Posted on 03/21/2012 1:58:12 PM PDT by techno
A couple of days I ago I wrote a piece arguing from a macro-point of view that conservatives were saying and doing things during this GOP primary season which were essentially causing their own political self-destruction and selling themselves down the river.
But before I go any further what does "selling down the river" mean? It means to betray in such a manner that it causes serious difficulty for the one betrayed. Inherent in the phrase as it manifests itself is the feeling of separation or estrangement, the feeling of being uprooted, dislocated, and discombobulated, the perpetration of deceit or a false narrative and subsequent shame and humiliation.
With that in mind I am going to follow up on my original post and discuss the various aspects of how conservatives are selling themselves down the river:
1)The betrayal itself
To understand "the betrayal" one has to analyze the concept of betrayal from different points of view to fully understand the reasons why and how individual conservatives are betraying themselves and the movement. And let me offer the same disclaimer I posted before: Conservatives are NOT monolithic or one-dimensional. What may apply to one particular conservative may NOT apply to his fellow conservative and vice versa. But in term of the movement itself as represented by tens of millions of American patriots, these different aspects of betrayal do run the full gamut:
a)Conservatives betray themselves out of feeling politically inadequate or inferior to the "political pros" and the media. There can lead to one having a general feeling of hesitancy and uncertainty in one's voting decision that is mainly due to cognitive dissonance.
It is like an amateur golfer in the gallery marveling and standing in awe to how a golf pro can hit a golf ball 325 yards from the tee to the middle of the fairway. The inferiority is mostly self-imposed.
b)Conservatives betray themselves and conservative candidates by not supporting them for office. Imagine what you would think of Tom Brady if he was being disloyal to the Patriots by promoting the merits and virtues of another NFL team during the off-season. So why are some conservatives disloyal to conservative candidates (and to their team) by continually nitpicking them to death or promoting the opposing side?
c) Deliberate betrayal of principle, values, conviction etc. for the expediency of the moment or from an inducement to betray them: The political definition of a "cheap date" or a woman who is considered easy. Some conservatives simply are too impressionable or are too easily led astray by their enemies.
d)In some cases conservative betrayal is done unwittingly or unintentionally and some don't even realize they have betrayed themselves and the cause after they have done it. Plain ignorance or being clueless dimwits.
2)The separation or estrangement aspect of selling themselves down the river
In China, the Manchu (Qing) dynasty, a group of elite foreigners and a minority, ruled the middle kingdom and its residents from 1644 to 1912. The GOP establishment and GOP permanent political class has established the same kind of relationship with the Republican Party and the rank-and-file. In what aspect?
If you think about it, the one thing that always appears to happen in the GOP presidential race in each primary cycle (except for Reagan) is that the conservative base which represents 2/3 of the party ends up kowtowing to other 1/3 which is made up of a combination of liberals and moderates. And why is this so?
In China, the Manchus adopted these methods in pursuing their goals:
a)Keeping the Manchus as a separate class of elites. with privilege and in superior positions to ordinary Chinese
b)Winning over the scholar/official (intellectual/government) class to their policies by bestowing favors on them. To flip it around if one was a member of this class, one could expect favors or privileges from the dynasty.
c)Keeping the different regions of China apart by not promoting a common language within China (Mandarin vs Cantonese); not promoting a common culture or common interests. Think about it from a metaphorical point of view, does most of conservatism speak to each other using the same language?
d)And following from #3, similar to native Indian tribes in America at the time of the great migration west in the nineteenth century who considered neighboring tribes a greater threat than the white man, the various "tribes" within China considered their next-door neighbor a greater enemy to their safety and peace of mind than the Manchu dynasty.
In other words, if you are a conservative and you seriously analyze the conservative movement over the last few decades, you are left to wonder why has the conservative movement never gotten their act together and united as one? And then you look at the history of China and the Manchu Dynasty and transpose it now you realize this has all been orchestrated by the enemies of conservatives to keep them forever apart, disunited and often at odds with each other more than they are with the GOP establishment or the permanent political class. And then you realize our enemies have met with great success in adopting these tactics every four years, dusting off their old playbook: Witness Bush 41, Dole, McCain and now Romney.
As I wrote the other day, this is the great weakness of the conservative movement. And when you couple that with the conservative movement having no unified leadership under one umbrella, you are left with hundreds of personal fiefdoms ruled by conservative leaders whose only interest is advancing their own agenda and not finding compatibility or common ground with the rest of the conservative movement.
In other words the conservative movement is selling itself down the river for not coming to terms with this failure in logistics and organizational structure. The separation and estrangement each fiefdom maintains from each other is simply counterproductive and internecine and makes it easy for a unified enemy to prevail as perceived group indecision, internal squabbles and countervailing opinions continually weaken the integrity of the entire movement.
3)The feeling of being uprooted, dislocated or discombobulated in being sold down the river
The goal of the enemies of the conservative movement whether on the Right, the Left on in the media is to in football terms, "to never allow the conservative movement to get into a rhythm" and to "never allow the quarterback feel comfortable in the pocket."
Have you noticed that there are way more stories about conservative candidates from the beginning of the primaries to now being more confused, irrational, unpredictable, ill-suited, ill-prepared, out of sorts, off message, making more unforced errors, becoming more outrageous, more unelectable, and simply worse candidates than Romney or Huntsman?
Regardless if the stories are true or not, the primary goal of these stories is to put conservatives on edge about conservative candidates, to cause them personal distress, to make them more dubious about their qualifications and over time to convince them they are NOT worthy or at least less deserving of their consideration and vote.
And conservatives sell themselves down the river by taking on the feelings that Negro slaves must have felt in pre-Civil war America when they were sold down the river by their masters. Frankly the masters didn't care if their former slaves were uprooted or not or if their lives were thrown into chaos. And neither do our enemies?
With the enemies of the conservative movement, this is one of their main objectives, to place conservatives in a crucible, to subject them to images and messaging that personally disturb their psyche and throw them for a loop, to subliminally subject them to mental torture over their deliberations who to vote for and finally out of this orchestrated chaos convince them the only way they can relieve themselves of this mental anguish, self-doubt, and daily political confusion is to vote for Mitt Romney. And to escape their daily torment many conservatives go over to the dark side without realizing that their mental pain and suffering was NOT self-generated but caused and executed by deliberate tactical operations orchestrated by the enemy.
4)The perpetration of deceit and false narratives that cause conservatives to sell themselves down the river
This needs little explanation. How could conservatives be so quick to forget the electoral lessons of 2008 and vote for a moderate the "media foisted on them" as more electable?
I know many conservatives get mad at me for constantly pointing this out but without an adequate amount of very conservative, evangelical and Tea Party support, Mitt Romney would NOT be in a position today that he is. Check out the exit polls at CNN on the various state races if you don't believe me.
Yes, you can make the argument that the enemies of the conservative movement (the Left, Obama, the GOP establishment, RINO's etc) are really good at what they do and that conservatives are naive, gullible and unsophisticated but how can you really justify enough conservatives following for the same BS that was sent down to the "base" in 2008? Are their memories that short?
And as to the case a majority of these new Romney converts make that they are supporting Romney because he is the most electable or the only GOP candidate electable against Obama, the deceit perpetrated by our enemies to make such a false or exaggerated claim contrary to polling evidence is equivalent to admen in the 1950's and 1960's trying to convince Americans that smoking didn't lead to cancer or Goldwater was going to blow up the world. And finally the reason conservatives sell themselves down the river is they don't take the time to do the research to learn if Romney is indeed electable against the Messiah. Conservatives just accept that he is, as they accept what they read in the Bible is literally true. Sleep being led to the slaughter.
5)Shame and humiliation of selling themselves down the river
In today's PPP poll, Sarah Palin has the best net favorables (68/20) of all the four remaining GOP presidential candidates by a wide margin: Santorum (+29) and Romney (+19), Gingrich (+5).
Could this be an indication that conservatives en masse realize their shame and humiliation in abandoning Sarah Palin on the battlefield to be slaughtered by the enemy at the time of the Gifford's shooting and that they are trying to atone for it?
Or can conservatives be now simply throwing their hands up in the air and admit that its members have been snookered again by its enemies and they allowed it to happen again, despite plenty of warning from political observers like myself to be on the lookout?
Or could this be like a deathbed conversion, a eleventh hour ploy or a Hail Mary pass where conservatives repent and somehow magically or miraculously hope or pray that they will be saved from their eventual fate that they partly brought on themselves as I suggested in my earlier post?
Regardless, once a slave was sold down the river it was too late. He became the property of another master.
The betrayal by his former master became water under the bridge. No law could revoke it. The feelings of separation and estrangement that the slave felt as he was forcibly separated from his family and close friends would not earn him a sympathy card, the feelings of dislocation and chaos would soon subside as the slave became acquainted with his duties by his new master, the deceit of his former master would soon be a distant memory as he endeavored to survive his harsh treatment by his new master and finally the shame and humiliation the master felt for selling his slave in this manner and the shame and humiliation the slave must have felt by the instant reminder that he was actually a slave and not a privileged house servant would eventually be buried along with other feelings of regret and resentment. After all where was he going to go to get retribution? And likewise what recourse do conservatives have once they realize they have sold themselves down the river?
But in the case of the conservative movement, this has been self-inflicted for the most part. Conservatives have sold themselves down the river and enslaved themselves by voting for a Mitt Romney a moderate. Unfortunately, the conservative movement was the last resort.
Apres moi, le deluge!
Bet that title sounded better in your head than it appeared once posted.
Yup- In the end their is nothing conservative about the GOP candidate. Many conservatives won’t even bother to vote.
Romney adviser levels the playing field by making huge gaffe:
This has the potential to be the greatest political gaffe since President Ford claimed “Poland was not under Soviet domination.”
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