Earlier over the weekend, it looked as though the “C” in CPAC stood for “Clickbait”. The decision to invite the provocative agitator, Milo Yiannopoulos caused tremendous controversy. The flamboyant, homosexual, college campus pyrotechnic was tapped to speak at the convention. Obviously, this caused a more than expected uproar from actual conservatives. To my understanding, CPAC was a convention about displaying conservatism. It is a convention that was designed to provide a collective, vocal definition of the term. I guess I was a bit mistaken. Now, many will advocate for his free speech and use that to argue in defense of the event’s initial decision. But, free speech doesn’t necessarily mean being provided with a platform. It simply means that someone can speak their point of view. A provided platform for speaking isn’t granted under the 1st Amendment. Defenders of Milo were exploiting the tired, 1st amendment defense argument profusely. They argued that he can say whatever he wants to say under freedom of speech. I agree 100% and am completely fine with his ability to share his views. But don’t hire him to speak at your private function. You will lose business! And to those splitting hairs over his statements about the age of consent, or whether or not he was advocating for pedophilia, missed a more obvious point. Did we really need to mine that territory that deeply? Based upon other things he’s done, it should have been easy to make that decision to not invite Milo Yiannopoulos in the first place! You didn’t even need to find the videos to come to that conclusion. At what point does the thought of, “Yeah, that would be funny to watch the liberal meltdown, but maybe it’s not the best idea to hire him to do so!” come into play. So, let’s go ahead and close up CPAC. Would the last Conservative please turn off the lights on your way out? What’s the point anymore?
There’s reasons as to why we have “a Milo”. It’s really due to a few factors. The first being the totalitarian rule of progressive ideology. It’s more prevalent now than ever on College Campuses. The pendulum always swings in the other direction. When everyone is being fed chocolate ice cream, they begin to long for the taste of vanilla. When 80’s hair metal dominated the airwaves for almost a decade, people eventually gravitated to scrappy, grunge bands. Basically, if you tire everyone with your over looming presence, your welcome is more than worn out. This opens the door for a desire for something different. It’s a rebellion against the Status Quo. And the rebellion usually comes from the side that’s being silenced or suppressed. The fact that conservatism has become so marginalized has placed it into a new position. It’s become the new counter culture. With regards to college campuses, suppression of speech is a cultural norm. Safe spaces and overly sensitive points of view are cultivated by tenured, activist professors. They prey upon impressionable students, who are merely trying to make sense of the world with no consequence of losing their jobs. This opens the door for alternative points of view to become sexy and fashionable. And Milo exploited that niche. He fed into those who continually saw the absurdity of the easily offended. Just as he exploited his sexuality to provoke others, including his parents, this was his modus operandi. And the GOP cheered the demolishing of liberalism’s stranglehold over higher education.
This leads to the other reason that “a Milo” exists. It is the desire to win the ideological war. Progressivism has vilified Conservatives in every possible fashion. They’ve pigeon holed conservatives as the enemy of everyone. They’re branded as wanting Grandma to be broke and without healthcare. They’re framed as wanting to poison the water and destroy the environment for everyone, over the desire for the almighty dollar. They’re painted as hating everyone that doesn’t have the same skin color. They’re accused of wanting to impede “love” for those who are attracted to the same sex. And all that the Conservative’s wanted was to live without the boot of governmental central planning coming down on their necks. So, when Conservatives push back against them, they’re told that they can’t criticize. They’re told that because they aren’t the same race, same gender, or of the same sexual persuasion that they can’t have an opinion on any of these matters. This makes Milo the best outsourced, “one man army” that the GOP could employ. He is the Proxy warrior against the left. He can attack the left because he is a homosexual. They can’t silence his offensive against the rainbow jihad. He can smash the political correctness of college campuses using his flamboyance. His brashness allows him to destroy narratives of an imaginary war on women. But, he has no ideological alignment with Conservatism, outside of regulating immigration. The GOP was more than willing to give him enough of a platform within the alternative media to let him break the china in the shop. The toxicity of his message was his asset, but it is also his Achilles heel. It’s why he was banned permanently from Twitter. It’s why he resigned from Breitbart News, over pressure from his colleagues. It’s why his book deal has evaporated. We can pin point completely to his comments on Pedophilia on the Joe Rogan Show if we want. But if it wasn’t that, it would’ve been something else. His implosion was simply a matter of time.
The Milo “Punch back effect” is also the same appeal of the rise of Donald Trump. His ability to smack down the liberal opposition has been long overdue. But when the GOP embraces this persona, it further solidifies the death of its principles and conservatism as its ideology. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not insinuating that the GOP should not fight back with the same tenacity that the left embodies. That’s precisely the current problem with the party. But to choose those who don’t embody the ideology whatsoever, simply because they have a hell of a Southpaw Punch, doesn’t mean the one doing the beating has your best interest at heart.
This has illuminated the decline of the GOP. In fact, the GOP itself has died years ago. When did the GOP die? Was it when George H Bush decided to raise taxes after promising not to? Would it have been when Congress was afraid of shutting down the government to stand on its platforms and policies? They did this for decades! Would it have been when conservatism had to be framed as “compassionate”? Was it when we had to create another department and pass laws to spy on American Citizens in the name of fighting terrorism? Was it when government spending was throttled up to break neck speed? Was it when we nominated a Supreme Court Justice who would write laws from the bench? Was this the party that fulfilled the wishes of Crony Corporatism over the will of the voters that placed them in office? Where they could become millionaires on the salary of a government official? Was it when we gave them the house, the senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court, only to have them do nothing on Obamacare?
This was the party that I sided with over many votes. And it was only because that was the party that was carrying the same water, peppered with the flavor that I could stomach. It certainly wasn’t the party that sought total control. It wasn’t the party that hijacked self-proclaimed human rights, gender division, racial division, and every other special interest exploited to push for total control. It wasn’t the party that was once morally progressive, who have now become complete communist and socialist. You know, that party that was for segregation and then suddenly and magically “Flipped” position. The entire party did a collective, simultaneous “180”, as American history courses constantly peddle. And it certainly wasn’t the other party, whose platform simply consists of making weed legal and stripping down on stage at their conventions. It wasn’t that “other option” that never seems to be intent on winning. It’s definitely not the party that has existed for decades, yet can’t find its way on every State’s ballots or even find a way onto the national debate stage. The GOP was the only viable option I could support in order to see any of my views seriously implemented.
Bud sadly, this is where the GOP has traversed. It’s slid away from the core of limited government and free markets. It’s now moved to Nationalism, mistaken as patriotism. It’s simply faded into the party that isn’t stomping in “Punany Fedora’s” and “Va-Jay-Jay Caps”. Other than this difference, they’re almost identical in their views on the role of government. I’ve said this many times: That what we are seeing with Donald Trump IS NOT Conservatism. What we are seeing with Milo IS NOT Conservatism. What we are watching (although, I haven’t in a few years) on FOX News IS NOT Conservatism. And the GOP has taken the nationalist mythos and are now championing it! Trump’s presidential win, more importantly how he conducted his campaign, has given new marching orders to the GOP. FOX News has decided that it needed to follow suit. It must bring a flow of fragile or misinformed liberals to their “Tucker Carlson Dunking Tank”! “Come one, come all! Come see Tucker throw the balls! Let’s hit the liberal snowflakes off of the walls!” There is some instant gratification to watching an incoherent, ill-informed snowflake “get owned” on a nightly basis. But, how many of those shows can you watch before it begins to grow tired? Don’t get me wrong, when Trump decides to berate someone from CNN, I will more than grab the Orville Redenbacher, crack open an IPA, and sit back and watch. When Milo gets carried in on a Chariot, by a group of shirtless men onto a college campus and the liberal’s begin to meltdown and flee to their safe spaces, it is humorous to watch. But, we must remember our core values and principles. We shouldn’t get so caught up in the skirmishes that we forget why we are fighting the war in the 1st place.
Adrian Slade Show 