Tamika Hamilton Personifies Realignment
It’s easy enough for optimists within the conservative movement to say political realignment is coming to America. After all, we’re right on all the issues. Won’t the truth get out?
Then again, optimism can be crushed beneath the weight of reality: Democrats may be wrong. They may be failing ordinary Americans. Their policies may be at best misguided. But they have the overwhelming support of corporations, billionaires, the government bureaucracy, public and private sector unions, academia, and the online and offline media monopolies. So what if you’re right?
That’s why it’s refreshing to see the word “realignment” coming from an unlikely source, a Black female who is running for the U.S. Congress as a Republican. Or as Tamika Hamilton just put it in a tweet from August 7, “there’s a major realignment happening in American politics & we need regular people in office who aren’t afraid of anyone.”
As a “believer, mother of five, and former USAF sergeant,” there probably isn’t much that scares Hamilton. She certainly isn’t afraid of the incumbent she’s challenging. John Garamendi, who has been a politician since 1974, is a generic Democrat whose victories have always been in safe districts. In 2020, when Hamilton first challenged Garamendi for California’s 3rd District, she lost by 9 points. But the times are changing.
First of all, in 2022, Trump’s name won’t be on the ballot, which as we all know is fodder for fearmongering to boost Democrat turnout. Instead, Californians will be looking at two years of a Biden administration, along with two more years of fires and water rationing. Maybe voters in this mostly rural congressional district will decide they’ve had enough. It would only take 4.5 percent of them to change their minds to retire Garamendi, and send Hamilton to Washington.
Tamika Hamilton, a veteran and mother of five, married to a white law enforcement officer, is the face of America’s conservative future. Her politics are moderate, against single payer health care, but in favor of family leave. Hamilton’s most relevant “diversity” is political; she exemplifies how successful conservative politics in the coming decades will have to respect and welcome all points of view, from slightly right-of-center to hard right.
By focusing on pragmatic solutions to issues that matter to all Californians – reliable energy, abundant water, affordable housing, fewer homeless, lower crime, effective education, and common sense forest management – it can be done.
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