Posted on 07/16/2015 5:49:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
Tactics are important. History is replete with examples of superior forces being defeated by smaller armies with a better battle plan. Conservatives lose for the same reason: We have no battle plan.
For years conservatives were content to be correct. Socialism doesn’t work. Fascism was a horrendous failure. Communism collapsed under its own weight. Each time conservatives were vindicated in their opposition to these failed branches of the progressive ideological tree. But at the end of each battle we made the mistake of assuming the war was over. It wasn’t and never will be.
Every progressive victory was preceded by repeated failure, sometimes decades of it. And each time, conservatives thought that was the end of the issue. A prime example of this is Hillarycare in the early ‘90s. It was a crushing rebuke of socialism and led to the Republican revolution in 1994. But the issue never went away, progressives never stopped working toward their goal, and, eventually, they won.
Remember the Contract with America in the ‘90s? A balanced budget amendment, term limits, Social Security reform, etc., etc. What happened to those policy goals? Aside from random candidates pledging to serve X number of terms, they aren’t talked about anymore with regularity on a national scale.
When Hillarycare went down, Republicans didn’t rush to fill that void. The problems with the health care system did not miraculously go away when that project went down in flames. There was no concerted effort to rally the country around a free-market-based health care system. There were just minor nips around the edges to appease various groups. The GOP’s failure to put forth a vision and fight for passage of any sort of reform in the wake of that victory led to a massive loss for the country on Obamacare.
I’ve asked several Republican members of Congress, mostly conservatives, about the party’s vision for replacing Obamacare. Most say they are waiting to get behind the plan of the eventual presidential nominee. But that’s not a strategy. That’s a dodge.
Rather than focus on issues that affect people’s lives and create jobs, such as replacing Obamacare with a real, market-based system that empowers individuals, Republicans sit and wait. But no matter how long they wait, Godot never shows.
Conservatives are rudderless, but progressives are relentless.
Not a day goes by I don’t get some email from the Democratic National Committee or Organizing for America or some other left-wing group extoling whatever issue they’re pushing. Forcing companies to provide paid sick leave to every employee? It’s a national imperative. Raising the minimum wage? Lives depend on it. “Stronger” overtime rules? People are being hurt. Guns? People are being killed by these inanimate objects and we must stop it now.
It’s all garbage and lies. These issues are nowhere near the top of the list of concerns of the American people, but, if history holds, some form of each will be rammed through Congress and signed by a progressive president within the next 20 years unless conservatives offer a counter-vision.
That’s not to say the GOP has to offer its own “solutions” to these problems. There are plenty of issues out there and no reason to let opponents choose the battlefield. But what do Republicans want to do? What’s their vision?
The left not only chooses the battlefields, it defines the terms of the fight. A lone monster does something awful with a gun, and the narrative becomes the need to control everyone’s exercise of their Second Amendment rights. The president and progressive politicians (and the media, but I repeat myself) stampede to microphones with a uniform message of how “something must be done.”
An illegal alien with a gun stolen from the government murders a woman walking with her father, and she might as well not have existed. For all his faults, were it not for Donald Trump, the name Kate Steinle not only already would be forgotten, it never would have been known. Yet progressives are unified in their “You shouldn’t punish everyone for the actions of one person” message (in this case; they do want to punish everybody for Dylann Roof’s crimes), and no prominent politician on the right points out the hypocrisy.
Progressives never stop, and they don’t care how many bodies or how much destruction they leave in their wake in achieving their objectives. Dozens of Democrats were thrown out of Congress for their vote in support of Obamacare, and they knew it would happen before they cast it. Republicans can’t bring themselves to use the constitutional power of the purse to force any concessions on Obamacare – even though that’s how most of them got to Congress in the first place – because they’re afraid of how people could perceive it and they might lose their jobs.
Democrats have a strategy, a battle plan they’re willing to do anything to advance. Republicans have facts, statistics, history and no clue what to do with them. If you can’t sell freedom, if you can’t convince citizens of the importance of liberty, you will lose. More importantly, you will deserve to lose.
If the GOP and whoever the presidential candidate ends up being can’t commit to an agenda with vision, one of growth and liberty with the tenacity their political opponents bring to its antithesis, 2016 will be another example of Republicans snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Voter fraud
“Conservatives are rudderless, but progressives are relentless.”
Out of that whole article, this is all you need to know.
We. Are. Screwed.
The problem is because we don’t really have many Conservatives leaders in elected offices. Many Republicans who run as a Conservatives are fakes. I guestimate maybe 90% of them. Only 10% are true conservatives. This is why noone could articulate counter arguments against Left wing policies because most Republicans actually believe in them too
Without it, they can’t win.
Conservativism is about the government NOT intervening in the market or in daily life unless there is a thoroughly compelling reason to do so.
The criticism of the GOP for failing to jump in with their own response to Hillarycare is therefore a vapid one.
The reason Libs win is our native population is getting dumber, we are importing millions of Socialists, and they all want free stuff.
They always fight (never give in or compromise) and they do not stop fighting (even after they win)
Liberals win because they own the press..... that’s the only reason.
Thanks, Kaslin,
GREAT analysis!
And yet “JEB” still says the GOP will “win” because of our “ideology”...
Politics is a blood sport.
Dem strategists understand this, that’s why they fight dirty. “It’s the economy, stupid”, “war on women”, etc. When have Republicans ever come up with an in-your-face slogan like those?
GOP leaders seem to think each Presidential campaign is a debating club, where you get points for being polite. So they continue to lose, because they always make sure a “get-along” wimp, not a fighter, gets the nomination.
WRONG - you get rewarded for destroying your opponent, by any means possible. Why can’t Repub leaders & strategists understand this??
BTW, That’s also why Trump scares the crap of these “party leaders”.
You win the Cupie Doll.
Obvious to all who care to observe.
But wait until you read some of the “nuanced” comments to come from the trolls. It’ll make you puke.
It’s Conservatism vs Free S*it.
Mittens was right about one thing, to paraphrase:
“How can you fight Santa Claus?”
“The left not only chooses the battlefields, it defines the terms of the fight.”
Yes. This is the key. 1) Libs control the media, so they can jump on any event and immediately spin it the way they want and make it mean whatever they want. This works for them because 2) Libs are led by emotions, not by logic and 3)They think in the short-term, not the long-term. Ask them about the implications of their ideas, and, more than likely, they won’t be able to respond, because they haven’t thought about it! And, even if they end up “believing” two opposing things at the same time, that’s OK with them.
Republicans insist on being straight-laced, calm, and logical. They will never figure it out.
Not at all. While they were supposed to be fighting Obamacare tooth and nail, they were instead dealing with insurance company donors who found ways to profit from it. Instead of refusing to fund it in the HOR, they said "let's use it as a campaign issue so we can get majority in both the HOR and US Senate". They got those majorities, and screwed us with the new "let's fix Obamacare".
You can't fix it or replace it. We need leaders who will articulate a free-market solution. Instead you've got millions more people dependent on Medicare. From what I've seen, most people who get tangled up in Medicare never find their way back into productive self-sufficient lives. We wanted freedom from government interference in our lives; instead the Republicans gave us fascism.
How can you defend these backstabbers? The 'pubs enabled Obamacare. And PS: never forget that GWB expanded federal interference by providing Medicare Part D, the pharmaceutical option for seniors. That should never have been anything but private plans.
Also Libs eat, sleep and breathe politics. Some of these dirty tricks convince me that somebody must have laid awake in bed for several nights thinking them up.
By contrast the rest of us have lives.
With the NEA and the MSM pushing the Liberal agenda... Conservatives have to work three times as hard.
1.) Defeat your opponent
2.) Counter MSM bias
3.) De program NEA bias
If that is the only reason, that the press is helping them with voter fraud
I think we are talking about two different things.
The article points to the failure of Hillarycare, which failed in 1993. It tries to argue that Newt Gingrich & Co. should have jumped in and proposed a “fix” to health care in order to own the issue.
I argue that would not be in keeping with Conservative principles.
The corrupt GOP backstabbing over Obamacare, two decades hence, is a separate issue. (other than obviously that is a much more egregious example of violating Conservative principles).
No, we’re talking about the same thing. The only fix is for the feds to get out of medicine. The “solution” then and now should never have been anything except the free market.
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