Flawed Republicans Must Address Shortcomings Before the Press Does

Republicans who get elected to local, state, and federal offices take heed.

Stop doing unbelievably stupid stuff in your personal lives. By that I mean stuff that the press will uncover and stuff that will eventually take you off message and distract you from the tasks that your hard-working, tax-paying constituents sent you to perform.

As I have said repeatedly on RVIVR, the establishment press is full of reporters who are not so much professional journalists as much as they are social justice activists who despise conservatives. These “journalists” hold Republicans — whom they consider fascist and Nazi-like — to much higher standards than they do Democrats. And, it goes without saying, the press looks the other way when Democrats engage in the same bad behavior. Or, if the story is so big that the press can’t avoid reporting the Democrat’s monkey business, they will excuse or defend it. Don’t believe me? Think about how the press covered Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky vs. how it covered Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels.

But I digress.

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Tennessee has recently provided not one but two recent examples of this phenomenon.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) is currently a national joke, having been skewered on last week’s Saturday Night Live. In case you haven’t heard, McNally, who is married to a woman, publicly wrote flirtatious messages online to a young gay man who posted provocative photos of himself. As if that wasn’t stupid enough, McNally posted those messages using his real identity.

After he got caught, he put out a meandering press release where he vowed to suspend his social media activity.

Then there’s U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) who got caught misrepresenting important parts of his resume.

I don’t think I need to talk about George Santos or other Republicans who screwed up royally and had to pay the piper. The names are too numerous to list.

I have 20 years professional media experience, and about 10 of those years were in corporate newspapers.

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As I wrote last July, I witnessed editors at staff meetings order journalists not to report actual news that would have hurt Democrats and helped Republicans.

Last summer I told conservative politicians and their handlers to stop taking a reactive approach to a mainstream press that hates them. They must instead take an approach that is proactive. 

I listed a variety of strategies to employ against a mainstream press that will use any and every excuse they deem necessary to pounce upon and then discredit GOP officials.

It’s time to add a few more items to that strategy list:

• Members of a mainstream press who hate Republicans and their beliefs (roughly 95 percent of journalists) will work overtime to find dirt on them. If it’s there, then they will find it. Count on it.

• If you are a Republican and you have skeletons in your closet then it’s best right now to get them out in the open, at least with trusted members of your political team. No matter how embarrassing, no matter how long ago it was, and no matter how much remorse you feel or how much you’ve grown from your mistake, get it out in the open, at least to your most trusted political advisors.

• Revealing the skeletons in your closet to the public is something you and your team can do at your discretion. But be smart about it.

• If your personal problem or problems are still ongoing then seek professional or spiritual help and make that your top priority, especially before the press finds out.

• Prepare for the likelihood that your skeletons will eventually come out — and develop a strategy to deal with it, well in advance.

• Don’t exaggerate anything about your past, including on a resume. And certainly, don’t lie. The press gave a pass to Joe Biden’s lies in 2020, but, again, he’s a Democrat.

• Generally, if the press is going to hold you to a much higher standard of conduct, then always hold yourself to a higher standard as well.

• No one is perfect, and many people who commit these sins already know that it’s wrong, but they struggle nonetheless and are already seeking help. If you are a Republican then, as far as the press is concerned, that does not matter. The media goes after Republicans for sport.

• If you are a slave to your vices or your character faults then do yourself (and conservative voters) a favor and don’t seek elected office.

Be prepared.
Act accordingly.

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