While the first “Year of the Woman” had to do with identity politics, however, this one must recontextualize it for the new #MeToo era…
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Liberals love reboots.
In his “Rules for Radicals,” a handbook for radical leftist activism embraced by many Democratic leaders, the second rule Saul Alinsky gives is to never stray from the expertise of your people.
“Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone,” he says.
And yet, the old is just that—old, and indicative of past values, probably conservative ones. Hence, the ‘new’ must apply the same warmed-over tropes while recontextualizing them into whatever the latest talking-points-du-jour may be.
For instance, simply rebooting films like Ghostbusters and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise (itself a remake of the Rat Pack version) did not move the yardstick. Clearly, the movies also needed have an all-female cast because… “Year of the Woman 2.0” is upon us.
Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas floated the slogan last week while trying to link the confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh with Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 hearing. Both judges faced unsubstantiated and suspiciously timed bedroom allegations from women, which threatened either to derail them or else politically undermine the GOP.
If you ask spin-doctors like Petkanas, women were the No. 1 factor for Bill Clinton’s ‘blue wave’ in 1992.
- Forget that after 12 years of Republicans dominating the political sphere with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, some fatigue may have been natural.
- Forget that Bush-41 ran a lackluster campaign and seemed out of touch with the Zeitgeist of the times, when the pre-reboot “Murphy Brown” was the talk of the water cooler and parachute pants were a thing. Clinton, meanwhile, the first Baby Boomer president, played saxophone to the dog pound on the “Arsenio Hall Show.”
- Forget that neither candidate won a majority (Clinton won only 43 percent), and that without a conservative spoiler in the form of Ross Perot, garnering 18.9 percent of the popular vote, Bush likely would have sailed to victory.
- Forget that two years later, Clinton faced one of the biggest upsets in history in his midterm election, losing 54 seats in the House and ushering in Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” which forced Clinton to take a sharp right-turn in his policies after a failed attempt at a government shutdown. Perhaps we could call 1994 the “Year of the American.”
- Most of all, to call 1992 the “Year of the Woman” is to ignore the list of (to date) no less than 18 accusations of some form of sexual impropriety against Clinton–several, of course, since proven and openly acknowledged.
It’s easy to see why the Left is so keen to reboot it and to recontextualize it. Even Anita Hill weighed in with how she would like to see the sequel done properly. (Here’s hoping that we’ll be hearing soon from M.C. Hammer about where we went wrong on those pants.)
Yet, disregarding the wisdom and lessons learned of the past, and ignoring strong evidence that women are just as outraged by Democrats’ scandalous handling of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation as men are, the Left’s echo chamber has forged full speed ahead on its “Year of the Woman” reboot and gone all-in on insulting men in the process.
Thus, we see Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii telling men it’s simply time for them to “shut up.” And we see Jake Tapper and Stephen Colbert—two white men, no less—declaring unironically that we’ve heard enough from men.
While the first “Year of the Woman” had to do with identity politics, however, this one must recontextualize it for the new #MeToo era in which McCarthyist claims of sexism supplant any form of due process, burden of proof, justice, fairness or reason.
In essence, the Left has rebooted the Red Scare of the 1950s, but this time, it’s the Reds (or Democratic Socialists, to be politically correct) who are on the attack.
As with the 1992 ‘Year of the Woman,’ the historical backlash against the first McCarthyism was tremendous. It’s often been called the Sixties.
And so, in their new role as the rebooted counterculture, conservatives would do well to remember some of Alinsky’s other aphorisms.
- “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
- “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
- “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
- “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”
- “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”