Tucker Carlson sets the new tone for conservative media.

Jersey Conservative is now read by thought leaders in key 2024 primary states.

By Rubashov

There were two big conservative gatherings over the weekend. Like the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia and FreedomFest in Memphis, these gatherings are setting the national debate in advance of next year’s presidential contest.
 
The Family Leadership Summit ’23 was held in Des Moines, Iowa. Billed as the Midwest’s largest gathering of “Christians seeking cultural transformation” – it attracted over 1,700 grassroots activists – as well as presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Asa Hutchinson. Both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were among those invited to speak at the gathering. Curiously absent from the list of confirmed or invited guests was Chris Christie.
 
At the event, former FOX News host Tucker Carlson interviewed each of the presidential candidates before a live audience. Carlson didn’t pull any punches with the candidates, exemplifying what is the new role of conservative media – to hold Republican politicians to account for their words and actions. This is especially needed for those who get elected using the “conservative” label.
 
Watch how Carlson dissects the conflicts between presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson’s words and actions as Governor of Arkansas. It defines the new role of conservative media: 

“New Jersey is totally wrong in suing the school districts that want to be able to tell parents… parents have to have information. They shouldn’t be denied the ability to know what’s going on in the school with their child.”

Former Governor Asa Hutchinson

Meanwhile, over the weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida, Turning Point USA held its Student Action Summit. Founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, Turning Point is a populist conservative organization that boasts 260,000 donors. Its activist base is made up of students and young adults and it can truly be said that it represents the future face of the Republican Party.
 
Donald Trump spoke at the Student Action Summit – and Asa Hutchinson was booed. Reporting on the summit’s straw poll, conducted yesterday, The Hill wrote (07/17/23):
 
Former President Trump gloated over his big win in Sunday’s Turning Point USA straw poll, calling the results a “blowout.”
 
“Just heard that I (WE!) won the big Turning Point Straw Poll in a BLOWOUT, getting 85.7% of the Vote,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
 
“Ron DeSanctimonious came in a solid 3rd with 4.3%, Vivek got 2%, and Sloppy Chris Christie, as usual, got a big, fat, ZERO!” the former president added. “Turning Point put on a GREAT event in West Palm Beach, setting all kinds of records, including in attendance!”
 
The Turning Point straw poll showed Trump garnering more than 85 percent support among attendees of the conservative group’s event. Michigan businessman Perry Johnson (R), who announced his long-shot bid for the White House in March, followed with nearly 8 percent.
 
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) came in third place with 4.3 percent support and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy had 2 percent. Other GOP presidential candidates, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), registered 0.0 percent support, according to the poll.
 
When asked who their second choice for president would be, Ramaswamy topped the poll with about 51 percent support, followed by Trump with about 21 percent. DeSantis received about 13 percent and Scott received nearly 6 percent. No other candidate had more than 5 percent support.
 
All this national activism offers a bold contrast to New Jersey’s insider establishment brand of Republicanism. The New Jersey GOP is dominated by people who make money from politics – while the vast majority of those who vote Republican simply want candidates they can trust to vote and behave like “Republicans”.
 
As the recent GOP primaries demonstrated, New Jersey is perhaps the worst place in America to run as an outsider. The state has that unique bar to outsiders known as “the party line” – plus a set of campaign finance laws that clearly favor establishment insiders. And those laws just got worse.
 
The state has a monolithic political establishment, with everyone drawing financial support from the same, largely transactional mix of special interests. Activist, true believers on the Democrat side have developed an ideological funding base, but the same can’t be said for Republicans. In New Jersey, Republicans content themselves with the detritus that slops out of the same trough the Democrats feed from.
 
To make matters worse, labor unions that support corporate Leftists like Democrats Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer have started calling the shots in Republican primaries. It was a Biden-backing union that supports higher taxes on gasoline that played the pivotal role in blocking the nomination of activist Republican candidates – including leaders in the parental rights movement, a vaccine choice activist, and a prominent Evangelical Christian. Instead, this union advanced the agenda of Islamic lobbyists, ESG, and the Woke LGBTQ+ cabal within the Republican Party.
 
In New Jersey, who the Democrats get money from is in sync with the policies they advocate, so that Democrat voters know what they are getting in exchange for their votes. This is why Democrats elect ideological candidates and Republicans do not. According to the latest ACU/CPAC scoring, Democrat voters have a 100% chance that the Democrat candidate they vote for will vote ideologically at least 90% of the time. Republican voters have only a 12% chance that the Republican candidate they vote for will vote ideologically at least 80% of the time.
 
If Republican operatives are wondering why GOP turnout in New Jersey isn’t better, look no further. Operatives get paid to participate in politics. All that average Republican voters ask is for the Republican candidates they vote for to behave like Republicans once elected. And they don’t. So, they ask, why bother?
 
The job of new conservative media is to make sure that the average Republican voter gets what he or she voted for. If a candidate runs as a “conservative” in the primary, that candidate should continue in that vein in the general election and, most importantly, govern or vote that way once in office. Holding elected Republicans to account, ensuring that average voters get the party they voted for, will address voter frustration and support voter turnout.
 
Currently, most GOP operatives in New Jersey talk their candidates into a “bait and switch” scam that sees them run as “conservatives” in the primary and “moderates” in the general election. And once in office, many vote in ways that are scarcely distinguishable from the Democrats. This is expected because they get money from the same people funding the Democrats.
 
Many establishment Republicans in New Jersey adopt a “my party, right or wrong” approach and cheerlead all Republican nominees, regardless of whether or not those nominees have any allegiance at all to the national party platform. Of course, such establishment Republicans – lobbyists, vendors, professional operatives, paid staff, government employees, and paid politicians – all have a financial incentive to close ranks after a primary.
 
But it is not enough to lie one’s way through a primary and then expect to inherit the support of voters who aren’t paid and who simply want what they voted for. Nominees and officeholders should understand that they must earn their Republican nomination every day as a general election candidate and every day in office.
 
Nominees should indelibly engrave those promises they made to the Republican voters who awarded them the nomination – and return to those promises daily, before every vote, every thought, every word. Remember who you said you are and be who you say you are.
 
New conservative media exists to help you keep your word to the citizens who gave you their votes.


 

“It was a thoughtless, mindless action… It’s really disturbing to think that the kids were targeted.”
 
Dr. Paul Saxton, Fort Lee School District

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell