The Establishment vs. The People

Red State ^ | 8/5/2013 | Erick Erickson

[IbJensen]

This year’s RedState Gathering was a wonderful event. There was, however, one interesting moment with a guy from the National Republican Senatorial Committee worth sharing.

Friday afternoon as I was trying to make my way to Governor Jindal’s reception, the guy from the NRSC stopped me and very derisively asked if I was going to support anyone other than challengers to incumbents. He went so far as to claim I must be making money to support challengers against incumbents and let me know RedState would be blamed if the GOP did not take back the majority.

What was most fascinating, however, was that he demanded I name candidates RedState supports in states without incumbents as proof RedState does not somehow get paid to push challengers. I mentioned Larry Rhoden in South Dakota, at which point he started bad mouthing State Senator Rhoden and revealing NRSC opposition research on Senator Rhoden.

I also mentioned Dr. Greg Brannon in North Carolina, but he was dismissive of him too.

This all comes as multiple friends of this site, in conversations with me, told me the National Republican Senatorial Committee contacted them to do negative stories about the Madison Project — a conservative group I am a big supporter of. Why? Because the Madison Project endorsed Matt Bevin in Kentucky against Senator Mitch McConnell. Full disclosure: the Madison Project’s Daniel Horowitz is a RedState contributor, which is why these friends reached out to give me a heads up.

So let’s recap — the NRSC is pushing hit jobs against conservative organizations who don’t support their incumbents in primaries. They are claiming conservatives who don’t support their candidates are getting paid to do so. They demand to know who conservatives support in open races then bashing those candidates.

And they call this outreach.

Friends, this is exactly why we have the RedState Gathering. You’d never have the opportunity to hear for yourselves people like Matt Bevin, Bryan Smith, Rob Maness, Art Halvorson, and Larry Rhoden if the NRSC and its establishment friends had anything to do with it.

Each year we do the RedState Gathering and I invite the speakers and I approve the sponsors. We returned money for some politicians who thought they could buy their way into the Gathering to get a platform. We refused large sponsorships from various Republicans because we did not want to be associated with them. We aren’t CPAC and work hard to present people we either fully support or are interested in supporting.

It is a sad commentary on the part of anyone at the NRSC that they would see RedState turning down money and then claim we are getting paid to do what we do. I would submit that is more a reflection on them than us and it is also a reason why we must commit to growing the RedState Gathering every year so the grassroots can experience authentically conservative candidates outside the world of the establishment and the coin operated portions of the movement.

Lastly — should you see any conservative outlets attacking groups like the Madison Project or Heritage Action for America or Club for Growth or others, it is probably a clear sign these outlets are on the side of the incumbent establishment leaders who’ve been complicit in getting us to $17 trillion in national debt, but think the only problem with government is Democrats in charge of it.

[IbJensen]

Lakeworthcane said it best:

Even just a casual look back over the last 40 years of US politics shows that our country's party monikers--"republican" and "democrat"--and the supposed opposition between the two, are largely superficial. Politicians from both parties have, to a great extent, wrought the same conditions: government expansion, debt spending, isolation from and lack of accountability to the people they serve, and a generally self-serving environment in which the politicians enrich themselves by various unethical means . . . usually at the nation's expense.

Even when republicans have controlled both the congress and the executive over the last 40 years, government and debt spending have grown.

What's more, the experience you've related above at least suggests that the people who view political office as a means to power and wealth rather than as means to serve the country will likely become quite vicious as they compete for that which they either want or see as their entitlement. That is to say, anybody who confronts these people had better be prepared for some nastiness; competition in the US political arena has an overriding "anything goes" characteristic. These are not kind, giving people who want to "live and let live" or "let bygones be bygones." They're ruthlessly aggressive and will do anything to win.

In short, they are--to me, anyway--the very last people we want in political office because they're simply too ruthlessly self-interested: simply too mean. I think politics are more appropriately about service to others, not one's self. Service to others is an act of kindness.

My Faith would have me hold such views. Are we, or we we not, "one nation, under God"? When our politicians utter, "God bless America," in their speeches, do they mean it, or do they see those words as mere rhetoric: political tools?

I find myself asking, "what kinds of people are they?" Are they the kinds of people who will exploit even religious faith to achieve their self-serving ends? Are they about giving of themselves or taking for themselves?

From this I start to at least wonder if it's not at least partly a certain personality type, rather than affiliation with a political party, that identifies those who'd best serve the country as politicians: strong people, of course, but those who are fundamentally kind and giving as opposed to ruthlessly self serving.

Perhaps I'm naive, believing that US politics could ever afford lasting purchase to genuinely good people. It's likely that the relentlessly savage nature of our political arena, and human weakness in general, would corrupt even the best among us.

But, no, I think it is possible. I think we have at least a few genuinely good politicians, and I think you've identified more genuinely good people who want to serve others and not themselves; and I think our political system can be restructured to at least minimize its self-serving capacities . . ..

Although, again, those who see politics as a means to power and wealth will fight, and fight ruthlessly, and use any means necessary, to preserve the political arena's most negative aspects.

That behavior alone--at least in my opinion--is almost enough to identify them as those who have no business in roles requiring service to others.

I believe genuinely kind people are best suiting to serving others, and smaller, less-intrusive government is best suited to serving America.