OldCannon wrote:Let us all hope and pray that our congress actually acts like a real congress, should he win re-election.
Then again, if the GOP can't win reelection in this election year, I'd say it's high time to declare the GOP completely irrelevant. Seriously. Massive unemployment, massive debt, massive scandals, and one of the most arrogant (and inept) president in history. If this can't be won, then the system is rigged to never let the GOP win the presidency again.
If the GOP can't win an election with those conditions, it may well be because the GOP has lost the confidence of its own base. If that's the case, then it isn't the system that is rigged so much as it is a failure of the GOP to A) provide the clear alternative vision, and B) actually
ACT like the clear alternative once elected. Increasingly, the DNC requires ideological lockstep for members to prosper politically within its ranks. The GOP has never had any such constraints, instead pushing a "Big Tent" philosophy.
Trying to be all things to all people works when the opposition has a no clearly defined vision, and the big tent worked when the demos were in political disarray with no single clear unifying vision. That is no longer true of the dems and hasn't been true for at least the previous decade. They have a very unified and clear vision of wealth and income distribution, race pandering, big intrusive government, and a small view of the dignity of the individual citizen and his/her individual rights in the face of a monolithic federal bureaucracy. The Obama administration is merely the penultimate expression of this, and the wraps have been removed because the dems no longer feel like they have to hide what they are really about. By contrast, the GOP has tried to include everyone from Olympia Snow, one of the most liberal republicans ever who votes with democrats most of the time, to Ron Paul, one of the most libertarian republicans of all time, to Eric Cantor, one of the most conservative republicans in a very long time.
Anyone who understands marketing can see what is happening. The GOP has a diluted brand, while the DNC has a laser-focused brand. The results are predictable. People will refuse to be part of something which has no clear purpose, and that is the quandary in which the GOP now finds itself. Of course the catch 22 is that if the GOP tries to remediate that situation by focusing its message, it will "alienate" people who it thinks are included under its big tent.
Let's review who those "alienated" members might be:
- ideological libertarians who should have left the party a long time ago, but who didn't leave because they know that the Libertarian party is politically irrelevant at the national level
- country club "conservatives" who believe that the 2nd Amendment exists to protect their right to own a $40,000 shotgun, but who are not comfortable with "evil cop-killer pistols" in the hands of plumbers and truck drivers and female college students
- ideological liberals who shop at LL bean and fancy themselves to be fiscally responsible, as long as that includes government subsidized abortion
- alleged conservatives who value their beltway contacts and lifestyle more than they do the hopes and dreams of the voters who sent them there
- people who call themselves conservative but who feeeeeeel that it might be mean spirited and they stop thinking their way through the issues
Did I forget anyone? Liberalism requires ideological rigor and feeeeeelings. Conservatism requires intellectual rigor and thinking. Thanks to our educators, we've been taught for years now that (liberal) ideology and feelings are more valid than intellectual rigor and thinking. Is it then any surprise that the republican brand has become so diluted?
Since the republican party will never grow the stones to "evict" non-conservatives and focus its brand, this may a propitious time in history for the formation of a viable Conservatve Party. Maybe it is the time for coalition politics which require a coalition of the republican, libertarian, and a conservative party which collectively can defeat a monolithic democrat party at the national level, but will provide voters with greater choice at the local level? I don't know for sure. What I DO know is that there is literally no ideological separation between the democrat party, and the American Communist Party. If there is, I'd dearly like someone to point it out to me. I don't think it can be demonstrated in any significant detail.
Personally, I think we are witnessing the end of the American "experiment" in our lifetimes, and the 2nd Amendment may become the bulwark it was originally intended to be in the restoration of liberty.
Or maybe I'm just one of those conservative cranks clinging bitterly to my guns and my religion. Frankly, I don't care what anybody thinks about my politics. I'm done with "cooperation" and "bipartisanship," the two great evils which have led us to where we now find ourselves. I am in favor of
whatever it takes to change things and push the reset button.
