Welcome to "Republican Rock Bottom."
Possessed of no vision, no principle, no purpose, and no appeal,
we deserved our fate.
Now, seize freedom!
Finally, we are divorced from self-deceits. Dead is the
self-indulgent imbecility of "re-branding" -- as if the
Republican Party was a corporate product to be repackaged, not a
transformational political movement to be led. Despite what the
media will tell you, and what so-called "conservative leaders"
will discuss ad nauseam during "secret" meetings, this
situation is not a crisis. It is an opportunity. Today, we are as
the Great Emancipator proclaimed during another time of national
trial: unbound by the tired dogmas of the past; and free to think
and act anew.
First, we must not mindlessly mimic the momentarily triumphant
Left. Sleek, detached, media savvy non-entities posing as
existentially anguished leaders are neither in our nature nor our
future. We are not teeny-bopper, pop-star politicians or the
ideological dinosaurs of wealth redistribution.
At heart, we Republicans are flesh and blood and backbone, the
proud servants of people. If we re-orient our vision, renew our
purpose, and reaffirm our principles, the times will demand us --
not as we were, but as we must be!
While our party has pretended otherwise, this is no ordinary
time. It is a transformative time in the life of our free
republic. The economic, social, and political turmoil of rapid
globalization has created chaos and, thereby, fertile fields for
the Left. As Russell Kirk warned in The American Cause
during the Industrial Age:
What really creates discontent in the modern age, as in all
ages, is confusion and uncertainty. People turn to radical
doctrines not necessarily when they are poor, but when they are
emotionally and intellectually distraught. When faith in their
world is shaken; when old rulers and old forms of government
disappear; when profound economic changes alter their modes of
livelihood; when the expectation of private and public change
becomes greater than the expectation of private and public
continuity; when even the family seems imperiled; when people
can no longer live as their ancestors lived before them, but
wander bewildered in new ways -- then the radical agitator, of
one persuasion or another, has a fertile field to cultivate.
Fertile, indeed, are America's fields for the Left. In their
Reflections on the York, PA, Focus Group (July 3, 2008),
Peter Hart and Alex Horowitz studied 12 working Americans in a
county President Bush won by a margin of nearly 2-1. In the
excerpts below, we encounter working Americans' despair about
tomorrow:
This (focus group) was among the most difficult and disturbing
that I can remember…. The group sees this election as being
about big issues, not some of the small ones… The America they
see is facing major and serious issues, and it is in need of
visionary and serious solutions to its problems… These
participants do not speak in terms of policy details and do not
focus on numbers or the candidates' platforms… The fault lines
in this group are about a deeper and more personal sense of how
the world is right now and what the country needs."
But the authors' dismay pales before that of two working women
staring into the abyss of the despicably christened
"Post-American World":
Sheryl: "I just don't see (my children) being as
successful, even as I was. And I'm not even as successful as my
father was…I'm a single mom, and I'm taking care of three
kids. And, I just…want to make it better for them too. So I'm
thinking we do need change. I'm not sure that either one of the
candidates are going to bring the changes that we need, but we
certainly need change to make it better for (my children)…."
Janell: "Well, I think that, for most of my life, my decisions
have been made, based on morals and family values, and like
that whole belief system that I've had instilled in me since
birth. And now, all of a sudden, our country is just like
turned upside down with all these economic issues that we, I
haven't encountered in my lifetime. And it's really making
me second-guess, you know, voting for those ideals, instead of
voting for some of the other issues that need to be dealt
with."
Sheryl and Janell are Republicans.
How do you think Sheryl and Janell felt about their party when it
abandoned principle for expediency, and proposed and helped pass
the $700 billion Wall Street bailout? If this -- the greatest
expansion of government into the private sector since the "New
Deal" -- was "just a little socialism to prevent a lot of
socialism later," why won't Main Street demand the same little
bits of socialism to tide them over? Clearly, if Republicans
refuse to accept globalization as a process to be channeled into
constructive change for Americans, the public will continue to
demand we remain the minority party.
This will not happen, if at Republican Rock Bottom we think and
act anew.
At a similar transformational time, amidst the Great Depression's
economic disruption and despair, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
asserted the need for "leaders of thought at times when certain
historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified."
Amen. Thus, Republicans must heed Demosthenes' plea to his
endangered fellow Athenians -- "In God's name, I beg of you to
think!"
Heeding this call, I submit the following:
Why is there a Republican Party? We exist to keep
America the greatest nation on earth.
What is the Republican Party's vision of America's present
and future? We believe America simultaneously faces and must
transcend four transformational, generational challenges.
Specifically, Republicans see the historical parallels between
the Greatest Generation and our Global Generation.
America's Greatest Generation surmounted a quartet of
transformational challenges: economic, social, and political
upheavals; a world war against an evil; the Soviet Union's rise
as a strategic threat and rival model of governance; and the
moral struggle for equal civil rights.
Today, America's Global Generation must also transcend a quartet
of transformational challenges born of our interconnected world:
economic, social and political upheavals; a global war against an
evil enemy; Communist China's rise as a strategic threat and
rival model of governance; and moral relativism's erosion of our
nation's foundational, self-evident truths.
What are the Republican Party's principles that will be
employed to meet and surmount these challenges? We have five
enduring principles:
1. Our liberty is from God not the
government.
2. Our sovereignty rests in our souls not the
soil.
3. Our security is through strength not
surrender.
4. Our prosperity is from the private sector
not the public sector.
5. Our truths are self-evident not relative.
What are the Republican Party's goals? We will advance
liberty, preserve tradition, and achieve constructive change for
Americans in this trying time.
This we will do!
So, please, don't despair at Republican Rock Bottom. Despite our
party's dark hour in this dawning millennium, by thinking and
acting anew, Republicans will champion American principles and
ensure that our nation remains inspired and guided by the
virtuous genius of our free people; and forever blessed by the
unfathomable grace of God. We will seize freedom. We will be
freedom!
