GOP

Posted on Conservatives, Editorials, Republicans

coda

Consider the events of 2016. Republican primary voters were angry, and maybe just a little vengeful, at all the Republican failures they saw to advance conservative policies and keep promises they made back when they ran for re-election. Some of them saw Donald Trump as the “outsider” who would kick the doors down and dismantle the swamp and the swamp things controlling it in DC. This is the change they sought.

Many people voted for Trump to stop Hillary, and because of the Supreme Court picks.  I don’t blame them for this.  But we must shed this binary choice mindset and hold our political parties accountable for their obvious failures.  We must realize, as the great band Swirling Eddies once sang, “Evil is still evil, man – on the left or on the right”. Stop settling.  Stop with the lesser of two evils – or Trump vs. Hillary is merely the genesis of spiraling decline down this slippery slope.

We were told that #NeverTrump was all wrong, and that Trump would totally break that evil establishment, yo.  And yet…

Nothing has changed.

While we should be grateful that Justice Gorsuch has turned out to be a good SCOTUS pick, there’s much more that we should hold Trump accountable to do. There are many things we should hold the GOP accountable to do, including serious tax reform, completely repealing Obamacare and keeping promises made to the voters during re-election season.

But unless the GOP “leadership” gets some serious shock therapy in the form of crippling losses…

Nothing will change. They will still keep promising all the things, and delivering none of those things.

And the average GOP voter will keep enabling this dysfunction, because they are afraid to pay the price of surrendering Congress and the WH to the Democrats.  Make no mistake, the damage that could be done by giving back the levers of power to the left could be devastating.  But is this a sacrifice we need to make to wake the GOP from its slumber, and help it to recognize that the way they do business just isn’t working for the country or in their best interest re: winning elections?

Shock therapy may be the only thing that brings this dead party back to life.  It’s worth considering.

Like I’ve previously said, I’m done with the GOP, but for the people who still care about it, there’s only one way to save it.  It must be completely broken to be rebuilt. If you’re still hanging on to this party, ask yourself what the ROI is.  What have they done for you lately? If you’re here for all that limited government, Constitution, free market stuff, this isn’t the party you are looking for, at least not anymore. If the policies the Republicans push are merely Democrat-lite, it’s time to go.  Head for the lifeboats.  Free yourself.  Be an activist if that’s what drives you, but understand that this party has failed you, and don’t be a prisoner to a party label.  Fight for principles, not for political parties.  Keep your integrity and make the tough choices.  We are all accountable to Someone greater than ourselves, and He doesn’t grade on a curve.

2 Comments Posted on Republicans

where we are

Most of the current leaders of the Republican Party are creatures of Washington who are completely out of touch with the values of the state parties and their grassroots foot soldiers. We don’t have problem-solvers. We have problem creators. While nothing can be done about advancing limited government and fiscal discipline while in the minority, our leaders have decided that no compromise is too great to make in the game of winning elections. This is a mistake. This mindset leads to a Republican Party perfectly willing to stand by while corruptocrats like Ted Stevens run for re-election just because they don’t want to lose that seat to a Democrat. This mindset leads to nominees like John McCain. We must draw the line of compromise somewhere.

We cannot and must not make excuses or compromises when it comes to corruption. I would rather lose a million seats in Congress than for us to continue to lose credibility as a Party. Social conservatives aren’t killing the Party. Corrupt members of Congress are killing this Party. Fiscally irresponsible members of Congress and requesters of massive amounts of pork are killing this Party. In order to fix the problem, we have to correctly diagnose it. This is something that the leaders of our Party have failed to do. That’s why we have been losing elections.

There is a school of thought in the Republican Party today that our party needs to move further to the left in order to attract moderate and independent voters. Hasn’t this past election proved the ineffectiveness of a strategy like this? Look at our nominee, John McCain, whose nomination was propelled by the support of Democrats who voted in all those open primaries and by the media (his former base) . The same argument made for McCain was also made for Rudy Giuliani – namely, that Republicans could get those independents and moderates by nominating someone more like them than the scary social conservatives we tend to nominate. Wow. What an awesome strategy that was. If we continue to water down the conservative message to get these elusive voters, we will keep losing. Our party leadership doesn’t seem to understand this. We hoped that they would get a clue after 2006. No such luck. They are continuing to follow the same failed strategy that gets us the same results every election.

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1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

sanford to the feds: no thanks

I love this guy. Send him to D.C.

Governor Sanford says — we don’t want your money, feds:

In 2008 bailouts became the first resort. Over the past year the federal government has committed itself to $2.3 trillion (including the tax rebate “stimulus” checks of last February) to “improve” the economy. I don’t see how another $150 billion now will make a difference in a global slowdown. We’ve already unloaded truckloads of sugar in a vain attempt to sweeten a lake. Tossing in a Twinkie will not make the difference.

However, there is something Congress can do: free states from federal mandates. South Carolina will spend about $425 million next year meeting federal unfunded mandates. The increase in the minimum wage alone will cost the state $2.6 million and meeting Homeland Security’s REAL ID requirements will cost $8.9 million.

Based on what I saw in Washington, the bailout train is being loaded up. Taxpayers will have to speak up now to change its freight, tab or departure.

Everybody wants a free lunch.  It’s hard for governors to turn down money from the feds, especially because, as Governor Sanford says, there are plenty of federal mandates that state governments are responsible for implementing even if they have to pay for them out of their own state budgets.   I applaud Sanford for continuing to do the right thing, and for standing up for the taxpayers of this state.  We need more Republicans like him at the federal level.  I suspect this will be a tough goal to reach, because the Democrats will be given another chance to prove that this Congress will not be as worthless as the last one was.  The national Republican party has some work to do to regain the trust of the country, and it can start with its own membership.

As long as Republicans refuse to learn from 2006 and 2008,  continue to bury their heads in the sand, and continue to reshuffle the deck chairs of the SS GOP to put the same people who gave us John McCain in charge of our next election campaign, WE WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE ELECTIONS.

More on this in a future post…