Posted on 09/03/2015 6:37:12 AM PDT by lifeofgrace
Over a year’s time, from October 1934 to the following October, the Chinese Red Army undertook “The Long March”—a grueling 6,000 mile circling retreat from the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. During that year, the Red Army suffered nearly 90 percent losses, crossing 18 mountain ranges and 24 rivers to arrive at its new base at Shaanxi, in northwest China.
The GOP has many lessons to learn from the Chinese Communists.
When the Long March began, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai led the Chinese Communist Party. By the end, Mao Zedong was in complete control. Prior to 1934, Mao’s guerilla tactics proved successful in fighting off Kai-shek’s attempts to encircle and crush the Red Army, but then Mao was ousted in favor of more traditional strategy. Zhu thought the Red Army could take on the Nationalists in a direct confrontation.
With every single one of President Obama’s wishes fulfilled like lit candles on a birthday cake by a GOP-controlled Congress—both houses, mind you—Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner are the Republican Zhu and Zhou. They, for some reason, think that they can use regular political discussion and compromise to stave off the Democrats, who control the Administrative State and the White House (and most of the media to boot).
Kai-shek saw what the new Red Army leaders were doing, and raised up a 700,000-strong force, supported by an interlocking series of blockhouses (similar to the Maginot Line in many respects), to encircle and destroy the Red Army. Since Mao was out of power, his focus on internal security (purges, bordering on raw paranoia) and guerrilla warfare was dropped in favor of orthodox military tactics.
The result was a rout for the Communists, who were forced to regroup, leaving a rear-guard of 16,000 men to die while the remaining 130,000 broke out of the stranglehold.
The GOP is in a stranglehold right now. In Congress, the Republicans in the majority have been completely and utterly ineffective in stopping a single measure that the president wants, frequently working with the White House to further Obama’s aims—hoping for some scraps for their own paltry partisan (as in local pork) projects while the country burns like Rome with Nero playing fiddle.
Take, for example, the latest humiliation, this terrible Iran Deal, which Congress handed to Obama back in May, when they passed legislation giving Congress a 30-day review period (the one they are now facing), and requiring Congress to disapprove a deal that Obama agrees to. Then Obama had the right to veto the disapproval.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) applauded the vote, saying the legislation was the only way Congress would be able to stop a the president from negotiating “a bad deal” with Iran.Guess what? Obama negotiated a bad deal, probably a worse deal than we would have gotten had Congress not passed the “30-day” poison pill in May. And now, oh-so-sad McConnell caved and Obama has won, gaining the 39th vote which prevents a veto override.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., grudgingly acknowledged that his side would not be able to block the deal after Obama, in his words, secured "the tepid, restricted and partisan support of one-third of one house of Congress." McConnell spared the accord no criticism, saying it leaves Iran "with a threshold nuclear capability."The Republican Party needs a Long March.
After the Red Army escaped the Nationalist’s noose, they had to hike 6,000 miles, with only about 8,000 survivors, before they linked up with other Communists outside the control of Kuomintang forces. There they stayed until well after World War II, with Mao as their leader again.
You see, Mao wasn’t interested in defeating the Kuomintang (Nationalists) militarily. He only wanted to hold them off while he won the cultural battle for the hearts and minds of China. Mao was more interested in making martyrs than military heroes. The Long March shed the Red Army of the power-seekers and sycophants, leaving a core of committed individuals, while losing many faithful along the way. This only served to build legends among the people as the Red Army passed through village after village.
It took an almost complete devastation of the Red Army to rebuild the structure that eventually evicted the Nationalists from the mainland.
Of course, the Communist Chinese were (are) Godless, brutal, and pitiless. But we’re talking tactics, not justification of their cause.
The Democrats who wag the GOP dog are largely Godless, brutal and pitiless also (with some exceptions, but we’re talking generalities). And the Republicans leaders and the yeomen of the party are interested in flying banners, constructing elaborate set-piece battles for their own glory, and standing on the ramparts while the faithful are mowed down repeatedly by the interlocking fire of the political left.
Look at the Trade Promotion Authority bill, a set-piece, which ended giving Obama exactly what he wanted. Look at killing Obamacare, which McConnell trumpeted in July in a set-piece that ended with the ExIm Bank dying (an actual good thing, which the leaders actually tried to reverse and just may do that later this year). Obamacare lives on with zero Republican opposition or even remorse. I would venture to guess that the whole flap over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is just smoke at this point and by year’s end, we’ll see it passed with much faked-chagrin from the party leadership.
Republican leadership folded on every hand because Obama played to win and the GOP is fighting like the Red Army before the Long March, being ground to dust under an encircling assault.
The GOP needs a Long March where 90 percent of the party is attritted and new leadership with a will to win hearts and minds, not set-piece disasters, is put in place.
But here’s the problem: in order to “break out” somebody’s got to be left behind to fight the rear guard. In an election cycle with the richest field of good conservative candidates in anyone’s memory, someone’s got to be the martyr.
So here’s the deal: if Donald Trump remains on top of the field, regardless of what we might think of his pedigree or the veracity of his claims to conservative values, we must force ourselves to make him “electable” and not dwell on the “he’s unelectable” argument. Why? Because if we hand this election over to the Democrats and end up with President H.R. Clinton, or President Sanders, or (gasp!) President Biden, we’re doomed—we meaning the GOP, and possibly the nation as a continuing super power—but certainly the GOP.
If Ben Carson somehow emerges, we must make him “electable.”
If Sen. Ted Cruz emerges, we must make him “electable” to the entire electorate. The same with Walker, Fiorina, Huckabee, or even near-dead Sen. Rand Paul.
If Jeb Bush somehow rises out of his ashes, we must hold our noses, but push through—although Jeb is a perfect example of Zhu and Zhou—fighting with the last war’s tactics against an enemy using the next war’s tech.
This is not the time for third party plays or palace coups. It’s the time for gritty, determined, 6,000-mile marches over mountains and across rivers. It’s the time to primary every single RINO. It’s the time to obsess over purging the party of the unfaithful, the tainted, and the uncommitted.
The Republican Party, with majorities in both houses of Congress, 31 governor’s desks, and 30 state legislatures, is on the ropes and sucking wind as a party because it refuses to fight for our nation. Regardless of what we have at the state level, the growth of the Administrative State at the hands of our representatives in Washington D.C. has cancelled, corrupted, or co-opted the party into a surrounded army fighting a losing battle because of poor leadership.
It’s time for The Long March.
Already a “hold your nose” plea. Two things are evident: 1) Trump will lose in the primaries because he’s not counting the votes and 2) the GOPe is desperate.
The GOP is already dead—It just doesn’t know it yet.
How many times have the Republicans voted to repeal it?
The problem is pretty simple. Conservatives can control the House agenda, but any serious reform will be filibustered in the Senate; it would be vetoed by Obama were McConnell somehow able to muster 60 votes, but the fact is, Obama has been able to hide behind the filibuster wall.
This means the only potential lever available to the Republicans in Congress is the power of the purse. And that brings us straight to the politics of the CR, and the question of whether Republicans can win the politics of the next government shutdown. Anyone want to place bets on that?
There is one other great disorienting factor, and that is the astonishing acquiescence of the courts to Obama's breathtaking administrative overreach. From non-enforcement of the immigration laws to multiple issues on Obamacare to his environmental agenda, Obama has asserted sweeping powers far in excess of what any observers thought possible just a few years ago. He's been slapped down a few times, but the courts, by and large, have said, "You just go right ahead." Republicans in Congress are struggling to hold the line, while the whole judicial flank has collapsed. We are about an inch from Caesarism, and a politicized judiciary is playing along.
I do not know if we can win the presidency in 2016. The old models would say we should, but the old America is going down before the wave of immigration, and too many states are simply out of reach unless we can get 30-40 percent of the Hispanic vote. But should we win, and should the next Republican president try to roll back some of Obama's administrative overreach, I have no doubt that politicized, activist liberal judges will issue injunctions before the ink is dry on the executive orders. The left now openly embraces double standards and no longer practices traditional civic politics, and a fair number of activist judges are raw partisans.
In other words, we are experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. The next step is widespread civil disobedience. And the question would then become whether some of the governors would interpose.
If Bush is in, I’m out. I might feel more comfortable with any other candidate, as long as they come around on immigration.
Otherwise, NO!
Right! Bush is just a slower Death of America.
I don’t believe Bush or the GOPe will win in the primaries this cycle. Period.
I truly believe that to be the case ... and am preparing accordingly. And after that comes bloodshed. Lots of bloodshed.
There is no voting our way out of this.
Don’t bet against the guys counting the votes .... and controlling the voting machines. After the 2004 Presidential election, Robert Kennedy, Jr. wrote a long how to manual on rigging voting machines. In 2008 and 2012, there was massive voter fraud with machines, Just saying.
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