Many Republican politicians would like to offer advice on how to solve the party’s problems. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate failure, said last year that republicans need to have a bigger tent under which to include people, and cater to minorities with specific programs or goodies. Other Republicans abandoned their pledge not to raise taxes, signaling a move to the left. Their attitude seems to be that if you can’t beat them, join them, but this will be disastrous for America. I have mentioned talk of a third party, and increasingly it seems that is the only hope to stop the march toward economic disaster and waning civil liberties.
These days, Republicans are Democrat light. Want all the big government taste but with 2/3 the government spending? Vote democrat light. You’ll still end up fat and drunk, but you can feel better about yourself as you get there. Republicans have been trying this approach for about 70 years, but the biggest deviations have produced the best results. Ronald Reagan’s biggest appeal to voters was his rhetoric that inspired conservatives and invigorated the base. Reagan spoke to clarify, and people understood his message. He took on many lies perpetrated by his opponents about the benefits of big government, and explained why the traditionally conservative way of governing would benefit every single American.
Reagan was not interested in catering to minorities with handouts, or offering a “bigger tent”, or allowing taxes to be raised when it is fashionable to do so, yet would reek havoc on our economy. This is why he was elected and re-elected in landslide victories. But few people know how beneficial some of the Reagan policies were, even without catering to a specific clique, or offering handouts in return for votes. Thomas Sowell speaks of this disconnect between what has worked for republicans in the past, and what they try over and over again and fail.
But the Republicans’ greatest failure has been precisely their chronic failure to spell out their principles— and the track record of those principles— to either white or non-white voters.,
Very few people know, for example, that the gap between black and white incomes narrowed during the Reagan administration and widened during the Obama administration. This was not because of Republican policies designed specifically for blacks, but because free market policies create an economy in which all people can improve their economic situation.
But instead of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney spelling out why minimum wage laws cause unemployment for black youths, he said that he supported minimum wage laws which automatically rise with inflation. But minimum wage laws make it pointless to hire anyone lacking minimum skills which others seeking that same wage posses. For example, if a supermarket can hire a bagger for $6/hour, and a cashier for $8/hour, but minimum wage laws require everyone to be paid $8, they will only hire people with cashier level skills, even to do a bagger’s job. This makes anyone with bagger level skills unemployed, and even worse makes it impossible for them to acquire cashier level skills, because their entry level job opportunity has been erased by minimum wage laws. Now why can’t Republicans just explain that to people, instead of jumping on the “big tent” bandwagon?
This is why I want libertarians, constitutionalists, and fiscal conservatives to consider alternatives to the Republican party, which has been slowly abandoning us for a century. Republicans will never get more votes by offering a watered down version of what Democrats have been delivering for 100 years. Why would minorities switch to Republicans because they now kinda sorta support amnesty for illegal immigrants? A vote for a Democrat is a sure thing for amnesty. Why would people receiving government handouts switch to Republicans, after being given government assistance by Democrats for longer than anyone can remember? Why vote for the guys who will raise taxes a little, and increase spending a little, when you have the opportunity to elect the guys who will really stick it to the rich, and throw in some “free” birth control? When Republicans agree that raising taxes and raising spending is okay, and will not hurt our economy, they shoot themselves in the foot, because then voters just have to choose the more ideologically consistent taxer and spender.
What Republicans should have been doing all along is refusing to raise taxes or increase spending, and explaining to people why increasing taxes cannot solve our woes, and why increasing spending is a race against the clock that we cannot win. Every Republican I talk to says the same thing about being disappointed in party leadership, and fed up that the base who provides the party’s boots on the ground are ignored and marginalized.
Thomas Sowell offers suggestions to reform the party, but I believe these could just as easily, and more effectively, be employed in a new third party (or existing one) which does not bear the stain of Republicans.
Since most of the media will never expose Obama’s fallacies and falsehoods, it is all the more important for Republicans to do so themselves. Nor is it necessary for every Republican candidate for every office to become an expert on every controversial issue.
Just as particular issues are farmed out to different committees in Congress, so Republicans can set up committees of outside experts to inform them on particular issues…
It is not necessary to explode every single lie put out by liberal Democrats. All that is necessary is to thoroughly discredit a few of their key claims, exposing them as liars.
What is even more necessary is for Republicans themselves to understand the urgent need to do so, for their own sake and— more important— for the country’s sake.
Time is running short, but the 2014 midterm elections are the perfect time to try out a widespread third party approach. People will be attracted to this third party because it will speak truth about freedom and economics, and not cave toward “the center”. Strict constitutionalists, and strong libertarians could usher in a new age of reason, and a new age of prosperity. With the Republican momentum favoring big government, it seems like a waste of effort to try to turn the party around. If we start anew we can put that energy into propelling the new party to center stage by winning house or senate seats in every state in November of 2014. With this confidence brought on by victory, there will be nothing to fear for former Republicans to switch in 2016. The great irony is that this hard-line-truth-speaking tactic will attract more swing voters from the center, more youth, and more disenfranchised voters than any moderate, wishy-washy, “Democrat light” candidate could every hope to win.
*Note: this is a re-blog originally posted on VigilantVote blog in November 2012. Come back tomorrow for new content.*
