By Alexandra DeSanctis
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Dan Crenshaw is perhaps ideally suited to weigh in on the
increasingly socialist disposition among young Americans. To the extent that
the Republican party has managed to find a compelling answer to the sudden
popularity of the Democratic rising stars who willingly place themselves on the
far Left, it is best exemplified by the social-media savvy Crenshaw, who first
skyrocketed to national attention after SNL comedian Pete Davidson mocked him
for his eyepatch — which Crenshaw wears after having lost his eye in an IED
attack in Afghanistan.
Instead of latching onto his well-earned
“aggrieved-victim” status and lashing out at Davidson, Crenshaw chose to
respond with grace. From David French’s coverage of what happened next:
Davidson came on the “Weekend
Update” set and offered his apology, and then Crenshaw joined. He took some
good-natured shots at Davidson . . . but then things took a more serious turn.
Crenshaw briefly spoke of the
meaning of the words “never forget” to a veteran, saying that “when you say
‘never forget’ to a veteran, you are implying that, as an American, you are in
it with them.” Then he addressed his next words to Davidson: “And never forget
those we lost on 9/11 — heroes like Pete’s father. So I’ll just say, Pete,
never forget.”
Davidson’s father was a
firefighter. He died trying to save others when Davidson was a young boy. In
one moment, Crenshaw not only honored a true hero, but also softened American
hearts towards Davidson, casting him in a new light. He’s a man who carries his
own pain.
It turns out that there’s a market
for grace in American politics. Within minutes, clips of the apology and
Crenshaw’s tribute to Davidson’s dad rocketed across Twitter. As of this
morning, the YouTube clip of the moment — not even 48 hours old — already had
more than 5 million views.
It was a remarkable moment in our national politics, and
it exemplifies the type of influence Crenshaw has proven himself able to
exercise as a politician. So far, he has used it well. He doesn’t rival
Ocasio-Cortez in Twitter followers — he has 382,000 to her nearly 4 million —
but his ability to effectively wield his social-media presence to articulate
conservative ideas is a promising sign for the right, which is consistently
(and perhaps accurately) criticized for its inability to appeal to younger
Americans.
And creative social media isn’t all Crenshaw has to
offer. At the summit this afternoon, he insisted that the left’s socialist
momentum stems from a culture that has made Americans feel disempowered.
“That’s why identity politics is so powerful,” Crenshaw said. “It pits you
against someone else. It allows you to feel like you’re a victim, and we’ve
elevated that status of being a victim.”
Instead, he said, individuals who feel empowered reject
victimhood and attempt to rise above the attacks. “That’s what I tried to do
when someone made fun of me,” he added, referring to the incident with
Davidson.
Crenshaw also offered a theory of why socialism seems to
be growing in appeal to young Americans, as well as how conservatives should
work to counteract it. “Well-intentioned liberalism always leads to
progressivism,” he noted. “It has to. When you start believing that someone
else has to be responsible for you, you always have to keep doing more.”
When Kevin asked whether he thinks the Left is
increasingly serious about actually wanting to institute a slate of socialist
policies, Crenshaw replied, “I do fear that they actually mean what they say.
They haven’t called for total nationalism of many parts of the country, but
they do talk about a lot of things that look an awful lot like Venezuela . . .
a lot of things that do have really bad results.”
At the same time, he acknowledged the uneasy alliances on
the right that make responding to the left somewhat more difficult. “In the
Republican party, there’s now a somewhat uncomfortable coalition . . . between
an old labor party and the free-market, pro-business party,” he said, noting
that the latter part of the coalition fails to speak to working-class
Americans. “They came to Donald Trump, and to figure out why, you almost have
to talk to each one of them separately. . . . We have to figure out how to
include them and their concerns in a free-market governing system, and we have
to be looking for ways to do that. . . . We have to be talking about policies
that actually work toward that.”
On the future of the right, Crenshaw remains optimistic,
but he thinks it’ll take work: “We have to know more,” he said. “We have to
have in-depth arguments.” He also said that the debate between capitalism and
socialism isn’t always about substantive arguments. “It is really a culture
war, deep down,” he said. “It is about whether personal responsibility should
be valued, or it should not.”
The panel concluded with Crenshaw’s ideas on how to
appeal to young people, and his theme was clear: “To young people: I’m not
going to try to buy you off with promises I can’t keep.” If the Republican
party wants to make that message appealing, they should rely on politicians
such as Crenshaw.
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