IMO, the place to start is at the grass roots level. As employment falls and people are hurting financially, any sort of boot strap capitalism....sort of a Junior Achievement for adults...would spark interest. Teaching real skills of any sort on a free tutoring or barter arrangement might be appealing. Anyone who could help others become entrepreneurial on a shoestring or teach home maintenance or appliance repair or gardening or cooking from scratch or baking or building or sewing or anything that would help the budget right away, would find people interested.
We have to organize from the bottom up. On a one-to-one, face-to-face basis it is possible to transmit values and teach economics in a manner people can relate to. When individuals have a stake in something they built themselves, it matters to them if they lose it.
There is no conservative base because everyone out there assumes the economic and business infrastructure will always exist just as it does now. They take freedom for granted. They take economic mobility and choice for granted. When they lose it, at the moment, most have no way to gain it back.
The left won because they have been on the street organizing through various grass roots enterprises for 40 years. They used food co-ops and baby sitting co-ops and organic farming and business incubators and grants facilitators to draw people in and then they pulled a bait and switch and taught them it didn’t matter if they failed, they could just go demand things from the establishment. Well, they are now the establishment and there are many things everyone takes for granted that this establishment will not be able to provide in the near future. There are loads of us who built something out of nothing for mostly sweat equity and know how it was done. That can be taught. Success will breed respect for the underlying principles. Political parties won't.
Agreed. Grass roots is critical.
I went to the new Republican headquarters that opened up recently in a town nearby. The Grand Opening was publicized. The whole room was full of elderly women running the thing like a potluck. I’m in my 50’s and I felt like a spring chicken in that room. Sign up sheets were handwritten and taped to the walls. No one made an effort to talk to me. There was no itinerary posted and no one made an introductory statement about how the opening was going to be structured. After a half hour, I drifted away with my delightful baked goods.
Had any young, energetic, enthusiastic young people come to get involved, they would have escaped as fast as they could. It was like “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” in there.
We’ve got to build an organization that pulls in young and idealistic voters. I was so excited they were opening that headquarters and so ready to give. I was really put off by the lack of organization and energy in that room. We all want to feel like we are part of a big, well organized, smoothly running machine. Seriously, the old guard needs to find some bright, young Republicans and mentor them. Show them how to take the reins and then let the young take the reins.
My most important point: we need to find the bright, young, heartbroken Republicans now and bring them along. They were really swimming against the tide and they need to know the Party cares about what happened to them.