Time to Grow Up, GOP

Townhall.com ^ | January 16, 2013 | Jonah Goldberg

[Wyatt's Torch]

Good post. The GOP constantly screams about spending cuts and they don’t work unless your goal is to go into recession and making the deficit problem worse.. The only economic solution to our debt problem is economic growth. Period. Obama has instituted so many regulation that are crushing economic growth that we will never be able to get out of this mess if nothing changes. The GOP message needs to be to educate the public on pro-growth policies. Just slashing spending will never work.

[Lakeshark]

Sorry, those that took their ball and went home, the ones Breitbart warned, who should have listened but were to arrogant to try, they lost the election (and the country), they gave the Marxist his reelection. They were the ones who listened to the Axelrod proclamations that the two candidates were the same.

It's unfortunate that they won't be the only ones who will have to deal with his monstrosity of the week, all of us will suffer greatly for their stupidity.

[CatherineofAragon]

Jonah is absolutely full of it. I’ve read Before the Storm, about the 1960 campaign, and right now I’m reading The Crusader, a bio of Pat Buchanan and his runs for the presidency. Both books fully and clearly establish the weak, cowardly moderation that infects the GOP. They document the inescapable fact that Republicans are deeply embarrassed by and ashamed of true conservatives. It’s always been this way.

Rush said it a while back.....the Republican party has always contained conservatives, but it has never BEEN a conservative party.

[xzins]

Romney is the one with the ball, Lake. HE’S the one who took the ball and went home with it. It’s up in Connecticut or Massachusetts or Michigan or Utah...whichever one is actually home to him.

Romney refused to play with the conservatives.

You can’t blame a couple million anonymous, little name people when ONE GUY could have changed everything by simply shutting up on some things, reaching out on others, and going on the attack on foreign affairs.

There weren’t 3 million little balls. There was ONE BALL.

And Romney was the candidate, so Romney had the ball.

[lodi90]

The only economic solution to our debt problem is economic growth. Period. Obama has instituted so many regulation that are crushing economic growth that we will never be able to get out of this mess if nothing changes.

---

It is only going to get worse. The obama indirect tax plan seems to be to push the costs of socialist government on to businesses. They will then have to raise their prices, cut employees, etc.

That will devastate the economy and spending power of consumers. The dims will try to claim they didn’t raise taxes on the “middle class”. It’s a truly viscous cycle we are entering.

[xzins]

A depression might cause Americans to turn back to their God.

That would be the best that could possibly happen.

[Wyatt's Torch]

The left is all aglow with the Krugman piece last week stating that “the deficit problem is over” because it will “come down naturally over the next few years as a percent of GDP.” So i asked one of the, on Twitter what the implied GDP growth rate was in those projections. The CBO is assuming AVERAGE growth of 4.7 percent from 2014 - 2020. Absolute joke growth rates. We haven’t seen a period like that in ages.

[a fool in paradise]

argued that political change was impossible because the masses were rubes, goons, fools or sheep, victims of the eternal tendency of the powerful to exploit the powerless.

Political change IS underway through a 4+ decade barrage and infestation by New Left Democrats who openly have a hard on for Communist dictatorships. The media, academia, and DNC stinks of their rhetoric.

It became "a scandal" to call out Communists at some point in this country. Those who say it is scandalous are among the red dupes who are blind to the problems of Socialist Utopian visions. As if the rhetoric and "lists" regarding gun owners is somehow more "well intentioned" than the outing of traitors in the State Department in coordination with the Soviet Union.

[lodi90]

And Romney was the candidate, so Romney had the ball.

---

Exactly. It’s not difficult. Romney lost because he BUNGLED THE CAMPAIGN. He knew what to do. He whipped the kenyan in the first debate. He whipped the MSM at the Jacksonville press conference. He CHOSE not to do that more often. He CHOSE not to fight back against the outrageous smears in critical places like OH, etc., etc.

The loss is all on Romney and his campaign. It shouldn’t have even been close. I find it silly to blame his errors and subsequent election loss on those who didn’t vote.

[a fool in paradise]

Worse, it's possible to be a rank-and-file conservative without once being exposed to a good liberal argument.

I have yet to hear a "good liberal argument".

They have no qualms about lying (how many phony anecdotal friends do the Democrats bring up, like the "racist" hunter who supports gun control?). Any "outrage" they have over "war crimes" disappears when the president has a D after his name.

I saw a book in the 1990s that "solved" 10 controversial issues. Among them were abortion/overpopulation/teen pregnancy. The theorist said first that the issue over whether abortion kills a living thing needs to be set aside. After that, the issue is "resolved" because abortion is used on demand. THAT is a "good liberal argument"?

Not one liberal who said it is "wrong" for Warren Buffett's secretary to "pay more taxes" than he does bothered to discuss how he owes a billion dollars in back taxes. So much for an honest discussion.

[Bigg Red]

I’ll grow up, Jonah, when I’m certain I’m playing with adults.

&&&
Post of the day, IMO.

[Moonman62]

This is not only not true, it's a destructive myth. The Rockefeller Republicans were purged from the GOP decades ago.

They weren't purged. They became Bush Republicans. The GOP today at the national level is all about growing the government, and screwing the rank and file. Jonah couldn't be more wrong.

[Moonman62]

How can Jonah write such an article without mentioning Reagan? I think Jonah has turned into an apologist for the GOPe.

[copaliscrossing]

I agree, for conservatives, the GOP is a ruined brand.

Time for a new party.

Sounds like a wet dream for the democRAT party. Infiltrate and demoralize the Republican party...check... "New" party for conservatives only...check... We will be in power for at least another decade while the "new" ideologically pure party is building....check... pass whatever we want during that decade....check... Appoint "our" federal judges for another decade...check.

I agree this last election was a setback but I agree that framing the message properly is the biggest problem "we" have. Our message needs to convince the "low information voter" that what we are offering is better in the long run than what the democRATs are offering and I believe with all my heart that it starts with a takeover of established mainstream media sources. You can have a perfectly crafted message but in todays media, if they don't want the "low information voters" to hear that message....it won't be heard. ESPECIALLY if it is an effective message. They will create a "crisis" to give cover as to why the perfectly crafted message wasn't "covered"

[jboot]

We are already in an economic debacle equivalent to a depression, it simply isn't being reported as such and will not be. Assuming that honest people write our history, they will note that the USA lost more wealth and jobs in the 2008-???? economic disaster than at any time since records were kept.

By "hard reset" I mean something more on the order of Weimar Republic hyperinfation or the Argentine currency collapse. Or some sort of unprecedented disaster that obliterates normal services. The media machine will not be able to pretend that it isn't happening, especially when the power goes out and stays out at the studio.

It might be enough to bring Americans back to God. Or not. But with the Boy King at the helm we may get to find out soon.

[donna]

American conservatism began as a kind of intellectual hobbyist's group with little hope of changing the broader society.

So, the Founders were not conservative?

Jonah has always been a huckster.

[kevkrom]

My rule of thumb is that if I agree with any politician 100% of the time, one of us is lying.

My take on it is that if I agree with any politician 100% of the time, then I am the politician.

Michele Bachmann voted in favor of ethanol subsidies as a freshman but that hardly puts her in the same category as a Fred Upton or John Boehner.

Perhaps, but my problem with Bachmann is that when push comes to shove, she sides with the establishment, e.g. her recent vote for Bonehead as Speaker.

[oyez]

The GOP needs to study and learn from the political working of states like Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas if it wants a future.

[BlackElk]

Benghazi? Benghazi? OK, so our ambassador was anally raped and murdered!

OTOH, what has that got to do with Obozo's agenda of bankrupting America, destroying the middle class, continuing his international dictator's butt-kissing tour; golf at the best country clubs, multi-zillion dollar "vacation trips taking Moochelle and her parasite friends and fellow Marxists at our expense???

And what did it have to do with the care and feeding of the trust funds of the rich and brainless which is Mittens the Mild's (very nice description!) one and only priority other than personal power to do most of Obozo's priority list to show that "Rich Republicans are people, too!!!" ?

[BlackElk]

Lakeshark:

Give it a rest already. None of us who refused to vote for a POS like Romney regret it. Nor shall we ever regret it. OTOH, you aren't likely to change your mind either. It is time to get on with our respective lives.

Want our votes in the future??? Earn them by nominating a candidate worth voting for. That goes not only for POTUS but for Senate, House, Governorships, state legislators and party officials.

The rigged 2012 election is over. Get over it. If you are actually a conservative, look to the future for a CONSERVATIVE result not some half vast leftist crap like Romney, McCain, Dole, Bush the Elder, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon or whomever of that ilk. Get on board with a real conservative agenda or understand that conservatives will launch our own party and destroy the GOP. Most of us will still vote in GOP primaries while we are at it. If that does not produce acceptable candidates, so be it. Third party, here we come! When, as a result, the upper marginal tax rates return to 90%, it will be the GOP-E who get to pay those rates, not me or most conservatives. I hope that they will be satisfied with themselves.

Since the GOP-E have no interest (at least not a constructive interest) in saving babies, saving marriage as an institution, religious freedom, gun rights, slashing gummint waste (that they benefit from), nationalism, interventionism when justified and other real issues because they are so totally obsessed with the interests of the Junior League and the trust fund babies, conservatives have no interest in electing GOP-E greedheads and other GOP-E trash to public office. Not being Obozo is NOT ENOUGH.

Your boy Romney was an enemy of the babies, of marriage, of religious freedom, of gun rights, of slashing gummint waste, of nationalism, of justified interventionism, and of each and every policy position that actual conservatives actually CARE about. You can protest all you want that only Ron Paul was worse in your eyes as a GOP candidate but you confess voting for Romney and he is yours now and forever. You own his royal Romneyness. Get on board for actual conservative efforts and bygones can again be bygones. OR keep on defending the evil POS Romney and the GOP-E and continue to be utterly irrelevant.

Finally, Joshua Goldberg can take his accommodationist BS and go straight to hell along with what passes for National Review nowadays. If the Northeast is destroyed by earthquake, it will be Bill Buckley rolling in his grave over the garbage that NR has become.