[nathanbedford]

Peggy Noonan's excursion into the obvious is not redeemed this time by her rhetoric, rather, it is banal because she simply refuses to turn the page. The powers who presently control the Republican Party have no national message, no affirmative message because they have no conservative message. To paraphrase Bill Buckley they stand athwart history shouting, "me less."

There is no national message available to the Republican Party except a conservative message. Campaigns that rest upon opposition to Obamism are not visions for the country. Campaigns that offer alternatives to Obama can provide such a vision for the whole country, a vision upon which the election can be nationalized, a vision which produces a wave election. But those visions by the nature of things must be conservative visions. Peggy Noonan shrinks from accepting this reality.

The Republican establishment in charge of this election season instinctively recoil from conservative messages. First, these people are not conservatives, they are careerists. Second, as careerists they would adopt a conservative message if they thought it was a winning message but only so long as the track were clear and that means only so long as the media could not derail the train. The media is guaranteed to try and the establishment knows that.

Additionally, the conservative message can be and invariably is attacked as being indifferent even cruel in its insensitivity to people in need which in our modern culture is defined as people who are dependent which includes even upper-middle-class recipients of Social Security. In short, the Republican establishment is terrified of being seen as breakers of rice bowls so they recoil from the conservative message. They see the conservative message in its shortest perspective, causing pain, telling people to eat their spinach as the government takes away dessert.

In this season the conservative message is more urgent than ever. If conservatives were put on Earth to cut taxes they are now on Earth to stand athwart the onrush of history hurtling us toward the precipice and to shout: "for God's sake stop!" But more, their role today is to advocate top to bottom procedural reforms which will actually divert the country from its headlong rush to catastrophe. That means that the present tax systems which offer elected representatives such rich prizes to fat cat donors must be done away with for either a flat or a fair tax system. Corporate taxes should be radically reformed. That means that a robust Article V reform movement must overhaul the way politics are done in America reforming a runaway judiciary, restoring control of the Senate to the states, requiring fiscal sanity, and more. It means that a coherent foreign policy must be articulated by the chief executive and accepted by both houses of Congress which implies nothing less than defining the nature of Islam, or at least fringe parts, and calling it an enemy. It means establishing a policy toward Russia expansionism which will at least the real support of Europe and actually deter Russia. It means economic and military policy respecting China which puts trade relations with China on a fair basis and coordinates the rearmament and cooperation of the Asian nations which both ring China and are threatened by China.

The reforms of taxes not only deprive serving congressman of favors to sell, it even deprives them of their cozy relationships producing crony capitalism. The establishment Republican party in its own way is as guilty as Obama in fostering crony capitalism. This is the money tie to the Chamber of Commerce and it must be severed or at least altered to conform to the real interests of the nation. That means that the establishment must do what is constitutionally incapable of doing, abandoning fatcat money donors and turning to the base of the party. This is a plea for conservative populism which is anathema to the establishment which will do no more than make noises but will actually accept no meaningful reform. This is why, for example, we have the establishment operating a black ops campaign to impose amnesty on America in the teeth of overwhelming popular opposition. The establishment makes its choice against the people's interests time after time and as a consequence it is impossible to have a wave or a national election if The Players have sold out to the special interests.

Peggy, why don't you tell the truth?

[Joe Boucher]

Republicans need a NEW leadership group.
Boehner and Mitch are garbage RINO obammy kiss asses.

[ronnie raygun]

Send them all home, even if they win they will be reaching across the isle instead of dismantling the cesspool that has taken hold

[American in Israel]

You don’t need direction to throw an election, if your hope is for progressive misdirections.

[AdaGray]

The problem IS the party professionals. They can’t see the forest for the trees.

[eartick]

They have no message that is different because they are the SAME....

Sure, maybe knock off a few splinters here and there but all in all they are not different than the Democrats.

Most do not want to represent the people and do what is right for the country. They want to pad their pockets and get pay offs from the lobbyists.

[Alberta's Child]

The only way an opposition party (and by this I mean a political party in a minority position in a legislative body) to wrest control away from the ruling party is by presenting a strong, unified voice with specific ideas about how they’d govern better. A big problem the Republicans face is that they have too many Senators who have already been in a position to deal with many of the key issues at hand, and have never demonstrated that they are willing or able to deal with them. This is why they even have long-time incumbents at risk in a political cycle where the opposition party would normally be in a strong position.

[Timber Rattler]

Flashback:

GOP Fights to Rebrand the Party of No

RNC Completes 'Autopsy' on 2012 Loss, Calls for Inclusion Not Policy Change

The "Growth and Opportunity" Project

GOP’s Autopsy: Rebranding, Not Reengineering, Needed

And my perennial favorite in terms of utter disgust:

Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin

[stormhill]

This is not the first time in recent memory that the “Vision Thing” is about to shipwreck Republican hopes. The problem is clearly systemic and not one that will be resolved internally. Only a frontal assault by outsiders like Lee, Cruz, Palin, etc. has any hope of reversing course...assuming it’s not too late already.

[Old Sarge]

Republicans vs. Democrats: Maybe A Dime's Worth Of Difference

~ Larry Elder, The Ten Things You Can't Say In America

[VRW Conspirator]

Eloquently stated. An Article V COS is a last best hope of placing a viable redoubt to the tyranny of the ruling class, IMO. The Repub leadership is afraid of the conservative message because they cannot sell it. The have trouble with it because they do not believe in it.

[The_Republic_Of_Maine]

Republicans Need a Direction

C;lose and secure our borders, all four of them, not just the mexican border, but both coast and the Canadian border. Then do as Eisenhower did, round up every illegal and send them home, and then simultaneously, arrest ever treasonous scum who allowed our borders to be infiltrated and try them for treason.

[TBP]

They have a direction -- the WRONG ONE: towards Big Government on a little bit of a budget. (We're Republicans. We booked our Big Government on Hotwire.)

[drellberg]

I joined Free Republic many years ago, when it was a very different place with temperamentally and constitutionally very different posters. I would spend many hours every week, years on end, coming to this place and engaging with others. It was sublime.

As if to prove Noonan’s point, the posts here and in most other threads are filled with rage and little else. I am reasonably confident that I agree with nearly all of the general principles held by those who now post here, as well as the overarching strategies. I surely disagree on some of the micro-tactics, but I consider us all brothers-in-arms. I am certain that most folks here would disagree on that, but no matter.

I was banned from this site for a time back in 2012 for one simple reason — Once Mitt Romney became the Republican Party’s nominee, I wrote that I felt that it was necessary and expedient to support him. I wrote that there was and is a stark difference between Romney and Obama and that all of us should be clear on what an Obama presidency would mean for our country and the world.

That isn’t such a radical position, or at least it would not have been on FR in 2004 or 2006.

A lot of what Noonan writes is obvious. Some of it is mistaken, condescending, ... And yet on the core proposition, she is proven right by thread after thread that look just like this. We need to replace anger with affirmation and partisan rigor and optimism ... we need a large enough coalition that we can win elections consistently and decisively.

We need to think more like Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan.

[skinkinthegrass]

Sir, Your succinct mssg. (hopefully) shall result in a series of nasty welds on the back
sides of those whom resist real change, per the USoA Constitution and the BoR. 📃