The ideas peddled by the Republican leadership in Washington are small and unoriginal. Their preference in policy and politics is for the voters to let Republicans manage the leviathan that Democrats create, instead of slaying the leviathan. There are multiple paths forward as conservative populists, but the GOP would rather manage than lead.

The only way to change this is to find disruptive candidates. Consider that Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush all won as conservative populists. When George H. W. Bush switched back to the technocratic manager of the modern aristocracy, he, like Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, lost. George H. W. Bush won as Reagan’s heir and lost as himself. George W. Bush won, barely, in 2000, and expanded his lead in 2004 as both a populist reformer and the guy who could keep us safe. None of the other guys were more than duds promising to manage the decline of American civilization.

We see the success of existing disruptive candidates in the Senate — Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul have become wholly disruptive. Republican Senators leak nasty things about them to the press and say nasty things about them on the floor of the Senate. They are called “wacko birds”. They have disrupted the decorum of the Senate GOP that for so long has perpetuated a system that, with the Democrats, has expanded government, awarded friends, and picked winners and losers. They have put points on the board for freedom. They give people hope that the American aristocracy of big business, lobbyists, the rich, and career politicians can be fought.