Josh Hammer: The Base vs. The Elites in GOP

In the latest episode of Raven's Radar, host Raven Harrison brings on special guest Josh Hammer, an opinion editor for Newsweek, to discuss the ongoing divide between the grassroots base and the establishment elites within the GOP. This episode sheds light on the underlying tensions and condescension toward the party's voter base and explores the ramifications for the conservative movement.

Episode 10 Summary with Josh Hammer

Josh Hammer's presence on the show provides a fresh perspective on the internal conflicts within the Republican Party. As an influencer and firecracker in conservative circles, Hammer delves into the reasons behind the establishment's scorn and disregard for the concerns and values of the grassroots base. He emphasizes the importance of understanding this divide and devising a plan to bridge it in order to safeguard conservative principles.

Transcript

• Raven Harrison: Well, good morning, Patriots! We are inching ever closer to the holy day for Christians, for Christmases around the corner, a lot of news to get to. If it's in your sights, it's on my radar. We'll be airborne shortly.
• [Intro Video]
• Raven Harrison: Welcome, Patriots, to this episode of Raven's Radar, and as we inch closer to the Christmas holiday, we are not going to disappoint. We're going to give people the Christmas gifts that keep on giving, or Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate. We're going to give verbs in our sentences, action strategies for what's going on, and Lord knows we have a lot going on. Besides the non-existent gun control that the Democrats keep pushing, which involved them releasing the Merchant of Death and the most prolific arms dealer in the world, out to be a free man in Russia to once again terrorize the nation, we have some more bigger sweeping problems, none of least of which is the border.
• You guys know here in Texas that is our talking point, the border, the border, the border. I need Patriots to hear loud and clear that not only is this border not secure, we've heard things about declaring a national emergency, the National Guard, the border is open. I want to show Patriots, those of you who are listening, please try to watch this at some time. I want to show you what our wide open border looks like. Let's roll the clip.
• [Clip Begins]
• Raven Harrison: Now, for those of you who are listening right now, what we are seeing on our screens is an absolutely horrific manufactured crisis at our border that saw a thousand migrants cross in one day last week in El Paso. We are seeing people with brand new cell phones whose clothes are intact, who supposedly came here desperate for reprieve, but have come in and they are walking in. There is a line of people along the Rio Grande that are just walking in. There are homeless camps all over and around the edge of the border. They are streaming in by the thousands. All of these people needing unvetted, unscreened, unchecked, undocumented are pouring in to our border.
• This hits Texas first and hardest. This is sickening. It is sickening for those who are watching. It is sickening for those who are victims of our overcrowded school system, to our crippled infrastructure, to our skyrocketing inflation, our crumbling streets, and our overwhelmed healthcare crises. I mean, they are just literally strolling in and we are bursting at the seams. This should infuriate every patriot and it is a direct result of this milk toast, mc-leadership that has done nothing to secure our border.
• [Clip Ends]
• Raven Harrison: Every single official who is involved with letting this happen immediately needs to be removed. I always tell people to vote RED, Remove Every Democrat. This is a humanitarian crisis, but this is not just exclusively a Democrat problem. Republican leadership needs to stand up. Where have they stood on this? Where are the founding brass members of our party on this humanitarian crisis where these people are flooding in? They are flooding in. We have drugs flooding in. We have fentanyl as a leading killer right now. We have sex trafficking at an all-time high. They're just strolling in. They're not checked. They're not stopped. They're not detained. They're not vetted. They're not screened. They're just dependent and they're here. And ironically, we are getting ready to lose Title 42.
• It is expiring on 42 and that was a protocol that allowed us to expel migrants due to the pandemic and escalating health crisis that came on the backs of COVID. Now that's going to quietly go away and we are going to be continually overrun until somebody wants to get the guts and stop this from happening. I've made no secret that this is a big deal for Texans. It hits us hardest and first. But I want to talk about who's ultimately responsible for this and what we're going to do about this. I hold accountable the GOP leadership for their failure to stand up and hold for the principles of this party and that starts directly at the top. So guys, we do Patriots. We do not want to sensationalize this issue. This is a humanitarian crisis, but it is also a manufactured crisis. Long are the days they feel like so long ago that President Trump had this border secure and border crossings were down to their lowest levels and now we have gone hyper-pengilom the other way during a time when our economy, our infrastructure, our schools, and our community are crying uncle. We are literally busting at the seams.
• We can't take any more. We can't take any more dependence and people who are straining are already stretched and scarce resources. This has got to stop, but I want to remind people that is essential to keep on our leadership and make sure that we are holding them accountable for every day that they allow this border to be overrun. Every day they allow this humanitarian crisis to continue. Every day they are allowing fentanyl to pour across our border.
• For those who are paying attention, we actually also had two documented cases of leprosy come across this border. We are at, I think, about 6 million and counting since Biden took office of people who are just running across the border. And what you saw in the clip was 900 who came across in one day at El Paso, and this has got to stop. So today we are going to be talking with Josh Hammer. We're going to get the hammer. We're going to bring the hammer down on these situations.
• We're going to have some real talk. We're going to put verbs in our sentences. We're going to start coming up with solutions and telling patriots what we really want to know. Not what's wrong. What are we going to do about it? So up next, we're going to have opinion editor for Newsweek. Josh Hammer coming to speak with us. He's written a recent article. It is fire, and we're going to be talking about what our next steps are. Stay tuned.
• [thetweeterofthefreeworld.com spot]
• Raven Harrison: Welcome back Patriots. As promised, we have a special guest for you today. You guys are going to really love this one. It's not often you hear me say this, but I often say it's time to bring down the hammer. And now we actually have one welcoming. We're going to be welcoming today into studio the Josh Hammer. He is an opinion editor for Newsweek. He is a influencer. He is a firecracker. I'm telling you, Patriots, this is a special treat today. Josh, thanks for joining us.
• Josh Hammer: Well, that's lovely introduction. I'm not sure I'll live up to it, but I'll do my best. So thanks so much for having me.
• Raven Harrison: You have a few minutes to try. No, it's going to be fantastic. Josh, I want to lead right in. I want to you wrote. I'm always sensitive to fire brands. You wrote an incredible article recently about why the GOP frankly hates its voter base by the establishment elite scorn the voter base. And I want you to tell our listeners and our viewers a little bit about the premise of this article is the grassroots versus the establishment and the mentality and the condescension as a descent and basically counter activities against the party principles that is directed at its very base.
• Josh Hammer: So, you know, it's kind of funny. President Trump kind of upended a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the false lines in the Republican Party and in the conservative movement. I think after President Trump became President Trump from candidate Trump, the big divide was Trump never Trump or pro Trump anti Trump. But if you go back a little further, if you go back to the rise of the Tea Party from 2000 90 to 2011 or so, at that time, the divide was between kind of the grassroots when the Tea Party was nothing if not the grassroots movement and the Republican establishment. In fact, kind of back in those days, back in the days of the good old kind of right wing blogosphere is actually the acronym GOP lowercase e as kind of a pejorative referring to the Republican establishment. So there's been a huge disconnect for a long time now probably going even further back than that to be honest with you, but I'm only 33 years old. I kind of came up political age during the Bush presidency into the Tea Party era.
• This is kind of when I first noticed this chasm, this huge divide between the ruling class within the Republican Party, within the donor class and the base and the basic divide, the basic divide and the exploitation of that divide was I think above all the reason that President Trump, you know, so mightily carried the 2016 presidential primaries, basically dominate most of his rivals. That divide is basically that the Republican donor class kind of the AEI donating Wall Street Journal editorial page reading does not particularly care to engage very much if at all on those icky cultural issues, whether it's abortion, whether it's immigration, immigration maybe immigration is probably honestly kind of like the end all be all the issues that the Republican establishment hates, hates, hates, you take a hard line on, hates to engage on, but at the same time they take a very, very, very hard line, a very doctrinaire view when it comes to issues of political economy, meaning that they are all in for globalization, they are all in for free trade, no matter what the cost with any country whatsoever, they are all in for slashing corporate taxes, all in for slashing capital gains taxes, all of that. The Republican base does not necessarily agree with that.
• The Republican base is much stricter on issues of immigration, is much more realistic on issues of trade, cares a lot more about making things here in America, about reshoring supply chains, manufacturing, things of that nature there. So there's a huge disconnect, there's a huge disconnect on the Republican side of the aisle, I think, between the donor class, which has its own interest, the Fortune 500, those types of people in the C-suite of these companies from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, you name it, and the actual median voter out in flyover country, out in states like Missouri, Oklahoma, you name it there. So that was kind of just the basis of this column.
• I saw some various acts of disloyalty, you might say, from the Republican establishment here in the current lane. Congress, respect for Marriage Act, which is, you know, certainly does not respect anyone who holds to the traditional view of marriage, as is the irony of that law. We might get some more aid for Ukraine, there's this horrific bipartisan immigration amnesty forming there. So it's just, it's perfidious, and it's really, really terrible. But I think if you take a broader view of this, it's been a long time coming, I think.
• Raven Harrison: I think that you have exactly nailed it. What the essence, I feel like the cliff notes is, is now we've got no faction within our party when it should be the same people holding to the same principles of limited government, lower taxes, and yet it's become, I can't even say a uniparty, it's become ridiculous. We've got now the grassroots versus the establishments, the doers versus the don'ts, the Duke versus Nacho Libra. And it's just, it's crazy in terms of where we're seeing now, because we know a house divided can't stand, but we're seeing this now in addition to the country being divided, we're also seeing the party divided now. And Donald Trump was a great catalyst for that. Why do you think he was so, why do you think he was so effectively able to highlight these blaring problems inside the GOP?
• Josh Hammer: Well, part of it is, I think he actually believes in some of these issues. In fact, so like trade is actually a perfect example there. So, you know, over the course of the 1980s, 1990s, especially in the aftermath of NAFTA, 1990s, I think, you know, Republicans basically linked arms with Democrats. It was kind of a uniparty, bipartisan consensus that absolutist free trade was the future of the world, like globalization was here to stay, that supply chains could be perfectly global. You know, it's kind of the old golden arches theory of democracy and capitalism, so to speak. So the so-called golden arches theory basically says that, and you know, this theory roughly held true at least prior to the Russia-Ukraine War of this year, but the theory previously held that there was never been a modern war between two countries that have a McDonald's in there, or McDonald's is simply a proxy for kind of advanced capitalism. So I think elites of both parties subscribe to this kind of global kind of kumbaya view of the world. Trump has actually always been a skeptic of that.
• If you go back to his days kind of rising up through the, you know, New York elite scene in the 1970s, 80s, certainly in the 90s when he was an early and often critic of NAFTA, he has always been a bit of a of a trator to his own class, actually, to his own kind of, you know, upper elite class when it comes to issues of globalization and trade. He's always had slightly more of kind of a populist, Americanist kind of reshorus supply chains kind of instinct. So when he started talking about those issues, and it's not a very far leap to go from that similar style of view of the world on trade to immigration, which became his signature issue in 2016, you know, when he started talking about it, certainly on those particular issues, I think he meant it. And I think he'll kind of picked up on that genuineness.
• You know, Trump obviously as an individual himself is obviously such a force of personality is obviously quite frack, universal name ID, the likes of which we probably had not seen in a presidential candidate in decades, possibly forever there. So there's a lot of factors going on there, but he was talking about some of these issues for a very long time prior to 2016. I think it kind of helped him attract a lot of new voters and exploit that difference between the donor class and the voting base.
• Raven Harrison: Oh, you got that right. I mean, we're looking at these videos now, they seem so profound. But what do they say? Conspiracy theorists are just people who have the information six months too early. He was talking about this stuff decades ago, and I'm a little older than you. And I'm telling you, I remember saying this and kind of letting it go right over. Now we are right smack in the middle of what he said. And all these trigger words, I mean, he just exposed them.
• And that's when all holy heck broke loose is when he exposed this for coming on. This is their favorite term, isn't it? Though Josh is reach across the aisle. You know, that's when you saw back in the decades, we have to reach across the aisle. And you didn't see it before we introduced you. We had a clip of a bunch of people reaching across the aisle to come to free stuff in America. So we have gotten out of this, but essentially they've done a great job of smoke screening and gaslighting the American people into believing that we actually still have two parties and that we have two distinct values being used. So I'm telling you, what do you think in terms of for people now in saying that you wrote this article, are you finding are more people asleep or are they afraid?
• Josh Hammer: I think a lot of people on our side are terrified of the left at this point, and they have every good reason to be terrified of the left because the left is frankly quite terrifying. You know, I had a recent podcast that I host this podcast for Newsweek called the Josh Hammer Show and I have my friend Pedro Gonzalez at Chronicles Magazine on a recent episode. And we talked about kind of the long game, what the what the transgender movement, the transgender lobby is actually trying to accomplish because the accomplished because Pedro wrote a very lengthy and detailed recent report on this for the American principles project.
• And I think what the two of us concluded on this podcast is that what they're really trying to ultimately do what the far left has been trying to do at least since the Bolsheviks literally since the Bolsheviks, you know, in 1917, 1918, is to undermine, tear apart and ultimately destroy the family unit. That that that is ultimately what is going on here. In fact, one of my favorite data points that I often cite to kind of bolster the idea that the far left of going back to the Bolsheviks has always have always been interested in destroying the family, the entire idea of no fault divorce, which really took off the United States in the 1960s with sexual liberation and all that no fault divorce was literally an idea from Bolshevik social theory that has always been the goal of the far left. So I think our side has every reason if you value your faith, if you value your church or synagogue, if you value your children, your wife, your parents, grandparents, whatever, you have every good reason to fear and over meaning authoritarian totalitarian left. So the only question at this point is for our side is twofold.
• One is understanding the stakes of the current hour. This is kind of Michael Anton's infamous September 2016 essay, the flight 93 election. The phrase that my friend Dave Reboi and I sometimes use is this is the kind of idea of knowing what time it is of understanding how far down the rabbit hole we are and that we are at some point starting to run out of time to kind of turn the ship around ultimately salvage this republic to bring it back from the brink. And then the logical corollary of that is laying out a very specific plan to execute upon that to execute upon that to finally start to turn this thing around. And fundamentally to defeat the forces of civilizational arson with the forces of civilizational sanity. That is all our side wants. We are the same side. We believe that there are two genders. There was a mom and a dad, marriage is a man, a woman, blah, blah, blah. All these once simple notions, we all assume to be true
• Raven Harrison: are now controversial,
• Josh Hammer: now controversial, but we have to figure out a game plan to make that sentiment mainstream again because if we don't do so we've lost the country.
• Raven Harrison: And I think, you know, as we wrap it up, because that's that's it, Patriots, if you're paying attention, he displayed it out. I mean, and family is supposed to be the cornerstone of the GOP. That is supposed to be, you know, our bread and butter, but we've got these kind of non marriage defense acts and all these other things that are just being rammed through the left is just a wrecking ball ramming through these policies with, you know, virtually no, we've got a defense that hasn't gotten off the bus yet, you know, and we're already, you know, in the third quarter. So for going forward, but that's you wrote this article and you are really on the front lines finding this. Tell our listeners and our viewers where they can find you and how they can get involved with what you're doing.
• Josh Hammer: Sure. So thanks so much for having me on. So you can find me on Twitter, josh_hammer. I would encourage you to go to newsweek.com/opinion. And that's the op-ed section that we lay out a news week every single day. I've got a podcast through news week called the Josh Hammer Show and starting just last week, actually a new weekly newsletter for news week called the Josh Hammer Report, all that you can find though on newsweek.com.
• Raven Harrison: And that's fantastic. And guys, for those of us who are a lot older, you know, I've started coming back to news week now because of Josh, because we're starting to see a lot more, you know, balanced and fair news. So Josh Hammer is the editor of the opinion editor for Newsweek. You have got to check it out. Guys, you want to know what's going on, you know, straight from the horse's mouth. That's it. So you're going to get what's happening and what we're going to do about it, both sides of it, verbs and the sentences. Josh, thank you so much for being with us today.
• Josh Hammer: My pleasure and thanks so much for all that you do for this great country.
• Raven Harrison: Thank you. Patriots, that's everything. We'll be right back.
• [thetweeterofthefreeworld.com spot]
• Raven Harrison: Okay, Patriots, you, you heard it here. That was fire. Josh Hammer putting the hammer down. That's what we need to hear. It's going to be a great, this is a season. It's Christmas time. We are thankful as Christians for all the things that we are blessed with and we are so very blessed in this nation. But we have work to do. This is not a spectator sport of saving our country. This is a doer. If faith without works is dead, we have to be doers of the word. We have to be engaged. We have to be plugged in. We have to be beyond, be beyond the days of our grandfathers politicians where we kind of assume they were going to get it right.
• And we have to make sure that they do. We have to hold them accountable and remind them daily, hourly, minute Lee that they work for us. We have got to remember what's at stake here. There will be no, this, this is not a drill. There will be no tomorrow. We don't fix this for our kids. We have got to hand them a country that is better than the dumpster fire we have created. So stay with us. We're going to keep, we're going to keep on the front lines. I'm going to keep bringing it to you on the front lines during the holiday season. We're going to be taking this show on the road. Also want to remind you that Raven's Mantle the book, I promised you, it's an incredible story, not just because it's mine.
• It's because it's incredible. Uh, available now for pre-sale on Amazon or wherever books are sold, parents inside the Pentagon for 9 11 being at the Vegas Mac massacre, seeing the cold war upfront, including the Berlin wall up and down, living in communism. These are the things people need to know. We need to know our history. We need to learn from it. So we don't repeat it. It's going to be available for pre-sale shortly. You can get more information about Raven's Mantle and everything on Raven Harrison.com. You can also join us on Ravens radar on social media. We are also at Raven, the conservative warrior on Facebook, true social and all other social media platforms. It's going to be a great ride. We were made for our time. Such is this and we can do it.
• We'll see you next time.

Wrap-up

Hammer's insights underscore the urgency of the current situation and the need for conservatives to unite and address the challenges facing the nation. The call-to-action is clear: conservatives must rally together to reclaim the party from the establishment elites and work towards preserving the values they hold dear. Hammer suggests that understanding the stakes and formulating a specific plan are essential to counter the forces of the left. By doing so, conservatives can bring back mainstream support for traditional notions about family, faith, and principles that have come under attack.

In conclusion, the episode with Josh Hammer serves as a wake-up call for conservatives to actively participate in the political process and ensure that their voices are heard. The base vs. elites dynamic within the GOP needs to be acknowledged and addressed head-on in order to forge a unified conservative movement that can effectively counter the threats posed by the left. It is incumbent upon conservatives to step up, take action, and work towards reclaiming the party, saving the country, and securing a better future for future generations.