neo-neocon:
Trying to get Republicans to agree on something is like herding cats. Democrats tend to hang together for the good of the Party and the larger vision, as well as the promise of more specific rewards for cooperation (jobs, pork, etc.) or threats for non-cooperation. But Republican seem a lot more disorganized—or is it ornery or individualistic or uncompromising or principled or stupid or what?
I was thinking about that yesterday, and I thought the issue might deserve highlighting in a thread of its own:
I was watching some commentator on some TV news show on Fox (forget who) saying that Republicans had a lot of Obamacare-alternative proposals but needed to get together and settle on one to get behind…What is up with this stupid inability to come together? I think it’s the lack of the ability to compromise with each other that I was talking about the other day.
Note that here I’m not talking about, nor suggesting, compromise with the Democrats. I’m talking about presenting a united face to the public so that the message of the right is clear and understandable, and something people can relate to. And then to drive it home with repetition and memorable phrases.
Scott Walker had some good things to say in his interview with John Hawkins, which I quoted yesterday:
…the Left, they want you under their thumb. They want to control you. They want to control your lives. They want you to be dependent on the government. We should say we’re the ones, not only for the poor, but for young people coming out of college, for working class families, for immigrants, for others out there. We should say we are the ones who empower the American Dream. We’re the ones who say you can do and be anything you want, but it’s because we empower you with the ability and the platform to do that.
Now, is that so hard to say? Apparently.
The party has a small but well financed minority (the progressive establishment republicans,) who have seized control. They are big government, big business, globalist Washington DC conformists who believe that their goal in governing is to reach compromise with progressive Democrats. The failure with this thinking is that the Democrats refuse to compromise unless their opponents give up everything for meager token (and empty-promise) concessions by the Democrats.
This same party minority however refuses to compromise with it’s own conservative and libertarian wings. The only logical conclusion, is that the whole purpose of the establishment minority is to pass the progressive agenda, while blocking any opposition to it and in so doing, not only ignore the party’s majority base but neuter it. You can not “get along” with a family member who ignores and holds open disdain for you while they fraternize and embrace your enemy.