Republicans are the only ‘big tent’ party now

Even without thousands of screaming attendees filling up the screen each night, the 2020 Republican National Convention has already delivered more life than it has in many decades, and when viewed in conjunction with the previous week’s DNC, the two conventions couldn’t be more different. Biden’s ceremony felt like a funeral delivered from a fallout shelter, while Trump’s feels like a wedding of many different kinds of Americans who have come together to chart a new path for the country.

There were no great ideas presented at the DNC.

Biden’s whole campaign consists of one issue: if elected, he will shut down the economy and make masks mandatory until unelected government scientists decide otherwise. The immediate future he promises is one where students can’t learn, workers can’t earn, and Americans can’t escape a permanent state of fear. Biden has been stuck in his basement since March because his advisers can’t trust what he’ll say or do; the Democrats have forced non-rioting Americans to do the same because we’ve never been easier to control.

Biden may have gotten the nomination, but it was not his convention. Those honors belonged to Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, two men who preached about victimhood in slightly different forms by clinging to three falsehoods: (1) America is a land of oppression, not liberty; (2) but for the oppressors, pain and poverty would disappear; and (3) “social justice” can be achieved by taking from others and harming those who refuse. The Sanders-Obama creed depends on national division, actively seeks it out, and magnifies it everywhere. For the Democrats, there can be no Union because there can be no unity for their falsehoods to survive.

In contrast, the RNC has been a showcase for powerful ideas.

Cuban-born businessman Máximo Álvarez provided a clarion call for Americans to awaken to the reality that Castro’s socialism is now beating down Americans’ doors. Most Americans avoid conflict and choose compromise when possible, but most Americans have never faced the choice of fighting for freedom now or watching it perish behind the same socialist platitudes used by Castro and Chávez and Sanders and Obama to hypnotize their people into willing slavery.

Álvarez’s parents risked all so that their thirteen-year-old son could escape communism in 1961 and become an American, and because he has seen with his eyes what’s at stake, he is unwilling to stay quiet while Cuba’s tragedy becomes America’s, too. And so it is an American who doesn’t trace his lineage back to the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, or the Declaration of Independence’s signatories, or the hallowed battlegrounds of Boonesborough or New Orleans or the Alamo, who stood before his countrymen to make clear that nothing short of liberty, itself, now hangs in the balance. Sometimes only those courageous enough to flee peril abroad to join our ranks can see the coming dangers to freedom clearly, and sometimes those same people risk everything to lead the charge for freedom once again. Mr. Álvarez, like many new Republicans, is one of those people.

Senator Tim Scott spoke for those new Republicans, too, when he marveled that only in America could his family go “from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”

Governor Nikki Haley, the “proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” excoriated the Democrats’ “lie” that “America is racist” as nothing but a “fashionable” attempt by the party of slavery to divide and conquer through fear and accusation.

The Kentucky attorney general, Daniel Cameron, took aim at the Democrats’ cynical use of race for electoral gain: “I also think about Joe Biden, who says, ‘If you aren’t voting for me, you ain’t black,’ who argued Republicans would put us back in chains, who says there is no diversity of thought in the black community. Mr. vice president, look at me. I am black. We are not all the same, sir. I am not in chains. My mind is my own, and you can’t tell me how to vote because of the color of my skin.”

The Democrats preach a philosophy: there are too many doors in America preventing success. The Republicans preach a philosophy: there are keys lying everywhere, and in America, no door stays shut for long. What Scott and Haley and Cameron each said in their own way was that the Democratic Party’s obsession with race has blinded it to the individual worth of every American.

Intergenerational mobility, not income equality, is the most important measure of how free an individual is to pursue dreams and achieve them. All over the world abundant wealth can be found. What separates America is the ability of the poorest among us or the least likely to succeed to succeed regardless and in ways that are unimaginable for the rest of the planet.

The Republican message has been unambiguous: life, not skin color, matters. The unborn life in the womb, the misspent life that seeks redemption and mercy, the life of each American, regardless of national origin or class or sex. The Democrats’ convention spread the lie that America is uniquely unjust, irredeemable, and irreparably divided by race. Republicans have shattered that lie by describing everything America and Americans have achieved and asking where else, but here, could so much be possible.

Republicans don’t see two Americas; they see one nation under attack from domestic socialists seeking to undermine American liberty, from foreign powers such as China and Iran seeking to diminish American power, and from jaundiced racial opportunists seeking to destroy American greatness for personal gain.

After the DNC, there were many articles written about former Republican luminaries who chose to support the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, rather than support the president, as a way to frame the Republican Party as greatly divided. What those articles ignored, however, is that Republican support for President Trump is higher than either party’s support for any president since Eisenhower. The Republican Party has never been more united; it turns out that some Old Guard Republicans were just Democrats all along.

Republicans are clear-eyed about what’s at stake in this election. They’ve chosen a leader who seems made for this moment in history. And the Republican National Convention has proven that President Trump and Republican voters are doing everything they can to remind Americans that they are one people who derive strength from unity of purpose — not disparate warring tribes whose divisions only strengthen the most elite Democrats, while leaving the cities and states they run to burn.

Joe Biden has stayed quiet while Democrats wage war in the streets; John Podesta has suggested state secession and John Kerry has promised revolution should Biden lose; and now Nancy Pelosi is setting the stage for violence in November by calling Republicans “domestic enemies” and “enemies of the state.”

When Democrats threaten war so cavalierly, it is easy to lose hope in a united United States of America. But Americans can reject the politics of fear that Sanders and Obama, Biden and Pelosi choose to hock. What the Republican National Convention just proved is that there is only one “big tent” party in America now, and President Trump is the leader of it.

Coronavirus lockdowns put the future of independent news at risk

Reports indicate rising traffic but drastically lower revenues for mid-sized independent news outlets.

The economic downturn from COVID-19 lockdowns has hit many industries in the gut. One industry that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is journalism. The corporate conglomerates controlling mainstream media outlets are able to weather the storm, but independent news outlets have seen revenues plummet to the point that many are considering shutting down. We know. We’ve had to consider the possibility ourselves.

We’ve always run a very tight ship, keeping expenses to a minimum by limiting travel and technology expenditures. This has proven to be beneficial during the economic crisis, but we would not have made it this far if not for our generous donors. I cannot appropriately express my appreciation to those who have helped us raise nearly $4,000 since we started asking for assistance. It has been a true blessing and has inspired us to work harder to bring the truth to light that mainstream media tries to hide.

As I note below, traffic is through the roof. The appetite for honest news reporting, conservative opinion writing, and right-leaning podcasts is high. Every day we pick up new readers and subscribers; it’s another blessing we do not take for granted. But despite the increases in traffic and viewership, revenues have continued to plummet. We have maxed out on the number of ads we run, and that’s definitely not by choice. Ideally, we would run minimal ads or no ads at all, but this isn’t a hobby. This is a business, the only one that supports my family, so I’ve chosen to do what I hate doing by having plenty of ads on the site. Even with more ads, revenues are not what they were before the coronavirus lockdowns. This is why we’re still desperately asking for help.

The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. Our initial estimate of $11,500 to stay afloat through the end of the year was understated. Just as revenues have gone down, so too have expenses risen. We need to pick up quite a bit more than expected; I won’t even venture a guess anymore. At this point, literally everything we receive helps us keep the dream of being a truth-centered news outlet alive.

The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. This shouldn’t be the case as our traffic the last year has been going up dramatically. June, 2018, we had 11,678 visitors. A year later in June, 2019, we were up to 116,194. In June, 2020, we had 614,192. We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready to talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.

Election year or not, coronavirus lockdowns or not, anarchic riots or not, the need for truthful journalism endures. In these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.

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