What we are sadly finding out is that small government conservatism is dead. Us small government free markets types are destined for the wilderness for awhile. We are learning that the so-called conservative base was not so conservative after all. We thought that the base wanted to cut big government down to its constitutional limit, but we were wrong. The new conservative base wanted nothing to do with our Milton Friedman small government free market world. They just want big government to work for them. They want a return to the days of FDR and Harry Truman. Back in the days before the New Left, think Hippies, turned them off from the Democrats. We are finding that the base are not Reagan conservatives but FDR New Dealers. They want big government to do its thing, but still get a tear in their eye when hearing,”Proud To Be An American.” All the efforts to promote free market solutions have been an abject failure. The federal leviathan is destined to keep rolling along for mamy decades to come. Again, us small government types have lost the argument. We might have thought we were winning for a time, but we were wrong.
And what really kills me is this is the election we could have won if we’d just stuck together. Voters have had enough of Obama and Clinton. We could have seen what a smaller government constitutionalist could have done and how everyone benefits. But we threw it away for the guy that “can win”.
No, not dead. It's a bare fact, a principle. Principles do not change. And as it was said, "Sooner of later you run out of other people's money'." It'll happen, sure as God made little green apples. And by then, the pain will be tremendous.