Two years ago, most of us had no idea what a “community organizer” was. But as then Senator Obama’s campaign started to accelerate and steamroll his opponents, we got a glimpse into the machine that had been carefully constructed for years to squash the liberty the Founders sacrificed so much to ensure. And after he became President and started to rapidly implement his radical agenda for fundamentally transforming America, true fear set in and we wondered how we could possibly stand against something so powerful.
But, as freedom-loving Americans have always done, we stood anyway. One by one, group by group, town by town, city by city, we began to gather and organize. We met in homes, churches, office buildings, restaurants, libraries, and ultimately turned out in enormous numbers on tax day, 2009, overflowing public squares across the county. That’s the day it became real: we were finally speaking up.
Now, only a year later, after being ignored, then mocked, then attacked (the next step on that path for us, by the way, is victory), it’s almost unbelievable to consider how much we have accomplished and grown in influence. We made phone calls, sent e-mails and faxes, turned out at town halls, gathered in the hundreds of thousands (possibly more than a million) in D.C. on 9/12 and in the tens of thousands on spontaneous calls for subsequent protests at our nation’s capital, all of which helped force the delay (and ultimate watering down) of the disastrous health care legislation for a full year. That’s time President Obama and Congress spent obliterating their own political capital (and now face potentially historic losses in Congress), rather than pursuing other transformative (read: destructive) policies. And it has provided a clear issue on which limited government candidates can run this November: REPEAL!
All this has created an environment in which the Tea Parties now help drive the news cycle and control the debate. We are educating the public, which is engaged on a level I’ve never seen before (I’m only 33, but still…). The Left has been flabbergasted at how effective we have been and how quickly we have caught on to their game. They have been building their machine for years; we have been building ours for one. We were so far behind—but we’re catching up quickly. The reason is simple: their machine is built on socialism, corruption, and intimidation (which fosters vandalism and violent protests); our machine is built on freedom, virtue, and rule of law (which fosters peaceful protests).
One big difference I noticed between this year’s Tax Day Rally and last year’s was that despite the tremendous challenges we face we now are ruled by an air of confidence, both in what we have done and will do. We know we’re right. We know we’re having a positive impact. And we know nothing can stop us as the fire of liberty burns inside us and spreads to our neighbors across this country.
So we’re all community organizers now. And it turns out we’re actually quite good at it. Knowing that, let’s move forward in organizing electoral disasters for any politician from any party that doesn’t champion the principles of constitutional governance, limited government, fiscal restraint, free markets, and governing with virtue.
November 2, 2010. History is coming. Get ready.