Morning Briefing
For November 8, 2012
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We forget.
There is no permanence in politics. All is fleeting. All is cyclical. We find
comfort in our cycle and distress when others rise to the top.
Right now, conservatives are bitterly disappointed. Some choose to check out
mentally. Some have decided to throw in the towel. A few blame the American
people. Many think the gig is up, the show is over, and destiny is undone.
Demography is not destiny and neither is the ever growing leviathan. Many think
so now, but they forget the ebbs and flows of the tide of history. Conservatism
is not done. The message of freedom and opportunity is not done.
No immigrant comes to the United States wanting to be on welfare. They come for
a better life of hard work and success. What conservatives forget is that
people forget.
And conservatives have done a terrible job reminding people.
Since Ronald Reagan rose from the ashes of the Goldwater movement, Republicans
have articulated a message of freedom and opportunity — a rugged individualism
that says if you work hard you can be what you want and do what you want. But
people forget.
In the last decade or so, Republicans began to assume everyone just naturally
agreed. They stopped explaining. They stopped being evangelists. Worse,
conservatism morphed into Republicanism and instead of being about ideas, both
became about the acquisition of power for the sake of power. Republicans no
longer articulated a core set of principles through policy, but policies
designed solely to keep them in power. The party leaders and many of its
candidates began to do the same — freedom became a platitude, not a policy.
During Barack Obama’s tenure, Republicans tried to blur every line, make every
compromise, and often surrendered before a weapon was even pointed at them.
They did not articulate a positive conservative vision, but a defensive
position that Obama was bad and they were good with little to show for it. They
cut deals that sold out their core to preserve their power. They do so even
today.
Republicans assumed Americans got it. They assumed Americans and Republicans
were still speaking the same language. But they weren’t.
Politics is cyclical and Americans are forgetful. Republicans forgot that. They
failed to keep advancing. They failed to keep explaining. They relied on on the
tried and true that became the tired and stale.
Tax cuts? Yay!
Pro-life? Yay!
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But what else? Under Republicans and Democrats alike, the tax code has grown
more complex, the lobbyist class has grown richer, and the banks have gotten
too big to fail.
Moving forward, the conservative movement from within the GOP needs to advance
new ideas, not just dust off and repackage old ideas. The principles remain the
same. The principles are fixed. But the ideas that advance those principles
must fit into the twenty-first century.
The GOP should start with education reform. They should tackle tax reform. They
should work the break up big banks by forcing big banks to capitalize further.
They should not shy away from tackling social security and medicare reform —
ideas that did not hurt them with senior citizens and will ultimately help them
with younger voters. They should still fight to repeal Obamacare and explain to
the American people why it is sucking the life out of the economy.
But more importantly, conservatives must be able to show Americans in this age
of a stagnant economy that conservatism has ideas not just to make one
prosperous, but also to help the poor and needy. There are those who do depend
on and deserve a helping hand. If the GOP cannot show how small government
lifts people up and provides for those who cannot, the GOP will fail.
Republicans should not be afraid to be obstructionist, but must be willing to
explain that the obstruction prevents the passage of ideas that history once
discarded before we all forgot.
These are exciting times for the conservative movement. But the conservative
movement must get up and lead now — lead with conservative ideas for the GOP,
not a Republican agenda packaged as conservative. We must begin again anew
talking conservatism as evangelists, not fellow travelers. We must remember we
are not in a permanent decline, but a cycle of politics that is only permanent
if we let it be.
Our think tanks must stop producing white papers designed to woo donors and
must produce ideas designed to persuade voters to limited government.
In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry, delivering a surprising defeat to the
Democrats. Two years later, the Democrats took the House and two years after
that took the White House.
In 2014, like in 2010, Barack Obama’s base will not show up as it did in 2012
and 2008. In 2016, it will split between factions in a diminished field of a
shallower bench with no guarantee that Barack Obama’s coalition is the
Democrats’ coalition. The GOP will have a deep bench of articulate
conservatives.
We must lay the groundwork now with fresh ideas embedded with timeless
principles sold by voices who understand people forget and must be reminded why
America is great and why conservatism helped make it that way. We must
continue, as a conservative movement, challenging and ending the political
careers of Republicans who carry the banner of conservatism while selling it
out.
We must still be willing to fight against the implementation of Obamacare, a
policy still opposed by a majority of Americans.
Be of cheerful heart. The world spins on and I fight on. Join me. Let’s take
the country back as happy warriors for a cause we know is right that too many
on our own side have forgotten is right.
In the words of William F. Buckley, Jr., RedState, the conservative movement,
you, and I must stand athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is
inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it. . . .
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Sincerely yours,
Erick Erickson
Editor,RedState.com
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