I believe in the Republican Party. We are the “big tent” in national politics. I know, however, that the Republican Party has some severe issues in every State, mired in infighting and hyperbole – everyone angling for the money, the influence and the popularity. I love and hate the people involved in this exercise of American “democracy”. I feel bad for the people that have to “organize” it and direct it.
I often marvel over if what we do as bloggers is worth it. We try hard to weld words to the structure of present politics, to shape context, and to define the debate. Most of us try to figure out where people are coming from and to provide insight, analysis and purpose with the information we all share. I sometimes wonder, “why?”
Ideas, politics, and factions are dominated by candidates, not ideas. There is a difference between ideological factions and cults of personality. Everywhere I look, I find obedient servants of candidates – as opposed to advocates of political philosophies. If you mention something intelligent, you’ll be labeled an elitist.
People want freedom, not security.
Conversation has become a kind of protest-chant. An advocate for a candidate says, “X, Y, Z!”, and all the supporters of that candidate repeat, “X, Y, Z!” Ideas and policies are often irrelevant. Money, power and influence retain their potency, but lose the interest of people looking to make a change.
I am beginning to question whether or not people are ready for real democratic rule; where large minorities war with other large minorities for power. Where leaders, not principles, dictate the perspective, context and ideology of activists. I am beginning to question whether substance still has a substantial role to play in politics.
I have had some amazing conversations with Republican leaders and activists over the last four months. The campaign was pungent, but it did not prevent people who cared from fighting for what they cared about. I am beginning to think that the Democrats have won the process and have harnessed the value of media.
The Democrats played identity politics with a ferocity and effectiveness unbecoming a (r)epublican party. The result is that white men and women have realized that if this is a democracy, then they have the numbers, and they’ll be damned if they give it up to Mexicans, Africans, or homosexuals. Intellectually, I have no basis for arguing anything if identity politics has taken hold in the Republican Party. If I can’t look an immigrant in the face without looking at them as an American, I don’t know what I’m doing here.
Democrats have created an environment predicated upon segregated ranks. Â This appears to be pushing people of myriad ideological ranks into a corner, to protect themselves as white, or as Christian, or as business-people.
So if the future political battles in America are all about White People versus every Democrat-organized minority, then who cares about republicanism, or constitutionalism, or federalism? Who cares about ideas if we’re going to commit to a race war in America?
Or forget about race. What if this is all really about age? Maybe US Politics should be about Baby Boomers vs. Millennials. A generation of takers from a generation of ignorance.
If so, what does it matter what the Constitution says? What does it matter what academics think? What does it matter who wins or loses because we all lose under the weight of powerful minorities or majorities.
What is the point of thinking, if thinking is merely a tool for making sure our people defeat their people? What is the point of a Republic if the Republic is a Democracy? What is the point of principles if the purpose of principles is to defeat our enemies? Everything is becoming utilitarian and purposed toward immediate gratification. In this environment you don’t need intellectuals or academics. You don’t need thinkers. You need guns. You need power. You need tricks and you need media.
What… do… we… stand… for…?
Help me answer this question, because I don’t know anymore. I stand for federalism, constitutionalism, and republicanism. Sometimes I feel like I stand alone.
I want aged whiskey, fine cigars, philosophers in cafes, people talking politics over coffee, with facts and references, a media that investigates(!) and this…
What’s wrong with wanting virtue and culture and morality? What’s the point in just burning each other to the ground? Even the burn-it-to-the-ground people get sick of it and announce their burn-it-to-the-ground sabbaticals. We need more friendships, more families, more communities and more intellectual discussions. We need to come together thoughtfully and joyfully and scripturally. We have got to get away from politics, get to know each other, and make a difference – and come together.
Or Else…. You end up an “intellectual snob”.
19 comments
I stand for “less is best” – less government, less regulation, frugal spending. I’m not totally convinced a Trump presidency promises that, but it wouldn’t take much to best a Clinton presidency on such items.
To me, a most aggravating aspect of the social media age are black/white sterotypy and characterizations, literal & figurative. Like, people calling me or my preferences “establishment” or “elite” because I disagree with something about their candidate. Little do they realize (or care) I live as a peg legged hillbilly hermit in a shack atop a knob in Appalachia. Maybe an “intellectual” if such classification is worthy of someone with an undergrad degree from 25+ years ago?
One thing I truly enjoyed about this presidential election cycle was that progressive friends who always stereotyped conservatives poorly were open to hearing what I think and believe because they felt just as screwed by the left’s choice as I felt by the right’s. Suddenly they could recognize nuances. Some realized that painting all Republicans as greedy, sexist bigots and racists has considerably undermined any complaints they make about Trump.
Like you said, Steven, “What’s wrong with wanting virtue and culture and morality? What’s the point in just burning each other to the ground? Even the burn-it-to-the-ground people get sick of it and announce their burn-it-to-the-ground sabbaticals. We need more friendships, more families, more communities and more intellectual discussions. We need to come together thoughtfully and joyfully and scripturally. We have got to get away from politics, get to know each other, and make a difference – and come together.”
I’m good with that. 🙂
SOME intellectual Republicans are very sorry they don’t get to rule the GOP roost anymore, and they feel quite put out. They liked it when most of America was asleep, not paying attention, or too cowed by the left to speak up. In that vacuum, intellectuals had a loud voice; pretty much the only counter to the left’s shrillness.
But Ihen Donald Trump came along and changed all that.
Paying no particular deference to the GOP intellectuals (and BOY, did they resent that!), Trump spoke plainly and forcefully to the American people, and they responded.
A lot of the GOP intellectuals have much in common with the left – they both don’t get Trump or his supporters. And they both look down their noses at us. It seems at heart they share globalist outlooks.
But neither Trump nor we supporters are the ignorant or unprincipled rubes the left & GOP intellectuals like to believe we are. We really can think for ourselves, thank you very much. Doh, we ACTUALLY do understand we’re a Republic, and we do know and want to adhere to the Constitution. Trump does too. His 100 Day Plan will do much to defang the fed.
Trump has changed the Republican Party for the better – starting to bring it back to its founding roots.
And We The People LOVE it! America spoke loud and clear Nov 8th. Populism/Nationalism trumps both the left’s and GOP intellectuals’ versions of globalism.
It’s a free country, meaning you are free to believe any myth you wish.
Let’s examine two of Donald Trump’s myths that you swallowed whole.
Myth #1. “I’ll bring jobs back to America.”
No, he will not.
Over 70% of the jobs lost in American industry have been lost to automation. People who study employment tell us that by 2020, we will lost another 1 million jobs to automation.
In 2016 alone, US industry ordered 320,000 industrial robots . . . that’s 320,000 jobs that will not go to people . . . and when we consider the fact that one robot replaces between one and four workers, 320,000 robots translate to a million jobs not going to people.
Those jobs are gone. Anyone who tells you they are coming back is lying to you and anyone who falls for that lie is . . . well, not too bright.
Myth #2: “Trump digs coal. I’ll put WV coal miners back to work! The EPA destroyed coal and I’ll abolish the EPA.”
Trump doesn’t know the difference between a tipple and a long-wall miner.
The EPA did not destroy coal mining. Coal is being killed by the free market. Natural gas sells for $4-5 per million BTU; coal is $13-15 per million BTU; we are awash in natural gas. Throughout the US, almost 100% of new power generation capacity is from renewables, neither coal nor natural gas.
As of November 2016, China has 36 nuclear reactors operating with a capacity of 31.4 GW and 20 under construction with a capacity of 20.5 GW. Additional reactors are planned, providing another 58 GW of capacity by 2020. As a result, China has cut their coal imports dramatically as they phase out coal-burning power plants.
Over 150 years of mining in Central Appalachia has mined out the big coal seams. Stripping and mountaintop removal have taken the easy, cheap coal, leaving only expensive deep-shaft mining into thin seams, while in the Western US, shallow stripping is producing coal cheaper than we can do here.
50 years ago, at shift change time in Appalachia, 100-150 men went to work. Today, a shift is 12 – 15 people who produce 5 times as much coal as did 100-150 . . . mechanization has killed coal jobs.
You are faced with the choice between (1) recognizing facts and responding to facts, or, (2) swallowing pie in the sky promises. When you swallow the pie in the sky promise, I have to wonder just how smart you really are.
Then, there’s this:
Tom Bonier, CEO of the polling firm Targetsmart, pointed out
on Monday that “almost 20,000,000 Trump voters would lose time and a
half overtime†under a Republican plan to reverse regulations put in
place by President Barack Obama.
But they’ll still have their guns. I mean, what’s important here??
Seriously? You want us to take the advice of a Hillary pollster hack that shilled for her (wrongly every time, I might add) and has his Twitter page littered with angry at Trump posts? His screed means nothing. He is not an economist – just an angry man that has a record of bad projections and is chockerblocked full of vitriol. I see no legitimate source running with this other than Dem sites repeating his drivel. (And by the way, his figures are waaaaaaaaaaaaay off on the number of jobs impacted.)
Meanwhile, in the real world, Deutsche Bank is saying that Trump’s economic plan could push the economy to new records.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/deutsche-bank-trump-could-push-the-u-s-economy-and-stock-markets-to-new-records
Who to believe, who to believe. A partisan hack or a corporation that actually understands economic issues.
Sounds plausible. Thanks for what I hope is good data.
1) 320,000 robots manufactured where? Trump can attack our massive trade deficit if he desires. A balanced trade deficit would fix the American jobs problem.
2) Virginia had nothing what so ever to do with the Trump victory, and West Virgina is only 5 electoral votes. So why would Trump or anybody else care about coal? Maybe for PA.
Face it, crooked Hillary wasn’t a good enough liar to win. Plus she told the wrong lies.
You act like an intellectual child.
,.,, https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7fc17cf4937e0ddd3147a14fd8eb6dd0ba25a0489990b9fa7bb368c587edafe.jpg
If I may answer questions with questions…did the GOP respond in part to Democrat identity politics with identity politics of the aggrieved?
If substance still has a substantial role to play in politics, will it occur first at the national level or at the local level?
If the latter, how do we expect substance to remain an issue at the national level if local activists focus solely on issues of power during elections?
Smoking cigars and sipping 15-year-old single malt does not make one an “intellectual.”
You republicans had a steady line of intellectuals from Edmund Burke to William Buckley. However, you replaced those giants with dwarfs . . . Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, Buchanan. Here in Virginia, “republican intellectuals” are represented by such mental midgets as Cuccinelli, McDonnell, Brat, Crabill, Doleman.
The rise of Trump and the intellectual decline of the republican party is illustrated by a Chinese proverb: “When there are no great tigers deep in the mountains, even a monkey can become king.”
Redneck, thanks for the data-rich responses. They add substantially to discussions grounded in reality.
However, this comment seems like more of a taunt than anything else. You write many comments with the effort of one who cares about what happens to our country. Why the shift to petulance at what I see as honest questions posed by Mr. Tucker?
Don’t know much about the others but Cuccinelli & McDonnell sure were monkeys becoming King
This has be one of the most interesting “it’s not me, it’s you” blog posts I have read in a long time.
Interesting? You thought it was interesting? This guy writes the same crap every time, just shuffles the words around, and now he has added video, which I doubt anyone has bothered to click on to view. It is always “it’s not me, it’s you” w/him, it is all he knows how to write. Just another delusional self-important wanna-be in the blog-o-sphere, he reminds me of David Brooks for some reason.
Perhaps I used the wrong quantifier and adjective? Most curious, maybe?
But curious
Any reference to Callas and listening to her music is a wonderful way to start a day.
Amira willighagen, Maria callas reborn
,..,,
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Amira+willighagen&&view=detail&mid=769023DF27C65B021CC4769023DF27C65B021CC4&rvsmid=4988FEB4173EE0F409B14988FEB4173EE0F409B1&fsscr=0&FORM=VDQVAP