark warning for Democrats: Unless they more forcefully confront the GOP’s “alarmingly potent” culture war attacks, from critical race theory to defunding the police, they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms.
So, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has a plan that offers further proof that they are out of touch. With Democrats having read for themselves — and from their own research — that battleground voters think Democrats are “preachy,” “judgmental,” and “focused on culture wars,” one might expect that they would shrink from the field, becoming the “Silent Minority.” But — as nice as that would be — that is not the plan. Instead, they plan to engage even more in the culture war. Again, from Politico:
It wasn’t all bleak, though: The data showed that Democrats could mostly regain the ground lost to Republicans if they offered a strong rebuttal to the political hits. When faced with a “defund the police” attack, for instance, the presenters encouraged Democrats to reiterate their support for police. And on immigration, they said Democrats should deny support for “open borders or amnesty,” and talk about their efforts to keep the border safe.
If Democrats don’t answer Republican hits, the party operatives warned, the GOP’s lead on the generic ballot balloons to 14 points from 4 points — a dismal prediction for Democrats when the GOP only needs to win five seats to seize back the majority. But when voters heard a Democratic response to that hit, Republicans’ edge narrowed back down to 6 points, giving candidates more of a fighting chance, especially since those numbers don’t factor in Democrats going on the offensive.
Given the flagrant dishonesty of Democrats claiming “support for police” or denying “support for open borders or amnesty” while talking about “their efforts to keep the border safe,” the point is clear: The only way Democrats can even hope to continue profiting from the culture war now that Republicans are engaged is by doing their very best to sound like Republicans.
And that is encouraging. Not that this writer is quite so infantile as to think the likes of Terry McAuliffe, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris have had a change of heart — far from it. It is encouraging because it indicates that what the formerly “silent” majority believes is what America believes. Conservatives can tell the truth and gain points while liberals have to lie if they even hope to hold their ground.
The lesson here is that Banks is spot on. Conservatives must continue to “lean into the culture war” and never let up. Because this isn’t just about Right and Left; it is about right and wrong.
