In yesterday’s thread we talked about the problems in Congress between the GOP and conservatives. Today I want to highlight part of a comment by “Mark” that goes like this:
“McConnell’s gift is his brutally candid assessment of reality” and the flaw of conservatives is that our overwhelming desire for instant deployment of our principles overlooks the checks and balances that stand in our way. Ironically, those checks and balances are the part of a CONSERVATIVE framework laid out by our Founders. We conservatives act like petulant children who don’t like being told that major obstacles put what we want out of reach, or that smaller steps are the best we can do in the present.
For example in 2013 McConnell knew he couldn’t win the effort to block Obamacare funding. He didn’t want to fund Obamacare, but more importantly, he didn’t want the GOP to reinforce branding as the cruel party of government shutdown. Cruz was a fool to do the shutdown stunt, but it served his personal ambitions at the expense of the appeal of conservatism to the general electorate.
McConnell’s pragmatism needs to be comprehended and not derided in knee jerk declarations of “RINO.”
I’m fairly certain that a lot of readers here would disagree vehemently with Mark. But I think he is correct in his general point that conservatives’ “overwhelming desire for instant deployment of our principles overlooks the checks and balances that stand in our way.” That is something I’ve been writing about for years, although I never said it quite as elegantly and succinctly as Mark does right there.
For example, I keep seeing cries of “get rid of Boehner” and/or “get rid of McConnell.” But other than acting as a conservative pep rally firing up the base, the call to do this lacks some fairly important details such as how it could happen. When last I checked, both positions were elective offices voted on by colleagues, and unless there is widespread support for a challenge it has no chance of succeeding. Conservatives often accuse the establishment wing of the GOP of going for the empty gesture or kabuki theater (often a correct charge, by the way), but they themselves seem to be rather enthusiastic about their own empty gestures and kabuki theater.
For example, I happen to think highly of Ted Cruz: smart as a whip, articulate, bold, and a principled conservative with whom I agree on most issues. But I think his strategy is to appeal to the conservative base with gestures that are doomed to failure while at the same time offending most of his colleagues in the Senate (see this, for example). The reason is that Cruz lacks a power base, and the establishment is called “the establishment” for a reason: they have a power base, and they have the numbers.
That’s why I say that the way to combat the establishment in the Senate is to get more conservatives in there. If you can’t elect more conservatives right away, that means you have to work harder to convince people of the rightness of the conservative cause, raise more money, and expand conservative ideas into the forums of media, entertainment, and academia. If that’s not quick enough for you, that’s too bad, because the others have been playing this game for a long long time. And if you don’t care about winning control of Congress and think it’s a lost cause, then you have to have an alternate approach.
Then there’s what commenter “Jimmy J” wrote yesterday, which I think is right on the money and relevant to the whole question of what to do about Congress. Here’s an excerpt:
I once worked for a Naval Officer who thought like a politician. Whenever an issue or problem came up he would immediately go into this mode of thinking: What will the big brass think, what will SECDEF think, what will my sailors think, how will this be perceived in the civilian world, and the final piece of the puzzle ”“ how can I address this and enhance my career?
It was a new experience for me. I had always been in operating units and our problems usually consisted of a mission and how we accomplished that mission. Except for directions or commands from higher authority, we never gave a second thought to how what we were doing to complete the mission would look to anyone else. That tour of duty (2 years) gave me an insight into how the Pentagon and Washington DC work…
IMO, that is why so much of what we see in our representatives seems so mystifying and horrifying. We see what appears to be a straightforward way to solve a problem, but we don’t see the checklists of donors, lobbyists, friends, other party members, journalists, personal preferences, career enhancement chances, etc., etc. that influence what actually happens.
The behavior is clearly endemic to politics. In that sense both parties are alike, and in fact ALL parties will always be alike, and nearly all politicians will be, as well. The problem is inherent, unavoidable, inevitable, baked in the cake, etc. Conservatives (or those who say they are conservative) are hardly immune, either, and anyone who goes into politics can (and probably will) end up this way even if the person doesn’t start out that way.
So what’s the solution? My attitude towards politics and politicians has long been a practical one. I’ll summarize it as this: don’t expect much, and vote for the ones least likely to do the worst damage. That means conservatives usually; next in line are Republicans. It’s really a rather simple decision most of the time. But it is a frustrating process because it doesn’t advance things very far, or at least it certainly hasn’t up to this point.
In terms of electoral politics, however, I see no alternative. Congress is never going to be composed of a majority—or anywhere near it—of principled people, much less principled conservatives.
What I don’t understand is why so many conservatives focus on rage at Republicans, as though they’re the biggest problem. They’re not. They’re just part of a much much bigger problem. Nor do I understand why so many conservatives say there’s no difference who you vote for, and that both parties are the same. They are not, and although they share many characteristics (as I’ve noted above), the Democrats and the left do more damage in the long run. So why enable them with your vote, or with your abstention from voting?
[NOTE: Also see commenter Eric’s response to Jimmy J.]
