“No Party Can Remain In Power By Lying To The American People” - Granite Grok

“No Party Can Remain In Power By Lying To The American People”

upside down GOP logoThat’s from US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).  I’d like to believe that it’s true, that the Republicans would get tossed out of power like a pit bull throws around a rag doll.  But we’ve seen the result of that before when the Dems took control mid-last decade – due to the fecklessness of the Republicans forgetting what they stood for.  Or rather, not telling voters what they REALLY stood for.  After all, here in NH, did the base go “Sure, Jeb, pass Medicaid Expansion?”  I think not.  Democrats do that kind of thing, though.  After all, they never campaigned for homosexual marriage but that’s what they did when they assumed power.

The Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, have just done the opposite.  They ALL (with the exception of Collins) campaigned on repealing Obamacare.  For seven desperate years where Govt effectively nationalized the healthcare industry, they promised us Liberty from this Govt intrusion.  It is clear from earlier this week that they never had any intention of doing so – it was all a Kabuki Theater for the rubes in several ways:

They made it look like they were doing something

  • They said lots of high-minded words
  • They kept bringing up their past seven years’ of promises
  • And in the end, they acquiesced to the Democrat principle that Government MUST take care of people

And that brought the curtain down on their whole charade.  The problem is that we all know that Kabuki actors are acting out a fantasy on purpose.  The GOP lives in their own fantasy act.

Fifty-Four strong in the Senate and they’ve chosen to hide behind dusty Senate rules of their own making for anything of importance and whining “oh we can’t do this – our own rules stop us” (funny, the Dems had no prevarications in changing .  Sure, they may be part of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body but they’ve tied themselves up in knots in arcanery and held hostage to an Obama era Parliamentarian (don’t start with me – ANYone in politics is partisan with no exceptions).  The GOP held more fealty to themselves and the Senate the they did to their Promise To Repeal | Replace and the voters that put them in those seats. Whatever Trust they might have built up over the last couple of years was just flushed down the toilet.

How else to describe what has been called the Biggest Political Betrayal?  Sure, passing gay marriage on the sly by the NH Dems, putting in Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion (and then doing it again this past year) by the NH Republicans may rank up there on a per capita basis, but for me, I can never believe national Republicans again.

My two memes say it best: Consistency breeds Trust yields Votes; Winning is only a precursor; what you do afterwards is more important.  I don’t want to have to worry about what you’ll legislate and how you’ll vote on it.  Right now, this is a dark time for the Republic in that the will of the people was ignored by its elected.

The GOP has failed both.  I don’t regret leaving the Party at all especially after this utter debacle of leadership and adherence to stated Principles.  It is now easy to ask, once again, what are their governing Principles that, you know, they actually follow?

Has the Big Republican Tent grown too large to include too wide a series of principles which now seem to be internally incompatible?  A Party can’t be both one that lauds Liberty and Freedom but also acts to keep Government in charge?  A Party that can’t be politically courageous in standing up for its stated principles in all cases and situations is just not worth any spit at all.  Americans loves someone who fights – even if they lose if they’ve shown they’ve given it their all.  This week, in the Senate, we saw whimpering and half-hearted measures and attempts.  We saw a Party that not only didn’t try but failed to show they cared about what they were doing.  They simply went through the motions that said they did but it is clear that the outcome was preordained.

For all their talk about smaller and less intrusive government, the DC Republicans LIKE having the Government in charge.  I simply can’t come up with any other reason for this failure – a failure for us but a “go along, get along” moment with the Establishment Elites. Why else did a majority of the Republicans in the Senate in 1935 pass Social Security (16 yes, 5 no, 4 not voting)?  THere was much uproar about it at the time, but the Republicans never made any effort to roll that back under Constitutional principles that the Feds did not have that power

The question is, where to go for Liberty as a founding principle?  Certainly not the Democrats who have gone all in on the Socialist “Freedom from Need” – a false a tenet as possible (as there is none to be had and certainly Govt can’t provide it except by making others needy by taking their things).  Now, Republicans have abandoned their defense of the Individual to make their own choices.  And sorry, the Libertarian Party can’t get out of its own way as shown by how their Prez and Veep campaigned (can you say “Self-destructed” in a Mr. Rogers voice?).

Can’t go Socialist, Libertarians aren’t effective to save their lives (even as I like some of their principles), and the Republican just shot their base the bird.

So where does this all leave a lot of conservative voters?  I’m not sure – I’m really not.

>