The GOP, small-government conservatism, and public opinion
Liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent points to a new Pew poll showing majorities favoring tax increases on those earning over $250,000 and opposing cuts to entitlements, and sees a deep problem for Republicans. …
To start, it’s always important to recognize that poll results depend on what questions the pollsters ask. On election night, even as President Obama coasted to reelection, Politico reported that according to exit polls, “53 percent of those surveyed said the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals — a figure that’s risen 10 points since the 2008 election. Comparatively, 41 percent of voters said they believe government should be doing more.” This isn’t to ignore the other polling data that is discouraging for small government conservatism, but to question the idea that there’s some sort of fundamental shift toward support of big government.
It’s also important to recognize that a poll is a snapshot in time. It isn’t surprising to me that right now, most Americans would prefer raising taxes on two percent of taxpayers and avoiding cuts to entitlements. … Let’s see how polls turn out when middle class Americans are asked whether they want to pay significantly higher taxes in order to minimize cuts to entitlement programs, or how they’ll feel when interest rates and inflation are soaring as a result of the national debt.
Blowback
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Not too many intelligent and well educated people left in this nation. They will never be able to put 13 and 12 together and come up with 25 as a whole. So, unless they have an intelligent well spoken conservative who is willing to discuss this with them, they never will understand where the problem comes from.
This go around we had an intelligent boring progressive running on our ticket.
astonerii on December 14, 2012 at 8:06 AM
It’s more than just the man at the top of the ticket though. For too long Conservatives have been playing the “Big Win” game, not realizing that the “Big Win” doesn’t actually change anything.
In the meantime the leftists have been playing the “small win” game. Winning lots of small, incremental battles that slowly push the lines to the left. One of their biggest wins was pointedly going out and sending thousands of their young foot soldiers into teaching courses. They invaded and took over the school system in the country, first at the college level (where they already had a foothold among the professorial staff) and then at the grade school level.
Combine that with a heavily leftist Hollywood and news media and by the early 1980′s, most children in the US spent a good 20 years of their life being slowly indoctrinated with leftist ideology both in and out of school. That slow indoctrination of most of the populace has now borne it’s fruit, and a much more left-leaning population willing and eager to vote themselves more goodies.
So how do we fix this?
For one, we HAVE TO STOP (or at least put less focus on) winning the “Big Win”. We may still win large battles for big offices, but we need to focus on the “small win”. We need to get already conservative kids to voluntarily choose to go into education, acting and journalism. It’s a risk, the educational establishment is HEAVILY leftist and they root out opposition with far more ruthlessness than the semi-conservatives that used to run academia. the same can be said of Hollywood. Journalism is a bit easier now though, with the advent of New Media. Conservatism has done very well there, with thousands of new media outlets and even a moderately conservative cable channel, Fox News.
But this is not enough. We need to do more than make our own ideological islands, it’s well past time to invade the Leftist ones. We need people willing to take the risk and with subterfuge and caution, sneak in and start taking positions in the educational establishment, in Hollywood, and in leftist media sources. We need to take the culture back, and taking over the purveyors of culture in America is the first step in doing that.
So let’s take a page from the leftists; Hide who we are, infiltrate their bastions of power, and slowly take over them from the inside out. Then being the process of raising up generations of conservatively oriented kids. We have the home advantage. Most people live conservatively, even if they vote for leftists. our message has a natural audience there. Combine that with the traditional support for conservatism from the Protestant majority of Christians, and we would have a powerful cultural brew to clear minds of America from the fog of leftism.
I know we can do this, but we must start now. America can’t wait.
wearyman on December 14, 2012 at 8:31 AM
The GOP and “small government” divorced long ago, sadly.
mythicknight on December 14, 2012 at 8:41 AM
Back in January…
Fallon on December 14, 2012 at 8:50 AM
All well and good for the long run, but in the short run, we need to see what we can do to blunt or block their gains:
We need to crash Sallie Mae and crash it hard. Universities spent their student loan “mad money” on buildings, which are less easily liquidated than professors. And oh, lookie—all those Billy Ayers, Cornel Wests, et cetera are now some of the highest-paid professors in their respective schools. Round 1 of layoffs would be a promise not to mess with their pension plans in return for their immediate retirement. Round 2 will be closing all those Grievance Studies departments, once the academically mediocre students these departments kept housing are off to junior college or getting their skilled labor certificates.
We need to close the revolving door between the media and the Democrat Party. Just forbidding House members from hiring former media figures is half the battle, and we have enough control of the House to do this. We also need to use Hollywood’s dependence on intellectual property protection against them. Why should we bust our bums to fund protections against online piracy, when it primarily protects industries that act against us? Ashley Judd plans to run for Congress. How Cute. She’s as big a bimbo and ditz as she calls Sarah Palin. Let’s Palinize her. Let her stand in for every dumbass celebrity who thinks s/he can fix the world.
Sekhmet on December 14, 2012 at 8:50 AM
If public opinion polls are the be all and end all of governing, why did the democrats go through with Obamacare? Or are the polls only important when they favor democrat policies? Does the fact that 62% of the people in this country want to raise taxes on the rich mean that is the right thing to do? I think it was the same percentage who didn’t want Obamacare.
Night Owl on December 14, 2012 at 8:51 AM
Yep.
I voted for big government Bush 43. Twice. I voted for big government McCain. I voted for big government Romney.
I believe that the next time I’m offered a choice like that, I’m staying home.
ElectricPhase on December 14, 2012 at 9:49 AM
There won’t be any inflation. The government is planning to keep readjusting the index. Some people will choose cheaper goods and some will choose no goods. But it won’t have anything to do with inflation. And you have the government’s word on that.
kunegetikos on December 14, 2012 at 10:09 AM
The GOP is only for “small government” when they don’t have the presidency.
Pablo Honey on December 14, 2012 at 10:44 AM
I wonder how unpopular in the polls reality will be once it asserts itself.
gwelf on December 14, 2012 at 11:50 AM
Not only but most of the time.
However they always push for less government than Democrats so it’s the choice of flying into the abyss later rather than sooner.
gwelf on December 14, 2012 at 11:57 AM