I’m in complete agreement…
…with John Hinderaker, with the exception of his first sentence. Unlike Hinderaker, I never was “confident that Republican voters would oust Barack Obama in 2012, hold the House and, in all likelihood, take the Senate.”
And that’s because what Hinderaker calls, “the fratricidal Republican Party” was bound to find an opportunity to try to destroy its chances. I couldn’t have predicted the exact way it would happen, but the pattern of self-sabotage has been too clear.
However, although I never thought it would be easy to defeat Obama, I have by no means decided it won’t occur. As I keep saying, a lot more will be happening before next November, much of it impossible to predict—and although the Republicans will almost certainly continue to hurt themselves, whether the blows will be fatal to their chances of election remains to be seen.
A nice analysis and all true. The tell, however, is this sentence by Hindraker:
“And it is worth noting that a large majority of the GOP’s activists who now take such an arrogant attitude toward the Republican contenders will contribute little or nothing to the eventual nominee.”
I don’t even know if this is true, but there are many points worth observing: One, conservatives give more than any other group and their charity extends to much more than political causes.
The tell of the tell are the words “arrogant” and “eventual nominee” (read Romney.) What? Because we didn’t fund Romney we are arrogant? The message behind the message: the tea party is responsible for fratricide.
Here’s a Dartmouth educated conservative whose sentiments are easily revealed and while writing a piece on fratricide uses the words and tone to blame the less educated conservative, the religious conservative, the traditional conservative for it. I’m getting a whiff here of arrogance too! Without the aforementioned votes, no pseudo-conservative politician would ever get elected.
There was a house cleaning in 2006. Remember? We got tired of the ugly corruption and the lack of any difference between the behavior and votes of our Republican politicians and Democratic politicians.
It’s not fratricide Mr. Hindraker. It’s the lack of an acceptable candidate to both factions of the conservative party. The tea party is cleaning house: that’s not fratricide. That some politicians may be viewed with more distrust than warranted is regrettable but it’s the price to be paid for being taken for granted.
It is my carefully considered opinion that Hindraker wrong about contributions. I am one of those activists and no matter the eventual nominee I will be out in force to get him elected. I have already set aside monies to contribute as soon as the nominee is known, the same for house and Senate. I am already in contact with other activists, establishment and TEA party. We are busily exploring our most efficient deployment to ensure that Obama loses in this state.
I call to your attention that, while the establishment and TEA party folks are busy working for their candidates and against the other groups, even now while the primary season is at full heat, all are discussing how to get the eventual nominee elected. Both sides have pledged this.
At least in my state Republican activists, conservatives, moderates, and liberals (RINO’s if you prefer) all agree that in 2012 it’s ABO.
ABO is a laudable goal, but it only addresses a symptom, and not the cause. Much like the “health care reform” and similar policies. If anything, BO forced a much needed awakening in America, and for that we should probably be grateful.
To be fair, the collectivist order has certain advantages. One of which is an irrational deference to alphas (or mortal gods), which ensures a unified front even when individuals maintain mutually incompatible perceptions of reality.
If you acknowledge that the principal principle is individual dignity, then you must also recognize that we do not all share the same dream. This disparity is exacerbated by living in a world with finitely accessible resources (e.g. a beachfront property in Hawaii).
If conservatives, and Republicans in general, want to reassert their principles, and preserve their individual dignity, then they must reject dreams of physical, material, and ego instant gratification. This was the cause of our present crisis. It was liberal policies that promoted progressive corruption.
While fundamental corruption will collapse our society, so too will fraudulent and opportunistic exploitation. If we intend to be a society where individuals are judged on merit, then we must stop voting for redistributive and retributive change, reject arbitrary classifications which denigrate individual dignity, and reestablish the normalization of productive behaviors.
The individual dignity of humans is both the disease and cure. It is more the latter when we are capable of self-moderating our behavior according to a common moral code. This was the prerequisite for people participating in the American experiment.
We’re a hundred twenty yards out of the gate and our GOP horse is stumbling a bit and eating a lot of mud. But it’s a mile and a quarter race people!
For what it is worth, his name is Hinderaker, not Hindraker.
From the article…””He (Santorum) couldn’t even get re-elected to the Senate in his home state of Pennsylvania in 2006.
This is a different world than 2006. The Progressive cat is out of the bag and has revealed its caring about everyone benefits nobody.
A dead Gerald Ford could win this election.
Glen H.: Oops, thanks! Will fix.
SteveH From your mouth to G-d’s ears. I have encountered Obami who still worship the guy. Add in those liberals who don’t like him but would prefer him to a Santorum or Gingrich and he could win.
In a way that would be good, the resulting chaos would but leftism in disrepute for a generation. Of four more years of the smartest man ever to be in the White House would reduce the US to the Republic of Chad.
“Of four more years of the smartest man ever to be in the White House would reduce the US to the Republic of Chad.”
I’m leaning towards Zimbabwe.
One way or another, conservatives will be blamed if the Republican nominee–whoever it is–loses the election.
If it’s someone like Romney, we will be blamed for not supporting him enthusiastically enough. If it’s someone like Gingrich or Santorum, then it’ll be said that they’re too far out of the mainstream.
Either way, mainstream Republican leaders and pundits will call for the (further) marginalization of conservatives. The narrative is already being written. Yesterday I heard former Senator Arlen Specter on a local radio station. He used the phrase “tea party extremists” at least twice.
Curtis –
You nailed it. Blaming it on “fratricide” is a cop-out. We do not tear ourselves to pieces any more than Democrats do (cf. Hillary v. Obama), and the reality is that this election was always going to be difficult because of factors outside of our control, not because of internecine warfare.
The second point is that whatever unusual nastiness has occurred is because of what you said – all of the potentially unifying candidates sat on their cowardly asses and left us with thin gruel and thinner gruel. My opinion on this is an outlier – I believe conservatism is doomed because our standard bearers have proven to be shrinking violets – but most agree that our best candidates sat this one out.
I know that my anger at them has got mixed up with my anger at certain candidates, a kind of “displacement” that helps me deal with the fact that when it came time to set up conservatism’s big stand against socialism, our best and brightest were nowhere to be found, hiding behind current perquisites (“duties”) and sermonizing via books and speeches about what they themselves didn’t have the testicular fortitude to do anything about.
We talk about fratricide because it beats facing the reality. Our best will not fight for us. But they will lecture us about responsibility and awesome issue-based campaigning and reform efforts. In short, they’re sanctimonious absentee-landlords of the conservative mansion.
Sure, they will work on this or that somewhat effectually in their states (Christie, Daniels), or on this or that completely ineffectually in Congress (Ryan) – all of which comes to zilch if Obama gets to complete his project. As much as I couldn’t stand another four years of Obama’s nonsense, it will be just as hard to stand another four years of Ryan’s beautiful visions of budget-fixing Laputas. Oh, how we love the visions! Oh, how they vaporize!
In short, they all chickened out, waiting for some other formidable figure to do what they all know (I am sure they know) they had a duty to do. No one did. Blaming disillusioned voters for the abdication of the crown to a bunch of admirable but unviable second-teamers doesn’t wash.
The election would have been hard enough with a good candidate. That’s the economy; that’s the febrile stupidity of too many Americans’ refusal to blame Obama for anything; that’s the power of incumbency; that’s the reality of trying to sell conservatism in a promissory state. Now that we have a bad field with bad candidates, plus a (nominally) improving economy with a President people are already inclined to lend every benefit of every doubt, singling out fratricide as a prime cause is not something I can take seriously.
At any rate, if “demoralization” is a problem, we know where it began. At least I know where it began for me.
In the last round of Presidential primaries, Barack and Hillary fought a vicious fight for the nomination. Obama won in his usual style (cheating, race-baiting…). Come the general, the Republicans, with the weakest candidate they could have selected (thanks to open primaries), lost.
There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip, and we are a long way from the lip. We have three imperfect candidates fighting for the chance to defeat Obama. All are better than Obama. So, calm down, let it play out, and may the best candidate emerge. Whoever survives is worthy of our support.
Too much despair and surrender exhibited here. BHO can be defeated despite his running dog lackeys in the MSM and the left side of the bell curve mentality of many of those who show up at the polls. BHO can not run on his record, even the current rigged unemployment numbers. There will be plenty of fallout to rain on Obama’s campaign as November approaches. The economy, stupid is but one treacherous obstacle and it will be compounded by what will unfold in the EU zone over the next few months. Another is the rise of Islamists in the aftermath of the ‘Arab spring’. Nuclear Iran? The pitfalls are numerous
However, it will take a tight, aggressive, give no quarter, and on point campaign on the part of the republican nominee to convince a majority of the independents to turn against Obama. Considering who is left standing, I’m looking to Romney as I think he will be the most disciplined and focused nominee. Also, I believe the conservative base will turn out in droves to see the narcissist in chief defeated. Otherwise they are literally cutting off the nose to despise the face.
Two things make it crucial to elect ANY Republican rather than let the jackass stay in the White House:
1) Leftist Supreme Court nominees.
2) Socialized medicine.
The latter is what Margaret Thatcher said stood athwart her efforts to break Britain’s socialist chains — and defeated her in the end. The former would enact laws in violation of our Constitution (note Ginsburg’s remarks about the “superiority” of the marxist South African constitution to ours! staggering).
Rickl : I think you are correct. But what were you doing listening to Benedict Arlen?
Hello Neo,
You might want to correct the first name you’ve used for Mr. Hinderaker. It’s John, not Paul.
Sorry if this sounds picky.
Perhaps we can just call him Ringo Hindraker and be done with it.
I’ve noted before the possibility that the cultural war might imitate WWI and WWII in that WWI lacked the great leaders but WWII had them. It’s also part of the reason I don’t buy into the “we are doomed if Obama is elected” argument for the obvious reason that the war to end all wars wasn’t.
And yet Beverly’s two points are absolutely correct and our country will suffer undeniable damage from the appointment of more progressive justices and the implementation of socialized medicine. I just happen to think that our country would yet purge itself and survive.
I’m just starting to read “How Civilizations Die” by David Goldman which predicts the United States will “emerge triumphant.”
Curtis: your analogy with WWI doesn’t hold up, IMHO. When you say it obviously wasn’t “the war to end all wars,” of course this is true. But in terms of transformative wars, it was probably the one that changed the way we look at the world the most—in other words, it had the greatest societal, cultural, intellectual, and emotional repercussions across all of Western culture.
When I went to school and learned about WWI, it always seemed like the “little” world war compared to WWII. We learned mostly about the battles and trench warfare and that sort of thing. What we didn’t learn is how it transformed the culture and ushered in the modern age.
It’s a huge topic, and I can’t go into it now, but if you want to read more about how the modern age resulted from WWI, go here. This is part of the review of the book:
Plus it marked the end of the Ottoman Empire (and sounded a death knell for empires in general, really) and the beginning of many countries with problems today, in the Middle East for example. The end of the Ottoman Empire created 39 new countries.
Cornflower: well, I obviously should have checked the name better. I didn’t because I thought I knew it! And although I certainly used to know it, somewhere along the line I apparently got some crossed signals.
Will fix.
Yes, World War I was enormously important. And it is a huge subject.
At the start of the war, armies were comprised of the age-old triumvirate of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. The generals’ strategies were geared towards maneuvering those forces, but the new, more powerful artillery and machine guns made charges suicidal.
By war’s end, tanks, aerial combat, and poison gas had been introduced in attempts to break the stalemate. In naval warfare, submarines became deadly weapons. Strategy and tactics
had to evolve to make use of these new technological creations.
As neo mentioned, the collapse of empires led to what became known as the Third World.
Culturally, much of the nihilism of the 20th Century can be traced back to the seemingly endless and pointless slaughter of WWI. Nihilistic philosophy and worldviews continue to plague us to the present day.
Late in 1999, a local radio station invited callers to pick the most important person of the 20th Century. Names like FDR, Churchill, Einstein, and Hitler were suggested and discussed. Towards the end of the show, a caller named Gavrilo Princip. I thought, “Of course! That’s it!” His assassin’s bullets unwittingly set into motion a chain of events that led to WWI, WWII, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, the moon landing, the computer revolution, and more.
The Republican party deserves to lose. It deserves to die.
I see/saw positives in 7 of the 8 GOP contenders. The field of candidates is not the problem. The party stands to serve its own power structure. It may be collapsing under the weight of its prejudices. It has failed to persuade and include a fresh generation of Republicans.
It is still my father’s GOP. In the abstract, it should be my political home. In practice, I am not welcome there. Don’t expect flowers for the grave.
I don’t think it’s entirely self-sabotage. I think most of the failures in the Republican party were caused by Democrat agents working behind the scenes.