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The Coalition for Regime Change: Part 2
This is a follow-up to my post The Coalition for Regime Change.
Things are going swimmingly — for now. Support for the Coalition is impressive in private polling. Assuming no ballot counting/stuffing shenanigans, Barnes & Baris on People’s Pundit Daily estimate a 319-219 Electoral College victory. But that is today, not November 5.
Following the conversations on X.com, there are three threats I see to the developing Coalition: (1) intensifying personal smears of RFK Jr. by Democrats, (2) unease about Trump’s commitment to “pro-life” positions, and (3) talk of forming a Unity Party for 2028. Each of these things is designed to reduce (assuming Democratic actors are promoting them), or can have the effect of reducing, the electoral support for the Coalition. Let me deal with each in turn:
Smear Campaign
This, of course, is nothing new. It is a pretty standard technique employed by all sides in varying degrees. My response is always, “Ideas are orphans.” That is to say, you look at the policies and the ideas behind them to evaluate merit. Yes, the person behind the idea counts in terms of whether they are to be trusted to implement it. But you have to debate the idea first. Because if the idea is both good and has popular support, someone is going to want to implement it. Then pressure will be placed on whoever stumps for its implementation. I also say, “Don’t fall in love with a politician.” If you don’t fall in love, you are less susceptible to being influenced by a litany of personal failings (true or not) than by the ideas the politician is promoting (and needs support from others to implement, in any event).
Trump as Weak Pro-Life Champion
Fresh from getting abortion policy out of the courts and back into the hands of the people of the various states, the tom-toms are now beating to get a federal nationwide abortion ban. President Trump is not supporting that, and, as a consequence, some people are suggesting they can’t support him anymore. I don’t want to be pejorative, but IMO it is incoherent that you would withdraw support at this juncture and maintain an abortion-loving government in place.
One pastor posted about his concerns about continued support for President Trump because he is not promoting a nationwide abortion ban. In my response, I highlighted how President Trump took the abortion question out of the courts and put it back in the hands of the pastor’s congregation and neighbors. It was now the pastor’s responsibility to get their hearts in the right place, not put them in the hands of federal politicians. You can’t promote federalism until you succeed and then turn around and demand an anti-federalist solution. If you think it through, what rationale can’t you come up with to eliminate federalism altogether?! I cannot think of a better way to give the Democrats what they want.
The Unity Party
Naomi Wolf remarked on X that calling the Coalition the “Unity Party” is a mistake; referring to it as “the Unity Movement” is spot on and powerful. I agree. I have remarked before that parties are ideological ciphers — they have a mission to obtain and maintain power without regard to ideology. They require discipline and hierarchy. Internal stresses weaken their effectiveness and blunt their message. By contrast, movements are entirely reliant on numbers. Numbers are gained by individuals giving priority to points of agreement and setting aside, at least temporarily, points of disagreement. The priority of the Coalition is regime change — to remove from power those individuals who are abusing power. Every member of the Coalition has been affected by abuse of power and knows, instinctively, that we are running out of time; that while freedom will at some point always assert itself again, it could be a very long, long time.
The reality is that a Coalition win in November will create some real debates about the form of government operating in 2025. There is a lot of diversity of opinion within the MAGA camp alone over the proper exercise of governmental power. The Coalition’s range of opinion is even greater. The Unity Movement has a better handle on the abuse of power than it does on use of power. For the time being, that is where the focus should be. Because if we start prematurely debating the use of power, then we take our eyes off of the abuse of power — and then we lose in November.
I think we can all agree that America in 2024 is very different from America in 1974, 1924, 1874, 1824, and 1774. We understood in 1774 the sources of abuse of power and set to the task of forming a new type of government. We created a form of government based on the “consent of the governed”. That “consent” was too narrowly placed in the formation of our Constitution, but has expanded through time. The changes in our nation and the world have presented challenges to federalism and representative government. There have been many missteps, but IMO the fundamentals hold.
The challenge to the Unity Movement is the challenge of America: forming a more perfect, but imperfect, union — one under the control of its people and not one controlling the people. That is a complicated matter with so many wanting different things. We have to accept that in a pluralistic society if government is ever perfected it will be in the hands of despots. We must prepare ourselves to live in a society with persistent disagreements on many things so long as our Constitutional principles are upheld. To focus on those disagreements now is to give up a chance to debate them later.
Published in General
People create so much dissension whenever they expect perfect outcomes. As long as we are a country governed by, and governing people, we must settle for the imperfect, yet principled nation.
On the other hand, making the more likely assumption that they will be better at ballot shenanigans this time, we are going to be beaten by a similar margin, by a giggling wastrel moron and a chicom-loving sleaze bag.
We all hope you are wrong.
This is very well said, Rodin.
another item is trying to make Trump the incumbent instead of FBJ/VEEP.
a final one is not having Harris explain her change on about 5-10 positions in the space of 3 years
Three years? More like 3 weeks.
I don’t find this position incoherent at all. I don’t know, but I would guess that the two of you are pro-abortion, or if not, you don’t care much about the issue.
This should not be difficult to understand, guys. Your inability to do so is troubling.
Maybe it’s a lot harder than I think to put oneself in the other side’s shoes.
I probably would have agreed with this 3-4 years ago.
It has been somewhat destabilizing to have changed my view. I no longer think that we are a decent, “principled,” though imperfect nation. I think that we are a deeply wicked nation built on the foundation of a false religion that elevates selfish individualism to divinity. There are other major problems, too, such as the demonization of the majority of the population in favor of a few favored minority groups, who get special treatment in the name of “equality.”
I know that most of you don’t agree with this.
That is a laughably bad guess, Jerry. For someone who typically portrays himself as smarter than all the rest of us, this shouldn’t be so hard to understand. I have opinions on many laws, but think that most of them should be decided at the state level. Call me a Tenth Amendment fetishist, but I think our country would be far better off if Congress obeyed it.
I think you are really understating and downplaying pro-life concerns about Trump. You suggest that it’s merely about Trump not wanting a federal nation-wide abortion ban. If it was just about wanting this matter in the hands of the states, then why has he criticized states like Florida and Arizona for their state abortion restrictions? And now he’s using the euphemism that the Left uses: “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” he stated on Truth Social. Ah – “reproductive rights,” not “abortion.” That’s the language of abortion advocates. He’s also now in favor of IVF, which destroys embryonic human life (though I get that not everyone is well-informed on the subject).
I definitely understand not wanting to make an abortion a campaign issue, and I understand leaving its regulation to the states. But he’s gone beyond just trying to minimize the issue – he’s gone over to the other side, as evidenced by the items I just listed. And for what? Does he think he’s going to peel pro-abortionists away from the Harris ticket? Stupid. Just plain stupid.
I hope nobody is thinking that, no matter how “bad” they might (now) think Trump (now) is on abortion, that Kamala or any other Democrat, wouldn’t be significantly worse.
To put it briefly, if you don’t vote for Trump, and God asks you “Why didn’t you vote for fewer abortions?” how would you answer?
And somehow I don’t think “I lived in a blue state, so my vote didn’t matter” would be acceptable.
Somebody needs to make this a campaign poster or a yard sign. Vote for Trump or roast for all of eternity in hell.
Yeah. I don’t quite agree with that.
I think the point above is that the aspiration is to be an imperfect, yet principled nation. I don’t think the wickedness that exists within the nation is lost on many here, but most would probably break with you on calling it our defining feature.
No, my answer would be that neither candidate was concerned about the unborn.
The problem with going along with the “lesser of two evils” candidate who doesn’t represent your priorities, is that if your vote can be taken for granted, then your priorities don’t need to be taken seriously. Trump can be pro-abortion now because he knows that a significant number of pro-lifers will vote for him anyway. He doesn’t need to take their concerns seriously anymore. Why should he, if they’re going to vote for him regardless of his support for “reproductive rights”?
Unless you think – and maybe even if you do think – that a Trump administration would be responsible for at least as many abortions as a Harris administration, you still may have a problem with God.
And that’s not even getting into murders and other crimes committed by illegal aliens present due to Biden/Harris that may not have been present due to Trump, etc.
No, I don’t think I have a problem with God.
Well, maybe just a little extreme, Randy.
From what I know of Trump, he doesn’t really care, he’s just awkwardly trying to strike a middle ground position — even though there is no middle ground on this issue. Abortion is taking a human life.
“Leaving it up to the states” could end up with the same result as when someone thought that could work for slavery.