Conservative talk
Conservatives in Southington discuss state of the nation
Two conservative Republicans attracted a crowd of about 50 people to Southington Town Hall this week to explore an intriguing question: “Is America great?”
SOUTHINGTON – Two conservative Republicans attracted a crowd of about 50 people to Southington Town Hall this week to explore an intriguing question: “Is America great?”
The question led to a free-wheeling discussion on capitalism, liberty, the Constitution, the pursuit of happiness, Thomas Paine and John Locke at a time when the nation is facing only the fourth impeachment of a president in its history.
In blue Connecticut, it represented a window into a slice of conservatism that is not often seen because Democrats hold all the levers of power from governor to the state legislature to the congressional delegation.
“I feel like I grew up in a different world, where it was assumed that America was great,” former state Sen. Joe Markley of Southington, who ran unsuccessfully last year for lieutenant governor, said at the Wednesday forum. “All the aspects of our history are now being questioned in ways they weren’t before. The discovery of the country, the settlement of the country, the expansion of the country, in some ways, are all seen as tainted.
“Two of the most moving moments for me, in recent history, were when the students in Tiananmen Square erected that Goddess of Democracy, echoing the Statue of Liberty. I was so honored that they turned to us for an example. Very much more recently, seeing the protesters in Hong Kong waving the American flag in the streets. It’s because they know that we captured something as a nation — a belief in liberty, above all. At a time when we’re living in a very confusing world, which is changing very quickly, holding onto those principles is the only thing that can keep us grounded and oriented in the choices that we make and the direction we have to go.”
State Sen. Rob Sampson of Wolcott, who organized the meeting with Markley, said raising the question in a community forum was important for his constituents.
“This question, in the realm of politics, may be the most important one that is facing us in this day and age,” he
said. “America is still the greatest country on Earth, but we have a long way to go to achieve the notion of a more perfect union that was described in the Constitution when it was drafted. What is America? Is it great? Could it be better?”
President Donald Trump vaulted into the country’s highest office on the campaign slogan “make America great again.” In Southington, a once largely agricultural town with clusters of busy industrial mills that has since been largely covered by residential subdivisions, Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton by 11 percentage points.
Art Secondo, a 75-yearold Democrat who was among those at the forum, expressed concern about the country’s future while looking back fondly at the time he grew up.
“The 50s will never come back,” said Secondo, a life
long Southington resident. “That was a fun time. That was a time when my parents came from the old country, and they saw the American flag and they cried. They kissed the ground because it was America.”
The forum explored the broader question of freedom and generally steered clear of partisan politics. But the themes of capitalism and socialism connect directly to the 2020 presidential campaign.
Americans were bitterly divided during the 2016 presidential election, and they have hardened their positions over Trump’s ongoing impeachment inquiry. Politicians and pundits blast each other daily on television and Twitter. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the country’s leading liberals, recently described conservative television pundit Tucker Carlson as a “white supremacist sympathizer” after Carlson’s show featured criticism of her district in New York City.
Markley said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, two of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, represent the opposite extreme.
“It’s the antithesis of our vision of what the principles of our country are,” Markley said of socialism. “Bernie Sanders is simply wrong. I think he is a sincere man. He’s not bad. He’s mistaken.”
Sampson, one of the state legislature’s most conservative members, went further and said all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, are out of step with the American people.
“They’re all extreme to me,” Sampson said after the forum. “I don’t think any of them would have been qualified [to be] president 25 years ago. They wouldn’t have been taken seriously. The Democrats have moved way to the left, and the Republicans have moved to the left also — in favor of
more government. I think we need to reverse that trend.”
Sampson replaced Markley in a Senate seat that is in one of the most more conservative sections of the state. Besides Wolcott and Southington, the district includes Prospect and parts of Cheshire and Waterbury.
Wolcott was among the communities that most strongly supported Trump in 2016, with 68% of voters casting a ballot in his favor. The same was true in Prospect, where Trump captured 66% of the vote.
If there are no major new revelations in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, Sampson predicted Trump’s reelection a slam dunk, in part because Democrats are out of step with voters.
“Barring any significant change,” Sampson said, “I think Trump wins hands down because the Democrats are so far removed from the average person.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com.