In an attempt to show all is not lost, Republican leaders often point to the number of red states on election night maps. One problem with this approach is cornfields don’t vote, people do.
A second problem is the GOP has failed to turn red state victories into meaningful conservative policy successes. And tweaking the tax code is not a meaningful policy success regardless of how upset the Democrats might react.
I’ve concluded the GOP puts up its greatest fights when it knows it’s going to lose and compromises prematurely when it knows it could win. A not-too-radical observation if you accept the primary goal of political parties is to acquire political power. After all, what fun is there to hold a political office if people are allowed to largely manage their own lives.
This is why there is angst within the GOP membership over the party’s leadership choices for presidential candidates and Republican leadership performance in Congress. It reminds one of Yogi Berra’s comment; “It’s like deja vu, all over again.”
Republican supporters want the GOP to eliminate our $18T debt, end failing government programs, rein in our corrupt and arrogant bureaucracies, and restore our lost liberties. To this end, GOP voters have done their part and hope their election victories will yield the necessary legislative fixes. But is this just playing fantasy politics using a losing play book strategy?
Think about it. What would it take to legislatively eliminate or make real changes to the IRS, EPA, DOD, Department of Education, and the other omnipresent and self-serving federal agencies?
If a true presidential reformer wins, he or she will need an aggressive congressional conservative supermajority to effect any real change. This is unlikely. It’s even more unlikely this will happen for as many administrations as necessary to make the necessary cumulative changes; including long-term changes on the Supreme Court.
Basically, our system is designed to make change difficult, but once change occurs, political corruption, party politics, petty populism, and special interests make reversing even a bad law practically impossible. Thus, the GOP’s leverage power comes before bad laws are created, not after.
As the Democrat blue states tell us of the benefits of government largess, and as the Republican red states fail to act otherwise, we are choking on government corruption, failures, and inefficiencies, and anguishing under lost liberties. This is not the scenario I envisioned for my children.
If you are on the Right, don’t use what I wrote as an excuse to do nothing. We need to continue to fight; for the record if nothing else. Yes, government programs generally operate like ratchets, turning only in one direction until the bolt shears off. But when the bolt does break and our children and their children have to build a new system, we need to have left them the edge pieces to help put the puzzle back together right.
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