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There Is No Long Game
During his excellent speech before Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz repeated a common complaint of Republican voters:
The American people were told, “If only we have a Republican majority in the House, things will be different.” Well, in 2010, the American people showed up in enormous numbers and we got a Republican majority in the House. And very little changed. […] Then the American people were told, “You know, the problem is the Senate. If only we get a Republican majority in the Senate and retire Harry Reid as majority leader, then things will be different.” Well, in 2014, the American people rose up in enormous numbers, voted to do exactly that. We have had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress now for about 6 months. What has that majority done?
While debating the possibility of de-funding Planned Parenthood the other day, a fellow Republican insisted we needed total control — a Republican president and a Republican majority in both houses of Congress — for that to happen. Appropriations are not a significant authority, apparently. Since Roe v Wade, he told me, Republicans have enjoyed such total control for only two years, under President George W. Bush. That’s two out of 40 years. In order to prevent about a million children from being slaughtered every year, I’m being asked to wait for an electoral scenario which has only happened once in my lifetime.
And what happened in those two years that Republicans had total control? Did the Republican-controlled Congress and the most pro-life President in living memory defund Planned Parenthood? Of course not. That would be too much to ask. Presumably, Congress determined that diminished support for the war could not even be risked to stop a genocide at home. Rather than employ that total authorized power with impunity, Republicans once again “played it safe.”
I am not proposing a discussion specifically of abortion. That’s merely one of many interests of Republican voters that has not been sufficiently implemented. But must Republicans have total control to accomplish anything significant? Would they even make use of that power if they had it?
Republicans have not earned the privilege of delays. They have not earned the trust required for four-year strategies, let alone 10-year, or 20-year strategies.
In addition, Republicans are fools to rely on plans that require consistent power through multiple terms. First, America’s pendulum-like electoral history does not support such hopes. Second, Democrats have proven able to demonize Republicans and misrepresent Republican positions, even without convenient gaffes, facts, or policies (e.g., the “War on Women”); evidently, laying low cannot preserve Republican electoral victories. Third, Democrats can accomplish more in an equal amount of time due to their willingness to disregard normal procedures, laws, and even the most basic moral concerns for their opponents.
Furthermore, it is easier to get into debt than to get out of it, easier to harm international alliances than to establish them, easier to create laws and programs than to eliminate or even reduce them, and so on. The deck is stacked against the side of freedom and honor, now and forever.
Republicans must strike when they can, as often as they can, as hard as they can. Playing the long game clearly doesn’t work; nor do soft steps. History does not support the timidity of reigning Republican strategies.
Act today, or your authority will be revoked.
Image Credit: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Published in Politics
For many years I’ve pointed out that Democrats have a better work ethic when it comes to politics. This is partly because Republicans have a life outside of politics and like to have time for family, vacations, etc. For Democrats, everything is political. So it is sometimes hard to get Republicans to run for state or local offices. It is hard for Republicans to gather dedicated volunteers, so they hire consultants who take their money and betray them.
I’m not sure there is anything that can be done about this. But it would be nice if Republicans would quit sending boatloads of money to Democrats to finance their political lives.
To their credit, the Republicans split out the funding for DHS (I think) over Obama’s illegal executive order, so they could deal with it after the election. To their shame, they got rolled on it anyway.
I’m sympathetic to both Frank and Aaron on this. No constituency is ever satisfied in politics, but there’s a very real and very substantial lack of trust between the Republican Party and those who vote for it.
Republicans need to have something to show for their efforts. Even the angriest, most partisan progressive can say “Hey, Obama moved things my way in terms of X.” Republicans are going to need something like that, and very soon.
With Planned Parenthood in the news right now, forcing the president to explain a veto could make for some interesting politics. Even some people I know who are neutral about abortion don’t like the idea that they have to pay for it.
I would certainly get behind this. Make them defend those videos.
Even if we can’t get an actual victory, I’d love to see the shadow of one. Perhaps we might not get the legislation passed but Obama looks really bad (to the general public, not just FOX News viewers). Or maybe McBoehnell could give a speech that fires us up and actually sounds encouraging.
Probable Cause mentions something that I used to read in the Conservative Chronicle 25 years ago. Do I have to dig out the old issue
Ha! Probable Cause is correct. This is something that I remember reading in the Conservative Chronicle 25 years ago. I remember that this comment really opened my eyes back then. Do I have to dig out a list of columnists? What else do you need to read? The Constitution? The Federalist Papers?
Remember the episode in Star Trek the episode “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” or Star Trek III: The Search for Spock? You need three most senior officers to engage the self-destruct mechanism and blow up the Enterprise. The Republican Party simply has to refuse to be one of the three officers or bodies entering the self-destruct codes for the United States.
Somebody doesn’t listen to a lot of Mark Levin…
You are right on the money. Congress has surrendered the power of the purse. The choice we are forced to face is always between surrender and shutting down the government altogether, and time and again our guys surrender. This needs to be reversed.
Oopsie!! It looks like Ted Cruz hurt somebody’s feelings: “Senate GOP Leaders Slam Ted Cruz for Calling McConnell a Liar”
How dare he break the protocols of the world’s most august deliberative body. (read those last three words to yourself with stirring Robert Byrd cadence and gravitas)
Frank’s use of the Democratic-MSM term, “shutting down the government”, is a tell here. This is how the media presents it to the nation. Very little is shut down and we need to win this media battle like all the others. This is a lie — and the Dems shutting down of the memorials and parks out of pique puts this lie out front.
Also, maybe we should control and even embrace the idea of shutting things down if we want because we can present it in a way that is correct. Obama’s manning up in the Park services personnel during a “shutdown” to put up chains and blockades is a very strange thing and it cannot be defended.
This all goes to the notion of who gets control of the narrative. The left has the whip hand here. That is what we have to go after. We only get a small chance during the election season. We must make the most of the electioneering time. (Isn’t Cruz grand?)
Great post and great discussion — thanks, Aaron.
You caught me. I’m a closet liberal. Or maybe the media wins this narrative so easily that raging against it accomplishes nothing.
I don’t think he was accusing you of being a closet leftist. Instead, I think he found it illustrative of a larger point, that the media frames things so effectively that even conservative opponents of what’s happening tend to adopt language that undercuts their own interests.
To all,
Without any name calling I think that there is a sense of the Historical Moment that can require something more than just business as usual. Although, what Senator Cruz did if done on a regular basis would cause complete breakdown and a paralyzed Congress I don’t think that is what happened here.
This is a moment when huge numbers of people not only at the grass roots but in far more sophisticated positions have committed to pushing for a conservative government. After the 2010 House victory and the 2014 Senate victory, victories in the face of a hostile media, entertainment industry, and intelligensia, the growing conservative majority had hoped for more relief than what has occurred. The current continuation of liberal policies through media extortion over budget, judicial fiat legislation, and presidential extra-constitutional conspiracy in foreign policy has produced tremendous frustration.
Senator Cruz enunciated that frustration. The Donald is enunciating that frustration. I don’t think we should lose our minds because of this but we also should not be too quick to denounce honest people who yearn for a better day. Hopefully that day will come soon. In the case of the Iran deal I hope sincerely that it will be soon enough. We are on thin ice.
Regards,
Jim
I want to go back to this one for a moment. Even if Congress cannot get the laws enacted because a presidential veto, it can still pass things to build support and public opinion in our direction. It seems sometimes like Republican Congressional leaders are waiting around for a Republican president to be elected and tell them what to do. If the situation were reversed and Democrats controlled Congress and there was a Republican president, I don’t think the Democrats would be sitting around waiting for someone to come along.
If the Republicans cannot win a PR battle over a Government Shutdown centered around the funding of Planned Parenthood, then I see no reason to support them any longer. Going along to get along with Democrats and the Mainstream Media is a path to the destruction of our nation. Either make a stand on issues that matter to your base and where you have some leverage, or just go ahead and surrender. Republicans have been in perpetual retreat since Reagan left office.
Every time I get a phone call from the RNC asking me to donate, I tell the caller that until I see the Republicans put up a real fight on a meaningful issue, they will not get another dime from me. Maybe they will block the Iran deal or defund Planned Parenthood and show some courage. I am not holding my breath.
I understand this is a reference to the current makeup. But I suppose if we win in 2016, any failure to pass what we want with total control of the government will be blamed on your second criterion. No disrespect intended, but how does this constant fatalism create any sense of hope in the voting base? Is the government so “too big to fail” that mid-term elections are now irrelevant, government faux-shutdowns are catastrophic, and we can only advance (on the conservative side) with 2/3 of everything? This is where we appear to be heading. That bar is too high.
You’re right. Raging against it does accomplishes nothing. But that’s a false binary worthy of the Left.
We are inundated by a sewage of progressive and MSM (but I repeat myself) lies and half truths to the point that it is all too easy to begin using the stinking tropes of the Left. It’s important for our intellectual and moral clarity to make sure that when we write something like “shutting down the government” it rings false to our ear unless we’re deliberately doing it to accomplish a rhetorical purpose.
Admittedly, that takes a lot of work, but it’s worth doing. An astute progressive would scent weakness in your phraseology and exploit it. This is a friendly audience and Larry caught you thinking carelessly and called you on it. Being snarky about getting busted isn’t a good response.
These fiascos don’t help the Senatorial candidates as much as they might think in 2016. Sure, they all voted against the Ex-Im Bank, but they couldn’t get much more than half the GOP caucus to go along with them. I can imagine the governors asking some tough questions about how these Senators will hold the line from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., when they couldn’t do it on the Hill.
If I were Scott Walker, I’d jump on this Ex-Im funding fiasco as an example of the type of cronyism that he’s fought and beat…in a Blue state. He also managed to get a late-term abortion ban through. The other governors will have similar stories, all of which make Cruz, Rubio, and Paul look like talkers, not doers.
Your point is probably well suited for many other issues, but on the social issues you might find that there are a good deal of Republicans who are pro-abort, and a good deal of other Republicans who don’t want to touch the social issues with a ten foot pole. Do you recall Todd Akin? I’m 100% on the social issues side, and I might even catagorize pro-life as my number one issue, but even here I’m understanding of the limitations and the political mine fields Republicans face.
This comes down to strategy. Should the Republicans waste political capital when it’s only headed for a veto? It might make the base feel good toi do so, but in the end you’re still left with the same status, now minus the political capital.
GOP leaders and others can be as furious with Cruz as they wish but they would be very unwise to dismiss his criticism as it certainly reflects the frustration of conservative voters who are increasingly disgusted with the party:
::shutter::
Who wins this battle for you after you stop supporting them?
How many other battles are you prepared to lose once the democrats have no opposition?
But, Frank! They already don’t have opposition!
That’s delusional. The democrats needed 60 seats in the senate to pass a healthcare reform bill that wasn’t even single payer.
Things can be far worse than you realize when you give up opposing tyrants because you are upset about battles you have lost.
And I’m caught again. Damn these leftist tendencies that drive me to support a minarchist government.
You have just touched on a core dilemma, Frank. The only power voters have over politicians is that very occasional vote. If Republicans are guaranteed a conservative’s vote merely on account of being less deplorable as Democrats, then Republicans have no incentive to be any better. Angry Republican supporters are the same as mindless drones in regard to elections.
Limited, local, conservative government isn’t even on the table.
The republicans have been getting measurably better every congress since 1980. Everything is trending correctly to finally undo some of the damage that has been done.
Withholding your vote guarantees losses, while continuing what we have been doing guarantees a continued lurch rightward for the party.
If you’re not careful, some demagogue will play on this and, oh, wait!
It seems to me all of us center-right folks are tired of our seeming impotence. Is it a failure a will or a failure in the constitutional system that could not conceive of a lawless executive branch? Unfortunately the constitutional remedies short of impeachment do not exist, so I think our impotence stems from a popular president who is unmoored from the constitution and an ambivalent electorate. I hate to be an elite, but we have to win in 2016….there are at least 5 candidates in this field who are more conservative and have more potential than our last 5 nominees for president. A lot can be undone in the first 100 days when so many laws have not been codifed by the legislative branch.
Other than guns, it feels like it has been a long time since we accomplished anything at the national level. And that was through the courts. We can marshal enough public support to get our guys in office, but not enough to get them to do much.
Quinn,
Republican majorities are new phenomenon. As was said in the OP, 2004-2006 was the only window since the Reagan revolution where we held both houses with majorities and held the presidency.
If you want more movement in our preferred direction, create more of these windows.
Yes, they gave us the HSA, TSA, unrestrained police powers, Common Core, a lopsided cut of the defense budget in comparison with all others, an unchallenged treaty to give Iran the bomb, a taxpayer bailout of auto manufacturers and banks, blanket funding for countless unelected bureaucrats, smooth appointments of radicals to judicial positions, etc.
They have greatly expanded executive powers by acquiescence. President Obama altered the ACA by unlawful fiat. Those changes have been treated as valid. Thus, any President (any Democrat, at least) can similarly ignore legal restraints.