Since the election, the mainstream media has been hammering the same theme when it comes to the House Freedom Caucus, a 40-member group of conservative lawmakers. The New York Times, the Associated Press and the Washington Post have all used the terms “hard-right” or “hard-liners” when describing this caucus in a flagrant attempt to cast it as an extremist entity in the Republican-controlled House.
There was a time when these terms were used exclusively for fascists and Nazis, but no longer. Now, they’re used to describe any Republican who believes the Constitution means what it says and believe the purpose of the party is to expand liberty. As for the subject of these news stories, they’re often about whether the House Freedom Caucus will support a challenge to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, particularly after Donald Trump’s victory.
Let’s set the record straight, not that the mainstream media cares: The House Freedom Caucus is a group of members who believe in the right to private property and the free market. They believe in a vision of limited government defined by the Constitution and the liberties guaranteed by it. Their main motivation is not bankrupting future generations. They have a moral obligation to vote for a vision of government consistent with fiscal responsibility and limited government.
That’s why my organization is committed to support and defend these members. They will have the support of grassroots activists when they take hard votes.
Moreover, polling indicates that the Freedom Caucus is very much in step with mainstream America. While the media casts government-shutdowns as the work of extremists, a recent survey conducted on behalf of my organization, FreedomWorks, found that 48 percent of registered voters would rather see the government shutdown until all sides agree on a budget that doesn’t increase the national debt, which currently exceeds $19.8 trillion.
Similarly, earlier this year, Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of Americans list reducing the budget deficit as a top priority. While this figure has dropped in recent years as budget deficits declined, it’s not too difficult to imagine that the public’s concern about the river of red ink flowing from Washington will rise as budget deficits increase, as the Congressional Budget Office projects, in the immediate future.
Of course, the mainstream media knows exactly what it’s doing. From the New York Times to the Washington Post, the goal is to banish conservatives and their causes from Washington, and let the left-leaning Establishment get back to business as usual. It’s a fairly standard tactic with them, as we learned last year following then-Speaker of the House John Boehner’s resignation. According to the Media Research Center, between Sept. 25 and Oct. 23, 2015, conservatives were mentioned with 106 ideological labels in news stories from ABC, CBS and NBC on Boehner’s resignation and the race to succeed him. Conservatives were cast with extreme terms, such as “far-right,” “hard-line” and others, in 35 of the labels used in newscasts.
“Such deliberate labeling is designed to stigmatize conservatives,” the Media Research Center noted in its analysis, “casting them as outside-of-the-mainstream ideologues, as compared to their (usually unlabeled) adversaries.”
The Freedom Caucus is not outside the mainstream of the conservative movement, or even the Republican Party. If the recent presidential election should tell us anything, it’s that the Freedom Caucus is at the center of the American populace. Perhaps we should choose our words more carefully rather than insult those who believe that real measures need to be taken to put our nation back on the path to prosperity.
Adam Brandon is the president and CEO of FreedomWorks. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
