Working our system of goverment to bring about a result, demands that a movement garner the support of a majority of voters. It is foolish to think that enough office holders whose views do not mirror the views of a majority of voters can be elected. It is a proveable fact that if 70 percent of the voters share a view, both parties will adopt that view. We are approaching a situation in which 70 percent of our voters reject abortion. The Democrats are in the process of changing their position of abortion. Hillary sees that even if many other Democrats do not. The Democrats will change. It will just take some time.
The key to changing a single state or even the entire nation is to find candidates that are as close to your views as possible while still being able to get the support of a majority of voters. A winning rightwing candidate must get votes from just left of center and add to those the votes of those to the right of center in order to win. A winning leftist candidat must get voters from just right of center and add to those the votes of those to the left of center in order to win.
Of course it goes without saying that defeated candidates never change anything. To be anything except hot air, a candidate has to win.
Our states are varried. And what it take to win in a liberal state is far different than what it takes in a conservative state. The center in Callifornia is nothing like the center in South Carolina. A liberal Democrat who could win in South Carolina would be far too right wing to win as a Republican in California.
If most Republicans in the federal legislatures are conservative and they can add to that liberal Republicans from the liberal states, the conservatives can enact much of their agenda. If the Republicans just limit themselves to conservatives they can never get enough votes in the Senate to enact or repeal anything. The nation would just drift ever more leftward.
One has to be aware that at least 20 percent of the voters are not ideological. Political philosophy is not a consideration in how the center votes. So a winning candidate has to win a philosophical base and a majority of the non ideological center.
Movements based solely on political philosophy are doomed to failure. They can never win enough votes to get elected. They never can convince a majority of the voters to support their philosophy.
The far left when it refuses to compromise to get in power only insures that the center right rules. When the far right refuses to compromise to get in power only insures the center left rules.
The nation changes when one of the parties nominates a candidate that only appeals to its ideological base. That is when the other party wins a big victory and proceeds to move the nation in its directions. Thus a right wing Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate elects a Lyndon Baines Johnson with enough of a margin for LBJ to create the Socialist Great Society.
Since 1980 this nation has been gradually inching to the right. But the center is still way to the left of where it was in 1928.
Moving this nation to the right can happen. But it takes political servanats and a right of center electorate who understand how to move the center. It took two generations to move this nation as far left as it is now. It will take two generations to move it back.
The left is convinced the right is not patient or smart enough to do it. The left may very well be right.
Thanks, Common Tator, for the perspective.
Indeed, it's a slow death struggle with an ideology that will stop at nothing, and like a parasite, continues to ciphon off the lifeblood of the very host that allows it sustenance and refuge.
The sad thing is, at the rate we are going, in a few years we may not need to worry about our borders or sovereignty... and the work will have been done from within our own institutions.
So, I guess we do get the government we deserve in the end.
Ouch!