You are on the money. The Republican guiding philosophy today seems to be “Taking you to Socialism a little more slowly than the Democrats.” How do you make a compelling case for someone to vote for you when all you have to offer is “a little less of the same”? The current so-called “leadership” is composed of people who are there to make careers.
They have no cohesive, well thought out philosophy of politics and government that differs from the liberals in any way other than degree, so they are easily put on the defensive when they are challenged. They have to search their memories for the talking points that fit the notion of being a Republican, rather than simply arguing from the strength of their conviction. They are frauds. They don’t believe it, so why should anyone?
Until real, unashamed conservatives who can argue the philosophy and refute socialist garbage show up, we are stuck with the one party rule that the combination of Republicans and Democrats has become. We have to laugh in the face of their stupid questions, call them liars instead of using gentle terms like “misleading”, and call them stupid when they take stupid positions.
For our part as voters, we have to stop “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good”, and understand that we have move the ball in our direction. This means we will “hold our nose” and vote for people we don’t agree with on every issue. But that can get us moving. We then have to continue to hold our candidates feet to the fire and demand results. We also have to understand that, as conservatives, we still have much that we disagree about among ourselves, but the things we agree on are so much broader — we have to stop letting liberals splinter us by turning us into single issue voters.
Single issue voter coalitions can work for liberals, because they ultimately agree on the basic liberal premise: that the United States is evil and must be fundamentally changed. They intimidate people by anointing themselves as “cool”, and claim to be the smartest people on earth. So if you are insecure, don’t have a strong opinion, but want to be accepted as smart and cool, you better be with them. Nothing scares a person who isn’t “cool” more than to be called out on it, or a stupid person to be shown to be stupid.
Liberals practice the methods of cults, welcoming people regardless of any weakness and telling them they are OK, and that their particular weakness is really a strength. It is the classic serpent’s argument. We ask for people to be strong, to accept that you have to do things themselves instead of having it done for you, but the rewards of freedom and liberty are great. We demand strength, liberals welcome weakness. It’s a tough choice for people to make (especially non-Christians, as Christians are already familiar with this sort of choice). We demand people to work, liberals tell people that work and responsibility is slavery, so they will make someone else do it.
It’s going to be a long road. The damage done has been great, and they won’t stop.
When I was a little kid and asked my dad what the difference between a Republican and a Democrat was, he said that basically, Republicans wanted less government.
Social conservatives who look to government to manipulate morality, stop and consider that this nation didn't start becoming blatantly immoral until the government stepped into the morality business -- or, at least, its compassionate version of "moral."
Government causes many problems when it assumes a moral role.
The less government, the more moral that the good, solid, majority of Americans can be because they can work, produce, create, and generally prosper by being moral people in a free world. The ones who are immoral self destruct. It's an ongoing battle that's been happening for well over 2,000 years. We have a pretty good code book of basic laws, the Christian Bible, that provided the foundation for the moral principles of this nation, as in EV's tagline: America's creed: Our rights come from God, not men. Governments exist to secure those rights.
So we have governent, trying to be God, securing the rights of open homosexuals to participate in our society, punishing with discrimination laws those who resist. We have government securing the rights of atheists to shut down nativity scenes in city parks.
We have government, via welfare and social programs, comanding the moral dictate of charity. Government's charity has created a dependent class, whereas the charity provided by a prosperous, moral people helps foster self-reliance and self-direction. But government deciding to take a moral role, now bleeds so much of what Americans would normally give to their choice of moral charity, that they can barely continue to support it, because of government.
Pro-government thinking prevents a moral people from living morally. Get government out of the way and let people exercise their morality freely. Give them more of their freedom of enterprise so they can become more prosperous and more generous. That's what Americans do when they're prosperous.
The folks who talk about "branding" and "framing the narrative" are on to something. I think a lot of American Republicans don't know they're the kind of Republicans my dad meant, and what I've also been voting for/with. Why doesn't the Republican party burst the "race" pimple and call it how it is: color and ethnicity are irrelevant when it comes to the rights bestowed by God.
Most Americans, certainly most Americans who are truly legitimate voters, the ones who would actually take the trouble and the time to bone-up on the issues, go somewhere specifically to register (no Moter Voter or table-side registrations drives), and then take the trouble, one measely day of the year, to prioritize getting to the polls, would love to have a guy they could vote for on the assurance that he was going to keep government out of our hair and fight the liberal hacks who try to advance government.
You have to know that in that sense, and even beyond it, to the pretty much apolitical Joe Blow American, most folks are sick of government and sick of the liberal media bias, and would vote for Republicans if they knew that's what they were voting for. They're not dumb -- they don't buy the liberal crap. It looks like a lot of "voters" who do are spun out of sugar and elbow grease.
We outnumber the left in every way except for the Talking Heads.
"What it means to be a Republican" should be something every American can grasp and understand in one phrase, and for every politician who vies to be a Republican to pursue: making government smaller so people can live bigger.