Special to WorldTribune, March 15, 2022

Analysis by Joe Schaeffer, 247 Real News

If America First proponents are to take the levers of power within a party that they utterly dominate at the grassroots, the importance of breaking the Republican establishment during the primary process cannot be overstated.

To that end, RINOs would first be identified and then eliminated. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

The poisonous influence of money, combined with the power of incumbency that comes once a politician is placed into office, can be difficult barriers to overcome.

Which makes a House seat in Western New York an interesting subject for examination in the 2022 electoral season.

Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-NY) will be running for re-election in a newly created 24th congressional district. It is more rural terrain than the 27th district he now represents.

There are three very good reasons the GOP base could see Jacobs as a RINO.

Can a Republican who has done the following feel secure about his re-election chances in 2022?

1. Voted in favor of the creation of an independent Jan. 6 congressional commission that would have greatly aided Democrats in their ongoing efforts to further inflate their thoroughly phony narrative of the events of that day.

2. Backed a “gender identity” bill that would provide official legal muscle for the noxious “transgender” agenda.

3. Is endorsed by and embraces the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has become nothing but a tool of cheap-labor-loving corporate interests and their endless pursuit of pro-illegal alien immigration reform.

Jacobs has done all three of these things. You could add a fourth item, which is entwined with the above:

No Republican who is one of a handful of party elected officials to align himself alongside Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) on anything should feel safe about his re-election chances. Jacobs did just that with his Jan. 6 commission and gender identity stances. In addition, he and Kinzinger were two of just 11 Republicans who voted to strip populist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her committee assignments because she said things deemed by the Uniparty to be “divisive.”

Jacobs is yet another Republican in Washington who tries to have it both ways with Trump. Knowing he needs to keep in good stead with Trump backers, he has stoutly backed construction of a border wall and even announced that he was opposed to certifying the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021, reversing his previously stated position, which caused him to be severely criticized by Democrats and establishment forces in western New York.

But Jacobs was just starting to get his dancing feet moving. He then turned around and fully backed the loaded Democrat Jan. 6 narrative.

“We need to do everything we can to find out what happened there, so that our police here never have to endure that again,” he said last summer about his vote to back the creation of a Jan., 6 commission, The Buffalo News reports.

His June 28 primary challengers will not let GOP voters forget about it:

Asked if he thought the [Capitol Hill unrest] was an insurrection, [Andrew] McCarthy said: “No. You want me to use the words of the left?”

That is the way a Republican should address the media.

Jacobs further enraged populists within the party with his vote on Greene’s committee assignments:

And when the House voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, from her committees because of her conspiracy theorizing and threatening rhetoric, Jacobs agreed.

“I have been very involved in education over the years, and I felt her statements were out of bounds and disqualified her in my mind from being able to serve on the Education Committee,” said Jacobs, who noted he took some criticism from constituents for opposing Greene.

“Disqualified” – Jacobs is literally channeling the establishment-scold verbiage of Mitt Romney.

The transgender issue should also get Jacobs in hot water.

Jacobs was an original co-sponsor of the so-called “Fairness For All Act.” Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project ably detailed just how bad this lame effort by a handful of congressional Republicans was:

For all intents and purposes, the “Equality” Act is dead this Congress. Republicans are set to take back the House and possibly the Senate in 2022. Joe Biden’s approval numbers are tanking. Republicans are taking on gender ideology like never before — just look at what Glenn Youngkin is doing in Virginia. Things are looking up, right? There’s simply no reason to give an inch on this issue.

But some Republicans love to negotiate against themselves. These folks can always be counted on to hand Democrats a political victory where there was none to be had….

So is there a substantive difference between the Fairness for All Act and the Equality Act? Not really. Like the Equality Act, Fairness for All imposes a radical gender ideology on society and fundamentally redefines American life. Unlike the Equality Act, the Fairness for All Act tries to carve out a few religious liberty exceptions for religious institutions, but it’s hard to get excited about that when they’ve conceded everything else to the radical LGBT movement.

It’s the archetypal Republican “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” performance that has so infuriated its voting base over the years.

Schweppe continues:

Here’s a far, far, far from exhaustive list of what the Fairness for All Act would do:

• Enact a nationwide mandate that schools allow boys in girls’ private spaces. (Needless to say, this would codify what happened in Loudoun County.)
• Destroy women’s sports.
• Promote chemical castration for gender-confused children.
• Allow men in women’s prisons.
• Allow men in battered women’s shelters.
• Incriminate free speech for teachers, doctors, and other professionals.

National Review reported March 7 that Jacobs quietly removed himself as a co-sponsor in late February. My, what a surprising thing to do when facing a primary challenge in an election year.

And then there is that nasty U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsement, which should be equated with garnering support from any of the most radical pro-massive immigration activist organizations on the Left today.

Jacobs celebrated his endorsement by the Chamber in 2020.

The Chamber also financially backed his campaign, as did a bevy of corporate interests.

Note the Delaware North donations and those of the NHL’s Boston Bruins. There’s a good reason for that. Jacobs is the nephew of Delaware North chairman, Bruins owner and multibillionaire Jeremy Jacobs.

Jeremy Jacobs is a towering figure in Western New York. How much so?

When Jacobs the Younger ran for his seat in a special election and then the regular election in 2020, his Democrat opponent was a corporate lawyer for Delaware North.

It was Delaware North employee vs. the boss’s nephew, Democrat vs. Republican. Not that Uncle Jeremy liked having the help challenge his family for a congressional seat. Nate McMurray has sued Delaware North, claiming his run against Chris Jacobs cost him his job as vice president of business development. This is your government today, America.

A bizarre, weirdly emotional article posted at the leftist Daily Beast on Jacobs’ Jan. 6 two-faced act is more informative for its background paragraph on Jacobs’ political pedigree:

Jacobs is one of the Republican members who knew better. He went to Boston College for his undergrad, American for his master’s, and University of Buffalo for his law degree. He worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Jack Kemp — the so-called “Bleeding-Heart Conservative.” He served on the Buffalo Board of Education. He was the New York Secretary of State under former Gov. George Pataki. And he’s the nephew of billionaire businessman and Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs.

Jack Kemp, George Pataki and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This should be everything Trump supporters oppose.

And yet. Uncle Jeremy Jacobs has been very publicly identified as a Trump donor. Is that enough to help his nephew what with all this other baggage he brings to the table?

Actually, it turns out Jacobs did not financially support Trump in his 2020 re-election campaign. The Boston Globe reported in Nov. 2020:

Jacobs contributed only to his nephew, Chris Jacobs, who easily won reelection to the US House in upstate New York. Jeremy’s son, Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs, also contributed only to Chris Jacobs, except for a $2,800 donation to Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III’s unsuccessful Democratic primary campaign to unseat Senator Edward J. Markey.

There are several GOP candidates hoping to topple Jacobs in the primary. The Buffalo News writes:

“I just don’t think he’s the right guy,” said Mario Fratto, a 37-year-old lawyer and small business owner from Geneva who has picked up the endorsement of three county Conservative parties and the Seneca County GOP. “I think now he’s calling himself a conservative and I just don’t see it, and I don’t think that people believe it – because his record says otherwise.”…

Jacobs other’ official challengers at this point are Andrew McCarthy, 35, of Niagara Falls, a brashly tweeting Air Force veteran with more than twice as many Twitter followers as Jacobs, and John Murtari, 65, a Wayne County Air Force veteran who said: “The people east of Rochester have never heard of Mr. Jacobs.”

McCarthy uses that Twitter account to constantly hammer Jacobs on the Jan. 6, Marjorie Taylor Greene and transgender issues.

The time to take RINOs down is during the primary season. Because once they slip through into the general election, they can lean heavily on the sheer awfulness of their Democrat opponent and convince base voters who would otherwise have nothing to do with them that they are the “lesser of two evils.”

That they are still driving the car off the cliff, only at a much slower pace, doesn’t seem to matter, as this argument continues to prove effective. See Youngkin’s triumph over notorious Clinton family bag man Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race last November.

If America First Republicans truly want to “take back” this country, they must start by solidifying actual control of the party that they identify as representing them.

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  RINO Watching in Western New York: Rep. Chris Jacobs faces primary challenge, WorldTribune.com