Message coordination is something Democrats do well, usually much better than Republicans and conservatives. The Left is like Napoleon, who won because he focused his forces on one area of the battlefield for a single smashing attack.
Take, for example, Democrats’ recent messaging on inflation. With one voice, party members from President Joe Biden down blamed “Putin’s price hikes” for runaway inflation and soaring costs. (Perhaps they’ll now thank the tyrant for price hikes easing, but don’t hold your breath waiting for that.) It was as if the whole party woke up one morning in March with precisely the same thought and decided to speak precisely the same words.
Conservatives are different. Instinctively and on principle, they mistrust centralized control and prefer the competition of ideas. Their thinking is that this will winnow out the weak ones and make conservatism stronger. In a way, it does. It tests conservative ideas and refines them, so they are better able to withstand questioning.
But there is also an important drawback to this diversity of ideas, for it means the Right is diffuse in its aim, spraying scattershot where the Left fires salvos. Even when the Left’s message is illogical and flies in the face of obvious facts, concentrated focus means it is more likely to get through and hit its target.
That’s more effective in political battle. Even when Republicans and conservatives have the facts on their side, they often find themselves on the defensive, forced to debate on terms set by their opponents. This is not the way to win.
Conservatives need to find a way of coordinating without sacrificing intellectual coherence, and the Washington Examiner is launching an effort to do this. Over the past couple of months, we’ve talked with think tanks that are home to some of the best and brightest scholars in the country. Our purpose has been to find an issue on which conservatives broadly agree and train our fire on it simultaneously.
With students returning to school in late August and early September, we decided to take up the issue of school choice. This week, the Washington Examiner, Heritage Foundation, Independent Women’s Forum, American Enterprise Institute, State Policy Network, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Federation for Children, and EdChoice will all make the case — the many cases — for moving power away from the educational establishment and giving it to families, which is where it belongs.
All the scholars’ essays, and others by such authorities as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn, will be published in the Restoring America section of the Washington Examiner website.
This is not an exercise in herding cats, nor an attempt to create a single, ill-fitting line of argument. It is, rather, an acknowledgment that the time has come to train diverse and heavy intellectual fire on a timely issue.
The cover of this week’s Washington Examiner magazine, headlined “The New School,” features parents and children towering over a teacher. This power arrangement is as it should be — not so that one side can terrorize the other, but to emphasize that children receive a public education as a right and parents should not have to relinquish control of their young family members by taking up that right.
Power to families in education!
