Why The Bee has more conservatives commenting on life in Sacramento and California
It’s hard to know what the political label “conservative” means anymore.
I knew what it meant 30 to 40 years ago, when I was a young person watching George Will on Sunday morning shows or reading William Safire and William F. Buckley in the New York Times. They stood for limited government, free markets, military strength and individual freedom. They viewed the Soviet Union as an enemy of America. They tried to make the conservative movement about ideas.
Some, like Buckley, worried about extremists. He called the ultra-right John Birch Society a “menace” to conservatives and opposed segregationists like George Wallace.
Nowadays? Conservatives are largely aligned with former President Donald Trump, who was sympathetic to white supremacists, extremist militia groups and Vladimir Putin. Trump liked anti-free-trade tariffs, disparaged the military and intelligence agencies, and mocked our institutions.
The menace of extremism that Buckley feared in the 1960s is now mainstream. We have Fox News, alternative facts, QAnon and a whole rancid ecosystem of right-wing talking heads spreading misinformation. And we had the modern American low point of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Here in Sacramento, there are smart conservatives who still believe in the ideas that drew them to the Republican Party. But when a figure as prominent as Will is an outcast among mainstream conservatives for opposing Trumpism, it’s a challenge for an opinion section that wants to foster a diversity of ideas. How can we incorporate more conservative voices without handing a platform to disinformation and extremism?
We’re answering that question with smart commentary from conservatives with strong credentials in Sacramento and California. Among them:
Rob Stutzman, who ran communications for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and recently wrote about a Republican Party poised for big wins in 2022.
“Heading into 2022, the GOP is ascendant,” Stutzman wrote on Jan. 2. “However, what imperils the path to a majority for House Republicans are the truly dangerous crazies within their ranks who fetishize violence.”
Matt Rexroad, a political operative with expertise in redistricting and former Yolo County supervisor who wrote a full-throated endorsement of nuclear power as California’s best shot at making the transition to clean energy.
“Nuclear power is safe, cheap, efficient and the only realistic way to maintain our standards of reliability and availability while eliminating carbon emissions,” Rexroad wrote on Dec. 22.
Mike Madrid, the former political director of the California Republican Party, who wrote for our pages that Republicans are scoring big with Latino voters across much of the country, just not in California.
“As Democrats increasingly resort to progressive cultural and economic positions that are out of step with white, non-college-educated voters across the country, they are beginning to see the early signs that Latinos are voting like their white, blue-collar peers,” Madrid wrote on Dec. 6.
Last week, Madrid wrote about the urgent choice facing conservatives: Trumpism or democracy.
These aren’t the only conservative voices you’ll see in our pages as we also publish commentary from conservative writers contributing to other McClatchy news organizations around the country.
In fact, we want to expand our roster of conservative writers who have served in government, law enforcement, business and other fields in California to help bring a wider array of perspectives to our readers. I have extended the offer of a platform and an audience to some serious people in Sacramento and California. My hope is that you will soon read their work in The Bee’s opinion section.
Smart conservative voices who still respect our democracy are out there. We will keep trying to bring them and their ideas to you, our readers.
