Needed: A new conservatism

[corbe]

Needed: A new conservatism

Posted May 08, 2017 09:34 AM by Steve Deace

One year ago the Republican Party finally forced my hand. 

So I left the party I had belonged to most of my adult life. The party I had volunteered for and served several times since I was in high school. The party I’ve recruited and helped candidates for. The party of Ronald Reagan, my first political hero.

But to paraphrase some famous words Reagan once said, I didn’t really leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me.

It long ago left conservativism behind. The betrayals we’re seeing now on fake Obamacare repeals and Democrat budget priorities only confirm it. It’s now leaving sanity behind, too, as it disintegrates into a party of Absolute Always Trumpers and Absolute Never Trumpers.

Absolute Always Trumpers change their positions on vital issues like the Iran deal, despotic dictators, and how much the character of our elected officials matter in order to conform to Trump. Meanwhile, Absolute Never Trumpers can’t ever seem to give the president credit even when he deserves it. Each side regularly beclowns itself to justify itself, and their clowning is aided and abetted by a president who all too often acts like a clown himself.

Then there’s the so-called news. Much of it is merely shilling for the Republican-Democrat duopoly, now attacking what it used to defend and defending what it used to attack, on top of all the fake news peddlers on both sides.

It’s clear that it’s time to try something new. The current political paradigm offers no hope for conservatism.

On that there is no debate, except among those personally profiting off of maintaining this scam. However, what is debatable is what to do next. And I believe this discussion needs to be conservatism’s priority, rather than wasting another generation asking Republicans to advance values they clearly don’t share.

The way I see it, we have the following four options on the table for changing the paradigm (with pros and cons for each):

1. Hostile takeover of the GOP

PROS: Why reinvent the wheel when there’s already an existing major party in place with a conservative platform? While conservatives have little sway in the GOP, much of its rank and file are still conservatives. So why not marshal the grassroots’ multitudes and truly take over the Republican Party?

CONS: Civil wars are long, expensive, and bloody conflicts. Do we truly have the resources for such a prolonged engagement, or the stomach for it? Success would require exposing hypocrites and sellouts, risking friendships and relationships. It would also require raising millions of dollars. Current conservative office holders would have to engage in hand-to-hand combat with party elders. If those options were possible, it’s unlikely we’d find ourselves in this position within the GOP in the first place.

2. Bolster an existing third party

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