Coin Operated Conservatism: The Collapse of the Conservative Movement (Erickson)

[corbe]

Coin Operated Conservatism: The Collapse of the Conservative Movement

By Erick Erickson  |  May 8, 2017, 09:45am  |  @ewerickson

“Remember, the very men and women who just voted to fund Planned Parenthood again will soon be heralded as pro-life heroes.”

I was in Washington last week with my fifth-grade daughter on a class trip. I did my best to avoid dealing with the situation at the Heritage Foundation. Needless to say, I have friends on both sides of the matter, but reading Tom Saunders’ statement it struck me as entirely graceless and classless. That various parties spent days building a narrative in the media against Jim DeMint only to then lament unsubstantiated leaks in the media is silly and dishonest.

I hate it for both sides. The Heritage Foundation is a solid, good organization. The work Mike Needham has done at Heritage Action has been indispensable at moving the GOP to the right. And Jim DeMint has made the Heritage Foundation relevant again in ways it was not and could not be during the Obama years. That the parties involved could not deal with this matter privately and graciously is unfortunate, and I wish the best to all of them. I just grasp at and cling tightly to the belief that Jim DeMint did not deserve that treatment.

In fact, DeMint should be a model for many on the right these days as the GOP clings to every bit of power. DeMint, new to Congress, sided with George W. Bush on No Child Left Behind after receiving ample promises of things to come. Those things never came, and DeMint realized the people who claimed conservatism for themselves were not really what they seemed. He set about correcting things, which eventually led to the Senate Conservatives Fund and the election of men like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and others. Along the way, he was not afraid to make enemies and take the arrows and insults of establishment pundits and the Twitterati.

Fred Barnes, writing in the Wall Street Journal, back during the Bush Administration, did his best to cheerlead the administration. To justify Bush’s policies, Barnes coined the phrase “big government conservative,” and did so approvingly. Thereafter, things went down hill. The problem came chiefly because conservative and Republican became synonyms. The one should be about ideas and the other a vehicle for those ideas being implemented. Instead, both became about the acquisition of power; ideas be damned.

We’ve seen that sort of power acquisition at the expense of ideas across the conservative movement. Various groups exist as vehicles to take corporate cash and claim various proposals are conservative. See e.g. the internet sales tax.

The truth is there are fewer conservative organizations out there that really are about the cause and not the money anymore. It makes it very easy for the Republican establishment to accuse them all of being coin operated when so many of them are. Unfortunately, groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund, Heritage Action, and the Club for Growth get tarred and feathered when they’re in the handful of solid, dependable groups who put the cause ahead of the coin.

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http://theresurgent.com/coin-operated-conservatism-the-collapse-of-the-conservative-movement/

[corbe]

   Different Article, Same Guy.  Most of you will understand why I posted this excerpt here.

With Republicans Like This, Who Needs the Democrats?

By Erick Erickson  |  May 8, 2017, 10:09am  |  @ewerickson

<..snip..>

Republicans promised us that Planned Parenthood would be defunded and Obamacare would be repealed. On both promises, they have rolled us.

More so, Donald Trump promised us he was an expert negotiator who could get what conservatives wanted. Instead, the Democrats made a play thing of him, scaring him into giving them what they wanted. Republicans are timid and unwilling to actually fight for anything. They are afraid of bad press when they will never get good press.

<..snip..>

Planned Parenthood is funded. Children will die. And various conservative groups will be trotted out to tell us all what pro-life heroes we have in Congress because, you know, unlike the other side at least the GOP claims to want to defund Planned Parenthood.

http://theresurgent.com/with-republicans-like-this-who-needs-the-democrats/

[DCPatriot]

Erick Erickson reminds me of Jerry Maguire...."Who's Coming With Me....?"

Guess he got his answer.   

[Frank Cannon]

Erick Erickson reminds me of Jerry Maguire...."Who's Coming With Me....?"

Guess he got his answer.   

All these people who came to prominence bashing Obama have found they really have no purpose after he is gone.