Political Junkie Too

My Manifesto

I am reposting a repost of my "manifesto," which is pieced together from a series of posts from February 2009. I think it explains the behaviors of "principled" conservatives vs. Donald Trump, and why each needs the other to survive and thrive.

As I have posted frequently over the past decade, I believe it is axiomatic that conservatives are not activists, but conservatism needs fighters to defend its cause.
I am reposting a post of mine from 2/26/2009 from the oddly named thread Roger Ailes and Murdock Suppressing Obama Eligibility Story (Vanity), along with follow-up posts, which essentially laid out my "manifesto," if you will. I still think it answers the topline question today. Feel free to browse the whole thread for context.
The game is not providing evidence, the game is providing innuendo. Put Obama on the defensive. We don't have to prove anything to do that, we just have to put the question out there.
That's the Democrat playbook. That's the MSM playbook. That should be our playbook, too.
Proof comes later. Accusations and innuendos come now. Don't hold up on spreading the perceptions because you're not sure you can seal the deal with proof.
Taint Obama's legitimacy with the appearance of irregularity. Smoke him out. Let him either show the proof or continue to live under the cloud of suspicion, but either way, don't hold back.
You know they wouldn't if the roles were reversed.
I kind of like to think we're better than they are.
You know, I was going to put that in my post using the technique of putting those words in your mouth and then retorting, but I figured that would not be respectful to you. I would wait for you to naturally respond that way and then retort. I thank you for supplying the comment on your own.
As Las Vegas Ron replied, "being better than they are" is what "they" count on. Conservatives, by nature, are not aggressive activists like the leftists are, which is why the leftists have no trouble playing dirty. They know that conservatives will shy away from a fight, to the extreme of staying home from an election.
That's why the innuendos that they hurled around before the election were those of being racist if we challenged Obama's experience, being racist if we challenged Obama's schooling, being racist if we challenged Obama's religion, being racist if we challenged Obama's friends, being racist if we referenced Obama's full name, being racist if we challenged Obama's constitutional qualification, and even being racist if we didn't vote for Obama. The result is that it drove conservatives to either vote for Obama or stay home.
So, "being better than they are" is bringing a knife to a gunfight, or rather, not bringing a weapon at all and hoping to reason with them.
THERE YOU GO..., that pretty much explains what the Obama Derangement Syndrom people (here on Free Republic) are doing. You said it providing innuendo and thats all.
As for defining "Obama Derangement Syndrome," it is nothing of the sort. I am not endorsing this behavior out of blind hatred for Obama. I've been endorsing this behavior to be used against ALL Democrats ALL the time. Call it "Democrat Derangement Syndrome" if you must, but I am not an ODS victim.
That being said, I am also not one who is blindly putting my faith in the various court proceedings going on. However, I am also not shy about joining in on the various court threads to debate the possibilities. My focus has been on the PR aspects of the "whisper campaign" of all of this, that is, using the Democrats' techniques against them.
ODS would assume that the Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas alliance would naturally rise up to force a fair hearing of the concerns, which has not happened. I was an early voice suggesting that the Supreme Court would never touch this out of fear of civil unrest, regardless of the merits. I can point to postings over the summer on the various BC threads where I've taken this position.
Therefore, it is the other, softer, backdoor, "whisper" methods that work so well for Democrats, that must be used here. That's what I advocate, and have been advocating for all issues Democrat ever since signing up here.
The mantra is "Perception is more important than reality. The perception of guilt is just as damaging as being guilty." That's why Democrats were so focused on "guilt by association" during the Jack Abramoff scandal, whether the Republican was involved with him or just took a small campaign donation. It's also why the MSM worked so hard to surpress the equivalent Rezko scandal of Obama, or the Hsu scandal for Hillary Clinton. They know the value of shaping perceptions, even if they aren't true to the degree of proof required in a court.
Look at how the Democrats and MSM are trying to create the perception that Bobby Jindal has ruined his chance to be President based on Tuesday night's 10 minute speech. Barney Frank is telling everybody that Republicans caused the banking meltdown, and Republicans didn't applaud Obama out of fear of Hannity and Limbaugh. Harry Reid says we're losing in Iraq and the economy is getting better. I guess we're better than they are to the point of not trying to do anything that might taint Obama's authority, because we can't prove it in court, or even get a court to hear it.
But you're focused on the wrong court -- the court here is the court of public opinion. And innuendo, and whispers, and unproven charges, and hyperbole are the tools before that court.
I hope you're paying attention to the latest round of Democrat hyperbole in attacking Rush Limbaugh as the "head of the Republican Party," and how they are dragging Michael Steele into the fray, and how all sorts of questionable "conservative" pundits are taking sides on this. Or how they're now targeting Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer.
I hope you're paying attention because this is exactly the kind of messaging tactic that our side needs to be more aggressive at. I don't see the Democrats waiting to have proof that will stand up in court before hurling their accusations into the ether. I don't understand why we advocate having all our I's dotted and T's crossed before challenging Democrats.
Setting aside the issue of publicizing Obama's constitutional qualification, our side should also be loudly aiming accusations at Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for the financial mess; we should be going after MSNBC and ABC news correspondents for their laziness in covering these stories; we should be pointing out the failures of major newspapers because they were too biased in reporting the news.
It doesn't matter if these targets complain about being attacked, or that the attacks are just diversions (which they are), or that the attacks are unfounded (which they are not). The point is that while they are reacting, they are also doing several other things: 1) they are dragging themselves into the gutter with the people they hoped to lead into the gutter, 2) they are further exposing the stories that we want exposed by keeping the story alive, 3) they are not reporting on other things while they report on this, 4) they look just as mean-spirited as they are trying to portray others. If they fail to respond for fear of the above, then the accusations stand unchallenged.
That's how it is done in today's court of public opinion.
Conservatives need a fighter. For too long, we trusted the politicians to let them do it their way, the proven way, the accepted way, the traditional way. We have since learned that it is now the crony way, the corrupted way, the self-interested, self-serving, and self-preserving way.
So like the poor dirt-farmers in the movie The Magnificent Seven, conservatives need a hired gun to oust the gang that is abusing them and stealing the fruits of their labors from them.
Conservatives are hiring a fighter from outside to finally defend them.

Donald Trump fights the fight that needs fighting, that conservatives are not equipped to fight.

What pundits won't acknowledge is that this is the bomb-throwing that the voters want. They wanted a candidate to say "where are your Harvard transcripts? Where is your college application? Where is your passport?" Because they want that person to ask Clinton about Benghazi and top secrets and the Clinton Foundation.

The trap for Republicans is that Democrats know they can be abusive first and get away with it, because Republicans will reject "whataboutism," and insist on taking the high road in contrast, essentially giving the Democrats a free "kick me" every time.
Nothing will change unless liberals feel the blowback.

What people must accept is that Democrats get away with free kick-me against Republicans; they get to do the crime to advance their agenda and the Republicans are forced to stay on the high road.

Brennan, Clapper, Schiff, Pelosi, et. al., get to say their lies, and it's President Trump who is called out for pushing back. Brennan gets the free "kick me" against Trump and advances the liberal agenda for another day.

Democrats have free rein to abuse Republicans, and they know it because they know Republicans are ultimately weak and feckless and won't punch back.

The voters know that establishment candidates run away from that and let the Democrats skate from their most vulnerable issues. So this is not about principled conservatism, per se, it's really about willingness to punch, punch hard, and sometimes punch back dirty.

The pundits are falling into the "lose with honor" crowd, when we are at the point of win at all costs or it's over forever.

President Trump is saying "No," and liberals are squealing at the blowback. Win the fight first, then create the environment for conservative principles to flourish, but don't think that demonstrating "orthodox" conservative principles IS the fight.

2024 Update

Why Republicans Lose

The problem in the House is not limited to disfunction in the House. Democrats never attack each other and always vote in lockstep across both chambers of Congress, which is something that Republicans don't do.

I've posted before (starting here) that the fault for this lies squarely with Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

Johnson is falling into the same trap that all prior Republican leaders from both chambers always find themselves: Republicans believe they are doing the work of the American People; Democrats believe they are doing the work of the Democrat Party. Furthermore, Democrats know that Republicans think this way and use their naïveté as a weapon against them.
Republicans never treat Democrats as dishonest actors, while Democrats always treat Republicans as patsies to be duped. Every time the Republican base tries to build up enough new blood in the caucus in Congress, their leadership makes moves to undermine that effort to protect themselves, and then they go back to DC to be rolled once again by Democrats.
It's demoralizing to watch it happen again and again and again, but we can't stop trying. It's about something I posted very early in my FR career: we are being forced to wander in the desert of DC politics until the last of the Watergate era generation dies off, and then we can cross the River Potomac and begin rebuilding our party.
Remember what McCarthy said when he stepped down? He said he had a deal with Pelosi to "always stand by him" should he get in trouble with his side of the aisle. Guess what? She lied to him. Democrats treat Republicans like stooges to be conned; McCarthy was being played for a mark. Nothing that McCarthy was "talking about" or was "on course" to deliver was ever going to happen.
But Democrats were certain to get their half of the "deal" delivered, leaving McCarthy empty-handed.
All Gaetz did was expose the con that is in plain sight to the rest of us. I'm saddened that it doesn't appear that Johnson is seeing it, too. Maybe he did when he began; maybe he's been dunked into the slowly boiling pot and he lost focus on the fact that he's being boiled by the Democrats once again.
Democrats in the House and Senate always coordinate their efforts in a one-two punch against Republicans. On the other hand, Republicans in the Senate have nothing but disdain for their fellow Republicans in the House. McConnell and his sycophants act like a House of Lords with the Representatives being beneath them.
Pelosi and Schumer would scheme to get bills passed, while McConnell is pressuring Johnson to abandon House bill and accept Senate bills? I always ask why? Why should Senate bills be deemed more important than House bills, especially when the House bills are original spending bills and Senate bills are amended House bills?
It's because Pelosi and Schumer see themselves as offense and defense on the same team, while McConnel sees himself with delusions of grandeur playing "iron man" ball and the House is just an obstacle in his way.
Until we can get our Senate and House to work together as one team, we will always lose to the Democrats.
Our side is stuck playing intramural ball while Democrats are coordinating across both the House and the Senate. Democrats see the "team" being the entire Congressional caucus, while Republicans see the House and Senate as being completely different leagues.
I put the blame for this on the Senate, and especially on McConnell. It's McConnell who won't work with Johnson (or even McCarthy before him). McConnell sees himself as the master deal-maker who needs nobody else's help. If only the best of both chambers would work to strategize together to counter the Democrats, we'd be in a much better place.
Because McConnell looks down on the House, the House is forced to look within itself to get by, and this limits our ability to get things done. Suddenly, factions inside the House become over-powered and we begin fighting amongst ourselves instead of aligning with the Senate before the game starts to have a unified game plan to move the ball forward.
It's not that McCarthy did or didn't (would or wouldn't, could or couldn't) get something done, it's that McConnell is not on the same team in the Senate and he would have undermined whatever McCarthy did to make his own deal to elevate his own ego.
That's why I constantly say that Republicans are being played by Democrats. If McCarthy was on track to get something passed in the House, it was because the Democrats wanted him to, to keep up the illusion of their scam.
Have you ever seen the movie The Sting? It all looks so real to the mark until the sting is pulled off. McCarthy thinks he had Pelosi's support. McCarthy is supposed to get a bill passed in the House. Great, so far.
But then Pelosi and Schumer know what McCarthy doesn't know: they know what they're going to do to that bill with McConnell in the Senate. I can assure you that it will have looked nothing like what McCarthy sent to them. And then McConnell would have pressured McCarthy to take the deal just like he did with Johnson, undermining McCarthy's authority in the House with his own caucus.
It's a win-win for Democrats: they get their agenda bill passed and they damage the credibility of the Speaker in the House, weakening the GOP for the next round of elections.
I've seen this movie before, many, many times. They keep remaking it with new actors, but the plot is always the same.
The problem isn't McCarthy or Johnson per se, the problem is that the House and Senate on our side refuse to coordinate and cooperate.
Regarding shutdowns, you must remember several things:
Mitch McConnell has vowed to NEVER allow a government shutdown. The Senate is his Preciousssssss, and he would do anything to keep a government shutdown from happening.
See: 8/7/2022 - Trump says McConnell ‘got played like a fiddle’ on Democrats spending bill
Former President Trump laid into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday after Senate Democrats passed their long-awaited health care, tax and climate package.
“Mitch McConnell got played like a fiddle with the vote today by the Senate Democrats,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“First he gave them the fake Infrastructure Bill, then Guns, never used the Debt Ceiling for negotiating purposes (gave it away for NOTHING!), and now this,” Trump said. “Mitch doesn’t have a clue – he is sooo bad for the Republican Party!”
See: 7/9/2022 - ‘We Got Our Ass Kicked’: John Kennedy Laments Senate Republican Loss to Democrats on CHIPS, Reconciliation
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said on Thursday that Senate Republicans got tricked into passing a semiconductor bill after believing that a Democrat reconciliation bill was dead.
While Republicans were split on the merits of the legislation, most Republicans, including House Republican leadership, did not want to pass the CHIPS legislation if Democrats were to pursue a reconciliation bill to pass climate change, Obamacare, and other leftist priorities.
The same day that the Senate passed the CHIPS bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced a deal on the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that would aim to reduce the deficit, raise taxes, and boost climate change and Obamacare spending.
Announcing the deal immediately after Senate Republicans backed the CHIPS bill left many GOP lawmakers with egg on their faces.
"We got our ass kicked. It’s just that simple. Looks to me like we got rinky-doo’d. That’s a Louisiana word for 'screwed.' And we got our ass kicked. That’s the way my people back home see it," Kennedy said...
McConnell also lost to Schumer on a debt ceiling fight in 2021, which led to a deal to temporarily create a carveout for the legislative filibuster. One former senior GOP aide said the deal was to save McConnell’s "ego."
Knowing #1, Pelosi and Schumer always scheme to stall Republicans in the House and Senate in order to create debt ceiling crises because they know that McConnell is the weak link in that chain.
I don't know why McCarthy took so long in the House to get his spending bills worked out before slamming his side with it as the debt ceiling crisis loomed. Perhaps he was counting on Pelosi's promise to "always stand by him?" Perhaps he didn't see how he was being manipulated into wasting time over the summer in order to create the debt ceiling crisis that Democrats would then exploit in the Senate?
Can't you see how Johnson is being manipulated into the same trap by Democrats? They drag out and delay in the House until deadlines loom, and then rely on McConnell in the Senate to react as he's been conditioned to. That's why McConnell was pressuring Johnson to comply with the Senate-side bill over Johnson's House bill.
Can't you see how things might be different if our side coordinated between the two chambers, compared notes, told each other what the Democrats are doing on their side of the aisle in their respective chambers?
Because you know that's what Pelosi and Schumer are doing. It's why our side is always caught by surprise -- because our side in the Senate thinks the House is beneath them. That's why our side thinks it has to be the Senate bill that "fixes" what the peons in the House did.
And THAT's why Johnson is in the predicament that he's in right now.
I already explained how Schumer took a simple House bill to give a tax break to veterans who are first-time homebuyers and turned it into Obamacare.
Do you think they waited for the House to send them Obamacare? Did the House "control the purse strings" on Obamacare? Pelosi couldn't get Obamacare out of the House, so Schumer in the Senate had to take the initiative, and he did.
Just look at yesterday, when the Senate -- for the first time in 235 years -- dismissed an impeachment instead of holding a trial. Do you think someone who thinks like this is bothered by the "purse strings" in the House?
Look at the bigger picture I'm painting.
McConnell has a "tell" and the Democrats know how to get him to go "all in" on a deal when they are holding a pair of twos (yes, I know I'm mixing my metaphors again, but I'm trying to get everyone to see any way I can). They know his fanatical devotion to the "traditions" and historicity of the Senate and his part in it, and they use that to manipulate his behavior. I already showed you several recent examples of McConnell getting played by Schumer.
For things that are truly originating in the House, Democrats know they have McConnell in the Senate to do what they need done because they know his "tell." For things that originate in the Senate (or are amended in the Senate), they know they have McConnell to pressure the House to go along.
For truly maverick things that come out of the House, Democrats know how to control the Overton Window. If you see Johnson making deals or decisions that go against his prior promises, it's probably because the Democrats use their minority powers in the House to change the set of available choices available to Johnson, widening them or narrowing them, to limit the range of options he has to get things done. They can open up the window to see what course he's going to follow, and then narrow his options to trap him in a Box Canyon (yes, another metaphor) where he has only one or two ways out.
The reason they're so good at it is that Republicans don't coordinate between the House and the Senate the way that Democrats do, and that's also on McConnell. He's never been good at bringing in others who are outside of his personal network of sycophant devotees. I showed an example of Democrats throwing a bone to McConnell to boost his ego after suffering a humiliating defeat. They want to keep him in place, because he's their ace up their sleeve (back to a prior metaphor).
It doesn't matter if it was Boehner, or Ryan, or McCarthy, or Johnson, or whoever follows. The Democrats control the rhythm of Congress because they control McConnell. Put any other Republican in the Speakership and the road still goes through McConnell. Until McConnell goes, nothing will change.
I don't blame Gaetz for trying to shake things up; he did have a personal vendetta against McCarthy, but McCarthy got too cozy with Pelosi and believed her promises just like Boehner and Ryan before him. I believe that any failures perceived in Johnson are actually failures of the environment that Congressional Republicans find themselves in, built by Lott and Frist and McConnell, and it won't matter who Republicans replace Johnson with as long as McConnell remains in the Senate or his sycophants keep the "tradition" alive after he leaves.
We need a Summit meeting between the House and the Senate Republicans to come to a new, modern, 21st century understanding of their rules of engagement or we're going to be doomed to forever being stung by the Democrats on deal after deal after deal.
Look up the Reconciliation procedure to see why Democrats push so hard for single omnibus bills.
Democrats can't control the vote on separate budget bills from the House because they can't get enough votes for cloture in the Senate. To get around that, they force everything into single omnibus bills that they can push through the reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass, but they can only do it once a year per revenue, spending, and debt ceiling bill.
The longer that Senate Democrats fail to act on House bills, the shorter the time becomes to pass a budget or hit the debt ceiling. Democrats and the LAAP-dog media always blame Republicans for "shutting down the government" saying that Republicans won't send them something that will pass in the Senate.
This puts pressure on the House to either send the Senate what Democrats want, or Democrats will use reconciliation to amend one massive omnibus spending bill via reconciliation and send it back to the House, again blaming them for a government shutdown if they don't pass the Senate bill.
The limit of one spending, one revenue, and one debt ceiling bill in the Senate makes the Democrats strategize how to use this streamlined process for maximum impact for Democrats. That's where the brinksmanship comes in. They can take separate revenue bills from the House and amend them together with Democrat pet budget items into one massive bill that only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass, and then force the House to accept the Democrat bill or shut down the government (or Ukraine will die, or the Israeli hostages will die...).
See this article from earlier today: Chuck Schumer brags to Senators about Mike Johnson giving Dems everything they wanted on Ukraine, foreign aid: report
Excerpt:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer bragged on the Senate floor on Wednesday about how House Speaker Mike Johnson gave into Democratic demands in foreign aid packages.
Human Events' Jack Posobiec said he heard from a senior Republican official that Schumer "was just on the Senate floor bragging to other members about Speaker Johnson giving Democrats everything they wanted in the Ukraine and foreign aid packages."
You may say that this is simply Johnson being weak, ineffective, spineless, and should go.
I say that it doesn't matter if it were Johnson, McCarthy, or anyone else. Just look at how Schumer was reportedly "bragging" about what he had done [again]. Schumer wouldn't be bragging if he wasn't showing off another win. Schumer was bragging because he knows how to sting the Republicans.
Republicans will never break out of this death spiral until they get rid of Senate leadership and start working together between both chambers to stop the Democrats at their game.

And now House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is getting into the game.

From Breitbart (May 22, 2024): Democrats Brag About Rolling Mike Johnson in Spending Negotiations, Getting Him to Give Them Secret Earmarks

Excerpt:

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) reportedly gave almost every Democrat an earmark in exchange for their votes for a $1.2 trillion spending bill that was passed despite the objections of a majority of House Republicans.
As Johnson and House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) negotiated two government funding bills, the Democrat leader secured a major victory in exchange for voting for Johnson’s spending bill: a considerable bump in earmarks for Democrats’ home districts...
The earmarks were tucked well within the Transportation spending bill... DeLauro told CNN that Jeffries wanted to keep the victory a secret...
“Nobody at the beginning of this Congress could have imagined all this that has happened here, right? But [Jeffries] has navigated a pathway for Democrats that has made us relevant and effective,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the ranking member on the House Rules Committee, said.

I said above that Johnson was reacting to an unsupportive GOP Senate, but this is all on him. Perhaps the message that Johnson received was that he's on his own? Perhaps Johnson is thinking that he has to fight Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer, McConnell, and Biden to get anything passed out of the House? That would be a shame, because vacating the chair again isn't going to change the rest of the external dynamics until something changes in the way Senate Republicans conduct themselves.

It's way past time for the Republicans in the Senate take a page from the Democrats' playbook and organize with their counterparts in the House to provide a single party front in opposition to stop the Democrats from playing one chamber against the other.

-PJ

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