Do you ever wonder sometimes why Americans vote? How many times have you heard people say “I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t really matter, those politicians are going to do what they want regardless of how I vote.” In some cases that’s true. Obamacare was a perfect example. In January 2010 Scott Brown won his campaign for the Senate in deep blue Massachusetts by promising to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. The Democrats didn’t care, and despite the fact that 60% of the American people were opposed to Obamacare, they sidestepped Brown and used “reconciliation” to shove the law down the throats of the American people. As a result, that November the GOP retook the House in a landslide election, but by that point the damage had ever been done. If there was ever an example of politicians doing exactly what they wanted in the face of constituent opposition, Obamacare was it.
So why did citizens reward Democrats in 2012 and send Barack Obama back to work? Because presidential elections are personality driven contests (as opposed to issue driven contests) far more than are midterms, with the presidential candidates generating an unparalleled level of attention. Voters in midterm elections are generally more engaged and more aware of the issues than many who vote in presidential elections. Not sure? How many videos did you see in 2008 where voters could barely name the vice presidential candidates, nevermind the issues or candidates lower down the ticket. That reality repeated itself in 2012 with the cult of Barack Obama. Add to that the fact that Mittens Romney ran a campaign so uninspiring that millions of conservatives didn’t even bother to show up and it’s easy to understand how the country got another 4 years of The One.
Just two years later however, 2014 proved to be 2010 on steroids as the GOP picked up 9 seats in the Senate. Why? Not only had Obamacare proven to be exactly the disaster Republicans had predicted, but more timely was the fact that Barack Obama was basically promising amnesty to 4 million illegal immigrants. For the GOP, the numbers were clear: fully 70% of GOP voters were against Obama’s amnesty and at the end of the day those voters delivered a victory.
But alas, that doesn’t seem to matter. Like the Democrats in 2010 voting for something 60% of the Americans didn’t want, in 2014 the Republican leadership plans to ignore the wishes of 70% of their constituents by surrendering on immigration.
Surrender? That is essentially what the leadership has done as it promises there will be no government shutdown. The purse strings are one of the few checks the legislative branch has on the executive. As such, the primary way Congress can impact what the administration does is by deciding what to fund and what not to fund. In this context, a shutdown would occur when Congress passes a bill to fund the entire government except for those DHS functions involved in the president’s amnesty and then the president vetoes it. No dice say Boehner and McConnell. They are scared that the GOP would be blamed for any shutdown and get hammered in 2016. That’s an illusion, as most of the government would still function, and, frankly, most Americans wouldn’t even notice a shutdown were it not for the bleating of the administration’s media minions. In last year’s shutdown, once it was over a full 78% of Americans reported that they weren’t inconvenienced by the shutdown at all and another 11% felt only minor inconveniences. And a year later the GOP went on to flatten the Democrats in the midterms!
So the question is, why would anyone bother to vote for the GOP in the first place? What’s the point? If they are going to rail against the president acting unconstitutionally but take the single most powerful weapon for stopping him off the table, what’s the difference between the parties besides rhetoric? The truth is, now that they are firmly back in power, Boehner and McConnell feel like they have no obligation to respect their voter’s wishes. Apparently the desire of the Chamber of Commerce’s members for cheap labor trumps Republican voter’s opposition to amnesty.
Such has become life in America in the 21st Century. Half of the voters don’t bother to vote because they feel like their votes don’t count and the other half go to the polls to prove them right. Barack Obama has demonstrated that government can basically do what it wants, regardless of what the law says. The GOP has ostensibly stood against that principal as it claimed to be a bulwark built on the voices of the people. But in reality it is anything but. If the GOP is unwilling to go to the mattresses for amnesty, one of the most visceral issues of the day, what are they willing to do for more pedestrian things like reining in the bureaucracy or the welfare state?
If Boehner, McConnell and the GOP establishment continue to act as paper tigers in the fight against government overreach because they fear a 2016 backlash, they should be prepared to for that backlash to become a self fulfilling prophecy as conservatives abandon them in droves. Some will go Libertarian, some will stay home and some will simply jump ship to the Democrats. At the end of the day at least with Democrats voters understand that the law is no roadblock to getting what you want. Why bother voting for the Republican illusion of restraint when they can simply throw their weight behind Democrats and at least sit at the table when the spoils are dispensed?
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I never has any faith in John or Mitch. GOP needs new leadership.
I agree, Boehner and McConnell need to go.
Poor leadership at the top of the party is a prime reason we need term limits for all elected officials. 12 years and you go home!
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOP ON IMPEACHMENT AND A NEW PARTY
You folks in the ‘elite’ of the GOP are all fat and happy thinking you can take the base for granted, so Let me try and penetrate your little bubble of self delusion with a few salient facts so you can change course before it’s too late.
You failed to see the warning of Romney’s defeat and you insist on screwing us over on other issues so we need to read you the riot act.
The next election is a ways off, so now would be a good time for all of us in the party to decide what you in the ‘elite’ are going to do and what we in the base WILL do if you don’t heed our warnings.
OBAMA’S IMPEACHMENT
Like most lawbreakers Obama is not going to stop himself – he’s going to have to be stopped by people willing to apply the rule of law.
The man said that he wanted to “fundamentally transform” (Read: Destroy) the country, so what makes you think he gives a flying f…….. about the law, your silly little lawsuits or even his own Commiecratic national party?
What’s to stop him from granting full citizenship to the invader aliens from across the border and giving himself a voting majority to rubber stamp his continued illegal actions?
At every turn you GOP losers preemptively surrender with a “no impeachment pledge.”
At some point it’s going to dawn on you that impeachment is exactly what will have to be done. And we the little people in the party have you ‘elite’ GOP Losers who think you know better and listen to the Media and other side.
You think you can do this because there is no other place for your base….
A NEW PARTY
Just as there are remedies to stop Barack Hussein Obama’s illegal acts: The dreaded ‘I’ word.
In the case you in the GOP ‘elite’ those remedies would be the base leaving en mass and forming a new party.
Right now the elections are in the distance and it would be just a good a time as any to start the process.
SO HERE’S THE DEAL – YOU GROW SOME BALLS AND STAND UP TO OBAMA OR WE WILL WALK.
Without a doubt the refrain will be that a new party could lose because it’ll take a while to get up and running.
This is true, but you in the GOP elite are doing your best to lose anyway, so ‘what difference does it make?’
As long as you pursue the stupid strategy of incrementally giving the left whatever it wants there is no point staying with a sinking party, capiche?
Our friends over in the Marxist left of the DNC are rapidly destroying their own cause trying to keep in going in foundation of lies, false narratives and corruption. Their party is dead, and we’re just waiting for the coroner to pick up the body. It’s main stream media that keeps the Commiecrats on life support. Then like a house of card the hallowed out edifice of the left will collapse in a cloud of ‘transparency’ dust.
With that future in mind, it appears that things will shake out such that you folks will become the ‘new left’ (Aside from the leftist extremists heading over to the CPUSA)
This is where a new party will come into play, made up of the people you now take for granted.
But that doesn’t have to be, you can reverse course. But you had better do it NOW.
It’s your choice GOP ‘elite’, or we’ll make it for you.
john has an issue with tobacco and the bottle.
We can join the Constitution Party as I plan to do…
I think the future of politics will be between the Constitution party and the Libertarian party! or a coalition of these two against the socialists.
@tomd: @tomd:
I would say it’s going to be the last option in more ways than one.
A party that ignores it base will soon be without it and relegated to the ashheap of history.
The answer to whether or not it makes sense to vote Republican is simple:
1. Dems are the party of Obama, Sharpton, Jarrett, Schumer, Emmanuel, Brown (Jerry), Cuomo, Pelosi. They suck up to our enemies and spit on our friends. They want pure government control including unlimited abortion, sexualized children, and the death of the family.
2. Repubs are the party of Walker, Boehner, Jindal, Cruz, Coburn, McConnell, Limbaugh, Buckley. This list is a mixed bag, but ask yourself if you would trade any of these for any one from the list above.
Repubs often forget their base, but they are still within calling distance. They start and stop when it comes to following the Constitution, but the Dems’ march to totalitarianism continues unabated.
This is exactly why we changed parties to Libertarian. Not that we think they’ll ever win a general election in so much as I’m fed up with the milquetoast Republicans. When one realizes that the Clinton/ Bush team and the RINO/ Rockefeller Republicans/ Democrats are all working together toward the same goal, it makes no sense to support the right wing or the left wing of the same bird of prey. Wake up.
I keep saying Obummer has pictures of Mitch and Boner with little boys!
In this case you are confusing, “vote for” with “voting against” the other candidate. For many years, most conservatives haven’t been able to vote FOR a candidate they wanted. We only get to choose from a list of candidates we don’t want, and vote for the candidate we least don’t want.
For several years I have said that EVERY BALLOT IN THE USA should have a, “NONE OF THE ABOVE” choice on it, and I think it would amaze people how many people who don’t vote would vote for that candidate.
As I wrote the above, an idea came to me for a movie called, “NONE OF THE ABOVE”, where a person running for an office has his name changed to None Of The Above. That would make an interesting movie.
The problem with helping a third party get elected is that once they see how much money they can make, and the free perks they get, and how much power they have, they will soon become career politicians, and will do whatever the highest donor wants them to.
I suggested to the Tea Party Patriots that before they back a candidate, the candidate should sign a statement saying what they will and won’t do while they are in office, and there will be a date in the contract stating that if they don’t introduce certain legislation by that date, then the contract turns into their resignation letter, and they are out of office. The document wouldn’t be a legal document, but at least it would make a statement.
I suggest that for the next federal election we all write our politicians a letter asking them to answer simple “Yes” or “No” answers. For example:
(1) Will you introduce a bill that will put Social Security money in a SEPARATE account, and make it so that only the ones who put money into it will get any back?
(2) Will you introduce a bill that says the bills introduced into congress will be voted on in the order they were introduced, and that they will be written in plane English, and that the only person who can add or subtract from the bill is the person or persons who introduced it?
(3) Will you introduce a bill that puts term limits for federal politicians?
(4) Will you introduce a bill that states that it will be MANDATORY to pay a certain amount on a regular basis to pay off our national debt, and that we will quit borrowing money unless a national emergency comes?
(5) Will you vote for the Fair Tax bill that has already been introduced in the house and the senate, or vote for the Flat Tax?
(6) Will you introduce a bill that pays politicians a certain amount, and they pay their own bills except for official business? No perks allowed.
Good question “Why does anyone vote for the Repubs?” I gave up when Barry was elected and have not voted since. His reelection in 2012 simply proved my point. Nancy and Harry were bad enough but to have Boner and Death-warmed over at the helm of the GOP today, well, need I say more? California has been my family’s home for decades but I left and now call Texas home.
Bunch of frickin idiots in our country. Between them and the 1% who think they are so damn smart that they know what is best for the rest of us, it is time to prep for the disaster on the horizon. A win in November? So what? Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans! The one percent will continue to tell us to smile more as they bend us over for more.
A few million Terabits have been wasted scolding, condemning or lecturing RINOs on their actions in the face of overwhelming wins in both the House and Senate. And look at them, cowering under their desks, trying to decide what lies to tell in the next campaign. And here you-all are parsing tidbits of treachery like things are going to change…..”Someday”.
Well here’s a newsflash, no election is going to change the way Congress or the President will take this country. We are well beyond the point of no return, absent a civil war, a rebellion or the systematic elimination of those that would harm us, who collect a check and unlimited perks and benefits while doing it. Wake up and smell the coffee people, you got punked. And your only reaction is to try to figure out how and why.
Start issuing toe-tags for those that are traitors to the Constitution and the Oath of Office and you will soon see, with little acceptable losses, how quickly you can turn this thing around. A few well placed rounds at about 200 to 300 yards can do wonders to the psyche of Constitutional offenders. This isn’t hard folks, it’s math + psychology = solution.
@Smorgasbord:
Nevada has “none of the above” as an option. it is a meaningless gesture. If “none of the above” gets the most votes it will not result in the seat sitting empty or a new election, the office simply goes to the next highest vote getter. Politicians see “none of the above” as a joke and just as enabling to them as not voting, it still enables one of the anointed progressives (RINO or Democrat) to win. Less voter participation means that the far left and RINO voters have more political influence. If you really want to get their attention you have to vote and make that vote for a third party candidate. Only that will make the local, state and national establishment politicians worry and stand up and take notice of voter angst. The Reform Party was going strong and made the establishment politicians worried, which is why (IMO) Democrat and Republican operatives infiltrated the Reform Party and destroyed it from within.
@Ditto: #13
It is nice to know that one state tried the, “NONE OF THE ABOVE” idea. It does let people know how many votes there could be if SOMEONE ran that put the country first. This will never happen until we change our campaigning system. As long as the ones with the most money can donate the most money, they will still get what they want.