Normal People Still Matter In Politics
This is the first in a series of essays outlining how conservatives can build an enduring majority in the coming fourth political era.
The 2022 midterms appear to be if anything the revolt of the normal people, or normies in internet slang. Republicans are set to capture both houses of Congress thanks in large part to independent voters voting red.
This wouldn’t be the first time independent voters decided an election. In 2020, independent voters backed Joe Biden by 13 points, which was the largest margin of victory among independents since Ronald Reagan won them in 1984. Indies were able to carry Biden to victory despite the fact that the electorate was more Republican and conservative than in 2016.
Why are the very same people who elected Joe Biden set to repudiate him in a little over a week? Part of it is that he hasn’t responded to their concerns about inflation, which is destroying their family’s budgets, and an overall weakening economy. But a large part of it is that the Democrats have become the party of the weird.
Most normal people really don’t care what special pronouns you give yourself, don’t support child genital mutilation, oops, I mean “gender-affirming” medical care for children; support open borders, or favor moving towards socialism. But these are stances supported by the far left, who are calling the shots at the Biden White House. There is no doubt these extreme stances of the left are playing a role in their upcoming defeat in the midterms.
But that does not mean that normal people want our version of weird too. Gay marriage is probably not going anywhere. Bringing back blue laws and banning everything from being open on Sundays is probably a non-starter. A complete immigration moratorium is certainly never going to happen.
What do normal people want? They want a government that works well, safe streets, good schools for their kids, and an economy that can provide for their families. They may not go to church regularly but they don’t hate religion. One of the reasons why Bush-McCain-Romney-Ryan Republicanism failed was that it forgot those basics. Instead of responding to the needs of working and middle-class Americans, they seemed to prioritize more cronyism with big business.
One of the increasingly Republican components of normal people is the Obama-Trump voters. They’re not as fiscally conservative as traditional Republicans but they’re not as socially liberal as traditional Democrats. We shouldn’t make the mistake of becoming socially conservative Bernie Sanders-style socialists in order to keep these people. In fact, the one guy who more or less ran on that platform ultimately lost his primary. They’re not socialists but they’re not looking to bring about the Catholic integralist state either.
If there is anything you can take away here is that conservatives shouldn’t be weird if we want to bring about the American revival this country desperately needs. Independent voters are going to be an important part of any conservative electoral victory. Without winning there is no way the American revival can happen politically.
