Newt Gingrich to State Lawmakers: Have the Courage to do the Big, Bold, Positive Things

The Honorable Newt Gingrich addressed the ALEC 49th Annual Meeting in Atlanta July 29. Before he took to the stage, he shared details of the New American Majority, a program he is leading that is designed to get America back to an “America that works.”

Highlights of the ALEC TV interview:

ALEC TV: What is your message today to our lawmakers?

Hon. Newt Gingrich: They have this extraordinary opportunity to offer positive solutions. I think that the big government socialists have failed so badly that they have created a vacuum in which everyday people who might not normally have looked to us are now open to considering the ideas of anybody who has better ideas on inflation, on gasoline prices on the price of food on fixing schools. There’s an openness there. And frankly, when you go out and you look at the states that have Republican leadership they’re doing so much better than places like California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois.

I have been active with ALEC since about 1980. The greatest strength of ALEC is that at the grassroots level, there are lots of smart legislators doing smart things and they bring it out and then people across the whole country learn about it. And so we have a real evolution underway. A better government better solutions, better approaches.

ALEC TV: Tell us about the new American Majority.

Hon. Newt Gingrich: We’ve had a project started by Bernie Marcus which looks at how we can break out of this very narrow fight and find issues that bring people together on a big basis. And early on we discovered, for example, that 87% of American people really want to get back to an America that works. We found that of us people do agree with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. That it is the “content of your character, not the color of your skin.”

Our goal is to be able to develop an American Majority. I really emphasize is not a Republican majority, not a conservative majority, but to bring together Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody wants to see us get back to being a productive, positive country based on the principles of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and I think you could build a 65 to 70% majority around those principles.

ALEC TV: What is your outlook for November?

Hon. Newt Gingrich: I think with the way things are going now we’re going to win very substantially in the House between and probably pick up between two and seven seats in the Senate. I think you’re going to see an American tsunami. And I think it’s first of all because things aren’t working. You go out and talk to people who can’t afford to buy food. One woman said she has to go to four or five stores to get baby formula. And she can’t afford the gasoline.  I think the Biden left wing Democratic Party is going to be pretty badly repudiated this fall.

ALEC TV:
Well, that all sounds fabulous. What keeps you up at night? What could go wrong between now and November? That might hurt this conservative movement? It’s really growing.

Hon. Newt Gingrich: Two things. One, getting Republicans to understand this is a different world. It’s a different time. People want a solution oriented system that is open to everybody. They don’t want to narrow base intensity. They want a base broadening. You see this with Latinos who are now dramatically leaving the Democratic Party in huge numbers. The second thing that concerns me is that the left still has control of the news media, the universities, most of the bureaucracy, some of the big corporations and the federal government.  So you have to ask yourself, what will they do to try to rig the game.

ALEC TV: And lastly, you have a book out a new book, can you tell us about it?

Hon. Newt Gingrich: It’s called “Defeating Big Government Socialism.” It is based on the idea that we have to not just win on  performance, but we have to get across this failure of performance by Biden and Democrats. It is a failure based on policies that are wrong, policies that don’t work. And I think Margaret Thatcher once said, “First you win the argument, then you win the vote.” We have a chance this year and in 2024 to win an argument that puts people like AOC in a permanent minority for the rest of her life. Now, that’s a goal worth working on.

ALEC TV: Do you have any final words for our state lawmakers around the country?

Hon. Newt Gingrich: Have the courage to do the big bold, positive things necessary to solve our problems and get us moving forward so that we can reassert once again, that we are the most successful, most prosperous, safest and freer system in the world.