Posted on 06/01/2005 8:07:06 AM PDT by Valin
Last week, a lot of conservatives were lamenting that Republicans had lost the judicial compromise in Congress. “Harry Reid wore a big smile while Bill Frist was glum,” said one columnist. “Who do you think won?”
Yet at the same moment, the New York Public Library was selling “Kindred Spirits,” one of the most prized paintings in New York history, to Alice Walton of Arkansas, one of the Wal-Mart heirs. Significantly, New York City was simultaneously fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent the first Wal-Mart store from opening within its borders. Even more amazing, no one in New York saw the irony.
That’s a much more telling sign than who won any temporary wrestling match over the appointment of appeals court judges.
Every demographic trend in the country now favors the Republicans. Look at New York. Eliot Spitzer is chasing business out of the city so fast people can’t keep count. About a month ago, The New York Times ran the headline, “City Economy Recovers Without Usual Suspects,” purporting to show that New York City is “diversifying” away from its dependence on Wall Street. When you look at the graph, however, you realize the story is entirely different. There is no “recovery” in New York. Employment has barely climbed to where it was four years ago. The only “trend” is that Wall Street employment continues to decline while the city stagnates.
Over 90 percent of the growth in financial services around the country has been outside Manhattan. Last week, Crain’s New York Business reported that the insurance industry is leaving as well, with AG Spitzer hot on its tail. Even the Times is laying people off because of declining revenues. Is this a culture that can continue to dominate the electorate?
During the last election, 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the United States voted for Bush. This is no “swing of the pendulum” but the breaking up of an electoral iceberg that had sat atop the country for 150 years. When the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in 1994, Newt Gingrich made a simple observation: “The Civil War is finally over.” For 130 years the South – the most conservative part of the country - voted Democratic because the Democrats had supported slavery. This created weird monstrosities like the Roosevelt Coalition, in which urban liberals ruled the country by relying on the support of Southern segregationists.
Now that situation has changed. The South has given up its antebellum fantasies and is becoming more and more middle class every day. Meanwhile, the Democratic base continues to shrink to the remnants of their urban machines plus a handful of university towns. Democrats won’t be regaining Congress any time soon. They may win a Presidency or two because people like divided government, but as far as Congress is concerned, the conservative ascendancy has not peaked.
The flywheel in the system, of course, is the judiciary. It takes longest to change because of the slow replacement of judicial appointments and the logic of judicial precedent. Courts can’t simply legislate de novo (at least they’re not supposed to) but must build up a long series of incremental changes. Right now the federal judiciary is still spinning with momentum built up in the Roosevelt-Kennedy-Johnson Era. But it is slowly reversing. The transformation – when it comes - will be just as long lasting.
Democrats are operating under the assumption that if they can just stop a Patricia Owen or Janet Rogers Brown there will be no one to take either nominee’s place. This is a wild delusion. The ranks of the state judiciaries are filled with people of similar mind and temperament. Owen and Brown are representative of the mainstream. Congressional Democrats just don’t realize it.
As Byron York observes in A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy¸ the ranks of Democratic activists – MoveOn, America Coming Together and other “grassroots” organizations now taking over the party – are entirely filled with white, upper-middle-class, college-educated people. The traditional Democratic constituencies – labor, Catholics, Africa-Americans – are no longer there. Just watch Howard Dean running around the country trying to pass himself off as a born-again Baptist and you’ll see the tawdry results.
The Republicans are holding a winning hand. The only instances where they have failed in the long march toward a national majority were when they became impatient and overreached. Watergate, a decade-long setback, came because of President Nixon’s extreme sense of isolation in Washington. Newt Gingrich met his demise when he lost an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with President Clinton.
When everything is moving in your direction, there’s no sense in gambling it all on one big pot. Even if the GOP had won the filibuster showdown, the country would be left with a sense that Republicans had to change the rules in order to assure their victory. The Democrats will be back to filibustering again soon, when Supreme Court nominations arise. But the public will be less and less tolerant. The more Democrats play a game of pure obstruction, the more they sound like a shrill and irrelevant minority.
Bill Tucker is a weekly columnist for TAEonline.
But if the Dems become nugatory, won't the Republicans split into two parties?
Then politics as usual will resume.
Moron.
We have never stopped fighting those who we oppose, they just happen to have changed parties. Anti-federalists now come in both Democrap and pubbie flavors. For a while, the GOP supported our views on confederation and states' rights. For a while. The GOP will be so shocked when they discover the solid South isn't quite as solid as they thought. We won't be going back to the freaks and froot loops in the Democrat party, but if the GOP keeps playing games, they might get a nasty surprise as well.
"But if the Dems become nugatory, won't the Republicans split into two parties? "
There appears to be a third party on the horizon, one of which will hava a lasting impact on American politics.
Watch out for a moderate party formed from both parties. That group of 14 made some peoples heads turn. IMHO, it was a word of caution to both left and right. Ross Perot came close. With his money, someone from this group might go farther.
If a third party comes,expect it to split the Dems into Libs and ultra Libs. The Repussicans(mostly in the Senate) are realists(except for "Capt.Queeg" McCain) and are willing to accecpt a broader spectrum of ideas that the Dems are.
As long as the ideas are Pro-America, Pro-AmeriCAN, Pro-Sovereignty, and PRO-NATIONAL DEFENSE, then I'd agree. Otherwise, McCain has led the party and America over the cliff.
I can see the Republicans splitting into 2 parties...Conservative and Moderate. The Dems are still too entrenched in their socialist George Soros philosophy to have a split just yet. People in Dem party could move it a little more to the center...like Hilldabeast is trying to do with her image.....but we all know she's putting that on like cheap make up. I see things a little more volatile in the republican Party. You have the Christian Conservatives, the Neo-Cons, and the Libertarians. How long are the three groups wiling to play ring around the rosy together?
As far as this Liberty Caucus Republican is concerned, the day I join something like the Constitutionalist or Libertarian Party is the day that the DNC dissolves itself. I'm not pleased with how the GOP handles many issues, but I'm willing to settle for small, incremental improvements over decades of time. Until the corpse of the Democratic party is cremated, put six feet under, and the earth for a mile around it salted with radioactive isotopes, we shouldn't ever take our eyes off the ball. The Democratic party will only get more vicious and dangerous the more we conservatives corner them; anyone thinking conservatives have an easy upper hand now is only fooling themselves.
This article is a bit too hopeful - we beat the Democrats, but by 3% points in the Presidential race, with an incumbenton our side at a time when changing is unthinkable.
In 4 years, the Democrats will be hungry, Hillary will be groomed and will have had 4 year of 'moderate' soundbites.
Meanwhile, the media and courts chip away at things so there is no 'conservative' consensus. And our own leaders/non-leader are their worst enemies with how they cater to the RINOs and traitors rather than keep them in line.
Meanwhile, we've replaced a liberal Democrat Congress that spent crazily with a moderately improved non-conservative Republican/RINO-led Congress that still spends in deficits and can't seem to shut a single program down.
The trend looks more like a holding pattern than a conservative victory.
You have the Christian Conservatives, the Neo-Cons, and the Libertarians. How long are the three groups wiling to play ring around the rosy together?"
As long as global socialists (NOW, ACLU, DNC or the local leftie fruitloop council member) and their agendas threaten us as patriotic Americans, we BETTER hang together, or, as Ben Franklin said, we shall hang separately.
The GOP has 3 legs: free market/libertarian/2nd-A freedom-lovers; 'Moral Majority'/evangelical Christians / social conservatives; the country club/taxpaying/main-street business and pro-prosperity Republicans.
You cannot stand up the party without the 3 legs combined.
All three have a place in the party and should have a voice in our agenda, together.
"During the last election, 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the United States voted for Bush."
During the last NASCAR season, 97 of the 100 fastest growing media markets for NASCAR viewership occured in those markets that voted for Bush....
I don't think NASCAR gets enough credit for what is happening to RED STATE USA ...
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