A recent Associated Press story remarks as follows about the Republican reaction to the $825 billion “stimulus” package being promoted by President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress: “Speaking at the National Press Club…Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said he believes the measure will clear Congress by the mid-February target date set by Obama and Democrat leaders.” It seems as if Republican capitulation is not only a likely scenario, but an avowed promise.
When we observe the reaction of most Republican leaders to their election drubbing last November, it seems that we may be excessively charitable, if we consider them to be still dazed or confused, as if sickened by a deafening shell shock to the mind. Surely, we may say, there are lessons to be learned from having fallen so devastatingly from their former positions of power; it is just a matter of time before the shock wears thin and the mind, in its renewed capacity, centers in on those lessons and responds with a fresh reassertion of principles once loved. Like the soldier who returns from his near death in a sordid trench, somewhere in the mud of France or the desert air of Gallipoli, he awakens from the shock and renews his once forgotten love for the girl back home, forsaking whatever excitement he had once treasured in that Great War, and instead knowing a great happiness in hearth and home. Certainly, there is a romantic charm in thinking that that may be the case here.
There is charm; and then there is an obsessive clinging to romance, bordering on silliness, or even insanity. In thinking about our Republican leadership today, I believe that there is merit in avoiding the latter, even if it means resorting to that cynical scoff with which, for the most part, we Republicans are unaccustomed. After all, we are a political party, which in its recent Presidential nominations in particular, has demonstrated a clear bent toward a more or less American version of primogeniture: the elder son, the one who has carried in his own manner the family mantle longer than anyone else, has earned over time his right to assume the party throne, even if he is by that time a doddering fool, ill tempered for the fight before him, a romantic throwback perchance, but wholly incapable when facing that charming serpent, who is only so happy to offer the entire world, and all of her riches and glories, if only the voters will cast the fool to his retirement and reverence his kingship. It is almost a Republican tradition, at least in more recent years, to reaffirm preeminence of age and so called experience, even when so doing insures a victory for the latest example of the Democrat seducer. Did we really think that Senator Dole, with his bloody reference to “Democrat wars” and wistful talk of building a bridge to our own past, would vanquish a charming and likeable President from Hope? Before the selection of Sarah Palin infused a new enthusiasm in the conservative base, did Republicans really think that a refurbished Straight Talk Express would overcome a young, serenading Don Juan, whose sweet lyrics about hope and change might have no meaning in the morning, but which promised in the meantime an escapist frolic to remember? Or, as I am more inclined myself to think, may it be said that we Republicans felt that it was more important to be in line with our former practice, in the sense of going with the guy who had been around longer, or who carried a surname that had won in the past, than in actually defeating the Democrats at their game?
As I am a traditionalist, I am inclined to find merit in upholding those traditions that are rooted in the principles of the ages; but a predisposition towards principles should not be confused with an apathetic acceptance of sameness for its own sake. The penchant for an American version of primogeniture, which indeed remains self-destructively pervasive in the Republican Party, does not emerge from any great principle, let alone any principle in fact historically tied to the founding of our Grand Old Party. Our party after all was once and always at its core a most dynamic expression of the Declaration of Independence for a new generation of Americans. We are the party of American nationalism, in opposing a Southern secessionism at odds with that spirit of unity, which allowed for our own unique American Revolution to triumph and for our federal Constitution to replace those Articles of Confederation. We are the party of free labor and dignified men, in opposing a scourge of slavery at odds with that fact of divine creation, which confers upon all men a very real equality in their relationships to God and therefore a fundamental birthright to cherish for themselves and their families life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, including as such a wage premised on the value of freely given labor. We are the party of dynamic industry and economic renewal, in opposing that backwards, Jeffersonian agrarianism which, in its romantic confusions, provided a certain allure for Southern oligarchy at the expense of an ever more vibrant, American freedom and opportunity. Ours is at its core a revolutionary political party, one that believes that a Nation founded on the principles enshrined within the Declaration of Independence indeed may be united, free, and strong, not a squabbling of confederated states, but neither an empire ruling over others. Nowhere in this vision of the Grand Old Party do we find a sycophantic yearning for an “elder son,” one who has a right to rule, because he has been adroit enough in kissing as to have survived in political gamesmanship longer than anyone else. Nowhere in this inspiring story do we find a core principle, which would compel millions of voters to nominate a Dole or a McCain.
Our Republican penchant for primogeniture, which is to say of maintaining sameness for its own sake, therefore does not emerge from any great principle, but rather from a failure to be willing to struggle for what we know to be true in the political stage. If a man cares for a business, which is his own creation and the livelihood of his family, and if he wants to hire an overseer, then does he just give in to the next doddering fool, which submits an application? Does he go out of his way to put on blinders, thus trying to convince himself that the fool is in fact much more cogent and capable than he is? Does he ameliorate such concerns as he may have had about the credentials of his prospective overseer, simply by learning that that prospect has “Jesus in his heart” (Bush in 2000), or that that prospect is going to put “country first,” whatever that means (McCain in 2008)? Does he hire him in the almost certain expectation that he will fail to compete with the overseer who has been hired by the business next door, or that even if he wins in the short term, he will lose ever more market share to that other business in the long term? The answers are clear; thus, in thinking further, we must inquire: why would we “hire” someone to be our party nominee when we would not hire an analogous man to be the overseer of something we hold dear?
The answer is sad but clear: too many Republicans, and indeed too many Americans as a whole, do not pursue party politics with the seriousness with which it deserves. They may pursue issue politics, such as advocating against an amnesty for illegal immigrants, or for a defense of unborn life, with great care and concern; and in those brief moments when a particular issue with which they are concerned becomes inexorably tied to a struggle in or by a political party, they may then focus on supporting that party and demanding more of its leaders. Nevertheless, for the most part, they separate their issues of concern with such party leaders, because at the end of the day they do not see those leaders as being fruitful one way or another in how their concerns will fare. A recent example may be seen in the nomination of Senator John McCain. In recent years, more Americans have started really to focus on the scourge of illegal immigration; and when the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill of 2007 came onto the Senate stage, a whopping 80% of Americans polled came out against the travesty. Majorities in both major political parties opposed the bill, and made millions of faxes and calls to their representatives to defeat it; but it was even more hated by Republicans on the whole than by their Democrat neighbors. Nevertheless, these same Republicans not only nominated Senator McCain only a year later but actually circled the wagons in his defense, once he had been nominated, thus guaranteeing that if ever he did win the White House, he would have a Republican “stamp of approval” for his promised reintroduction of that amnesty bill. Of course, they had their rationale: the election of the socialist Senator Barack Obama would be so much worse, that any focus on the problems of McCain in the heat of the battle would be altogether folly, if not political treason. Even if that rationale has its merits, the question persists: why nominate McCain with which to begin, when there were other Republicans much more in line with the grassroots on many issues of concern to them, not just illegal immigration, but indeed scores of others? Must we do so, simply because he has “earned” it in virtue of having run before and of being in the game for so long? Must we be enthused with his candidacy, because he gives us as his choice for running mate a moose hunter who claims that the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is lipstick? In other words, are we so incapable of or unwilling to take party politics seriously, that we shall give our hearts and minds to a team, because of the cultural images that they artfully portray, regardless of the substance behind what the candidates have said or done in the past? Again, would we hire an overseer, just because we liked him on a cultural level, even though there were real, substantive questions about him, especially if we knew that our very livelihood might fall altogether if he failed to do well against the competing overseer next door?
When we fail to make demands of our leaders, and to hold them to those demands, then it is inevitable that over time those leaders will learn to scorn our pleas as the chatterings of surfs. Unless those leaders happen also to be men of strong principles themselves, which are always nuggets to be found amidst heaps of billowy sand, we should not be surprised that they will fawn for the fad of the times, than stand steadfast against the daggers. Even a Man as courageously charismatic as Christ Jesus, who preached not as the scribes but as a Man with authority, routinely would lose disciples over mere trivialities. It is easier and indeed, in our fallen states, almost innate to pursue the approvals of our fellow men, over the will of God. If that is the case with the most substantive questions of human existence and destiny, then we may not expect more courage to conviction with the lesser questions with which political leaders contend.
Now, our present day fascination with bailing out bad banks, and therefore rewarding the excessively risky behavior on Wall Street at the expense of their more frugal competitors on Main Street, is not a real treatment of our present economic woes. In dispensing more heaps of fiat money into a broken system, we have seen no liquefying of credit lines, as it had been promised; rather, we have seen the “too big to fail” banks using the hand outs to hoard or to buy off their smaller competitors. We have seen, and with the new “stimulus” package will continue to see, a step towards government nationalization of banks, as we have never seen in our history. We have seen, and will continue to see, a monetary policy that is likely to create a devastating inflation in the future, after the current problems with deflation, and a towering debt that will demand higher interest rates to coax foreigners to keep buying our once valuable bonds. We have seen, and will continue to see, a practice of trillion dollar annual deficits, which rips off the taxpayers, and also diminishes in time the real purchasing power of the middle class, to the benefit of globalist bankers and fund managers, thus ceding first our economic and then our political sovereignty to the powers that care the least about upholding the Declaration of Independence and the real liberties of free men. At this present time, there is no greater threat to the continued sovereignty of our American Nation, and to those liberties, which we as free men may hold dearly, than the bailout schemes now parading through Washington. Furthermore, as even the cursory reading of the history of our Republican Party may attest, there is no clearer expression of virulent anti-Republicanism than these horrendous bailouts. They are so blatantly at odds with the pro-sovereignty, pro-American worker, pro-American middle class families, pro-American small business, limited government, and free market principles, which we view readily to be at the core of our Republican Party in its foundation and throughout much of its political history, that it is a wonder that any Republican, elected official, let alone one who holds the post as Republican leader in the United States Senate, should say anything positive about them. Nevertheless, in spite of the clear opposition of the vast majority of grassroots activists and of Americans as a whole to these bailout schemes, that is exactly what we are seeing from our Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell: an assertion, even before the bill has been introduced formally, that it will pass more or less when said President Obama desires and presumably in line with his overall approach.
Worse than mere cowardice, what we are seeing with McConnell is avid capitulation, as if witnessing a man who finds a perverse enjoyment in rendering his own demise. We are unable to explain his excess for retreat, except to state that Obama is now the fad, that his poll numbers have yet to drop, and that therefore the inclination to seek after the approval of men, over the will of God (or in this case of ones party principles), has shred whatever principles McConnell may have had in his artful pursuit of the political game. The man of courage would now be organizing his fellow Republicans to filibuster said “stimulus” bill and therefore to save the American Nation, and the American workers and families, from another trillion dollars in inflationary pressures and in debt. After all, the Republicans did much to galvanize grassroots support for the Senator Saxby Chambliss run-off election in Georgia, on the basis that his re-election was needed to keep enough Republicans in the Senate to be able to filibuster horrendous, Democrat legislation. Now that we have presumably preserved our ability to filibuster, should not McConnell be trying at least to foster such a defense against this bill, which is so at odds with the principles of his party, and the wellbeing of his Nation? In paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, even if destined to a defeat in the end, should not he and his fellow Republicans glory in shouting defiance in the face of their victorious enemies?
In the end, it is not the weakness of men like Senator McConnell, which is at issue. There have been and will be always diffident men who aspire to and hold onto political office. I think that only the foolish man, or his sinister Fuhrer, ever believes that politics may be a mechanism for establishing a perfect society or a purity among men; therefore, one of the signs of wisdom, and indeed also of humility, is in accepting the fact that there will be for all times men who achieve the highest reaches of office over us, whom we would not hire to oversee our own personal or business affairs, or even to walk our dogs. Really, the first problem is in ourselves: our failures to demand more of these leaders, and thus to demand of them conduct which they will not seek to do of their own accords, because we lack the knowledge or the will to demand in the first place a strong, political party, which remains sincere to its own, historic principles. If we should shout boisterously and successfully in opposition to the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill in 2007, and then go on to nominate the same Senator McCain in 2008, should we not be surprised that Senator McConnell would seek to appease the fad of his times, rather than reap the certain media vitriol, and maybe be taken off of a few invitation lists from the Washington cocktail party scene, in putting together a Republican filibuster? If we fail to be sufficiently political, then should we not be surprised if he too fails in the same manner?
