By Hank Russell
Steve Levy, the co-publisher of Long Island Life & Politics, received the Gipper Award from the Ronald Reagan Republican Club during the group’s 26th annual Gipper Award Dinner at Windows on the Lake in Ronkonkoma on July 15.
The Gipper Award Dinner is a yearly event organized by the Ronald Reagan Republican Club, dedicated to recognizing outstanding public service in government leadership. Named in homage to the iconic character portrayed by Ronald Reagan in the film Knute Rockne, All American, the Gipper Award honors individuals who embody excellence in their roles.
“We are proud to present this award to a true republican conservative like Steve Levy, who personified what a true conservative is,” said Club President Hector Gavilla.
Levy said he was a Democrat before switching parties, quoting Reagan’s famous line, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the party left me.”
As a member of the New York State Assembly, Levy saw himself to be a fiscal conservative. “I wanted to try to get what people cared about,” he said. “Whether it was a Democrat, Republican or independent — and this is back in the Eighties — they said, ‘These taxes are killing us.’ … It was my goal as a Democrat to work for hardworking lower- and middle-class families.”
When he was running for county executive in 2003, “I got primaried from the left,” Levy said. The reason was that he refused to support funding for a hiring hall for illegal immigrants. Because of that, “the Democrats and the media painted me as a Neanderthal,” he said, adding that he continued to hold the line on taxes and spending and fight illegal immigration. In 2007, the Republican and Conservative parties told him, “‘We like the things that you’re doing. We want to support you.’”
In 2010, when Levy mulled a run for governor, the “crazy” and “Marxist” Democrats sent out a press release announcing that any state official who supported Levy would have their state funding withheld, which was “totally illegal.” It was later when the GOP reached out.
“They said, ‘You’re speaking our language, come be one of us,’” Levy said.
Levy went on to explain that the Democratic Party has moved further left and has even exhibited Marxist tendencies, which can pose a true danger to this country.
“People ask, ‘What is the biggest threat to America?’ People say it’s China, Russia or Iran getting a hold of a nuke, or a cybersecurity strike,” Levy said. “The biggest fear is the creeping in of Marxism. It is happening and it is real. It’s just like what [Nikita] Kruschev said: ‘We won’t beat you outside with your arms; we will beat you from within.’”
He pointed out that the heads of the Chicago teachers’ union and the American Library Association are both avowed Marxists, which schools are teaching children at an early age to hate this country and carrying books glorifying pedophilia and statutory rape.
“When you ask younger people if they are proud of the country, [they say] they’re not, and that’s because of indoctrination,” Levy said. “The Republicans, whether in the Biden administration or the Trump administration, they’re proud to be American and so am I.”
In addition to serving as state assemblyman, county legislator and county executive, Levy is the executive director of the Center for Cost Effective Government and the president and founder of Common Sense Strategies. Levy is also the author of Bias in the Media: How the Media Switched against Me and Solutions to America’s Problems.