40-60 is the New 80-20 - Granite Grok

40-60 is the New 80-20

NH-GOP_logoRepublicans as a party, the establishment variety, in particular, are like awkward children of privilege who get upset when their money isn’t enough to make them popular. They stamp their feet and whine, even threatening. How dare you do this, you’ll rue the day that. It’s all very annoying. But more than a few Republicans fall for it, much like large swaths of people believe the tripe that creeps out of the mouths of liberals.

For the left, the threat of preference is banishment from the collective. If you don’t get in line, you don’t belong. You’ll be outcast, marked, scorned, and probably ‘burned’ at the media stake.  It’s all very medieval.

Republican insiders play the same games, but their favorite cudgel is named unity.

It’s a weapon they invoke in the name of this guy named Ronald Reagan. Reagan had the eleventh commandment that in typical progressive fashion is the only one they seem to be aware of, having ignored almost everything else for which the man ever claimed to stand. To progressive Republicans, the party platform is even thinner than the US constitution. Feel free to ignore it; it’s not even just a guideline. As long as you bring money to the picnic and you can articulately regale us with stories about how you will bring in more money, we’ll ignore the very foundation upon which this association exists.

Ronald Regan’s rule was eighty-twenty. If you are with us eighty percent of the time, that’s good enough. But that is so last century. These days sixty-forty is a good (r)epublican, and if we want to add Scott Brown to the mix, forty-sixty is the new eighty-twenty.

This prompted a short set of remarks by yours truly, about Republican unity, on this week’s episode of GrokTALK!

I challenged the party’s latest demand for unity behind a person. The party demands that all primary candidates sign a letter of unity to support the Senate nominee for the US Senate from New Hampshire. But at least one of the candidates has voted more in favor of the Democrat platform than the Republican.

This is not a barrier to entry. The flaps of the Big Tent of the Republican Party are sewn open because the GOP refused to define their borders or to defend their borders. And much like our nation, they no longer have any.   The new GOP is all about ideological amnesty. Come on in. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Faust had a small problem compared to the GOP.

But the big tent is not that big.  If you make the mistake of trying to define or defend those borders (the party’s or the nations for that matter), the establishment might just call you a racist, or a bigot, a homophobe, even a misogynist.

They’ll accuse you of opposing unity. Not because you are, but because you dare to demand that an inch still come close to an inch. That rule of law trumps rule of man. That a party that took the time to set up some guidelines make some small effort to use them as something other than bait to trap voters whom they then milk for donations and votes.

Insisting on unity for Mr. 40-60 is no different than admitting that the platform has no meaning. It’s supposed to have four wheels, but it only has one. The sign says constitutional studies, but we’re actually here to paint our feelings.  Let me buy you some state’s rights; here, have a centrally planned economy. Do you have your wallet? I seem to have left mine at home.

If the platform has no meaning, then the party can have no meaning.   Words on paper.

Republican unity that is not based on unity behind the platform and its agreed-upon principles is not Republican unity. It is an oligarchy whose goal is to acquire power without regard to how they will later use that power.

Republicans are (should be) defenders of the constitution and the rule of law because we know human beings are flawed. Regardless of any good intentions the power can and will corrupt us. We must have checks and balances. Power and money must remain as close to the voters as possible to limit that corruption. Ignoring those checks and balances will bring about the decline of liberty, and erode fundamental personal rights. The Republican Party platform is aligned with those ideas.

As Republicans, we are unified behind these principles. They define our relationship to a general government that is limited to but a few tasks, to state and local government that is as transparent and responsive as can be managed, and the platform is the filter through which we seek candidates who will support and defend these ideas.

The people in party leadership espousing unity (the establishment) seem less interested in this. They are happy to risk supporting people in pursuit of political power who are not extreme enough for the Democrat party. Establishment Republicans seem delighted to dilute or merely ignore the party platform in support of candidates who will keep them connected to a central government in whose glow they wish to bask.

If Republicans play along, then they are not really Republicans anymore. They are just votes cast on ballots for the letter “R.”

Choosing the ‘R’ that has no meaning is an act of unity. It is unity with power over principle.  It is government before and above the people.

You can keep making that choice, but at some point, that will be all it represents.

Where along that path do we stop pretending they are anything other than creatures of government.  Paid plunderers.  Men and women of The State?  When can we admit that when they make the call, the unity is nothing more than expecting you to bend the knee before your government masters?

And who among you dares to be surprised when people incapable of following a party platform are equally incapable of letting a constitution or even the laws they craft, from slowing their pursuit of power?

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