The trouble with populism

Anyone who has read here over the last 16 years or so can guess that, most of the time, I vote for the Republican candidate in a electoral race. But there have been exceptions over the years, especially when I have a Libertarian or Constitution Party candidate I like better, and 2020 was one of them.

When I endorsed for Delaware’s U.S. Senate race 18 months ago, I noted:

(Lauren Witzke) would be an almost automatic choice except for two places I vehemently disagree with her: one being the idea of incentivizing marriage and family through government policy (as opposed to that of merely not penalizing it) and the other being her stance against right-to-work as some sort of appeal to Big Labor voters – never mind that jobs tend to accrue to right-to-work states when all other conditions are substantially equal. Those are two big strikes against her, and her reaction to RBG’s death was very nearly strike three – somehow she managed to foul it off and stay alive.

“For Delaware 2020,” monoblogue, October 25, 2020.

Thanks to the Libertarians running a right-leaning candidate I voted for Nadine Frost instead, and it turned out I didn’t cost Lauren the race by doing so; in fact, she trailed all four other GOP statewide candidates and I don’t think it was because Chris Coons is all that popular.

The allusion to RBG upon her passing was really controversial, but in looking that gem up I found this quote from Witzke:

“Well the truth of the matter is that the Delaware GOP keeps losing and they think they can beat the liberals by becoming more liberal and that’s not gonna be the case, this is war.”

Roman Battaglia, Delaware Public Media, “GOP Senate candidate retains party backing, despite condemnation of social media posts,” September 21, 2020. Quoting Lauren Witzke.

Perhaps it’s a good thing Witzke hasn’t thrown her hat into the House race (since there’s no Senate race this year) because then how do you explain “becoming more liberal” with this social media complaint?

In full support of Student Loan Forgiveness:

Having crippling student loan debt makes it as difficult as possible for young people to buy a home, get married, and have children. An entire generation has become a slave to debt, signing their lives away at 18-not knowing that the US Government would import the third world to compete with them and push wages down in the workforce.

If the GOP was really the “party of the working-class” they would get behind this and get this done, in addition to seizing college endowments to prevent it from happening again.

Lauren Witzke, Social media post, April 28, 2022.

Never mind she got slaughtered in the comments, I have to say my piece too.

There’s a difference between conservatism and populism. One big worry I had about a Trump presidency early on was that the GOP would be pushed in a more populist direction, but he generally managed to straddle the line well and didn’t let his populist side out too much.

But in Trump’s term, he made two moves toward canceling student loans: in September 2019, before the CCP virus struck us, he signed an executive order that canceled student loan debt for permanently disabled veterans, which he estimated would save veterans “hundreds of millions” of dollars. And of course, during the pandemic Trump began the process of pausing student loan payments and interest that Joe Biden has continued, saving an estimated $90 billion for borrowers.

A pause of payments and interest, though, is a lot different than wiping out their student loan debt. And it wouldn’t necessarily help the working class, according to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy. Bear in mind that graduate degree holders – who don’t tend to be working-class – hold 56% of the outstanding student loan debt, so they would benefit the most from forgiveness.

It was a long, long time ago but I was one of those who took out student loans to go to college and I remember handing Sallie Mae about $120 or so a month beginning six months after graduation. I’m not going to say it was easy or that I always paid them on time, because student loans are a little like medical bills: hard to collect because you’re not taking away the ER visit for the flu, the knee replacement, or the bachelor’s degree if the payments are late like you can for a car or a house. But, over the span of fifteen years and a couple forbearances and refinances, I got my student loans paid off. Even as liberal as we considered Bill Clinton to be back in that era of my student loans, the idea of forgiving them for the masses was not seriously considered.

Aside from the giant issue with seizing college endowments – don’t you love it when government confiscates private property? – there are three huge problems with what Witzke and much of the other regressive community is backing.

First off, I’m still looking for the place where it says our federal government should have a role in education like this. One thing that disappointed me in the otherwise relatively stellar Reagan legacy is that he couldn’t convince the public to warn Congress that the Department of Education was really unnecessary, and maybe they need to think about defunding it if they wanted to stay in Congress. Reagan was a “Great Communicator,” but not so much a lobbyist for creating a public outcry for ridding us of an unnecessary Cabinet post. More recently I was hoping Betsy DeVos would help that process along, but, alas, Donald Trump couldn’t compete with the votes purchased with Zuckbucks and…well, you know what happened. Then again, you read what Trump did with student loans in the grafs above so I don’t believe he was really down with the struggle, either.

Secondly, it further erodes the idea of commitment. We already have issues with the concept when it comes to marriage and relationships in a culture where celebrities seem to be having a contest as to who can have the highest number of marriages and divorces and the most kids out of wedlock, with our society either cheering them on (as in “you do you”) or just turning a blind eye. This is how our culture has devolved since the era of our grandparents; an era which Witzke seems to want to restore – she uses the policies of the nation of Hungary as an example* – but this time through generous government subsidies that our ancestors didn’t need and, out of pride, would have likely refused anyway. Having the government step in and say, “yeah, we’ll pay off the student loans you took out for your womyn’s studies degree” just feeds the entitlement society we’ve become. Student loans, then, go from a hand up to just another handout.

Finally, on the college front, the biggest part of the reason those ivory towers have become so fat and happy financially these days – with those endowments that Witzke covets for government seizure in the millions or even billions of dollars – is that they have raised tuition and fees with impunity knowing that the government makes student loans widely available for any warm body they accept. Students don’t even have to get a degree, but the college gets paid for spouting off whatever the woke flavor of the day is and now the taxpayers will be footing the bill. If it were the colleges having to come up with the coin for the failures of their students, you better believe they would be more prudent and careful with who they let in and what is taught, don’cha think? It may make ditchdiggers out of all those “diversity, equity, and inclusion” department hires but the world needs honest labor, too.

There’s been a political cartoon turned meme making the rounds for awhile that makes the point more succinctly than I did, but I’ll go with a paraphrase: You took out a student loan, pay it back. I didn’t say it was easy or without sacrifice, but honor a commitment for once.

(*) I will give Lauren credit in that she writes well in an Ann Coulter vein. But I still disagree with her on this student loan thing.

Odds and ends number 105

Well, it’s that time again. It seems like my e-mail box fills faster than ever despite the fact I’ve dropped off a number of lists, and of course I save the stuff I find interesting (but not long enough for a full post) for use here. So here are the few sentence to few paragraph dollops of bloggy goodness.

Manic suppression

I’m sure I’ve told you all that I write for The Patriot Post, and they’re like many other businesses that have shifted their marketing strategy to rely more and more on social media. But what happens when their very name becomes a liability in some circles? As Mark Alexander explains:

The net result in terms of our advocacy for and outreach on behalf of Freedom and Liberty: After 25 years of year-over-year record growth, which increased dramatically on social media platforms since 2010, starting in June of 2020, Patriot Post incoming traffic from those platforms precipitously dropped by more than 80% — the direct result of shadow-banning and suppression of our reach on those platforms. That deliberate and demonstrable suppression of our content necessitated a complete alteration of our marketing model over the last 12 months. As a result, our ranks continue to grow at a good pace.

But there is NO recourse for the violation of our Civil Rights because Republicans in Congress are too busy focusing on “cancel culture,” which is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Cancel culture is a much easier political soundbite, but it is only a minuscule part of the real First Amendment threat. The deliberate systemic suppression of conservative websites on social media platforms would make the old Soviet commissars of truth proud. Until Republicans get beyond the cancel culture soundbites, this suppression will continue unabated.

Mark Alexander, “The Big Tech Assault on The Patriot Post,” July 28, 2021.

Basically, since social media “fact-checkers” have deemed them incorrect, they’ve had to retreat to their former pre-social media process. Recently I decided to help them out a little bit with a second widget on my sidebar, this one more toward the top.

Knock on wood, but I’ve personally not had a lot of issues on social media. We’ll see how long I can press my luck.

On a related note, a June article from Erick Erickson reveals just how much the social media folks have on you. It’s an interesting listen, but I’m still wondering how I get so much stuff on Montana when I’ve never been there nor plan on visiting. Maybe I came across a paper from there in doing my reading?

The leftist grifter

One e-mail list I didn’t drop off was that of a guy named Rick Weiland.

Back in the day I somehow ended up on his list, and for quite awhile I was getting e-mail from him as he ran a few failed campaigns up in South Dakota. (Now watch, I’m going to get all sorts of social media stuff from that state.) But the reason I’ve held on to several of his missives is that it’s a good way to see what concerns the woke candidates of this nation – even in “flyover country.”

In the last couple weeks, he and his “Take It Back” group worried that:

  • Toyota gave political donations to not just Republican candidates, but ones who supported the “insurrection.” (July 5)
  • Social media was not banning ads from fossil fuel companies. (July 11)
  • The Supreme Court was not being packed with liberals. (July 12)
  • We weren’t backing the runaway Texas Democrat superspreaders. (Okay, the last part was my addition.) (July 13)
  • Medicare wasn’t being expanded in states which refused it, meaning the federal government has to force them to. (July 14)
  • Democrats are not standing strong on climate change and “equity.” (July 15)
  • We weren’t going to expand Medicare by adding dental and vision and making it available to younger people. (July 18)
  • President Biden should block all new fossil fuel projects. (July 28)

It’s almost like Christmas every day as I read what far-loony-left idea they have now. I need the good laugh – until I realize these people are serious.

Deluded, but serious. How about rightsizing government for a change? If there’s anything that needs to be taken back, it’s a proper interpretation of the Constitution and role of government as intended by the Founders.

The grifting part comes in where they are trying to petition Medicaid expansion to the ballot in South Dakota and are looking for donations. Why, if people are just clamoring for this, shouldn’t this initiative be significantly volunteer-driven? Between him and Indivisible now becoming a money-begging national scam that’s taken what the TEA Party became and tripled down on it, I wonder how much stimmie cash the unwashed far left has remaining.

(Late edit: how about one more for the road tonight, as they complain this time about the need to rein in Wall Street private equity firms. Any complaint for a buck, I guess, since the pitch was there.)

Back to the home state

Subtitled, when the majority tyrants get pissed. I’ll let Rep. Bryan Shupe explain:

Months ago I created a bill that would allow for no excuse absentee ballot voting in the State of Delaware while requiring that any changes to our absentee process would have to remain in the Delaware Constitution, a 2/3 vote over two consecutive legislative sessions. This legislation safeguards the integrity of our elections by not allowing the majority, either Democrat or Republican, to simply make new voting rules that will benefit them in the next election cycle.

Unfortunately the discussion was not welcomed and leadership has tried to create this as a partisan issue. EVEN WORSE, after the current absentee bill, HB 75, was defeated, my Municipal Voting Rights bill, HB 146, which was on the agenda, was not heard on the House floor.

HB 146, which had bipartisan support, eliminates the requirement for double voter registration for Delawareans to vote in their local elections, expanding voting right across the state. Retaliation is an old game that serves no one.

Rep. Bryan Shupe, “Political games hurt Delaware’s people,” June 14, 2021. Slightly edited for clarity.

Maybe we like the absentee balloting the way it is. I know the other side is adding early (and often) voting in 2022 – it was funny, the reaction I got from the BoE worker at the state fair when I said that as I passed by their booth – yet, they wouldn’t make it easier to vote when they lost in the General Assembly because the GOP got smart and realized they can use their minority for a good cause once in awhile. My fine friends in Laurel shouldn’t need to register for both state and municipal elections – isn’t that voter suppression?

And considering the state is primed for both slow population and economic growth thanks to the policies in place – this according to Dr. John Stapleford, who is the Co-Director of the Center for Analysis of Delaware’s Economy & Government Spending – maybe we need some reform and elections are a good place to work.

By the way, here are two interesting factoids from Dr. Stapleford:

In Sussex County, net migration accounted for 102% of the population change (deaths exceed births) compared to 67% in Kent County and only 12% in New Castle County. Young people move into counties with good job opportunities while older folks migrate to counties with warmer weather, amenities (e.g., beaches, lakes), and lower taxes…

Sussex County’s net migration will slow as a growing population clogs the roads and the beaches. Regardless, the population growth in Sussex County will continue to add to consumption demand while doing little to boost economic productivity in Delaware. Burdened by strict environmental land use regulations and poor public schools, net domestic out-migration from New Castle County will continue. Ultimately, below-average population growth will constrain future Delaware economic growth.

Dr. John Stapleford, “Delaware Population Numbers Promises Low Economic Growth,” Caesar Rodney Institute, June 24, 2021.

While the state as a whole only grew at 0.9% in population, Sussex County increased 2.2%. (As a trend, the center of population continued its southward march.) And if there are two areas of Delaware which need an economic boost, they are New Castle County and the western end of Sussex County (the U.S. 13 corridor.) Unfortunately, NCC tends to vote against their own interests while the west side of Sussex can’t progress because they don’t have forceful leadership – witness the defeat of local right-to-work legislation as an example.

Finds from the Resistance Library

If there were someone who personifies the concept of resistance, I think I could get Pat Buchanan to qualify. I know Republicans didn’t have a lot of use for him when he was more politically active, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have fans. In reading this short biography, you could surmise Buchanan was Donald Trump before Donald Trump was cool. (However, people tend to forget we can’t speak of Pat in the past tense, since he is still around.)

But even better in my mind is their longer piece on The Great Reset. Doing what I do and knowing some recent experience, this portion of Sam Jacobs’ report stuck out the most:

BlackRock is a private equity firm that has been offering absurd prices for residential homes in the suburbs. They don’t plan to flip them and turn a profit. Rather, the plan is to buy homes at 50 percent above asking with the purpose of transforming these homes into rental properties. BlackRock’s acquisition of the suburbs is part of a larger issue that grew out of COVID-19, but is closely related to the Great Reset – the increased centralization of the American economy…

One company, or a handful of them, who dominate the housing market are dangerous for a variety of reasons. Chief among these reasons is the ability to weaponize this control over housing against critics of the regime. Who needs the government to enact a social credit system when the national landlord has one? Of course, the usual dummies will defend this because it’s being done by a private corporation.

(Also) It is worth briefly noting that the eviction moratorium favors large landlords who can go months or years without an income over smaller ones, who cannot. The moratorium was enacted by the CDC, which apparently now has the authority to control rental properties in the United States.

Sam Jacobs, “The Great Reset: The Global Elite’s Plan to Radically Remake Our Economic and Social Lives,” undated.

Let’s consider this for a moment: we have two paths to prosperity under assault. From the time I was young I was always urged to buy a house and build equity and wealth. Property was an asset that generally held its value and, in a dire emergency, had worth which could be borrowed against. Making people perpetual renters makes it that much more difficult to have something of lasting value since the worth of the property remains with the owner.

Congruent to that is the notion of those who purchase a second home intending to keep it for a rental property – I know several people who have (or are) doing that, and just because there’s an eviction moratorium doesn’t mean there’s a moratorium for owners to pay their own mortgages and upkeep. (Heaven help the landlord who doesn’t address issues in the house, even if the rent isn’t being paid.) It’s understandable that some renters are having issues, but obviously there are enough who are simply taking advantage of the system that it’s become a concern.

So that leaves me with a few items that will be promoted to post status over the coming days. Not a bad evening’s work.

2020 gubernatorial dossier: Role of Government

This is the eighth, penultimate part of a series taking a deeper dive into various important topics in the 2020 Delaware gubernatorial election. On the 100-point scale I am using to grade candidates, the role of government is worth 14 points. 

This section of the dossier has been revised and updated to reflect the general election field.

These will be presented in the order of Republican, Libertarian, Independent Party of Delaware (IPoD), and Democrat, who in all cases are incumbents.

I have decided to tackle the candidates in order for this part, which will lean heavily on my interpretation of previous parts.

“What finally made me decide to run were the nanny state regulations involving Delawareans’ exercise of Constitutionally-protected rights,” said Republican Julianne Murray. And where was she the last fifty years? I guess it’s a case of better late than never. “COVID-19 has shown that the government can and will take away freedoms from Delawareans in an unconstitutional manner,” she continues.  “We must address this so that future Governors have checks on their power.”

The question is who will have the check? I don’t know if we can trust the Delaware General Assembly as currently comprised. I’m actually afraid, absent a GOP majority in the DGA, that she will find out just how hamstrung she really is once she uses her executive power to strip away the most egregious violations of rights based on John Carney’s pandemic executive orders. Do you think they would have let a Governor Colin Bonini get away with anything he proposed in 2016? I give her 6 points out of 14.

John Machurek (L)

I have always liked certain aspects of the libertarian point of view; however, there are some detrimental portions as well. Cue Machurek saying recently on social media, “Philsophically I’m an anarchist. However, the government has a long way to go before we get to the point that we discuss having a government or not.” To me, that’s akin to the two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner – with no rules, we devolve to a Darwinian social order.

“As a libertarian I stand for each individual’s liberty and pursuit of happiness,” he also claimed. “I am standing with all who have been victims of injustice and will work my campaign to make sure voices of liberty are heard and protected in Delaware.” Worthy of note: since he is pro-choice, he cuts out the very life that is required to enjoy the liberty and pursuit of happiness. It’s the difference between what I gave his fellow Libertarian Senate hopeful Nadine Frost and the 4 points out of 14 I’m giving to John.

Kathy DeMatteis (IPoD)

She began her platform well on this subject by promising to “Curtail abusive government powers to protect Constitutional liberties.” She also vowed to “Protect our most vulnerable people.” Okay, at a state level I can maybe buy that. But she lost me with “Establish and maintain a fundamental human rights code.” I sort of think there already is, and it’s called the Bible. But that’s just me.

I do like her idea about bringing initiative, referendum, and recall to Delaware as we are the only state that has none of those remedies available to us as I recall. So I’ll give her 4 points out of 14 as well.

John Carney (incumbent D)

He said this four years ago: “As a former Secretary of Finance, John knows we can’t continue with business as usual. Increased spending in areas like health care are outpacing our ability to afford it, and crowding out other priorities like improving education and creating jobs. John believes it is time for a “reset” that takes a hard look at spending and revenue. If Delaware state government is going to continue to offer the services it provides to a growing population, and expand in areas where it’s weak, it will need to be more efficient and better able to eliminate unnecessary spending.”

I haven’t seen that effort. And need I mention how he’s become a dictator to the extent that six Republicans and two smaller party members lined up to run against him? He gets o points out of 14 because I don’t think he gets the proper role of government at all.

Standings: Murray 36.5, Machurek 32, DeMatteis 15.5, Carney 1.5.

That, then, is my impression of how each candidate sees the role of government. I’m going to look at intangibles in the last part.

The state of the TEA Party: winter 2020

This update is going to be a little bit different than the first ones from last summer and fall. Most of the immediate loose ends left untied by the publication of my book have now been tied up so it’s time to shift focus.

I got to thinking the other day about where the TEA Party was during the 2012 Presidential campaign, which was the first one it faced as a political entity. At this point in the 2012 campaign the TEA Party – which, in real time, was just before Christmas of 2011 because the Iowa caucuses were held on January 3 of that year – was still weighing its choices between a slew of TEA Party-approved contenders like Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum or holding their nose to get behind the favored and more centrist and establishment Mitt Romney, who eventually won the GOP nomination – much to the chagrin of many TEA Party believers. (One of those who also flirted with the idea of running during the 2012 campaign before bowing out just weeks later: Donald Trump. It would be four years later that his campaign ignited a second firestorm among TEA Party adherents.)

Fast forward to 2020 and flip the coin over to the other side of the political spectrum and you see the dilemma of the far left Democrats: do they stick with the infighting between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, switch over to the unproven Pete Buttigieg, or hold their nose for the known commodity of Joe Biden as the best chance to defeat Donald Trump? In short, at what point do you abandon principle for practicality and work for an election in the hope that maybe you won’t lose any more political ground with a more moderate candidate? That seemed to be the fate of TEA Party people in 2012, and perhaps they learned pragmatism from their first two major elections: the Doug Hoffman New York Congressional race in 2009 and Scott Brown’s first Senate run in the winter of 2009-10.

I’m thinking that may be a question I will ask later this summer, but here’s the idea for this feature going forward.

If it’s not apparent to you after all these years of writing, the TEA Party as envisioned was a political movement right up my alley; hence, I’m pretty passionate about it. Why else would I spent over 2 1/2 years writing a book to help document its history and effects? (Hint: it ain’t the money.)

After a decade-plus of existence, we can now see what impact the TEA Party has had on the political scene, but there’s a portion of me that feels it needs continued study on how to maintain and increase its relevance and make it more effective in implementing its principles. The question arises, though: what are its principles, and how have they changed over time?

So, every three months, my hope is to distill what those who are most involved in the TEA Party as its Founding Fathers (and Mothers) and other longtime leaders have to say about the topics I’m introducing here – not just as a blog post but in more of a newsletter style. (My model in this is a familiar one to me: The Patriot Post, for whom I write weekly.) Not only would it promote academic-style study, but it would also be a legacy project for those involved – we have lost several of the early leaders already, and it’s a movement we need more than ever.

To that end I’ve already determined a number of topic questions that will carry us through the remainder of 2020.

April: The TEA Party got its start as a movement claiming we were “Taxed Enough Already.” We have found that the tax cuts we received from President Trump in 2017 have indeed bolstered the economy and put more money in our pockets, and that’s great – but we still run trillion-dollar deficits just as we did in the heart of the Great Recession. How can we sell a message of spending reduction to the masses like we pressed for tax cuts? And, corollary to that, how do we defend ourselves from the charge of hypocrisy given we got the tax cuts we wanted but still find ourselves deep in red ink?

July: As noted earlier, the primary elections don’t always give us the candidate we want. For many of us, Donald Trump was an example; however, the way he has governed has been a pleasant surprise. What are some of the “red line” issues that are non-negotiable to you, or, put another way, are there instances where you can’t abide by the rule made popular by Ronald Reagan, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.” Or is just moving the ball enough after primary voters have spoken?

October: For good or bad, Donald Trump has been our President for the last three=plus years. On the off chance that he is defeated in November, however, where does the TEA Party begin with its resistance to the far-left agenda sure to be enacted by the Democrats’ nominee? Or, if Trump wins – and doesn’t have to worry about re-election ever again – what issues do you want him to exhaust his political capital on in his second term?

I believe these are compelling questions worth asking, and hopefully I will have a plethora of answers from those most passionate about the TEA Party movement.

As far as a timeline, ideally April would be the last State of the TEA Party blog post exclusively at this venue. I would love to have a functional site for this proposed digest (as well as a nice little mailing list) by this summer, but that is going to depend on how much assistance I receive. At this point the help is more in the area of expertise than finance, since the goal is simply to promote this information in a venue that is inherently not looking to support or oppose particular candidates but to be a clearinghouse to discuss ideas and correctly write the TEA Party’s history and overarching goals.

By its very nature, 2020 should be a year of vision. Let’s bring the state of the TEA Party into a much clearer and more broadly understood focus.

So, about those Jeremiah conservatives…

I made an executive decision as I wrote this: an edited (no blockquote) version is crossposted to my book site.

I’ve been meaning to get to this all week and the opportunity has finally arrived. Last week Erick Erickson at The Resurgent did a piece on what he called “Jeremiah 29 conservatives.” In the post, he cites Jeremiah 29:5-7, which is a portion of a letter from Jeremiah to those who were captured and forced to relocate to exile in Babylon. Erickson uses it to springboard to his main point:

There is a growing class of conservatives in the United States who can be considered Jeremiah 29 Conservatives. They have given up on national politics. It has become too ugly, too compromising, too unaligned with their values, and too willing to make compromises with bad government and big government to advance a compromised agenda.

These conservatives are trying to seek the welfare of the cities in which they live, recognizing that it is there they will find their welfare. They want good government and understand the most important fight of the day is the one for their family’s daily well being. Washington, they know, is too far removed from their daily lives and, in their mind, Republicans and conservative institutions in Washington have made too many compromises to be effective.

At the end of the Bush Administration and beginning of the Obama era, thanks oddly enough to the Citizens United case, grassroots groups were springing up around the country to help conservatives down to the local level. There were training sessions for conservative activists on simple things like the best way to write editorials to local papers. They grassroots groups provided tools for local activists to contact their state legislature. They explained how to find when a city council met and how to show up to speak on an issue. They encouraged conservative activists to run for the school board.

As the tea party rose, conservative organizations began focusing more and more on fighting Barack Obama. They abandoned the fights in the states.

Obviously this quote hit home with me given my passion for the TEA Party and its principles. But to a great extent it’s true.

I’ve probably researched the TEA Party more than 99% of the people out there and I found that it was a very unusual phenomenon in that the TEA Party began as a nationwide effort but then decentralized itself to the local level for a time. Think of the TEA Party as three early stages, which I’ll distinguish by their dates: February 27, April 15, and September 12. (All these occurred in 2009.)

The February 27 wave occurred in fewer than 50 cities and was really put together for one purpose: to make a statement about the unwillingness of government to consider solutions other than top-down financial stimulus and increased government control in addressing the Great Recession. Some may have organized this believing it would be a one-time deal, but there was such a success created that thousands of others, helped along by mass media, decided to get in on the action at the local level.

So rather than 40-odd mainly large cities, the April 15 (and later July 4) wave of TEA Parties took place in a thousand cities around the nation, big and small. Each local event had its own flavor, with some rallying around strictly financial and national issues and others departing from that script to address local items or topics dear to social conservatives, particularly those in the pro-life movement. There was no “right” way to do a TEA Party, and part of its appeal was the grassroots organization that didn’t get marching orders from a party or inside-the-Beltway group.

But by the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington – an event I simply call 9/12 – local groups were being encouraged to join up in a national organization, supposedly to increase the clout of the movement. While some TEA Party groups remained fiercely independent, most others gravitated toward an alliance with organizations such as the Campaign for Liberty or Americans for Prosperity. (The latter is basically what happened to our local TEA Party.) This also coincided with the rise of Tea Party Patriots as an umbrella group, although they weren’t the only one as many states had similar entities.

Once the rallies became less frequent, though, hundreds of TEA Party groups withered on the vine. And many of those individual participants who stuck it out for the first couple years were perhaps made complacent by how easily the political tables were turned in 2010 and figured the movement didn’t need them anymore – they let the most passionate ones soldier on. So by the time 2012 and 2014 rolled around, many of those who believed in the TEA Party early on saw that the movement was no longer locally grassroots but corporate-style Astroturf, and no longer fiercely independent but now the red-headed stepchild of the national Republican Party.

As Erickson might tell it, that’s what happens when outsiders try to get involved in national politics, which is way out of the league of the average person. Most people are more interested in local activism, and (to be honest) if government were as it should be that’s all they would need to deal with.

So today I decided to look again at the Tea Party Patriots’ website as they celebrate their tenth anniversary. In a celebratory op-ed by Jenny Beth Martin – the only one of the three original co-founders of Tea Party Patriots to still be with the group – she cited a number of Washington initiatives as accomplishments of the TEA Party and noted they would continue to fight in the halls of Congress – just like any other lobbying group. They pay lip service to the local groups, but their focus is on stopping socialism on a national level. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s stop pretending they’re a grassroots group, okay?

It’s very sad to think that the TEA Party may have missed its golden opportunity because they lost focus on the local groups. If local needs are addressed, it’s more likely that states will follow and eventually the nation.

I have a suggestion for all this, but I can’t reveal it here – it’s waiting until my book is ready. (That’s called a tease.) Good Lord willing and if the creek don’t rise, look for it April 15.

Post-election thoughts

So it seemed pretty brutal for the Republicans Tuesday night as they lost the two governor’s races that were available to them, including the one Chris Christie was vacating in New Jersey. There, incoming Governor-elect Philip Murphy gained a modest total of three seats in his 120-seat legislature, although it was already tilted heavily toward his party anyway. Going from 54-26 and 24-16 to 56-24 and 25-15 probably isn’t going to make a lot of difference in the scheme of things there as much as the change at the top.

On the other hand, the party at the top won’t change in Virginia as Democrat Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam will succeed his “boss” over the last four years, fellow Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe. The big sensation there was the Democrats’ pickup of 16 seats in their House of Delegates to suddenly turn an overwhelming 66-34 disadvantage to a 50-50 tie. The Virginia results have been trumpeted (pun intended) around the country as a repudiation of the President and the Republicans by a gleeful partisan media.

But if you take a look at the lay of the land, the results are less surprising than you may think. Consider, first of all, the geography of these 16 districts. Ten of these districts lie close to the Washington region, bordering the sea of blue on this map – so they read the WaPo, never liked Donald Trump to begin with, and for them it was open season on Republicans beginning November 9, 2016. Three of the other ones are in the suburbs of Richmond, two are within the Tidewater region, and one seeming outlier is along the West Virginia border. Yet that district along the border of one of Trump’s strongest states wasn’t the lone district of the sixteen that flipped which supported Trump in 2016 – that distinction went to the 85th District in Virginia Beach.

To become Republican districts in the first place, they obviously had to elect Republicans at the legislative level two years ago (when the GOP actually lost one seat to go from 67-33 to 66-34.) But a year before that 10 of the 16 supported Ed Gillespie in his run for the U.S. Senate against Mark Warner (the six that did not were all in northern Virginia.) Similarly, the districts split evenly between supporting Republican Ken Cuccinelli and McAuliffe in 2013, with the northern Virginia districts that threw out the Republicans this time around mostly favoring McAuliffe.

The election results of the last two years are beginning to prove that Virginia is becoming another, slightly larger Maryland – wide swaths of rural Republicans who get killed at the ballot box by government-addled junkies in cities which depend too much on it. Setting aside the vast number of Virginians that call the Potomac Valley home, it’s worth remembering that the Tidewater area is the largest concentration of cities but Richmond is also a significant urban area, too, and it’s the state capital.

So let’s shift our focus onto Maryland. There were two Republican mayors the state party was dearly hoping would win on Tuesday, but instead both were shellacked pretty handily. Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides couldn’t recreate his 59-vote escape act of 2013 nor could Randy McClement win a third term in Frederick – and neither could even sniff 40% of the vote. But then neither municipality is Republican-friendly territory as both their city councils are dominated by Democrats, so the success of both men was something of an outlier.

The knee-jerk reactions have been predictable. Establishment Republicans blame the unpopular Donald Trump for dragging down these candidates while the devout Trump backers say it’s the fault of a Congress that’s not enacting Trump’s agenda quickly enough. But you didn’t come here for knee-jerk reaction, do you?

Again, let’s look at where most of these voters in question reside. The Virginia voters who tossed out Republicans are by and large suburban voters. The Maryland voters who threw out these two mayors are in Annapolis and Frederick, which are suburban settings. (I would argue Annapolis has more in common with a suburb than a city, despite the fact it’s our state capital, because of its proximity to Baltimore and Washington.)

Above all, suburban people are conformist and they are the targets of the dominant media and the educational system – neither of which has been glowing in their praise for Donald Trump or any of his policies. Given that information and candidates who can make and break promises just like Republicans have done (except theirs for “free stuff” sound better) you get what we had Tuesday night.

So let me hit you with a platform from a suburban candidate and see how you like it. I slightly edited it to remove identifying information for the moment.

Simply put, these address issues that hold our city back. They all are also interconnected to the success not only of our city, but of our citizen. Why do I say that? Because we too often measure success by the health of the city’s checkbook. I believe we best measure the health of the city by the health of our fellow citizens checkbook. (Among other factors.)

LOWER TAXES: We are tied with only a few surrounding cities for the highest income tax rate. If the additional .25% rate passes, we will have the highest income tax rate in the area. This is among the highest concerns of people looking to move to a new area. It also is a strong factor in businesses looking for a new location. Simply put in order to grow at a rate needed to provide for the future, we CANNOT continue sabotaging our development efforts by being an expensive place to live or to work.

SAFE, AFFORDABLE WATER: Everyone I talked to on my campaign expressed great concern over water rates. Water is the life blood of a community. Same as above, how can we be a draw to new families and businesses when our water rates cripple the budgets of those we wish to welcome to (our city.) I will call for Performance Audits of (the local water suppliers) on my first council meeting if elected. We also must push for multiple sources of water, with a regional approach. We can not let one community hold others hostage for water.

PRIORITIZE SPENDING: Priority based budgeting is what every family and every business implements. Most government agencies do not. Lets bring in the experts at Priority Based Budgeting. Let’s stop playing the game of putting vital services such as police, fire and roads on the ballot. Those departments should be the first funded from the General Fund. This also applies to projects. Roundabouts are a luxury unless at a new intersection. Fix our roads FIRST! This also applies to developing proper maintenance plans and funding them first. It is always cheaper to care for equipment, buildings and roads than to let them fall into disrepair.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT: We cannot do this alone. If we try to succeed as (our city) alone, we will fail. The (regional) area is rich in so many key economic development factors: location, skilled labor, research, transportation resources and good, strong families. We hold ourselves back by other factors though. High taxes. Regulations. Expensive water. We also need to broaden our reach to different industries. We need to recognize we cannot put all of our eggs in one basket. (Our city) lived and died with (a defunct local business) many years ago. It took some effort to start to recover from the losses of our largest employer. Now we have a very heavy concentration on retail. While all growth is good, we are sliding back towards putting all our eggs in one basket again – except this time it is a retail basket which is far more subject to economic recessions. Our labor force is incredibly diverse. We need good paying jobs that provide a career to match.

I believe we can all work together on these four points. We can turn from trying to tax our way to prosperity and instead focus on growing our way to not only a prosperous (city), but prosperous families!

Now, let me ask you – is that a scary platform? Maybe to those who are invested in government as the solution, but the key here is the recognition of the role of government. And it was good enough to win. It’s the platform of an old friend of mine, Bob Densic, who this time won a seat on the Rossford (Ohio) City Council (his third try.) Bob and I are political soulmates, so it’s going to be interesting to see how he likes trying to put his ideas into practice.

Perhaps a key to Bob’s success is the fact that his city has non-partisan municipal elections. In a year like this one, I would submit to you that the issue was with the Republican brand and not the philosophy. Because the Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) have so successfully tied Donald Trump with the mainstream Republican Party (despite the fact Trump claimed to have identified more as a Democrat as recently as a decade ago) and have worked their hardest to drive his popularity down with negative coverage, the results from Tuesday are what you would expect. Democrats were motivated to come out, the people who believed the media hype about Trump being so bad were motivated to come out, and Republicans were discouraged.

So it may get worse for Republicans before it gets better. But my advice to the GOP, not that I expect them to take it: forget trying to work with Democrats and put up a conservative gameplan. No pale pastels for us.

Thanks for nothing

Obviously there is a group that was unhappy to see Barack Obama go.

The button would have taken you to Organizing For Action Against America but I left it as a dead link because I don’t deal with statists.

So if you look at the Obama administration as a whole, the overall question is always whether you are better off now than you were x number of years ago. Looking at things as an American, I would answer that question with an emphatic “no!” (Maybe not to the extent of the woman caterwauling at the Trump inauguration, though. I think she was an Obama fan too.) But I live in a nation where the economy has been relatively stagnant, people who used to work full-time have been reduced to holding two or more part-time jobs, “homegrown” terrorism is a threat, those of us who believe in faith-based morality are persecuted and bullied into supporting actions and ideals we consider immoral, and the rule of law is applied unevenly, if at all. These are just tip of the spear things I thought of off the top of my head.

Yes, there are good things that happened as well, particularly in the advancement of technology and development of energy independence. Fortunately, our system has survived an administration that, at times, seemed like it was more than willing to continue abandoning free-market principles – but not to save them.

Thus, I would not categorize America as better or stronger after the Obama administration. I’m not sure things would have been tremendously different had John McCain won in 2008, but I think that had Mitt Romney prevailed in 2012 there would have been sufficient improvement in our nation that he would have dispatched of Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat with ease for re-election. I may not have liked everything that a President Romney would have done, but the stage would have been set for continued success moreso than the morass we have now – and as an added bonus, the so-called “alt-right” would still be under their rocks.

Yet the Democrats are already on message. This was from an e-mail I got yesterday:

No matter what (Donald Trump) said in his inaugural address, we know that his allegiances are to himself — and not in the best interests of the American people.

I will give credit to Obama for one thing – he didn’t seem to act in his self-interest as much as he seemed to do the bidding of liberal special interest groups. But when he had to pick and choose, it seemed like the most radical ones won out. A good example is the Keystone pipeline that pitted Teamster jobs vs. Radical Green, with the environmentalists prevailing because they were farther left and more anti-capitalist. (Similar to that is Standing Rock, with the additional benefit to Obama of inserting race into the issue.)

Yet, having read Trump’s remarks, they are the simple extension of the populism that he won with. Put another way, he placed himself on a different side of the “us vs. them” equation which has seemed to rule national politics for most of the last quarter-century. The “us” to Trump are the “forgotten” people: blue-collar workers, small-town denizens, and those who believe rules should be applied equally and fairly. Yes, some are racist against blacks but I suspect an equal percentage of black Obama supporters have the same animus toward Caucasian “crackers” too. (The whole “white privilege” thing, you know.) Unfortunately, the politics of division doesn’t end the moment a new President enters office and it may take quite a while for the rising tide to lift all the boats – perhaps more than the eight years Trump could be in office.

While Donald Trump is certainly a flawed man, I think Americans considered him to be more their style of leader than an extension of the “pajama boy” that serves as an enduring symbol of Barack Obama. I didn’t support Donald Trump for election, but it’s my hope that he serves as the conduit to better leadership.

Can we make America great again? If we begin by making America good again, then making it Constitutional again, the answer would be “yes, we can.” All Donald Trump has to do is get government out of the way.

The third administration

I observed on Facebook earlier today that eight years may seem like a long time, but on the other hand my wife and I have only known one administration as a couple: we met just two weeks after Barack Obama took office.

By that same token, today monoblogue moved into its third administration, as I began this enterprise in George W. Bush’s second term and somehow made it through eight years of Barack Obama. Obviously one may conclude that, being a conservative, I would have a lot less to complain about in a Republican administration – but something tells me this will be a Republican administration like no other.

In a lot of the analysis I’ve read about why and how Donald Trump came to the place of being sworn in today as our 45th president, the quick take is that he did it much like Ronald Reagan did: he appealed directly to the people and was effective enough at working around the filter of the media that he succeeded where Mitt Romney, John McCain, Bob Dole, and the two Bushes had failed – and yes, I am aware that George W. Bush was president for eight years (and his dad for four.) But would you consider them successful presidents? I’m not sure that I would. On the other hand, Reagan is fondly remembered by most of America except the hardcore Left.

It’s no secret that I didn’t vote for Trump in either the primary or general elections, and my approach to him at this point is one of a fairly wary optimism. In all honesty, that’s based more on the public perception that things are turning around for the better than any evidence I have that his policies will show us the way to make America great again. (I will say, though, that what I wrote about in today’s Patriot Post did tug the rope slightly more in his favor. But I have to see follow-through.) Yet one thing Reagan had in his favor was his sunny optimism that it was morning again in America, and many of my more conservative friends invoked that sentiment in discussing today’s events. (Of course, those few left-leaning friends of mine will likely feel like the old Li’l Abner character Joe Btfsplk with the black cloud perpetually over his head for the next four to eight years.)

Yet I share in the optimism, if only because my circumstances are improved from the last time around. When 43 became 44, I was out of work – however, I was warned that if Obama was elected our business may be in for a rough ride. He was elected and I was let go a month later. Needless to say, it wasn’t really my mood to give him a chance because I could sense Obama was bad news for America based on the policies he wished to put in place. And I believe I was correct in that assessment because I’m not better off than I was eight years ago, at least in an economic sense. If Obama was a progressive, we desperately need a regressive as far back as the Constitution will let us go. Unfortunately, Trump’s not that guy and the one I thought would be got 200,000 votes nationwide.

In that time, though, I’ve become more convinced that we are under the control of a higher power anyway. If it is His will that America survives, it will indeed do so – if not, I leave my fate up to Him. I’ve been blessed to spend 52 years here in this God-blessed nation, which is something that few who walked on this planet ever got and likely much more than I as a sinner who falls short of the glory of God deserves. So I sort of get this sneaking hunch that the reason I was given the talent I have and placed where I was is to try and preserve the blessing – thus, I will remain on that side of the equation regardless of who is president.

So good luck to President Trump and Vice-President Pence, and best retirement wishes for the Obamas and Bidens. Enjoy being private citizens again. As for me, it doesn’t matter who is president because I am writing for a different reason.

Thoughts on Ted Cruz and his endorsement of Donald Trump

Let’s start off with my initial emotions on this announcement: disappointment, then resignation. I think this adequately captures both sides of the equation going forward, so allow me to elaborate.

I consider myself a limited-government conservative, or perhaps better described as a conservative with libertarian tendencies in a number of respects and areas. I often write about the idea of “rightsizing” the federal government down to a point where it does the minimum required of it in the Constitution, and this worldview affected my perception of the 2016 Presidential field. Ted Cruz was not my overall first choice out of the group, but of those remaining when Maryland’s day in the sun came back in late April he was – by miles – the best remaining choice in terms of my stated desire to reform the federal government in a Constitutional manner.

On the other hand, I had already heard and seen enough from Donald Trump to know that he wasn’t going to significantly improve the situation inside the Beltway. He had already backtracked and capitulated on enough campaign issues for me to see that he wasn’t going to be trustworthy enough to be the GOP standard-bearer. Although we went for a period of about 2 1/2 months before the Republican National Convention with the idea that there still were chances to derail the Trump train, the national Republican party (and Trump zealots) did their best to make sure that the “victory” Trump won (dubious at best, thanks to the number of open primaries) with just a plurality of the Republican vote would stand. In the end, many supporters of Ted Cruz as well as John Kasich were browbeaten into acceptance – the rest became the significant number of #NeverTrump folks out there, of which I was one. I would not accept Trump as the nominee, and my conscience would not allow me to work within an organization that promoted someone of dubious value to the conservative movement.

So when Ted Cruz stood at the podium of the convention and exhorted everyone to vote their conscience, I considered it a highlight of an otherwise pathetic coronation of The Donald as Republican nominee. My confidence in Trump upholding the planks of the GOP platform was about the same as the confidence that he could go a week without being on the media for saying something asinine – in both cases, about zero. The fact that the Trump people booed Ted Cruz off the stage was proof that they weren’t principled enough to stand before conservatives to defend their candidate when his bona fides were questioned.

Obviously I was not thrilled to see Cruz fall off the #NeverTrump wagon after all that transpired between Trump and “lyin’ Ted” during the primaries. (Of course, that assumes he was really ever on it.) But as Christians we pray to have our trespasses forgiven as we would those who trespass against us, and from the tenor of Cruz’s comments in his statement I think he has forgiven Donald Trump for what he said during the campaign as simple competitive rhetoric.

And Cruz has a number of political calculations he has to account for, too. After November the election season turns to the 2018 cycle, and Cruz is part of it as the junior Senator from Texas. Certainly there are already people in Texas politics smarting from the very fact that Cruz upset the establishment choice of former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP primary there four years ago, but former Gov. Rick Perry is one of those rumored to be considering a 2018 run for Cruz’s seat. Opponents cite the alienation of Trump voters as just another factor against Cruz, since there’s also the perceived blame for the 2013 government slowdown and the reputation for being a boat-rocking troublemaker that Cruz carries. (It should be noted that all that baggage was supposed to sink Cruz’s presidential campaign early on, but he outlasted most of the rest of the field that was supposedly more palatable to the electorate.)

For all his issues, it’s clear that for Ted Cruz to have a political future he had to modify his stance on Trump, and that was made more convenient by the unqualified Democratic candidate and the pledge he took to support the Republican. Over the next four years he is more useful in the Senate than martyred by his own rhetoric.

So let’s say Trump loses, Cruz retains his Senate seat, and the Clinton/Kaine team continues the damage done by Obama/Biden. The question is whether people will be as passionate about Cruz in 2020 or if they will consider him damaged goods? Assuming Trump loses and doesn’t wish to try again at the age of 73, the early favorite in 2020 has to be Mike Pence – just as the first rights of refusal went to Sarah Palin in 2012 and Paul Ryan this year. But there will certainly be a crop of those who didn’t grasp the brass ring this year looking to seize the nomination: I would strongly suspect that group includes Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal. All of them (except Kasich, who briefly ran in 2000) were first-time candidates – the political world seems to be that of just two strikes and being out, which eliminates guys like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee as old news. All but Kasich also seek the votes of strong conservatives, with Kasich being more of a moderate.

At this point I would still like to see Bobby Jindal make a 2020 run, as there’s little chance one of the 2016 crop knocks him off as the king of my hill. But someone new could strike my fancy or there could be a significant moderation in Jindal’s political views. Still, I would welcome Ted Cruz to the fray with open arms, knowing he had to do those things he may not have liked in order to keep his position of leadership in the conservative movement.

As for me, I remain #NeverTrump whether it’s politically damaging or not. Since politics is not my job I have little to lose but a lot to gain as I work to convince people of the benefits of limited government and support those inside politics who advocate it with actions, not words.

Part of the exodus

On Labor Day I normally post on something union-related, but today I have a different sort of union to ponder: the union between conservative activists and the Republican Party.

Among the items on my Facebook feed this morning was one from Dwight Patel, who is one of the financial movers and shakers in the Maryland Republican Party (note: I have transcribed these as written, grammatical/spelling errors and all):

If you are an elected Republican Central Committee member and you can’t bring yourself to Vote for our Parties (sic) nominee… Go resign

After the shouts of “Preach!” and “Word!” in response was this from Eugene Craig, who is the 3rd Vice-Chair of the MDGOP:

Elected members of the central committee were elected to build the GOP not tear it down with blind gang like loyalty to open racism. That is not the party of Reagan and Lincoln and I will protect every RCC member rights to do what’s best to build their local party and vote their conscience.

So Patel responded:

Eugene out (sic) bylaws speak of this… Hence many people have resigned over trump… It was the right thing to do… And you need not further the lefts talking points by calling Donald trump a racist.

Dwight went on to explain that Trump was among his bottom choices and he gave maximum or sizeable donations to others. I can vouch for the fact that Dwight is a significant donor – the resident of Montgomery County bought two tables for our Lincoln Day Dinner last year and brought several people across the bridge. It’s likely he will do so again this year.

As you likely know, I am one of the “many people (who) have resigned over trump.” I didn’t have to in accordance with the bylaws, but I chose to anyway. Simply put, as one who is conservative before Republican I could not back a man who I saw as detrimental to the conservative cause, in part because I found him lacking in trustworthiness and principle. Having no way of knowing just how many people have resigned over Trump as compared to regular turnover, though, I don’t know what sort of trend we have here. But it’s highly likely that most of those who have left over Trump are those who were on the conservative side of the Republican party – people I call the “principle over party” wing as opposed to the “party over everything” wing. (And then you have those caught in the middle based on the fear of a Hillary Clinton administration, which seems to be descriptive of Patel. I suspect they would be sorely disappointed with the lack of positive change that would come from a Trump administration – just more of the status quo of ever-expanding government but with the “Republican” imprimatur on it.)

But in speaking to Craig’s point about “build(ing) their local party,” the sad fact is that 64.6% of those voters in Wicomico County who showed up voted for Trump over a more Constitutional conservative choice in Ted Cruz and a more moderate choice in John Kasich. Perhaps if Maryland had voted earlier in the process many within the 64.6% would have backed other conservatives in the race but we will never know – I just have to deal with the data at hand, and to me it proved that our county voters may be the “party over everything” group. If that’s true, then many of my efforts in educating local voters have been for naught.

I will admit that Trump seems to be getting his campaign going in a better direction, and even with the possible pitfalls of the Trump University trial and allegations of financial ties to Russian and Chinese backers those pale in comparison to the headaches Hillary Clinton is dealing with as the e-mail and Clinton Foundation scandals – along with the rumors of serious health issues with which Hillary is afflicted – smolder in the background despite being ignored by the partisan media. And the other day I concocted a scenario in playing with an Electoral College map where Trump had a path to victory if he can make up just five points on Clinton in certain states. (Part of that involves getting Gary Johnson into the debates, which I support. Let Jill Stein come along and participate, too.)

But, to use an overused phrase, in terms of the conservative movement a Trump presidency would still be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Moreover, his base has been variously described as “nationalist populist” or “alt-right” while those who oppose those ideas are dismissed as “cuckservative.” I reject that description: I think I stand on the real conservative ground here based on my body of work – it’s you guys who need to get off the idea of using government to get even with your opponents. That makes you no better than liberals.

In this case I am not an unbiased observer, but the number in Maryland and around the country that have resigned from party-level positions based on Trump securing the nomination on a plurality of the vote – with some unknown number of Democrats switching over to goose the process for nefarious reasons – is less important than the conservative balance they brought to the Republican Party. Because of certain tasks I was generally given, I could not bear the idea of publicly having to show support for Donald Trump so I opted out.

I have read on many occasions that the Republican Party will soon go the way of the Whig Party, but the circumstances have changed significantly since the mid-19th century as Republicans and Democrats cooperated to make ballot access difficult, if not impossible, for other parties to secure. (The same goes for the Presidential debates, which are controlled a commission made up primarily by members of the two parties. It’s why people like me, who have some degree of agreement with the Libertarian and Constitution parties, stayed as Republicans – the others can’t win on a state and national level.) If the Republican Party ceased to be, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see the power-hungry Democrats take the opportunity to lock the process entirely. So it’s gut-wrenching to see the GOP self-destruct, but there’s the possibility this may occur.

The conservative fight has to go on, though. Like many of the others who left over Trump, I may just need some time to figure out my role.

A position of power for Andy Harris?

In the middle of reading a story about a possible breakup between two conservative factions in the House, I found what should be a very, very fascinating tidbit to folks in these parts. According to Phillip Wegmann at the Daily Signal:

“I’ve heard of no mass exodus (from the Republican Study Committee),” a GOP aide said, “just a few members here and there who don’t feel they use the resources [RSC] provides often enough to justify paying the dues.”

The right candidate for RSC chairman could change that dynamic though, the aide speculated. “I’d imagine a Chairman Andy Harris would make (House Freedom Caucus) folks more likely to stick around.”

Harris, a Maryland Republican, is a potential candidate for RSC chairman, according to multiple Capitol Hill sources. He has remained tight-lipped about his plans, however. Harris’ office did not respond to multiple requests by email and phone from The Daily Signal.

The race for RSC chairman will officially be decided after the November election, but members have been talking about it at least since July when Flores announced this year’s process. When lawmakers return in September, interested candidates will meet with the study committee’s founders. Because the House is in recess all of October and most of November, that only leaves next month for campaigning.

No congressmen have declared their candidacy officially, but a senior GOP aide told The Daily Signal that both Harris and Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., are building support inside the caucus for a bid. (Emphasis mine.)

I realize we are going by the word of an unnamed “GOP aide” – for all we know, he or she may work for Andy – but assuming this is true, it is an intriguing prospect for Andy’s national profile. Because he is far more conservative than most Maryland voters are perceived to be (and certainly Democrats are happy to help that perception along) it’s quite likely that a statewide position isn’t in the cards for Andy. However, he does represent a conservative district that is quite pleased with his record based on the fact he’s received over 75% of the primary vote each time since his 2010 election against challengers who ranged from neophyte to crackpot to serious enough to have some name recognition in portions of the district.

While the RSC has maintained a reputation as the conservative hangout for the House, the fact that membership includes the vast majority of the Republican caucus seems to give a perception that the RSC is now the “establishment.” At the beginning of the current iteration of Congress, the more conservative members decided they needed their own group because they felt the large size of the RSC was watering down its conservative message – hence, the House Freedom Caucus was born. While Harris wasn’t a founding member of that group, he is one of 42 members of the Freedom Caucus as well as an RSC participant.

As leadership will likely be rearranged in the wake of November’s election, Andy Harris may be presented with a number of opportunities. Given that the state’s blatant gerrymandering has placed Harris in an exceptionally safe seat, he has used the opportunity to try and build up the GOP farm team in his district – but now could be a spokesperson on a larger stage. (However, I am holding him to something he promised when first elected – six terms and out.) Love him or hate him, we will see if the back half of Harris’s Congressional service becomes a springboard to a leading role in the national conservative movement.

Taking a break – from talk radio

Back on Saturday I posted an update to Facebook in response to a RedState diary. My message said:

I used to listen to Rush daily at work, or when I drove around the region in my previous job… but now I just can’t do Rush’s (or Sean Hannity’s) all-Trump, all-the-time talk radio anymore.

Part of the reason is that I work in an office and figure it’s better to pay attention to what’s going on rather than be distracted. But at one time I didn’t mind the distraction – as I noted, in my former job I had several presets for Rush depending on where I had to go that day. Prior to that I would have my radio on from 12 to 3 when I sat in my cubicle at my old jobs.

But I don’t find it as interesting anymore, and perhaps if you multiply that by a few thousand that was the reason we lost a talk radio station lately. Earlier this month the former talk radio station WICO-FM (92.5) became a simulcast for WCTG-FM (96.5), a music station with its studios in Chincoteague, Virginia. I actually didn’t know this until I saw a WCTG billboard in Delmar, Delaware and wondered why a station that far away was advertising there until I saw the 92.5 addition. Admittedly, I’m pleased because now I have a music station for my drive to work in the morning.

In the old days I would have been a little upset because the AM signal that Rush and Hannity are now presumably on doesn’t carry as far as the FM signal did – I could listen all the way down into Virginia on the days when I traveled that way. Now I wonder if this is a trend. A quick look at Wikipedia – perhaps a biased source but a source nonetheless – states Limbaugh is on 590 stations. That is less than the “over 600” generally attributed to him, but not to any great degree.

But one thing I have noticed over the last few years is a change in the type of advertiser that is found on Rush. I realize that this isn’t the era where more familiar products and services are hawked on talk radio, but it seems the advertising demographic is skewing to the same type of content you see on the nightly network news – more stuff for older folks, such as supplements and security systems. Talk radio in general seems to attract survivalists (like those who would buy the food with the 25-year shelf life) and those who would be likely to purchase precious metals because I would hear those spots, too.

Maybe the issue for me is how serious it’s become. You used to laugh when you listened to Rush, but for me there doesn’t seem to be the humor in it anymore.

And with the advent of social media I can get a lot of conservative news and commentary without appointment radio. (Perhaps my new favorite is The Resurgent.) Others can listen all day to internet radio and podcasts to get their political fix – Lord knows there are enough would-be Limbaughs, Becks, and Hannitys out there. I’m not one who listens to the plethora of possible content – just let me read it and be done with it.

I may still turn on Rush from time to time when I go out for my lunch hour, but I think the days of listening wall-to-wall have come and gone. Everything has its season, and it wouldn’t shock me to find more and more political talk radio stations trying a different format in the months to come.