Is This An Impossible Struggle?

posted at 12:01 am on June 29, 2009 by Doctor Zero
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Many conservatives feel the battle to rescue America from the Democrats is an impossible struggle, offering no real chance for victory. I’m not Pollyannish about the situation myself, but I don’t think we’re completely doomed. Here are some of the reasons I’ve seen cited as evidence that resistance is futile, and why I think they are obstacles we can overcome. I don’t raise these points to dismiss them – overcoming them will be difficult, and success is not guaranteed. Much will depend on the courage, discipline, determination, and resourcefulness of conservatism’s political leadership. Come to think of it, their demonstrated lack of these qualities is the first point that should be addressed.

The Republican Party is a hopeless mess. It’s certainly not a pretty sight right now, but any party coming out of two bad election cycles would inevitably be roiled by internal power struggles and defectors looking to make themselves useful to the opposition. They brought a great deal of their political misfortune on themselves, through profligate spending and ethical misadventures in the latter Bush years. We can take some comfort in knowing we have an electorate that is willing to punish shady politicians, since the Democrats long ago passed “shady” and are in the process of transforming into Ringwraiths.

There have been signs of spirit and eloquence returning to the Republicans, such as John Boehner’s energetic performance on the eve of the Cap-and-Trade bill, or Michael Steele’s excellent speech to the Republican National Committee.

Also, despite massive media bias and approval ratings that seem to defy gravity, Obama’s socialized medicine infomercial on ABC was a ratings bust. Coupled with the outcome of the David Letterman flap, it would be fair to say the political figure Americans are most interested in at the moment is a Republican, Sarah Palin. That’s not guaranteed to remain a Good Thing forever, as the public’s interest could sour into mockery or morbid curiosity, but it argues against the notion that the voters have completely given up on the Republicans.

One of the reasons Republicans suffered losses in 2006 and 2008 was political fallout from the Iraq war, and this factor will be absent in 2010. They will also stand to benefit from the increasing politicization of every aspect of American life, under Obama. Intruding politics into every aspect of life transforms people who just want to be left alone into partisans. Thanks to Obama, everyone who thinks America should have a healthy manufacturing industry, wants gas to stay under $6 per gallon, desires positive growth in the Gross Domestic Product, hates the idea of government-manufactured automobiles, or opposes the idea of brutally rationed health care, just became a Republican. Before the end of this year, everyone with elderly parents whose lives would be erased through comparative-benefit analysis will be a Republican. No one will do more to restore the vitality of the Republican Party than Barack Obama.

Socialism will give the Democrats a permanent lock on power. The fear that a public bribed with government goodies will vote Democrat in perpetuity is a serious concern, but I take comfort from my dim view of socialism. It doesn’t work – it never has, anywhere – and the American version is already strained to the breaking point. There aren’t enough taxpaying suckers to pay for the social welfare benefits necessary to build the political perpetual motion machine, especially given the generally high standard of living Americans are accustomed to. National health care is probably the best chance the Democrats have to trick the voters into indentured servitude, and the public appetite for such a scheme is already looking soft… even at a time when Obama enjoys the willing assistance of nearly the entire news media in selling it, and has hardly been challenged on any of the details.

The electoral map has shifted to favor Democrats. Electoral maps change. Relative small numbers of people in key states can produce tectonic shifts in political alignment. Remember that Republicans were supposed to have achieved something like a permanent electoral lock in 2004. Obama’s 2008 election performance was not particularly strong, given his astonishing media coverage, a disastrous Republican presidential candidate, an unpopular Republican president, and a remarkable number of major events breaking Obama’s way. McCain’s defeat was mostly caused by people staying home, not people voting for Obama. In a country with about 200 million eligible voters, victory by nine or ten million votes does not build an invulnerable electoral fortress.

Immigration will make the Democrats invincible within a few years. It’s true that Hispanic immigrants currently tend to vote Democrat, and Republicans don’t seem inclined to act strongly against illegal immigration, or reduce legal immigration quotas. That could change, of course, particularly if loud popular support for tighter borders leads Republicans to see such policies as the path to victory. Even if both legal and illegal immigration remains high, there’s no reason to think Hispanic voters will remain serfs on the Democrat vote farm forever. Most of them came here for a better life, and they might not remain mindlessly loyal to the party that murdered the good life right before their eyes, then offered them a few bucks from the victim’s wallet to keep quiet. Most of the fears about perpetual rule through Hispanic vote zombies are based on the nagging fear that Democrat policies might actually work, to some middling degree, at least enough to keep the welfare benefits coming. I urge you to broaden your image of the magnitude of Democrat failure. Give their policies a few more years to chew on the economy, and black voters might not be willing to cough up those guaranteed 90% vote margins any more, either.

The voters are asleep. I think it’s more accurate to say they were tired in 2008. They were weary from the relentless Democrat and media assault against Bush, and McCain didn’t give them anything to get excited about. A lot of them were too weary to trudge to the polls on Election Day. The one time their eyes popped wide open was when gas approached four bucks a gallon… and if those prices hadn’t gone down quickly, we’d be talking about President McCain’s chances of holding both houses of Congress in 2010. Never forget how absolutely flummoxed Democrats were by the gas crunch of summer 2008… or how terrified they were on the eve of the subprime debacle, an event which could have (and should have) essentially destroyed their party for a generation, if McCain had not bungled his response so badly. American voters are light sleepers. It doesn’t take all that much real pain to wake them up. Republicans would be wise to remind them, constantly, of the agony House Democrats and Obama just voted to inflict on them, even if the Cap-and-Trade nightmare ends in the Senate. Voters can doze through long, moralistic discussions of abstract principle, and even agree in theory to popular psychoses like the global warming hoax, if they are presented with a heavy dusting of media glitter. Their attention tends to become focused by wounds that leave pools of tax dollars congealing at their feet.

2010 is a battle, not a lost cause. There really aren’t any reasons why we can’t win, and absolutely no reasons why we shouldn’t try.

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