Rule of GOP progressives challenged

commercialappeal.com ^ | 5/18/14 | Richard Viguerie

[cotton1706]

The most important battle in politics today is the one within the Republican Party, and the tea party movement didn’t start it. The GOP’s civil war began in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt made progressivism the governing philosophy of the Republican establishment.

For the 102 years since, the conflict has been between limited-government constitutional conservatives and the proponents of big government — and the big spending that goes with it.

It has been waged with conservative Republicans, such as Sens. Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater and Jesse Helms, on one side, and big-government Republicans, such as Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, on the other.

Many thought, wrongly, that the conservatives won with the election of Ronald Reagan and his coalition of economic, national defense and social conservatives. But today’s Republican establishment frequently invokes President Reagan while also pursuing a progressive agenda at odds with his principles. Big-government Republicans today include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.

Make no mistake, the establishment GOP is not the political home of conservatives.

To understand today’s battles, and the rise of the tea party movement, one must understand that the tea party is as much or more a rebellion against the entrenched leadership of the Republican Party as it is a reaction to specific policies of President Barack Obama. Conservatives have learned that establishment Republican leaders are not merely incapable of stopping the progressive agenda but have been complicit in its expansion. GOP leaders have talked a good game when they are up for election, but they all too often vote for, or refuse to fight, the funding of most big-government programs.

[all the best]

“establishment Republican leaders are not merely incapable of stopping the progressive agenda but have been complicit in its expansion”

Yes, the GOP is controlled by the enemy.

[griswold3]

With the Progressive infiltration and indoctrination of most all of our institutions, what makes anyone think they haven’t done the same to political parties?

[nathanbedford]

I fear that Mr. Viguerie will prove more accurate as a historian of the Republican Party than as a futurist.

I see very little to encourage a conservative for our prospects against the establishment to bring the Republican Party into the service of our values. In support of his contention that conservatives are about to win over the soul of the Republican Party he cites against 100 years of only sporadically relieved Rino-ism only, "the election of young, principled constitutionalists to Congress and in state legislatures is a sign that this civil war for the soul of the Republican Party is about to turn."

Against these "young principled constitutionalists" (who I might say are indeed thin enough on the ground) we have a century of big government Republican control since Teddy Roosevelt, relieved only by Coolidge, Reagan, and Gingrich but reinforced by K St., Wall Street, and the whole system of crony capitalism that barnacles the federal system. Our victories in the reason primaries have been encouraging where they occur but we find ourselves frustrated by a tsunami of money and media in favor of the establishment Republicans in many key races to the degree which we are used to seeing in the general elections.

The rate of attrition to the dark side by tea party elected representatives to Congress in 2010 is not encouraging. A few, perhaps even a majority, have remained steadfast but enough have been suborned by the establishment once they arrived at the capital to take their offices that one must be discouraged. I am personally discouraged by the inability of Republicans in states like Kentucky, Tennessee, Alaska and Texas to support conservative Senate candidates.

The demographics of the country, with amnesty almost sure to come, means that conservatism will probably be beaten back to a redoubt somewhat smaller than the old Confederacy. Obama will leave office secure in the knowledge that he has irrevocably transformed America.

[buckalfa]

Profound analysis, yet depressing.

[Prospero]

It began a little earlier, in 1900, when Mark Hanna successfully urged President McKinley to pick young Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate going into a second term, for the purpose of dead-ending the latter's meteoric political career.

[RIghtwardHo]

Amen.

[itsahoot]

Obama will leave office secure in the knowledge that he has irrevocably transformed America.

Even a little sugar makes this pill hard to swallow, but swallow it we will.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798 John Adams

[Jacquerie]

Lots of words that said very little. Sterile. What is a conservative? Gee, thanks for the vacuous history lesson.

Big government disburses goodies. Why should anyone be against big government? Invoking “big government” as boogie man is a bumper sticker.

Political Science has been reduced to a sporting event. Are you team pubbie or team rat? That is all that seems to matter.

How do we restore our freedoms?

[Carry_Okie]

It has been waged with conservative Republicans, such as Sens. Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater and Jesse Helms, on one side, and big-government Republicans, such as Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, on the other.

Somehow the author felt compelled to omit both Bushes, Dole, McCain, and Romney. Gosh, I wonder why?

[zeestephen]

Excellent essay.

Thanks for posting.

The fact that our leadership has completely stopped talking about ObamaCare for several months shows they have no serious intention to repeal it.

A few months back they also restored all the “Sequester” spending cuts, which means they have no serious intention to limit the size of government or reduce the deficits.

And, most depressing of all, our leadership clearly supports Amnesty, which would permanently destroy the Republican Party.

Conservatives have no realistic options.

We can commit exhausting, slow motion political suicide by staying in a Conservative/RINO coalition.

Or, we can commit sudden political suicide, and break away.

[zeestephen]

Re: “Obama will leave office secure in the knowledge that he has irrevocably transformed America.”

I disagree.

Sadly, that award goes to Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Amnesty of 1986.

Reagan made it possible for the Democrat Party to legally import 20 million foreign Socialist voters.

We don't have the numbers to beat them anymore, and almost none of them can be converted to Conservatives.

[zeestephen]

That’s a good point.

I’ve always claimed the Progressive catastrophe began when Roosevelt took the oath in 1901.

[nathanbedford]

I suppose I could quibble and point out that Ronald Reagan was philosophically opposed to amnesty, that he was lied to by the Democrats and naïvely relied on their representations that they would close the border, that he later acknowledged Kennedys amnesty law of 1986 was perhaps the greatest mistake of his administration but what would be the point? It is the custom in our country to identify an event with the president on whose watch it occurred, unless, of course, the event is negative and the president is a Democrat in which case the blame goes to obstructionist Republicans in Congress.

So I suppose it is inevitable that that law, cynically crafted by Ted Kennedy and misrepresented by Kennedy and the Democrats, will be forever Ronald Reagan's fault. At least Reagan and the Republicans should be absolved from racism if they are to be credited with the law, but of course that is not the way the system works either.

At any rate, I quite agree with your premise, whomever we find at fault. To the point, my first vanity on FreeRepublic was to excoriate George Bush for failing to enforce the border, for which I drew a significant amount of criticism. This year the volume of illegal immigration has changed opinion on FreeRepublic as it has for the whole nation concerning the threat of illegal immigration.

The sellout of the Republican establishment to Wall Street and K St. on this issue sets in bold relief the chasm between the people and the elites. When Kennedy engineered the registration of tens of millions of Democrat voters through amnesty, it was essentially a Democrat party sellout of the nation on behalf of a partisan agenda, cloaked with the self-righteousness of affirmative action. As Nathan Bedford tirelessly points out on these threads, all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial. On a companion thread this morning I note in an article concerning outmigration from Ireland that these English-speaking, well-educated, Western values accepting young Irish emigrants are going to English-speaking parts of the world but not to the United States.

All politics in America is ultimately racial, and these Irish people are the wrong color. Ted Kennedy and his tribe were never above pandering to the Irish vote except when there were bigger fish to fry. His bill, ultimately signed by an Irish president, Ronald Reagan, effectively foreclosed the Irish from immigration into America in favor of uneducated, non-English-speaking, Oriental thinking people of color. These people had one indispensable virtue, they overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

You are right, Obama is simply serving up the coup de grace.

[Theodore R.]

In retrospect, Ronald W. Reagan let us down, but he was apparently too uninformed to know that he had done so. I read that even Maureen wanted to “hang” Oliver North. Two of Reagan’s biggest failures will always be Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy.

[Theodore R.]

Did you see that John F. Kerry (I forget what the “F” stands for.) urged a graduating class never to lose its “faith” in government? I don’t think Kerry has to worry about that. The American people have a boundless, permanent “faith” in government.

[ClearCase_guy]

Ronald W. Reagan let us down

All people ultimately fall short. Which is why supporting a system of weak government is smart: Big Government inherently screws things up, no matter who gets elected.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

What America really needs to start talking about is not freedoms, but jobs.

Both of our parties are selling out American jobs.

The GOP needs to become, for American jobs.

Just saying.

[Jacquerie]

Political freedom and property rights are essential to economic freedom and job creation.

No freedom = no jobs.

Just saying.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

I am not saying freedom isn’t important.

I am saying jobs need to become America’s primary focus.

Without jobs, we will not keep freedom.