One headline this morning on the Real Clear Politics website asks the question, “Is Era of Dominance Over for Conservatives?” Of course that headline and the article would make more sense had Republicans governed like conservatives when they held power.
The economy is the big issue of the day and John McCain is reaping what President George W. Bush and Speaker Dennis Hastert sowed while they ruled together, spent like crazy, and failed to adhere to GOP platform governing principles.
Regardless of whether John McCain is able to overcome this and win the election, the conservative cause is doomed unless more people on the political right wake up and stop electing men and women who don’t know how to build an army that can take ground from the rabid political left.
The work of committed citizens helps to hold the line on certain parts of the political battlefield. Unfortunately, however, until our elected leaders also join the fight we’ll continue to lose more ground than we are able to hold or gain.
Those who are elected are the front line soldiers because they are the people who can command the attention of the public. It is that simple. If our Republican elected officials continue to act as neutral players, we’ll never muster the necessary army to take on those who seek to move America away from its founding principles.
The conservative right isn’t like the liberal left. Conservatives don’t treat politics like a religion as the political left does. When conservatives involve themselves at all, it’s more as a civic responsibility than a crusade to retrieve the Holy Grail.
The twenty-first century American political dynamic might involve a lot of seemingly complicated details and countless interests groups. But I have summed up the core of the matter in articles we’ve posted before:
- Those who seek to throw out traditional values in favor of a “if it feels good do it in the street” ethic are committed to their cause and more often than not active.
- Those who want to completely socialize the American economy typically are already making their living from tax dollars so they have all the incentive they need.
- Those who wish to usher in a new international order based on a mistaken view of human nature are already vocal and they fund candidates and organizations committed to a non intervention based foreign policy.
Each of those three groups I just referred to seek to proselytize in order to save mankind (and of course womankind) from their version of politically incorrect eternal damnation. They are serious about their faith.
Most of the rest of the country, fortunately, isn’t easily fooled into signing up for a new age pseudo religion. They understand the value of the Judeo-Christian ethic. They’ve yet to see a better method of raising living standards than that of free market capitalism. And instinctively they understand that human nature means we’ll always see guys like Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad somewhere on the planet.
The problem, however, is that most of these non-politically active people work for a living in the private sector. They’re raising children, building businesses, striving to make ends meet and/or enjoying life outside of the arena of government.
These conservatives, for the most part, figure that they’re paying others – like their elected officials – to toil in politics. They contribute to campaigns often with the hope that they won’t be asked to do any more than that when it comes to the messy goings on of the public square.
Those conservative activists who do labor in the fields, such as those we often meet with at our office, obviously have a lot of pressure on them since they’re outnumbered by a vast left-wing army.
The left succeeds because elected Democrats are committed to the left’s cause. Until more elected Republicans join in the fight for the right’s cause, nobody should expect to see the kind of policy change this country desperately needs.
The current rate of the growth of government is not sustainable. More members of the political right must personally get involved—volunteer—run for office or help recruit and support better candidates. If they don’t—expect the continuation of what we see now: government policy-caused financial and other similar political and social meltdowns.
