RIGHTSIDE WAY – 07 July 25
CHARGE OF THE LIBERAL LIGHT BRIGADE
The progressive left has run headlong into a disaster of their own making. A disaster that could well portend their political demise. A disaster of failed leadership, failed communication, and an innate inability to assess the intelligence of their political battlefield. We are watching the charge of the liberal light brigade.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade” as a narrative poem in the 1850’s. “Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them, cannons in front of them, volleyed and thundered”. From this epic telling we get the line “[T]heirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die, into the valley of death rode the six hundred”.
Written just six weeks after the devastating defeat of the British Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava in the Boer War in 1854, Tennyson’s recounting outlined a case study in recklessness, disjointed leadership, and poor communication. Britain’s finest charged headlong into heavily defended and well entrenched forces in what became known as the “Valley of Death”. In Tennyson’s words leadership had “blundered”. Twenty battalions of dug-in infantry supported by artillery blasted the light brigade with withering fire from three sides. One war correspondent recounted that the Light Brigade was wiped out “by their own rashness, and by the brutality of a ferocious enemy”. Of the 600 men who entered the Valley of Death less than a third remained combat-effective when the smoke cleared.
The opposing force is said to have thought the British cavalrymen were drunk as he watched the failed charge. “It is magnificent but it is not war. It is madness”, said a French Marshall who viewed the scene. The charge of Britain’s Light Brigade at Balaclava remains a case study for modern historians of what can go wrong when leadership fails, communications are poor, and there is an inaccurate assessment of battlefield intelligence.
It is no different than watching the progressive left push the Democrat party forward in a never-ending series of losses, all of which are self-inflicted. The right side of the political spectrum is well fortified and carrying a wave of popular sentiment. Supreme Court decisions, legislative victories, campaign wins – withering fire from three sides – yet into the valley of death rides the liberal light brigade.
One can certainly look broadly and watch as Minority Hakeem Jeffries stood in the well of the House chamber for a record-setting speech of nothingness, only to watch with dead eyes as Republicans thereafter passed the bulk of the Trump agenda in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The world can also look askance at Governor Gavin Newsom attempting to block the federal government from enforcing the law in his own state with his own National Guard, only to have a 3-judge panel from the oft-liberal 9th Circuit rule against his misguided effort.
The view can be seen in red states as Birmingham, Alabama’s liberal Mayor Randall Woodfin espoused in an interview with liberal icon Al Sharpton on MSNBC that his city would not “participate in any administrative dealings as it relates to immigration status” and yet folded like a cheap suit when it was realized that Attorney General Pam Bondi has the wind at her back to cut funding from sanctuary cities.
New York City Democrats just nominated a radical Islamic-fundamentalist defund-the-police socialist to be their candidate for Mayor. The Big Apple. The crossroads of the world. A city with an annual budget of $112billion. If NYC were to separate itself and become its own county it would have the 12th largest economy in the world. Democrats chose Zohran Mamdani – a man who has espoused such progressive nonsense as spending $65million to provide so called “gender affirming care” to minors, socializing grocery stores, and taxing whiter neighborhoods at a higher rate than others. “[T]ogether we can tax the rich, heal the sick, house the poor, defund the police and build a socialist New York”, Mamdani wrote in one of his social media posts.
Keep in mind that while NYC may still be a bastion of blue politics that it is also the city that recently acquitted Daniel Penny, and swung more towards Donald Trump and Republicans in greater degree than most any other blue city in the nation. Billionaire entrepreneur Bill Ackman announced on social media that he is already coordinating with other like-minded big money backers to find and support a write-in campaign candidate that could change the makeup of the election
Into the valley of death rides the progressive left.
Liberals always overreach. It’s in their nature. Their hubris prevents them from knowing when their bad ideas promote backlash. Ignoring the winds of public sentiment. Disregarding the intelligence of all rational polling and assessments. Lacking in leadership, and working without adequate communications or messaging. We are watching as the charge of the liberal light brigade rides headlong into the valley.
Strongholds of free markets, low taxation, cultural conservatism, and limited government are still very much in the mainstream, and hold the high ground in the political and social arenas of today’s culture war.
Conservatives are not the ill-equipped poorly led light cavalry charging into the valley of death. It is conservatives who have the positions that are sustainable. Conservatives are the ones who can defend our positions because they are imminently more defendable.
But make no mistake: much like the British Light Brigade of old the liberal progressives of today are still a fighting force in the policy arena. They are not to be underestimated, but they are also not to be feared.
Conservatives are well equipped. We hold the key terrain, and there are far more of us than there are of them. We are winning now but the fight must be maintained.
But in the meantime – into the valley of death rides the liberal light brigade….and ain’t it fun to watch?
