One thing is clear. The GOP has BIG problems that were succinctly and accurately summarized by a Facebook friend.
The GOP is now made up of 3 factions. The old guard, which I completely reject, the Tea Party, which I almost completely reject due to their batshit crazy tendencies, and the Libertarian wing which I fully endorse.The war for the soul of the Republican Party has begun. If the Libertarian wing doesn't prevail, the GOP is headed straight to the trash heap of permanent extinction because of a vanishing base. While the Washington Post came out with Republican Party begins election review to find out what went wrong, a far more interesting analysis lays out what needs to be done.
Tea Party: No More Doles, McCains, Romneys
Following President Barack Obama’s re-election victory on Tuesday, one Tea Party group is vowing “no retreat” in its quest to find candidates with “clear conservative records” instead of “weak-kneed” Republicans.Bingo!
“We’ve had Bob Dole, we’ve had (Gerald) Ford, we had (John) McCain, and now we did (Mitt) Romney, and they lost…because those guys do not necessarily reflect what I think the majority of conservatives, probably the majority of Americans, truly believe,” said Scottie Hughes, news director for the Tea Party News Network.
Hughes added that a desirable conservative candidate is someone who advocates “core principles,” such as liberty, freedom, and limited government, which were so important to the Founding Fathers.
Todd Cefaratti, a TPNN editor, says he knows what conservatives need to do to regain control of the White House: “The Tea Party has not yet begun to fight. It’s time for a wholesale reassessment of the D.C. establishment politicians and party grandees who have no commitment or courage to reduce the size of government,” Cefaratti said.
“[But] unfortunately, time and time again the establishment Republican Party continually keeps putting these candidates [forward], saying, ‘This is who we need to support.’ And most of the time those are usually not the folks who represent true conservative Republican values,” said Hughes.
Hughes said that if conservative and libertarian groups found a way to combine forces, they might be able to settle on a candidate who could win without the need to appeal to moderates.
Therein lies the hope for resurrecting the GOP from the utter destruction wrought upon it by the arrogant party elites who hold the will of the conservative base in the highest contempt. Also, Republican salvation definitely won't be coming from theocratic candidates like Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum. The Republican Party needs to ditch its 'bat shit crazies' who advocate for theocracy, social intolerance, endless wars and a military empire. The theocon/neocon axis must be broken and consigned to the trash heap of history.
Conservatives are different than Democrats. A Democrat will vote for any idiot their party runs but conservatives absolutely will not. Conservatives will gleefully and vigorously punish their party for running big government and big spending Republican statists, and that's precisely what happened on election night.
For decades conservatives have been voting for what they perceived as less government but all they ever got was more Republican spending, more deficits and a big pile of debt. The crop of Tea Party Republicans that won big in 2010 ended up spending more than the Democrats they replaced, here. The decline and fall of the Republican Party dates all the way back to the Reagan era.
What Went Wrong with the Republican Party? Reagan Ruined the Republican Party and Fiscal Conservatism
Lew Rockwell published this gem of a 1992 piece by Murray Rothbard describing the fall of the Republican Party as fiscal conservatives. The article documents the turning point of the Republican Party under Reagan. Frankly, I never understood why Reagan is so revered by Republicans. Reagan massively increased spending and taxes. In many way, the Reagan era paved the way for the Republican Party nightmare that currently exists - nothing but a party of one big socialist spending orgy. As it turns out, the Gipper was one big graft machine who loved big government.
Repudiating the National Debt
In the spring of 1981, conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives cried. They cried because, in the first flush of the Reagan Revolution that was supposed to bring drastic cuts in taxes and government spending, as well as a balanced budget, they were being asked by the White House and their own leadership to vote for an increase in the statutory limit on the federal public debt, which was then scraping the legal ceiling of $1 trillion. They cried because all of their lives they had voted against an increase in public debt, and now they were being asked, by their own party and their own movement, to violate their lifelong principles. The White House and its leadership assured them that this breach in principle would be their last: that it was necessary for one last increase in the debt limit to give President Reagan a chance to bring about a balanced budget and to begin to reduce the debt. Many of these Republicans tearfully announced that they were taking this fateful step because they deeply trusted their president, who would not let them down.
Famous last words. In a sense, the Reagan handlers were right: there were no more tears, no more complaints, because the principles themselves were quickly forgotten, swept into the dustbin of history.
Frankly, I'm proud of conservatives for finally doing something they should have done a long time ago. They finally had the testicular fortitude to fire their own damn party because the lesser of the two evils is still evil.
It's time for We the People to take back the Republican Party and toss out the frauds and traitors who betrayed the constitution and the principles of federalism and limited federal powers.
perfect
ReplyDeleteYour post encapsulates exactly what I've been saying for a number of years now, as a card carrying Libertarian, but one who might return to the fold if foundational tenets evolved back to Conservatism.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP wishes to keep to tenets of limited government and individual liberty, they will have to decrease the weight of influence that the religious right and social conservatives have on the party platform. If the GOP is not asking themselves...prior to each and every policy action or bill....does this enhance or restrict the personal liberty of each American citizen [after weighing appropriate public safety and national security concerns]....then they are at odds with their professed positions.
Social, or moral conservatism can coexist with individual liberty, as long as one tenet is not injurious or regulative of the other. To this point, the GOP has used social conservative positions in exactly that way, injurious or regulative to the liberty of their fellow Americans.
To the extent of differentiating the parties....it might seem semantic, but the approach outlined above is in pursuit of liberty, where the Democrats use the issue in the pursuit of an ideal of equality.
The fundamental flaw in the campaign was a callous disregard for principle. It's nearly impossible to carry the banner of Conservatism, when your standard bearer isn't Conservative. Concepts of liberty were casually cast aside in favor of empty rhetoric and pandering favor to preferential demographics. I don't blame Romney....he's just a symptom of the greater disease.
I haven't said a eulogy for the GOP just yet....this could be just the low water mark that the party needed to rediscover long forgotten principles of limited government and individual liberty.
The question remains, does the party have enough collective intellectual integrity to leave behind the meme and myths that so obviously didn't work, and actually stand for principle.
I think we are stuck working within the GOP but I believe that after its crushing defeat that they may finally be willing to listen to us. Losing isn't the worst thing that can happen. I'm cautiously optimistic!
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