California GOP: Ending The Suicide Pact

Interesting news out of California. The nearly-existinct Republican Party has decide to abandon its suicide pact. This is yet more proof that the fringe is being pushed aside. Indeed, California’s GOP invented the fringe and have clung to it for 20 plus years now. So this is rather big news.

For those who don’t know, the California GOP is as close to extinction as any major political party has been in our lifetimes. They score only 29% of registered voters and they aren’t competitive in any populated part of California. In fact, things have gotten so bad that the Democrats were able to change the law to let them run two Democrats against each other in some races because there is no viable Republican.

How did things get this way? Well, that’s pretty obvious unless you’re a reel ’merikan.™ What happened is that starting in the 1990s, the GOP went hard core on abortion, gays, the environment, and hating moderates. Sadly for the GOP, Californians pretty much support all those things. That cost them women, suburbanites and the young, leaving only an ever-shrinking number of conservative ghettos... kind of like the way the GOP slowly vanished from the Northeast, and then the North, and then the Midwest and now the West.

More importantly though, the California GOP really dove hardcore into race and immigration. Indeed, California became the center for things like the English only movement, the “deport them all” movement, and the center for grousing about the browning of America. The timing couldn’t have been worse because California’s demographics changed dramatically, from 78% non-Hispanic whites in the 1970’s to 43% today, with Mexicans being the single largest ethnicity at 25% of the population. You can do the math on what that means. And no amount of “we just need to get out the vote” crap is going to disguise this failure.

Anyway, in a special election last year, 48 year-old cherry farmer Andy Vidak did the impossible: he won as a Republican in an agricultural district south of Sacramento. He won despite the presence of a great many Mexicans in his district. How did he do it? Well, he ran on a platform that (1) avoided taking positions on social issues, (2) supported a path to citizenship for some undocumented aliens, and (3) supported granting drivers licenses to illegals. He also took more standard Republican positions like promising to address the lack of jobs and water, and he opposed the high-speed train from San Francisco to Sacramento.

Well, now state party Chairman Jim Brulte has decided that it’s time to save the party and he’s using Vidak’s victory as a template. He wants GOP candidates to reflect the views of their districts rather than follow the party’s ideological platform. And what he’s done is he’s allowing Republican candidates to tailor their campaigns to address local issues:

“The candidate that most looks like and sounds like and has the most shared values and shared experience of the majority of voters wins.”

Gee, ya think? Seriously, how twisted have things become that someone espousing “reflect the values of your district” would be considered a radical thinker and controversial. That really tells you how wrong the mindset has gotten and why the GOP is all but extinct in blue states and increasingly more red/purple states.

Anyways, this is a real surprise because the California GOP has been one of the most rigidly fringe for nearly 20 years now. They were happy to die rather than be the least bit palatable to the public. So it’s encouraging that a party chairman would have the nerve to allow this change – predictably, the response has been brutal about the betrayal and (ironically) the end of the GOP... uh, you were dead already folks. Anyway, this change is truly significant and represents a total repudiation of the talk radio strategy, and hopefully the national GOP will grasp what this means and will begin to follow this model in other lost states. Letting candidates reflect the values of the voters in their districts is the only way to be a national party and we are always better off getting 80% of what we agree upon than 0% of what we want.

Thoughts?

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Analyzing A Drudge Poll

The Drudge Report is an interesting site. Drudge picks and chooses his headlines carefully to feed an alarmist worldview. He loves to blow up isolated incidents into themes. His headlines are often inaccurate, sometimes to the point of being exactly backwards of reality. And yet, he’s become the trusted source of news for a good many conservatives and fringers. Indeed, he’s pretty much become the sole research tool for most talk radio hosts. Anyway, he just did a poll and it had some interesting results.

The poll in question asked his readers to pick their current Republican candidate for 2016. Here are the results in order:

RAND PAUL ... 30.75% ... (67,958 votes)
TED CRUZ ... 28.52% ... (63,030 votes)
Other ... 6.91% ... (15,271 votes)
JEB BUSH ... 6.3% ... (13,922 votes)
SARAH PALIN ... 5.21% ... (11,507 votes)
CHRIS CHRISTIE ... 4.84% ... (10,706 votes)
RICK PERRY ... 4.4% ... (9,715 votes)
MIKE HUCKABEE ... 3.74% ... (8,254 votes)
PAUL RYAN ... 3.61% ... (7,974 votes)
BOBBY JINDAL ... 2.96% ... (6,538 votes)
DONALD TRUMP ... 1.86% ... (4,106 votes)
RICK SANTORUM ... 0.9% ... (1,995 votes)

There is much to consider here.

First, this poll reminds us that Drudge is about ratings, not serious politics. We can see this in the choices he offers. Notice that he’s excluded Marco Rubio, who keeps coming up as the front-runner in more scientific polls. He’s also excluded Scott Walker, who has a growing network of supporters. What this suggests is that Drudge, like the rest of the fringe, sees Rubio as finished because he offended them with “Amnesty.” The fact that more than 60% of Republicans support it, has never appeared on Drudge’s pages and doesn't seem to enter his thinking. His dismissal of Scott Walker is more curious, but is likely because Walker doesn’t make Drudge headlines. So Drudge excludes two top tier candidates, yet he includes professional clown Donald Trump and Reality TV queen Sarah Palin. What does that say about Drudge’s worldview? That he’s not serious.

Secondly, this tells us that Drudge’s audience is what people suspect – rather far right. Current Tea Party favorites Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin together took 65% of the vote. Establishment candidates Bush and Christie totaled only 12%. By comparison, the Drudge Wing of the party represents less than 20% of the Republican Party in other polls. So Drudge's audience is the inverse of reality.

Third, Rick Santorum is toast. The Republicans have an annoying tradition of handing the nomination to the second place runner in the prior primary season, but clearly that won’t be happening here. Santorum ran second last time, but can’t even get half of Trump’s score and doesn’t even score within the margin of error. In fact, Drudge’s audience is overwhelming made up of the people who voted for Santorum in the 2012 primary and yet they are showing him no love now.

Fourth, Rick Perry’s efforts are not paying off at this time. For many months now, Perry has been doing his best to court conservatives. Yet, he can’t even muster 5% among the very people who would form his base.

Fifth, the bloom is fading on the Cruz rose. I’ve actually seen this coming for a while now. Cruz lost support when he pushed the shutdown and then admitted he had no plan to turn that into a victory. That was when non-fringe conservatives started to abandon him. When they turned on him, he started getting ugly press. Then he made the mistake of hypocritically disavowing the shutdown, of launching random criticism, of engaging in an obsessive war against Mitch McConnell and of flip flopping on John Cornyn. All of this has actually caused some supporters of his that I know to call him “a nut job.” His loss of strength is reflected in this poll as well as he’s down to 29% support among an audience that should be his base. Six months ago, he was closer to 40% support.

Sixth, the slight preference for Bush over Christie is interesting. This fits something I’m sensing, but don’t have real evidence for yet. Right now, Christie seems to be the establishment candidate, and by extension, the nominee. But Bush’s name keeps popping up as a better choice for the establishment as a means of maximizing conservative support without choosing a conservative candidate. If I had to put money on it right now, I would bet that our ticket will be Jeb Bush for President and Rand Paul for Vice President... and I will become a terrorist. I guess we’ll see.

Thoughts?

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The Fringe Is Routed

This comes from many months of careful observation, hence it's long. But it's worth reading. While talk radio hosts continue to talk up their heroic Ted Cruz and his secret army of reel ‘merikans who are only minutes away from sweeping away the hateful GOP, the truth is that the fringe has lost and is in full collapse. Here is what you won’t hear from talk radio.

● Embracing The Enemy. In 2010, the Tea Party caught people off guard by unseating a handful of Republican moderates who had been in their seats for a very long time. At first, this was a good thing. But then the Tea Party morphed into crazytown and their primary goal (only goal actually) became making war against the GOP. (Michelle Malkin has actually admitted that "[t]his to me is much more fascinating than the usual left-right battles.")

The GOP, most of whom sit in safe seats, suddenly realized that the new danger didn’t come from the Democrats to their left, it came from a challenge to their right. Thus, the GOP embraced the Tea Party to protect themselves from challengers. And for the next three years, the GOP kowtowed to these people.

Unfortunately, trying to appease the insane never works and the GOP discovered that nothing they did was ever enough. No matter what the GOP did, the fringe continued to hate them and to try to destroy them. Moreover, the more entangled they become with the fringe, the further away they drove the public. As a result, the GOP has been flirting with permanent minority status.

● The First Victory. After November 2012, things changed. The GOP decided that they needed to move away from the fringe and they began the process. They developed a strategy for dealing with fringe candidates, tested it, and are now applying it. At the same time, they started introducing an agenda to turn them back into a responsible party again. The results have been dramatic, even if they are largely behind the scenes.

The strategy they employed started with this. When Liz Cheney decided to attack Republican incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi, the fringe jumped onboard as usual. This was one of about a dozen attempts to "primary" sitting Republicans. At the time, groups like Tea Party Express and Freedom Works declared that Cheney would sweep to victory, as would a dozen others, and they would finally unseat the RINO leadership.

But this time, the GOP fought back. First, they gave a massive number of endorsements to Enzi and they made it clear that they would not simply stand on the sidelines. They also ridiculed the Senate Conservatives Fund (Cruz’s group) as being in the business of replacing Republicans with Democrats, which is essentially all Cruz has accomplished. The results were strong and immediate. Cheney’s candidacy collapsed and she withdrew for “family health” reasons.

Within days of her withdrawal, the fringe did what they always do: they disowned her. Indeed, a number of people who had been praising her as a reel ‘merikan only days before suddenly dismissed her as an establishment carpetbagger. Cult-like groups always work this way because they cannot afford failure. More was coming...

● The Turning Point. As Wyoming played out, Ted Cruz decided to make a power play in Washington. He saw an opportunity to embarrass the GOP leadership by demanding a shutdown. He figured that the GOP leadership would never act so irresponsibly, so he was safe making the demand because he knew they would never give him what he wanted. Essentially, he had a free pass to thump his chest and claim to be the only courageous Republican. He also used the opportunity to spread the idea that the public was secretly with him and that they would rally to a shutdown, which would expose the GOP leadership as out of touch. Again, he could make this claim because he knew it would never be tested. He even got the House GOP backbench to support him in an effort to make Boehner look like a fool.

It was a fantastic bluff. Not only did it allow him to define himself as better than everyone else in the GOP, i.e. as the only genuine conservative in a nest of RINOs, but it let him offer the Kool-Aid of the “secret majority” to his fringe audience all without any fear that his claim would ever be exposed. The fringe, naturally, jumped on this like retards humping a doorknob and they all parroted how cowardly the leadership was and how Cruz must be made the new leader.

Then it went wrong. Boehner shrewdly gave Cruz what he wanted and the government shut down. This became the real turning point. See, it turns out the public did not support Cruz and the fringe. To the contrary, around 90% blamed the GOP for shutting down the government and felt they had acted irresponsibly. Moreover, the deal that was needed to end the shutdown wiped out sequestration. Cruz had, as usual, set the cause of conservatism back.

More importantly, however, while this was going on, Cruz’s behavior exposed him. When the shutdown first happened, Cruz actually refused to say whether or not he supported what had been his own idea. He was waiting to see how it played. And when it went sour fast, he denied that this had been his idea at all. Even four months later, he continued to deny this. Said Cruz on Face the Nation:

“I didn't threaten to shut down the government the last time. I don't think we should ever shut down the government. I repeatedly voted to fund the federal government.”

Of course, evidence to the contrary abounds all over the net.

What this did was expose Cruz. Intelligent conservatives would now see that he was a liar who used them for personal gain, and they talked about how shocked they were when he admitted that he had no exit strategy for the shutdown, i.e. no purpose in doing it. Conservatives like Kelly Ayotte apparently met him with quite a fury. And when Cruz tired again recently to cause a shutdown and then forced the GOP to vote for the budget to overcome his filibuster, he found no supporters. The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page even called Cruz, “the Minority Maker” and chastised him for making the GOP “walk the plank on a meaningless debt ceiling vote.” Outside of the deep fringe, the love and blind faith is gone.

● Open Season. Immediately after the collapse of the shutdown, Boehner verbally attacked the fringe by calling groups like The Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks “ridiculous” and claiming they had “lost all credibility.” Blogs like Hot Air quickly mocked this as a tantrum and called him whiny, but they missed the point. Boehner’s message wasn’t intended to win the fringe, it was intended to tell the rest of the GOP that it was open season on the fringe. And open season it became.

Since Boehner’s comments, there have been a steady stream of attacks on the fringe from people like Tom Coburn, Charles Krauthammer and Jennifer Rubin. The GOP changed its election rules to make it harder for small candidates to win primaries and to force everything to wrap up quicker, i.e. to make another Santorum unlikely. The GOP also fired companies who had worked with Cruz’s anti-Republican PAC. Iowa’s governor is doing his best to make the Iowa GOP mainstream by driving out the fringe. Mike Huckabee essentially likened the fringe to the Nazis, which brought howls of anger from various blogs. John McCain, who had planned to retire, now will likely run for a new term because fringers in Arizona censured him for “associating with liberal Democrats” and he plans to spite them. Everywhere, the establishment is fighting back and more and more conservatives are switching sides to join the establishment against the fringe.

● Routed: The Battle of Kentucky. With things going poorly for the fringe as recognized conservatives started deserting the cult and speaking against them, the fringe needed a big victory. They chose to attack a man they saw as a soft target: Mitch McConnell. McConnell is a fairly reliable conservative, though a practical one, and he and Boehner have become the fringe’s boogeymen, an odd package of spineless dupes and evil RINO geniuses who are simultaneously incompetent yet manage to dominate and frustrate 60 million conservatives. They saw McConnell as the perfect target because unseating him would be a huge show of their power and they believed he was vulnerable to a primary challenge. So they decided to support his Tea Party sponsored opponent: Matt Bevins.

In fact, “support” is an understatement. Like Hitler at Stalingrad, they are pouring everything they have into this fight. Everyone from groups like the Club for Growth to Sarah Palin have sent money and endorsements to Bevins. Every single fringe group you can think of is involved in this effort. Talk radio has repeatedly and unanimously pimped for Bevins and torn down McConnell. The idea was this: if the fringe can win this one huge victory, then it can wash away all the defeats it has suffered in primaries, special elections and with all their candidates going down in flames to the Democrats in 2012. More importantly, they can regain their ability to rule the GOP by fear. That was the plan.

But the new GOP tactics have proved extremely effective. Bevins was close until the GOP started attacking the fringe as crazy, as having no end game to their strategies, and as aiding the Democrats. And after the Cruz shutdown debacle, things started to go wrong. The latest poll has McConnell beating Bevins by 42 points.

This is an epic disaster for them. Indeed, the fringe has completely lost its influence, and they know it. What is most telling has been the change in rhetoric. After promising, a month or so ago, to unseat two dozen Republicans in the primaries, the same groups now are saying that they didn’t expect to win any of those contests, but it was enough to raise awareness of the issues. That’s loser speak. At the same time, the fringe starting whining about how unfair the GOP has been treating them. Even Cruz whined about this, stating that the GOP was “carpet-bombing” Tea Party candidates and that they should focus on the big bad Democrats. This is how people talk when they know it’s all over... and note the hypocrisy.

At this point, Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks is still promising to unseat 28 GOP incumbents blah blah blah, including Eric Cantor and John Boehner, but no one is taking that seriously. In fact, the GOP is so confident that they’ve gone from the defensive to the offensive. First, the Chamber of Commerce came out and supported any GOP candidates who would oppose Tea Party candidates. Now former Rep. Steven LaTourette has founded a new PAC whose goal is to “beat the snot out of Tea Party Congressional candidates.”

All of this smells of a route.

● Where Things Stand. So where do things stand? The fringe is still speaking of their glorious victories to come, but from the sound of things, there will be no more Tea Party victories in primaries. A good number of Tea Party congressmen may also lose their seats. The GOP is slowly working on an agenda that will align it with the public and the actual GOP base again – not the fringe. For example, with polls consistently showing that even 60% of the GOP base wants immigration reform, its interesting to note that every single GOP candidate for President has endorsed the idea even as the fringe views this as heresy.

Meanwhile, a number of prominent conservatives started talking about an agenda – an agenda that goes against everything the fringe stands for. The article about Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin the other day is just the latest example. Even people like Rand Paul, who the fringe assumes are with them, have distanced themselves. In fact, in a very telling comment the other day, Rand Paul said this:

“I think Republicans will not win again in my lifetime for the presidency unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party. . . and it has to be a transformation, not a little tweaking at the edges.

So we need to become hard core “conservative,” right? Well, no. Here’s what he said next:

“Republicans haven’t gone to African-Americans or to Hispanics and said, ‘You know what? The war on drugs, Big Government, has had a racial outcome. It’s disproportionately affected the poor and the black and brown among us. There is a struggle going on within the Republican Party. It’s not new, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m proud of the fact that there is a struggle. And I will struggle to make the Republican Party a different party, a bigger party, a more diverse party, and a party that can win national elections again.”

That is the complete opposite of what talk radio preaches about needing to become a smaller, nastier, more pure party.

The fringe is bleeding support too. Indeed, there was an interesting poll the other day, whose import was missed. The poll asked Republicans who they would support for 2016. Despite the fact that Ted Cruz was the only reel ‘merikan on the list, he scored a pathetic 12%. The other 88% were spread around various people who have all been accused of RINOcy. This means that the fringe is down from a high of around 20% of the Republican party to 12% tops. That’s a loss of 40% in six months and makes them about the size of Ron Paul’s support in the past.

Interestingly, I’m seeing evidence too that many of the fringe are giving up on the GOP and going back to whence they came in third parties.

Does this mean Cruz is finished? Hardly. The fringe only listens to talk radio and talk radio won’t tell them any of the things above because that would harm their ratings. To the contrary, if you listen to Rush or Levin or the rest, or you read HotAir or Breitbart, you will hear a steady stream of how Cruz and his army of reel ‘merikans are about to win victory after victory over Boehner and McConnell, who will soon be replaced. And then they will explain away the divergence from reality with tales or RINO traitors and magic. Because of this, Cruz, the phony-outsider, will get to continue to milk the fringe for money and he can continue his war against the GOP... but his influence is over. Things are changing a lot.

Thoughts?

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National Review Waking Up To Reality

This is good news. A couple people sent me a link to an article written by Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin (P&L) at National Review. What’s interesting about it is that while they still make some of the mistakes commonly made on the right, they seem to be catching up to things I’ve been saying here for quite some time. This is an important step for conservatism

As you will recall, I’ve been talking about income inequality as a huge issue conservatives are missing. I’ve also pointed out that conservatives have a tin ear when it comes to the public, and that the conservative "agenda" (what there is of it) is meaningless to the public, i.e. the public is not the one acting irrationally or stupidly. Pointing this out has led to lots of bad blood and the loss of several readers who are happier drinking the Kool-Aid of talk radio. Good for them. Well, the conservative world is starting to wake up to what I've been saying. Indeed, check out this quote to get a flavor of this National Review article:

“Republicans could do better: If they took better account of what worries Americans today and why, they would see that the Democrats’ obsession with inequality could leave the GOP with a great opportunity to offer the public an appealing, constructive, conservative economic agenda.”

Those are my points: conservatives have lost touch with average Americans, they don’t offer a worthwhile agenda, and they are blind to an issue that is becoming huge. There’s more too. P&L note that the Democrats have managed to sell the public on the idea that they care about the public whereas Republicans don’t, but P&L blame the right for this: “this success has had more to do with Republicans’ lack of understanding of (and at times discomfort with) the public’s economic concerns than with the strengths of the Democrats’ arguments.”

BINGO!

How long have I been saying this? The problem is that the right does not understand or care about the public’s concerns -- instead, they mock the public. And what do P&L recommend? Well, they engage in a lengthy discussion in which they highlight some areas where the right can win the public. Here are some of their quotes:

● “Voters are worried about stagnating wages, inadequate mobility out of poverty and through the middle class, weak growth, and the high costs of raising a family.”

● “People worry that the cost of health insurance is too high, putting coverage out of reach for too many and depressing wages.”

● “Higher education is another source of great anxiety in American life: Will we able to afford it for our kids, and will it leave them with an unbearable debt burden?”

● “The cost of raising a family is another issue where conservatives can offer potentially popular reforms.”

● “To stand a chance of being enacted, the agenda conservatives offer must speak directly to the needs and wishes of middle-class voters.”

Sound familiar? These are same points I've been making since December 2012. Seriously, go back and look. While others have been arguing that we just need to up the hate against gays, Mexicans, women and Obama... and have been trying to dismiss their failure by calling the public "low information voters," I've been making the point that conservatives are the ones who need to start offering something that people outside the fringe will want. Now P&L are making that very same point.

Interestingly, P&L reached these conclusions despite continuing to make some of the common mistakes that continue to cripple conservative thinking. Specifically:

● They use the wrong data to delude themselves into thinking that income equality is about greed rather than pain. What they do is use the nominal data, which results in them admitting that incomes at the top grew a lot more than incomes at the bottom, but then they claim that all incomes rose: “Everyone’s incomes grew, but those of the wealthy grew more, leaving America’s wealth more concentrated at the top.” Hence, they see income inequality as being about greed. But this isn’t true. If you factor in inflation, which you must, then everyone from the middle class on down lost income during that period. So while they claim the “most prominent plank of the left’s inequality argument” is disproven, they are wrong. The reality is that people are concerned because their incomes have been falling, not because they are upset that the rich are doing better than they are.

● They are still comparing income inequality to “growth,” as if growth is a proxy for the economic security of the public. As I’ve pointed out before, growth and economic security have proven themselves to be unrelated. To really understand the problem, conservatives need to start focusing on jobs and income, not growth, because it is jobs and income that are vanishing even as economic growth soars.

● They take the same wrong approach conservatives take regarding other issues, particularly scientific, and they conclude that while there is evidence to show that income inequality is a problem, it’s not conclusively proven. No one cares about “conclusively proven” because there is no such thing in life... asking for conclusive proof is a delaying tactic.

● Fourth, they have wrongly interpreted the polls. They point out that polls show “income inequality” as being a relatively low concern of the public compared to other issues. But as I pointed out the other day, that misunderstands the nature of polling, and it misidentifies the actual issue.

Indeed, building on this last point, even as they dismiss the idea that “income inequality” is something that does or should concern the public, they then conclude that the base elements of income inequality (vanishing jobs, shrinking incomes, loss of upward mobility) are concerns of the public. That's arguing form over substance on their part.

It would be nice if P&L could finally look beyond the years of propaganda they have ingested, but frankly, I’ll take what they have given here and be happy with it: this is a good start. Conservatives need to realize that until they grasp the concerns of the middle class and start offering solutions for those, the middle class will continue to look elsewhere for solutions. Articles like the one by P&L are a huge step in the right direction because they shatter the idea that the public is at fault for conservative failures and that a platform aimed at addressing the pet peeves of the fringe can succeed. Said differently, this is the kind of article people like P&L should have been writing since December 2012 to send conservatives in the right direction. They didn’t, but at least they are starting to now... and that's a good thing.

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The Pope’s Apostolic Confusica

I like a lot of what the new Pope has done. In particular, he’s done a lot to push the Church back to its actual mission of spreading religion and away from being about money and politics. Interestingly, he’s done all of that with only a change in tone too, and without a change in doctrine. His latest issue is a little more troubling however... perhaps.

Last week, Pope Fancis issued an 84-page document called an apostolic exhortation. Think of it as his platform. This seems to be a document aimed at pissing off both sides. For example, he did say that the Church needs to bring more women into decision-making positions with the Church, but he affirmed the Church’s opposition to female priests. In fact, he said it “is not a question open to discussion.” He also affirmed the Church’s opposition to abortion. Both of those will upset progressives.

Pissing off the other side, he wrote what I want to talk about today. Specifically, he wrote about capitalism and poverty and what he said is problematic. Before I tell you my problems with it, however, let me explain what I think he really meant substantively, because when you strip out the ideology, what he says actually makes a lot of sense. Observe:

The Pope’s main concern was about extreme inequality. And you know, I can’t disagree with him. My problem with extreme inequality is that it takes away the stake people feel in society and they start to support radical ideas because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by upending the system. That is why, historically, extreme inequality has led to bloodshed, revolution and typically some form of communism. And in fact, the Pope does note that “unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence.” So he is being practical in his discussion, i.e. he’s not just saying “it’s not fair.”

And don’t think this isn’t a problem in the US. For decades in the US, any poor person could work their way up to the middle class simply by learning their job, working hard, and staying out of trouble. Those who aspired to more could go further through education or imitative. You could literally go from the assembly line to the boardroom over the course of your life if you proved your merit. Further, the majority of the people who were wealthy earned it by providing some product or service that people needed. They were compensated by the free market and we saw them as heroes for their achievements: they made the world better. The keys were this: (1) wealth was generally earned, (2) political power had little to do with the earning of wealth, and (3) you could work your way up the ladder to each level.

Over the past few decades this has changed. For one thing, the wealthy today rarely earn their wealth through the private market. Instead, they enter the worlds of law or finance, and their wealth comes from the misuse of the legal system to force their way into transactions. In other words, they actually “earn” their wealth by setting up toll booths to clog the free market system, and what they earn is stripped away from companies and people who could otherwise use it invent new products and employ more people. Moreover, their pay does not come from free market mechanisms, it comes from monopoly pricing. Thus, today’s rich make a hell of a lot more money than the rich in the past and they are “earning” it without providing anything useful to society... to the contrary, they are hindering society. Thus, they have gone from heroes to villains.

But this still wouldn’t be a problem if things were going well at the bottom... but they’re not. As I outline in my book, middle class and poor incomes have been sinking badly since the 1970s, even as rich incomes soared (incomes are more unequal today, in the age of Obama, than they’ve been at any time since the age of the Robber Barons). Moreover, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to move up the ladders and to stay on the level you are at. Unlike the past, if you learn your job, work hard and stay out of trouble these days, nothing is guaranteed anymore. Now you need an education, or you will find the ceiling is very low. But even getting an education guarantees you nothing but debt.

The result of this is a poor class who see welfare as their better option and feels entitled because they feel they have gotten screwed by society. You have a middle class that is struggling, which is increasingly turning to “eat the rich” policies, who are also starting to rely on benefits, who see the stock market as fixed, and who see the government becoming a tool for wealth generation on the backs of the middle class who are expected to pick up the tab. That hasn’t led to violence yet in America, but it is the sort of thing that has led to violence elsewhere, and it is the sort of thing which leads people to start supporting destructive policies like increases in welfare for their own class... or worse.

This is why I agree with the Pope’s concerns and why I think conservatives need to start trying to address this issue.

So what is problematic? Well, the Pope’s rhetoric is the problem. He wraps this message in some very anti-capitalist statements. For example, he called capitalism “brutal” and “a new tyranny,” and he complained about “rampant consumerism.” Grr.

First, he’s wrong about consumerism. Consumerism is the ultimate in democracy in action. Consumerism is how billions of humans express their opinions to the businesses and governments around them. It is how we the people reward the good guys who make our lives better and cause the bad guys to fail by ignoring them and their goods. And anything we can do to give consumers more power and more choice, the better. What I think the Pope is really upset about is “materialism,” which is a very different thing. That’s about people choosing stuff over people. He should not be confusing that with consumerism.

Secondly, he’s wrong about “capitalism.” Capitalism is the only way to lift people out of poverty. So attacking “capitalism” is foolish and counter-productive. And again, I think he’s misspoken. I think what he’s really talking about is cronyism, which is obvious from his calls for the reformation of the financial systems.

So the problem is this. Either the Pope simply misused his words or spoken poorly, or he means his rhetoric and is saying something much bigger than what appears to be the substance he intended. If that’s the case, then he’s a fool. If he only misspoke, then that’s fine, except that as someone with this powerful of a bully pulpit, he needs to take more care to speak clearly. His choice of words will wrongly feed statists everywhere. Moreover, for someone whose goal has been to get the Church back to its mission of spreading religion, it’s rather foolish to delve into economic ideology. Further, he offers no solutions by way of guidance. All he says is that unfettered capitalism is bad, but a welfare state is not the answer. So what does he want? It’s not clear.

I get the sense that what he’s talking about is equality of opportunity. He talks about striving to provide work, healthcare and education to all citizens. Those really are the inputs to people living productive lives. In fact, I would suggest that conservatives need a platform that is strong on each of those points: creating jobs and opportunity, improving education, and finding ways to make healthcare cheap and universally available. I also get the sense he’s actually talking about things conservatives should like, and if we could discuss this with him, we would probably find we agree. Indeed, notice that at no point does he call for minimum wages or guaranteed incomes, he never says the government has a duty to hand out these things, and he specifically disdains the welfare mentality.

So ultimately, we probably should be embracing this... BUT his attacks on consumerism and capitalism make it very, very hard to embrace his statement. By saying these things, he has given aid and comfort to people who favor redistribution. He has muddied what he said with sufficient contradictions that it is not possible to know precisely what he wants, which makes it hard to say, “Sure, I agree.” And he has wrongly attacked the very tools it will take to make his goals possible. Frustrating.

Thoughts?

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Chris Christie... No.

By the time you read this, Chris Christie will have won re-election by a massive margin in New Jersey. No doubt there will also be a ton of articles this morning screaming that he shows the Republicans how they can prevail in the modern world. Ug. That is simply wrong.

Christie is what passes for self-described moderates in the Republican Party. What he really is, is the third Mexican in the Mexican standoff we spoke about the other day. He maintains his “moderate” image by repeatedly slandering every Republican in sight. He has attacked most national Republican figures and the party in the abstract. And every time he wants applause, he further denigrates conservatism, Republicanism and everything in between. Moreover, despite claiming to be different, he's actually just an empty suit. To my knowledge, he has introducing nothing by way of an agenda except signing whatever the Democrats send him -- he'll veto one now and then, but so does Jerry Brown in California. Even his bombastic youtube moments which made him a conservative star ever so briefly are just for show and don’t match his policies. Further, he routinely appoints Democrats to key executive and judicial positions. All told, I can’t think of a single way in which he’s made New Jersey more conservative.

This is not what we need. This is true RINOism -- Democrat-lite combined with disloyalty. I would call him John McCain in a fatsuit, except that McCain actually does advocate conservative ideas and has at times come up with an original agenda... plus, McCain has limits on how nasty he gets about his own party. (And no, this is not to excuse McCain.)

This is why Christie is the wrong direction.

As I keep saying, we need a new way. We need a new agenda, one that appeals to the American public. A lot of people wrongly hear that as “go moderate,” but that is not at all what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that we need to start offering the public solutions to their concerns on education, healthcare, retirement, jobs, protecting the environment, protecting consumers, protecting small business and protecting people from predators, be they criminals, terrorists, abusive business practices or abusive government invasion of privacy or destruction of fundamental rights. We need to think of ways to bring our conservative free market, traditional values solutions to those issues. Chris Christie is not offering any of that. All Christie offers is the same infighting that is already going on, he just represents a different Mexican.

A lot of you may be asked about Christie by other conservatives. When they ask you, don't just call him a RINO, tell them that the problem with Christie is that he claims to stand for moderate ideas, but he really stands for nothing... he has no agenda, and he maintains his support through disloyalty. We don't need that.

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GOP: Still the Ideas Party

Given that this whole ObamaCare/shutdown/who's-the-biggest-two-year-old-here thing has seen another attempt to paint the Republicans as obstructionists who only know how to say no to people, etc., it's important to point out that many in our party are in fact trying to come up with positive reform proposals. Take Mike Lee, for example.

Last month, Utah's junior senator introduced a thorough tax-reform plan, one with the potential to steal a lot of the Dems' thunder, if only it can gain traction. Probably not perfect, but the point is it has lots of goody-PR stuff. For instance:

-Lots of tax credits and tax deductions would be eliminated, but mainly for those under a certain income level. Most households making less than $300,000 a year would be unaffected. Moreover, the "charitable deduction" option would be expanded across the board. This is good because, while people like having as many tax write-off options as possible, they also like the idea of a simple tax code, and the fact that the remaining deductions are stacked towards the middle class doesn't hurt.

-Speaking of simplification, the system of tax brackets is greatly reduced under Lee's plan, with a 15% rate for everyone making less than $87,850, and a 35% rate for everyone making more than that.

-There's a lot here, too, for families with children to like: There would be a $2,500 tax credit per child, which would carry over into both income and payroll tax deduction. Lee argues that this would reduce the burden families face in raising kids, shifting it towards those without such obligations. This is a way, he says, of equalizing the de facto tax burden, and while I'm not so sure I personally agree with that, it also has the potential to play very well with middle-class families, the people Obama and Co. always claim to be sticking up for.

And that's the real takeaway here. As we all know, if we're paying any attention to the news feed from the last couple weeks, the ObamaCare trainwreck has people starting to doubt the administration's ability to help out the "little guy," something it's made its reputation on. A huge opportunity may be opening up here to show who has the better plan to strengthen the middle class--that Holy Grail of politics--and this is a place where the GOP can stake out its ground.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm endorsing the plan wholeheartedly. In a perfect world, I'd like a one-rate-fits-all kind of plan, and this particular formulation might antagonize the upper-middle-class somewhat, given the relative hike for those making 100K or thereabout. But that's not the only issue here. What's important to note is the activity some of our people in Congress are continuing to show. This idea can be batted about, revised, maybe even rejected (okay, probably even rejected). But the point is, it's the sort of thing that gets people talking on issues like tax reform. And that's a good thing.

I'm also glad to see the way Mike Lee is going. He has very conservative credentials, both objectively and in how the base perceives him; and while guys like Cruz and Rubio are drawing a lot of lightning, he and others are quietly building conservative agendas. The party needs both types, and good for him for taking the least flashy role.

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Let's Move On

Our fringe has become a problem. They offer nothing but ignorance, hypocrisy, and unfocused hate, which they aim at the Republicans. They are disloyal and destructive, and I have been trying to stop talking about them because it’s pointless to engage them and dangerous to humor them. And, frankly, I’m sick of them. But something happened Sunday needs to be called out. Then it’s time to move on.

Our fringe is a problem. They are 6% of the American public (twice as large as gays, half as large as Hispanics or blacks, just smaller than Jews and Muslims) who act like a doomsday cult and the other 84% of the public pretty much despises them. What’s more, they have become obsessed with destroying the Republicans and every conservative who doesn’t foam at the mouth like they do.

Fortunately, everything I’ve seen tells me that they have peaked at something less than 20% of the GOP, and their influence is waning because their own disloyalty makes them unreliable. And I’m seeing a lot of signs that the Republicans are moving on from them, including a lot of big name conservatives like Tom Coburn, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Brit Hume, Fred Barnes, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, etc. There are even signs that Rand Paul is avoiding them. The writing is on the wall.

What will probably finish them off is the re-election of Mitch McConnell. For many years, the fringe dictated Republican policy, even as they falsely whined that the Republicans were under the control of secret RINOs. Lately, the Republicans have started fighting back and they seem to have found a formula to defend themselves against the fringe: full and open support of the people the fringe attacks. This is bad news for the fringe. So they, led by Glenn Beck and Mark Levin, have chosen Mitch McConnell as a demonstration of their power. If they can unseat McConnell in the primary, then they believe they can cow the Republicans back into line. But in taking this risk, they are exposing their weakness to the Republicans. If they lose, then their influence will be destroyed within the Party.

My money is on McConnell.

In any event, I am done with them. It’s not productive to whine and scream about traitors and doomsday. It’s pointless to discuss a quasi-ideology that is irrational and can’t even define itself except as requiring the outing of the disloyal. It is dishonest to make up facts, to invent secret truths, and to try to trick people into following you. So from now on, I have no intention of talking about these shits anymore because they are simply not relevant to America’s future.

Instead, I’m going to talk about conservatism, something people like Levin, Savage, Rush, Beck, Hannity, Bachmann, Cruz, and the rest know precious little about. I’m going to start Wednesday by talking about the agenda I wrote about and we’ll see where that takes us. It’s time to talk about America.

But first, there was something that happened this Sunday that needs to be called out. The fringer in question is a local radio host named Jimmy Lakey. Lakey is another Levin/Beck/Limbaugh. He banks on his audience being low-information listeners who simply lap up the lies he spews as he tells them they are superior Americans while he warns them that they can’t verify the things he tells them because some mystery conspiracy won’t let this information out... except to him. Here’s what he did Sunday.

As I was preparing to watch football, I suddenly got a call from a relative. They were deeply worried about “what was happening in DC” and they told me to turn on Lakey. So I did. Here is what Lakey said:

1. There are over a million veterans in DC right now.
2. They are trying to protest something (unexplained) which is bad for Obama.
3. Obama fears them and said something (unexplained).
4. This caused them to start toward the White House to voice their objections.
5. The evil tyrant Obama (with the full support of Boehner... naturally) “called out the riot police.”
6. There are "riot police surrounding the White House right now!"
7. There are reports they’ve fired tear gas into the crowd.
8. But don’t expect to find this on the news because the MSM won’t tell you about this. “Only a couple images have leaked out onto the net.”
9. Then he finished with a gratuitous attack on the Republicans for “being identical to the Democrats blah blah blah” and not supporting the veterans.

Glenn Beck then put this on his website (complete with video) and Drudge linked to it too.

None of this is true.

Based on the photos, there were only a couple thousand people tops... maybe less than 2,000. See below.

What they wanted is not clear and Lakey sure as hell didn’t know. But one thing is clear: the White House does not call out riot police. They don’t have any. What happened is that a group of about eight to ten DC police or Park Police (it's not clear which) came to the fence near the White House to talk to a group demonstrators. They were surrounded by more journalists than protestors. They spoke briefly with the leader of the rowdies and then left.

As anyone who has lived in DC can tell you, this is for show. This is what they always do when protest groups come to town... and Glenn Beck knows it! There are segments of these groups who like to get arrested for fundraising purposes, and the DC police come out and negotiate that so no one gets hurt. It's all for show and only those who want to get arrested. Then everyone goes home. These cops left after less than two minutes. No one fired tear gas... no one even had tear gas. Watch the video and you'll see that the cops didn't even raise their voices.

Lakey's presentation is a lie. It is the same type of lie all these guys keep inventing. They make things up to sell you the idea that they are “genuine” and everyone else is a traitor. They make things up to scare you. They play on your ignorance of the law, of the constitution, of how the government works and of world events to sell you a doomsday version of the world to outrage you. Then they feed you this line of shit that they are the only ones who can tell you the truth because everyone else is trying to suppress the truth. It is despicable.

There is no Republican plot to shutdown Levin as he argues. There is no secret informant telling Beck that the Republicans are plotting against Beck or Freedom Works as he and they claim. The media does not control the net. The media does not control Fox News. The Republicans are not in league with the Democrats. And the fringe has done more damage to the Republican brand with the public in the last few years than decades of Democratic attacks. Seriously, stop believing a word that you hear from these people.

That’s my final word on the matter. Talk radio is dead to me. It’s time to move on to something constructive. It’s time to talk about conservatism. It’s time to take an optimistic look forward, as Reagan did, and ask ourselves how we make America better and help her live up to her potential.

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Ted Cruz's Demise Part Deux

So he is a RINO traitor after all! LOL! Grab some popcorn and enjoy this interesting twisty little story of the slow-motion demise of Ted Cruz.

On Sunday, Chris Wallace of FOX mentioned that the Republicans are upset at Ted Cruz. Specifically, he told Karl Rove that as soon as he announced that Ted Cruz would be a guest on his show this week, he received unsolicited “opposition research” against Cruz from certain un-named Republicans.

Naturally, the immediate assumption was that it had to be the evil RINO Republican Leadership who can’t stand a gen-you-ine conservative finally fighting back after the Republicans caved in to Obama on everything he ever wanted!!!! Indeed, the Daily Caller guessed that this must be the result of anger at Cruz “because Cruz and fellow Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee decided to devise a strategy to defund Obamacare without consulting Republican leadership.” And clearly, those RINO leaders don’t like the gen-you-ine Ted Cruz exposing their cozy relationship with Obama, right? Sarah Boo Boo Palin even demanded that Wallace disclose his sources so we can rid ourselves of their evil.

As an aside, Glenn Beck is calling for the “impeachment” of Boehner, McConnell, McCain and Lindsay Graham... oh, and Obama. Maybe we can add this to the list of charges?

Well, not so fast.

See, it turns out that the anger at Cruz isn’t coming from the Republican Leadership, aka the fringe right’s greatest boogeyman. No, it’s coming from, well, the fringe right.

Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy said Friday that the conservative House Republicans are angry and frustrated with Ted Cruz who has “abused” House conservatives. Apparently, he dun whipped them into a fightin' mood... made them go full retard... and then he refused “to get in the ring” when the time came.

Duffy notes that House conservatives were furious at Cruz all summer “as we were the punching bag and bullied by some of these Senate conservatives” with ads and fundraisers accusing the House of failing to defund Obamacare. This hurt them with their own followers who began to doubt their qualifications as fringers conservatives. Then, when they returned from the summer break and voted to defund Obamacare...

“[Cruz] sent out a press release while we were on the floor voting saying that, ‘Ah, we can’t really hold the Senate, we’re not going to filibuster, we’re not going to fight, and the House has to hold.’”

Hm. And how did that sit with House conservatives? Said Duffy:

“I have to tell you what, you should have been on the floor or back in the cloak room. There was so much anger and frustration because, again, we’ve been abused by these guys for so long.”

Tisk tisk, Sen. RINOCruz! Duffy thinks it’s time to “call them out” on their “hypocrisy” as “these big tough conservatives who know how to fight but will never get in the ring.”

I’m not surprised. From what I’ve seen, Cruz is an insider trying to trick the fringe into supporting him. He talks tough and attacks all the fringe’s enemies: the Apostate Rubio, Boehner, McCain, Graham, McConnell, the generic “establishment,” Mexicans, and sometimes Obama, and he panders to the fringe verbally (though he always throws in caveats the fringe overlooks). What he doesn’t do, however, is ever follow up his words with deeds.

That strategy worked for Obama – pander to the morons but don’t do anything that can be traced back to you specifically, and then run as a moderate in the general election. But it won’t work here. The fringe right is much more cannibalistic than the fringe left ever was and if you don’t lead every suicide charge, they will denounce you as a traitor. And that is what is happening now.

In fact, it looks to me like Cruz is in trouble. First, he gets accused of starting the “defund Obamacare” pointlessness to distract people so the RINO leadership can sneak through AMNESTY Ahhhhhh!! They’re under my bed! Now he’s being attacked openly for never going full retard with the rest. And more ominously, someone (probably a gen-you-ine conservative) is passing out “opposition research” against him.

Unfortunately for Cruz, I don’t think there’s a way to turn this around. The conservative fringe and the public are polar opposites and you can’t win a general election by being seen as pandering to the conservatives fringe. But Cruz has embraced them too closely to escape the association as all the other Republican presidential candidates have. So Cruz may soon find himself a man without support.

It will be interesting to see what his next couple moves will be.

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An Agenda From Talk Radio... Arg

I’ve spoken about our need to get an agenda. In fact, I’ve written a book outlining one. Well, I’m starting to see more people waking up to the fact we need one. Unfortunately, a lot of these people still don’t get it. The point to an agenda is to create a list of promises that will attract the voters, but the agendas I’m seeing don’t do that. Indeed, a few days ago, someone sent me a link to an agenda created by a self-described “genuine conservative.” This agenda could actually be called the “Talk Radio Agenda” because what this guy did was, under the guise of independent thinking, repeat the various things talk radio has told him. It’s a disaster.

Here are his ten points in order:

1. Defund Obamacare. He starts by demanding we defund Obamacare, which is fine for the red-meat crowd, but didn’t sway the public to vote for Romney. So more is needed. Fortunately, he actually does suggest a plan to replace it with in point three, so let’s examine that here too:

3. Reagancare. Barf. Naming a disaster after Reagan is an insult, and this is a disaster. This “plan” begins with the usual “let insurers compete across state lines” line which the public has already rejected several times but which talk radio repeats like dogma. Then he goes full retard.

First, he says we should limit malpractice lawsuits “to cost,” which shows he doesn’t understand how the legal system works. Not only is this the practical equivalent of banning malpractice suits, but you are smoking crack if you think the public will support a plan where a mother of five goes in for a $100 dental procedure, dies, and gets awarded $100. Bullsh*t.

Then comes this: “Provide high risk pools for individuals that genuinely can’t afford coverage.” Well, duh! Why don’t we do that now? Oh yeah... cost. The reason Obama is trying to run Obamacare through private insurers is because the cost of the uninsurables is impossible for the government to bear. Right now around 5% of the public absorbs 49% of all healthcare costs. That means to set up the pools he wants to cover this 5% of the population, the federal government will need to cough up roughly $1.5 trillion a year. Paying for that would increase the federal budget by roughly 40%. This is what happens when people bloviate without knowing the facts.

So his plan is to enrich insurers, put taxpayers on the hook for $1.5 trillion a year, and make sure that people who are injured by doctors are screwed. Yeah, average voters will jump right on that.

2. “Make Congress and the Bureaucracy Live Under Obamacare.” Notice three things here besides the fact that, in any worthwhile agenda, a point this closely related to the first would be wrapped into the first. Point one: this is a stupid promise. If people hate Obamacare, then promise to end it... don’t promise to apply it to Washington. Conversely, if people don’t hate Obamacare enough to support repeal, then what in the world makes you think this will be anymore meaningful to them? This reeks of pettiness.

Point two: this is what’s called “inside baseball.” This is like promising to change the way new bills are distributed around the Senate... no one gives a sh*t! Tinkering with government procedure is a game for wonks, not something the public cares about. Point three: I’m not in a mood to debunk this, but Washington IS living under Obamacare, and promising to make them do what they are already doing as some sort of revenge will only lead to disappointment.

4. Pledge To Read Every Bill. Oh goodie, an unenforceable pledge to tinker with the inner workings of Congress! I can see middle class families breathing easier already.

5. The Job Creation Act FINALLY! After three wasted and one insane point, we come to something the public cares about: creating jobs. Let’s see what our friend suggests... “defund Obamacare.”

Excuse me. //Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I’m back. So to create jobs, we’re going to defund Obamacare. Great, I’m sure the public will be all over that. Let’s see what else this guy comes up with. Oh, we need to repeal Sarbanes Oxley... something that is meaningless to average people and which doesn’t affect jobs. Indeed, except for the fact that this guy keeps hearing this screamed at him by talk radio, I’ll bet he doesn’t even know what the supposed problem is with Sarbanes Oxley.

Next, he wants to “do away with the National Labor Relations Board.” I wonder if he understands that eliminating the NLRB would just send these issues to federal courts instead, which would stretch labor disputes out for years, put companies under court control, and create different labor rules throughout the country? I’m thinking, no.

Then he suggests increased funding for unemployed worker retraining. Yeah, throw more money at a program that isn’t working without a hint of reform... how liberal. He also wants to allow businesses to “write off all of their new equipment after one year” to encourage them to buy more. That’s the closest he comes to a workable idea, but that just moves future purchases forward one year, it doesn’t actually increase economic activity – it’s recapture that matters. Moreover, equipment competes with labor, so this will probably reduce employment.

This is a boogeyman economic agenda. This guy simply lists the things talk radio told him “are killing jobs in Amer'Ka!” and he wants them gone. None of this would work, and none of it would appeal to average voters.

6. A Two Year Spending Freeze! He will freeze ALL spending, “including government salaries” for the next two years, “except spending on defense, Veteran Affairs, and entitlement programs.” //ROFLMAO!! This BIG spending freeze will apply to only 13% of the budget because of his exception and will probably only slow growth by half a percentage point. Nice. Oh, and as with his other points, this offers nothing to make the lives of average voters better, i.e. Joe Sixpack doesn’t care.

7. “Cut Your Gas Bill Act.” Drill in ANWR, build the Keystone Pipeline and encourage offshore drilling. Ok, so this is finally something that might appeal to average people. But does the public actually think this will benefit them? Nobody trusts the oil companies; they are constantly talking about collusion. Do you think a promise to help oil companies will be meaningful to the public? Will the promise of a few cents reduction at the pump in ten years sway voters? It didn’t work for Romney or McCain/Palin.

8. “Claw Back the NSA Act”. Sigh. Agreed. We finally stumbled on something useful, something the public will like. Kumbaya. Of course, this is a minor concern only for the public and you’ll have to fight conservative hawks to make this happen, but at least it’s something.

9. Audit the Fed! LOL! Not only is this just more tinkering with procedures, but this is all premised on false conspiracy theories. You don’t elevate paranoia to policy.

10. No More Bailouts! Repeal Dodd-Frank. Yeah. Average people are just screaming for that. Oh wait, they don’t even know what Dodd-Frank is, nor would repealing Dodd-Frank prevent bailouts.

And that’s it. Notice that most of this is obsession, some is conspiracy theory, and the rest is talking points. The writer of this agenda doesn’t understand how government works, how law works, what the budget looks like, how jobs are created, or even why he doesn’t like some of the boogeymen he hates. Notice also that none of this will appeal to average people outside of the talk radio set (where this stuff is taken on faith as a panacea).

So I ask, is this really what conservatism has become? Purging the Earth of Obama, tinkering with government procedure, giving breaks to crony-socialist companies and “common sense” ideas that ignore little things like a $1.5 trillion price tag? You know, when Buckley and Reagan defined conservatism, conservatism actually stood for things. It stood for the American dream. Conservatives pushed for more and better jobs through deregulation to make it easier to start businesses and hire people, tax cuts to let people keep more of what they earned, free trade to help sell American goods overseas. It stood for helping people buy homes. It stood for helping people send their kids to college and improving education through the introduction of competition. Conservatives pushed to help people save for retirement, invest their money, and pass on their wealth to their kids. There’s none of that in this agenda... or on talk radio.

We can do better.

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Losing Your Insuance and Obamacare Shutdowns

“If you like the plan you have, you can keep it.”

-- Barack Obama

Apparently, you can't. Two points on healthcare today. First, let’s look at how Obamacare is robbing people of their insurance despite Obama’s pledge above. Then, let’s talk about an interesting poll about the shutdown.


● Obamacare: Obamacare is causing millions of people to lose their insurance. Consider these points:

(1) For whatever reason, people keep missing the fact that 6 million people have already lost their insurance because of Obamacare. When he started in 2010, 43 million people had no insurance, now it’s 49 million... and that’s despite more kids being added to parents’ policies, so the numbers are actually higher.

(2) People with individual plans started losing those plans early because Obamacare imposes new requirements which prevent most individual plans, which typically have high deductibles, from counting as Obamacare compliant.

(3) Then small employers started dumping their plans. Surprise, it’s cheaper to pay a couple hundred dollar fine than $10k a year to cover an employee, and with the Exchanges as an alternative, there was no moral reason to keep offering insurance either. This also turned out to be a good way to break the unions.

(4) Employers everywhere soon started making people part-timers because then they don’t need to offer insurance and they don’t get fined. The BoL monthly jobs reports have shown this trend as full-time jobs keep vanishing as part-time jobs appear. Similarly, reports of employers switching to part-time hours have been coming from unions, universities, school systems, big firms like WalMart and dozens more. Not only does this mean less insurance, it will make it harder for poor people to earn a living... and then Obama fines them.

(4) Now they are dumping spouses from company policies. Obamacare requires employers to cover children of employees if they offer coverage, but it doesn’t say anything about spouses. The assumption was that employers wouldn’t do anything so dastardly. Well, they are. To save costs and to hopefully get employees to switch to other policies, employers are dropping spouses like the plague. UPS just announced that 15,000 spouses would be dumped. Delta has made similar noises, as have other large companies. Smaller companies have been doing this for a while now.

Other large companies are imposing a surcharge on spouses, which is also allowed. Right now, 14% of employers with more than 5,000 employees impose such a surcharge. Last year, the number was 4%.

Thank you, Obama! You’ve done a wonderful thing. Who are you going to hurt for your next trick?

● Non-Support for Shutdown: On the shutdown front, as Tea Party groups start running ads attacking Republicans as “chickens” (seriously... welcome to grade school) for not shutting down the government, the Republicans have commissioned a poll to find out how much support a shutdown actually has. The results are pretty interesting:

● Self-identified “conservative Republicans” make up only 19% of the public. That’s consistent with what I’ve seen. I will add that they are also concentrated in the Southern states, though the poll doesn’t say that.

● Even among those self-identified “conservative Republicans,” only 9% self-identify as “very conservative” with the other 10% self-identifying as “somewhat conservative.” So forget any idea that talk radio is speaking for “the silent majority” or even the majority of Republicans. The talk radio base is about 9% of the public.

● Within self-identified “very conservative” ranks, 63% favor a shut down to try to defund Obamacare. However, these numbers flip for everyone else. Indeed, within “somewhat conservative” ranks, 62% oppose a shutdown. And when you look at the party as a whole, you find that only 37% favor a shutdown.

● Overall, only 23% of the public (which includes conservatives) favors a shutdown.

What this tells us is as with immigration, the Republican base is much closer to the views of the public than they are the views of the talk radio base, even as the talk radio base claims to speak for the majority of Republicans. And in this case, both the base and the public overwhelming reject the idea of forcing a shutdown. That actually makes sense too. Right now, millions of people are learning the cost of liberalism as Obamacare ruins their insurance. Conservatives need to refrain from making conservatism less attractive than what they are experiencing from liberalism. Let Obamacare work its horrors and then step in with an alternate plan to replace it. Remember, you can’t save people until they know they need to be saved.

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Books By Pundits Don't Change The World

Once again, my poor brain found itself subjected to talk radio last weekend. I’ll spare you the debunking. I will instead focus on an issue that arose which has long troubled me: conservatives don’t understand what interests the public. This is vital to our turnaround.

I first noticed this issue in the 1990s. When Bill Clinton went on the Tonight Show, it was a brilliant move. It allowed him to connect with a part of the public that wasn’t particularly tuned in to politics but did still vote. It also let him craft an image that appealed to the public. In fact, it played into one of the most-loved of American caricatures: the loveable rogue.

Conservatives responded in unison by condemning this for lowering the office of the presidency, and they scoffed at Clinton: “Who could possibly want to see their president on a comedy show talking about his underwear? Harrumph!” Then they were upset the public “didn't get it”: “Why isn’t the public outraged? Hasn’t the public read Bill Bennett’s book on moral decay? What about Cal Thomas’s laments about the culture in which he spells God as G-d? What is wrong with people!” Then someone in the Clinton camp said that everything is political and conservatives laughed themselves silly: “Nonsense!!” I still remember Rush mocking this point for days.

See, it turns out that in conservative minds, politics lives in a box. Politics is speeches given by politicians. Politics is books written by pundits and treatises prepared by think tanks. Politics is what you get on talk radio and political talk shows. Nothing beyond that is real politics. Moreover, conservatives seem to believe that politics defines culture. Thus, Bill Clinton wasn’t reflecting the culture, he was warping it, and if only we could get rid of Bill and get people to read Bill Bennett’s book, then the culture would snap right back to Leave It To Beaver times.

That is fundamentally wrong on all points.

Books like those by Hayek or Milton Friedman are great foundations for our ideology. Reagan’s speeches are inspiring and insightful as well. But political books and speeches don’t penetrate the culture and they certainly don’t move the needle on culture. You could pass out every book written by Thomas Sowell or Bill Bennett or Glenn Beck’s monkey to every American, and not a thing would change... the public doesn’t work that way.

Culture is as the public defines it. They define it through their opinions about a vast array of topics. And their opinions drift according to any number of events. Movies make something seem more or less scary. An event occurs that shocks people. Wall Street inspired people to become stockbrokers and to get rich; Oliver Stone laments this. Close Encounters made belief in aliens acceptable to the mainstream. Walt Disney redefined American history through his television shows. Dirty Harry gave voice to the public’s desire to undo the liberalism put into the criminal justice system... no political book or speech did that, a movie did. All those monogamous, happy gay characters on television made people comfortable with gays. Rosa Parks exposed the perversion of Southern racism. The person in Tiananmen Square showed that dictatorships are helpless against a good cause. Rick Santelli’s rant about a second Tea Party was just a commentary on a financial show. A crying Indian taught us not to litter. Smokey and the Bandit taught us to embrace the New South, and country music did the rest. This is what really changes culture. Culture is changed by these lightening-in-a-bottle moments where someone does something that gives the public a chance to say they changed their minds. And here’s the key point: it’s almost never politics that causes those lightening-in-a-bottle moments!

This is something conservatives need to learn. Too many conservatives blind themselves to the culture because they wrongly think culture is a byproduct of politics. It’s not. The reverse is true: culture drives politics. And the only way to change culture is to engage it on its own terms... to start offering our own works for people to latch onto and be inspired by.

This was the point to my Fifty Shades article awhile back. Conservatives want to dismiss that book and the buzz around it as “just perverted porn.” But in so doing, they completely miss what is really going on. That book has been the catalyst which has let women everywhere declare that they are done with the peer pressure feminists have imposed that required them to compete with men. Conservatives missed this because they don’t grasp that people change the culture outside the political process. And since this book wasn’t written with a political purpose, they don’t grasp that it can lead to a political change. But it can. I guarantee you that Fifty Shades has broken feminism in ways that a million books by Bill Bennett or Christina Hoff Sommers never could have. Likewise, Kim Kardashian can sway more voters than all the talk radio hosts combined. One powerful movie about leftist hypocrisy would do more to break the left’s claim of moral superiority than every treatise or book written by every pundit, think tank or historian. Lament it all you want, that doesn’t change the fact that this is how it happens.

And there’s more. There are opportunities that conservatives completely miss because they have intentionally blinded themselves on this issue. Take the issue of rap music. Say “rap music” to a conservative and the results get pretty ugly and insulting. More to the point though, none of them will grasp that rap music represents an opening for conservatives: “What? How could it? It’s just rude black people being anti-cop!” No, it’s not.

Rap music should be siren song to conservatives. Not only does it tell us that young black males can be reached, but it tells us how to reach them. Rap is about independence. It’s about reclaiming manhood that has been stripped away by social workers and fathers who vanished into jails or welfare. It glorifies wealth and success. These are all things conservatives claim to support, and here are blacks listening to music that treats these things as the very thing they want. You couldn’t have a better roadmap for how to reach blacks. But conservatives can’t see this because they can’t get over the fact they don’t like it themselves and because they can’t understand what rap music has to do with politics.... it doesn’t fit in the box... “We need to get them to read Bill Bennett’s book about the effect of single-parenthood!” Yeah, right.

Not only do we, as conservatives, need to start embracing the culture on its own terms by writing songs and films and books that push our values without being political, but we need to learn to recognize trends and opportunities when they appear. More people pay attention to the issues surrounding black quarterbacks than the Voting Rights Act. The left uses black quarterbacks to talk about discrimination. How about using it to talk about the end of discrimination and that this was achieved through individual skill rather than affirmative action?

Rather than condemning the buzz around Fifty Shades as “perverted women reading porn,” how about pointing out the feminist war on women and demanding that women be given a real choice, including the choice not to compete with men? Harry Potter was written by a leftist, but why not embrace the books as highlighting the dangers of large, strong, invasive government? Why not tell blacks that we hear what they are saying in rap and that if they want independence... if they want success... if they want the good life... if they want to claim their manhood, then we’re the only ones offering that with our message of economic and personal freedom. You’re never gonna be a man with Uncle Sam wiping your ass.

This is how we win back the public: we grasp what they are thinking about and we talk to them on their terms. Forget hoping that another book by another talk radio host will finally save conservatism.

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Ted Cruz... Evil RINO Genius!!

The Great Conservative Leap Forward continues... RINO ALERT: Ted Cruz is a RINO apostate. So sayeth Mickey Kauss at the Daily Caller, who has written a scathing “two-count indictment” of Ted Cruz and why we should blame Sen. Cruz if “amnesty” passes. The arguments Kauss makes are self-serving and deeply conspiratorial, but they are worth examining because they highlight the illogic and bad faith with which the Republicans must deal.

For those who don’t know, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a pretend outsider loved by “genuine conservatives” for being an anti-establishment outsider. Forget that he’s a lawyer, went to Harvard Law School, clerked for the Supreme Court, made partner in a huge international law firm, worked for the Bush administration, and is married to a partner at Goldman Sachs. Yeah, forget all of that because he’s an outsider... the real deal. What exactly he stands for is a mystery as he hasn’t actually stood for anything yet (or firmly against anything except Obamacare), but we’re sure it ain’t no stinkin’ RINOism.

Cruz plans to run for President to the right of whoever else is running. His first step in that regard was to let himself be anointed the anti-Rubio. But that is now unraveling if Mickey Kauss is any indication. According to Kauss, Cruz will be to blame when “amnesty” passes, and he’s provided a handy “two-count indictment” of Cruz to explain why.

Kauss starts by telling us that Cruz not only “failed to rise to the occasion” of stopping the Rubio bill, but he actually “increased its chance of becoming law.” Sacre bleu! See, while “charismatic Latino apostate, Sen. Marco Rubio” quickly became the leader of the “pro-amnesty faction in the Senate,” the anti-amnesty faction “needed a leader too, especially a Latino leader.” But Cruz didn’t step up. According to Kauss, all Cruz did was “the minimum necessary to maintain his credibility.” He “promoted an online petition, gave a nice floor presentation and a couple of cogent outdoor addresses to African American marchers and Tea-Partiers. . . but the job of actually leading the opposition fell to Sen. Jeff Sessions.”

Yep. Cruz is a traitor because he didn’t try hard enough. In other words, the difference between being a “genuine conservative” and being an apostate is not the policies you support, it’s that you live up the level of effort Kauss expects. And what did Kauss expect? According to Kauss, Sessions did an excellent job but simply couldn’t “bring the heft to the fight that Cruz could.” So Cruz’s duty was to replace him. And what gives Cruz this heft? He’s Latino. Essentially, Kauss is arguing that because Cruz is a Latino, he owed it to the anti-amnesty cause to take over the leadership and stop this thing, or else he must be denounced as the traitor who caused the evil amnesty bill to pass. Yikes. As an aside, I dare anyone to explain Kauss’s position to a group of minorities and see how comfortable you feel about that... “See, you’re Latino, you owe it to us to fight other Latinos if you want to be one of us.” Gangs call this “blood in.”

Having found Cruz guilty of lack of effort, Kauss then assigns an evil motive to Cruz. He implies that the reason Cruz refused his Latino-duty was that such a stance would “risk costing him some MSM and donor support.” In other words, he sold us out for personal gain... the same gain other RINOs sell out for. Tisk, tisk, Latino Sen. Cruz.

It gets worse... down the conspiracy rabbit hole we go.

Count Two: Once the evil bill passed the Senate, the only hope of blocking the bill (because the “amnesty-friendly GOP House leadership” wants to “sneak amnesty through”) was to delay the bill until August when “Republican grass roots could attend town halls” and blast Republicans. But evil Latino Sen. Cruz deceived us!

“Into this void stepped Cruz, who made a bold attempt to rouse a ‘grassroots army’ for the cause of... defunding Obamacare. So instead of haranguing their members about unchecked immigration, hard core red-staters would harangue them about the Democrats’ health care plan.”

Yep, it was all a RINO plot. Cruz distracted everyone so he didn’t have to talk about immigration. According to Kauss, the Democrats were “secretly delighted” by this because “with the Tea partiers distracted, fence-sitting Reps might have enough breathing room in the fall to sneak some kind of mass legalization through.” Of course, Kauss notes as an aside, it won’t actually appear to be legalization at the time, but the sneaky Republicans will pass something the Democrats can then turn into a path to citizenship when no one is looking, i.e. anything that gets passed is a trick.

This attack is truly rich in irony. Right now, the nut-job wing is talking about primarying RINO Paul Ryan because he suggested defunding won’t work. In fact, anyone who isn’t fully on board with defunding gets tagged with the RINO label. Yet, Kauss tells us that defunding was actually a fiendish plan to distract people from immigration. Moreover, Kauss actually attacks Cruz’s defunding plan as having “no hope” and having “a much greater chance of reviving Democratic fortunes.” Huh. So the brilliant plan that only RINOs oppose is in fact an idiotic, unworkable and self-destructive plan created by a secret RINO to distract genuine conservatives from fighting immigration. Do you get the sense the nut-job wing has gone full retard: you’re all RINOs if you do and you’re RINOs if you don’t and you’re RINOs if you aren’t passionate enough about both stances! Great oogley moogley!!

Kauss finishes his indictment with an unnumbered bonus third count by condemning Cruz because he “helped rehabilitate” the apostate Rubio by letting him participate in the defunding effort. Silly Cruz, apostates should be forever shunned, praise Allah.

Wow.

Anyways, the big news this summer is the utter lack of news from the town halls. Despite promises by Tea Party groups that they would storm these forums and scare the Republicans straight, that doesn’t appear to be happening. There have been several theories advanced for this. Kauss obviously thinks maniacal evil RINO Cruz distracted Tea Party people, who are apparently incapable of holding two thoughts at once. Others are arguing that talk radio has itself misdirected the Tea Party people by talking about impeachment, the revival of the birther issue, the Common Core paranoia, the continued obsession with Muslims and Benghazi, and canonizing the Missouri rodeo clown. Others blame GOP money being on the pro-amnesty side... because money stops Tea Party people from attending Town Halls... trust me, it does... somehow. Those pesky Republicans also aren’t bringing it up unless someone from the crowd does, which of course doesn’t explain why no one is bringing it up. And those sneaky Republicans aren’t all holding town halls, which doesn’t explain the lack of screamers at the ones that are held or why an anti-amnesty rally in DC last week attracted only 60 people.

The truth is more likely what keeps showing up in the polls, which is that around 65% of Republicans support a path to citizenship, and most of the rest support something being done about the problem. So the Kauss/talk radio line of “deport them all or burn it all to the ground” isn’t really catching on.

Whatever the answer though, Kauss’s article should stand as a warning to any Republican who thinks he can lead the nut-job wing. They are bat sh*t crazy and they will turn on you the moment paradise doesn’t come. In fact, the incredibly high number of “genuine conservative” messiahs who have been denounced as RINOs is staggering. It’s a bit like the old Soviet Union. The moment you didn’t deliver, you were declared an enemy of the people and sent packing to Siberia. Welcome to Siberia, Sen. Cruz.

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2014 Not Looking So Good

In theory, the Republicans should blow the Democrats away in 2014. The House is heavily gerrymandered and the Democrats are defending massive numbers of seats in the Senate. Obama is perhaps the least popular president ever and his signature legislation is about to force people to spend money they don’t have for a product they don’t want or face significant fines. And yet, I expect the Republicans will do rather poorly. Here’s why.

For starters, consider why 2014 should be a cakewalk for the Republicans:

(1) The House is so heavily gerrymandered that Republican control is all but inevitable. Of the 435 seats, 218 have been gerrymandered to give the Republicans a competitive boost. Only 67 seats are safe for the Democrats. The Republicans only need 218 to control the House.

(2) Twenty of the 32 Senate seats up for re-election belong to Democrats, and twelve of those are in states that were once red or swing states. Since we only need to win six to take over the Senate, we should do well, right?

(3) Obama’s approval rating hovers in the 40% range, i.e. his base. The Democrats are no better and “generic Democrat” is neck and neck with “generic Republican.”

Should be an easy election, right? Well, no. For one thing, those “red and swing states” aren’t so red or swing anymore. Most of these swing states, like Virginia and Colorado, haven’t voted red in several election cycles. In the red states, the Republicans are generally facing well-like Democratic incumbents. And despite the heavy gerrymandering, the Republicans barely control the House by the skin of their teeth.

Then there's the turnout issue.

Consider this. Gallup did a poll and asked people what issues are most important to them. Here’s what they found:

● 42% Economy/jobs
● 19% Healthcare
● 8% Federal deficit
● 7% Ethics/moral-religious-family decline
● 6% Corruption/abuse of power
● 6% Immigration
● 5% Education

Now ask yourself what the Republicans are pushing. The Tea Party worries about the federal deficit. The Libertarians worry about corruption/abuse of power. The Religious Right worries about morality. They talk about nothing else, except their desire to NOT fix healthcare, to NOT fix immigration and to NOT fix education. Basically, the things the right has adopted as a platform were chosen as top concerns by only 21% of the public. At the same time, they are trying to stop solutions in issues which 30% of the public identify as their top concerns. And they have no platform at all to deal with the issue that 42% of the public wants fixed. In other words, they are flirting with 21% of the public, ignoring 42% and turning off 30%.

That means they aren't going to win any converts. It also means that Boehner was flat out wrong when he said this weekend, "We shouldn't be judged on how many laws we pass, we should be judged on how many laws we repeal." That doesn't wash with the public.

Hence, base turnout is key. But that brings us to this problem: they have misidentified the base.

For years now, the Republican leadership in the House has pandered to the cranks. On issue after issue, they have paid attention only to the people screaming at them. Hence, their agenda has become "DON'T DO ANYTHING TO GIVE OBAMA A LEGACY!", "DON'T FIX HEALTHCARE!", "DON'T FIX IMMIGRATION!", "DON'T PASS A BUDGET DEAL!!", "KILL UNEMPLOYMENT!!", "KILL FOOD STAMPS!" and "SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!" Apart from 150 votes on abortion and almost 40 symbolic votes to repeal Obamacare, that's been the Republican Party since 2010. But average Republican voters don't support this crap. In poll after poll, these positions get support only in the 10-15% range among the people telling the pollsters they are Republicans. And the thing is, these people aren't even Republicans and they will NEVER support the Republicans.

Consider a little rumor started by PJ media last week, because it's instructive. They published an article based on an anonymous source who supposedly works for the RNC. This source claimed that the RNC is using DONOR MONEY to engage in research in conjunction with ERIC HOLDER to help HOLDER ENSLAVE TEXAS AND OTHER SOUTHERN STATES!!!! Why would they do this? Because they're traitorous RINOS and these RINOpublicans think recreating the presumption of guilt in the Voting Rights Act will help get Republicans elected. Naturally, the whole thing is still SECRET because they know they are BETRAYING the party, so not even people at the RNC know about it... only a select group of SECRET RINOS knows.

Only an idiot would believe this. There are no Republicans who think the VRA helped get Republicans elected. To the contrary, they are the ones who pushed to kill the law. The RNC can’t use donor money secretly. Holder would never work with the RNC because he wouldn't trust them and because he could have Justice stooges do the same research better. None of this makes any sense. Nevertheless, within an hour, the article had 1400 comments and to a one they assumed the RINOpublicans were guilty. Most of them declared they were done voting for the RINOpublicans. Some claimed they would renounce their membership in the party the following day and most called on Boehner and the other SECRET RINOS to be fired. By GOD WE NEED A SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION!!

These are the people Boehner and the House are pandering too under the theory that the most vocal are most likely to turn out to vote. But only a fool would think they will ever support the Republicans. These people traffic in hate and conspiracy theory against the Republicans. They presume guilt on the part of the Republicans even after innocence is proven. Indeed, the pattern repeats itself all the time: the Democrats raise an issue and these people go into attack mode... targeting the Republicans. 500 comments appear at Brietbart or Daily Caller accusing the Republicans of secretly wanting the Democrats to get their way. Then the Republicans announce they will oppose it, as they do with everything now. Are these retards happy? No, they put out another 500 comments about how it’s only a matter of time before Boehner caves in. Then come the rumors of secret deals Boehner has made TO SELL US OUT!!! This bring another 500 comments about how the RINOpublicans can’t be trusted and we need to take back the party!!!! Then the issue dies because the Republicans block it. Now come the apologies, right? Hardly. Now come 500 comments about how we need to be "vigilant" because WE KNOW the RINOpublicans are planning to sell us out yet! Rinse and repeat... every... single... week for three years now. They've been wrong 100% of the time and yet they don't stop. Not only that, they use their own prior allegations as proof to support their next claims.

These people are not sane. Nor are they your friends, Mr. Boehner. They are lunatics who hate you, and placating them only encourages them to hate you more.

In fact, we used to get people like that here when we first started. They would show up claiming to be "lifelong Republicans" who had become disillusioned with the Republicans, against whom they would spew a ton of hate. Only, it didn't take long before they slipped and admitted they were never Republicans and they never voted Republican in their lives except maybe one time. These are the people now screaming about Boehner "betraying" them. These are the people he is pandering too. These are people who will never vote Republican. And by pandering to these people and their agenda of "BURN IT ALL DOWN!", Boehner is losing his base to try to win people who can't be won. As a result, there won't be a turnout advantage for the Republicans in 2014. The base has no reason to turn out because the Republicans seem to have fallen in love with a new base. The cranks won't turn out because they never intended to. The end result will be a nail-biter with the lowest turnout in US history.

Right now, I would predict that the Republicans will pick up one seat in the Senate, not the six they need. And they will lose a handful in the House and possibly control over the chamber... unless they wake up to reality. Listen to the people trying to create an agenda... Rubio, Paul Rand, John McCain, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, and stop listening to the people trying to stop everything.

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