Hugh Hewitt - Problem with the GOP Elite? They're not listening - Granite Grok

Hugh Hewitt – Problem with the GOP Elite? They’re not listening

Paul Ryan John BoehnerYeah, that pretty much sums it up.  Mostly.  Oh sure – the elected GOP officials, especially in DC, are listening, but as Hugh points out (a noted West Coast talk show host, lawer, syndicated columnist and author), they are listening to the wrong people and proving to the base that there is such a thing as Potomac Flu, the DC Bubble, the Beltway Worldview. Like Hotel California, you can check in but never seem to want to check out.  They are ignoring their base – and in doing so, can’t seem to grasp why the base is angry with them and like Eric Cantor (and Frank Guinta here in NH last cycle), lose.  They have lost sight that the Principles in DC ought to reflect the Principles from home – those that brung ya to the dance as it were.  Except after the elections, “were” becomes the operative phrase.

I’d suggest you read Hugh Hewitt ‘s whole piece, but here are a few bon mots that the base (er, that would be us) is upset about while the Party officials merely party on (and failing to watch what happens to a Party that strays at the top from the bottom below – e.g., UKIP) – some reformatting and emphasis mine.  The list of “influencers” is rather impressive as well.

  • The “electeds” who make up the Beltway GOP Elite barely consult with many of its own “public intellectuals” within the nation’s capital, and apparently not at all with those who live outside of the Oz that D.C. has become.
  • The elected GOP, to put it bluntly, hears the noise from the grassroots and it concerns them –even scares them– but the elected GOP does not actually listen to what those grassroots are saying. The policy proposals put forward and the strategy developed on the Hill do not reflect what the grassroots want and thus the friction between the Beltway GOP and its voters is large and growing larger.

  • The House leadership seem particularly divorced from the agenda held by the super majority of center-right voters and those who speak with them and for them. In the minds of the electeds, the influencers exist to react to the electeds’ agenda, not shape it, and by reacting, to shape the reaction of the grassroots. Thus the electeds develop their proposals, try and sell them to the influencers and through the influencers to the grass roots.  It is the very opposite of a representative system. It is backwards from how it ought to be. The chaos that rules is the result of that backward approach.

That last point, I think, is the most telling – once elected, they seem to get the idea that “leading” is not much telling than “telling you all to follow” and never understanding that people are going to lockstep with something totally antithetical to their beliefs simply because Somebody Important Said It Was Important.  The whole process IS backwards – a lot of the times, “representation” should be just that – the base wants leadership based on what it believes and not what is de rigeur within the DC bubble.  I’ve put up, for example, poll after poll after poll stating that Immigration Amnesty is WAY down on the importance factor to most people – but Border Security IS important.  Yet, we see the total opposite from elected leadership on this topic – they ARE pushing for Amnesty of the millions of illegal aliens “because it is too hard” to enforce The Rule of Law  while only mouthing the words of “we have to secure the Border”.

  •  The electeds are attempting to dictate, not represent, and in so doing, have put themselves in a precarious position.
  • The second proposition is testified to by the contents of Paul Ryan’s new book, which is almost certainly deeply consistent with the views of a handful of this list, utterly indifferent to the ideas of most of them, and downright indifferent via silence or openly hostile to much of what the grassroots holds dear.
  • and I don’t believe he –or most of the Beltway GOP– understand the absolute centrality of the long, strong, double-sided border fence to the rank and file voter
  • In fact, I don’t think the Beltway GOP can quickly summarize what the super-majority position within center-right conservatism is. Nor do I think they care that they do not know.

And that would be the notion that parallels what the Democrat National Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is spouting: Democrats should run on the good merits of Obamacare.  Ryan, on the other hand, is telling Republicans to run on granting Amnesty to these lawbreakers during the midterms.  While running on Obamacare may be good in dealing with the Democrat base, I hardly can believe that Amnesty is a winner with the Conservative base.  Yet, that’s what Ryan believes – yet, we are supposed to sheeple into line and support that crock simply because our “betters” are telling us it is?  I am quite sure that we Groksters, if we came face to face with Mr. Ryan, would have a few choice bon mots of our own.

Hewitt goes on to list a bunch of items that I think is fairly representative of the Conservative base beliefs (yes, I disagree with some, some of them vehemently, but not a bad list) but which run completely counter to what I see the DC Elite wish to do.  But yet we keep hearing that the GOP is united?  I call BS on that.

So, we try to lead them to the watering trough to have them drink; the problem is, the elected and Elites are looking over our shoulders at the mirage of the champagne trough over our shoulders – and refusing to look us in the eyes and take us seriously.  After all, we’re just the little people, I guess

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>