Just the other day, I posted a piece that among other things, recounted how easy it was in the past to vote straight ticket GOP when I had an abiding sense that anyone who would run under that banner shared a goodly portion of the basic ideology that I did. I left the GOP in the Spring of 2016 when it appeared obvious that it would anoint a man as its presidential standard-bearer who did not share that ideology, and to the extent that we agreed on selected issues, his conversions were opportunistic and at odds with opposite views he had held for decades. On the way out the GOP Party door, I helped contribute to a stark warning about the threat that Donald Trump posed to American national security. And while we could not foresee how that threat would play out, play out it did, thoroughly justifying every single iota of opposition I had mustered.
In the time since leaving the Republican Party, I have not regretted it one bit, as the GOP has beclowned itself in slavish adulation of a single man and caviling fear of him and his grievance-addled, constitutionally-challenged, attention-seeking, isolationist, protectionist, nationalist, insurrectionist, authoritarian-curious voters.
One of the oldest political adages goes something like, “I didn’t change; my party did”. And while I am somewhat embarrassed at relying on it, that’s really how it has gone. I am to this day a deeply conservative person, and by conservative I mean dedicated to the conservation of the blessings of our founding as enshrined in its origin documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Liberty and freedom, free-markets and free-trade (which really are just forms of freedom), rule of law, individual liberty, and federalism. If anything, my devotion to these ideals is deeper and wider than it was in 2016, because before then, I simply assumed anyone who was a Republican shared those ideals. As I asserted Monday, the GOP has gone wobbly on the basics, but I haven’t.
Not a Zero Sum
There is of course, a principled and coherent counter to my position, and that is “Wahoo, you are an ideologue, and this is the real world. Elections have to be won in order for policy to be made, and those old-school, Burke/Kirk/Reagan ideas are quaint, but they don’t work in the modern world, where the media, the entertainment industry (but, I repeat myself) and academia are lined up in opposition to them.” This is a serious objection, and its value is in highlighting the wielder’s lack of concern with ideas/ideals and focus on elections and outcomes. It is also valuable because when asserted, it makes no pretense at being anything but an instrumentalist approach. It does not pretend to be rooted in ideas or principles. Just win, baby.
I make this point because THIS objection is rarely made when I post my thoughts on the decline of the GOP. To be honest, whether here, on Twitter, Linked-in, or Facebook—NO ONE has ever raised this objection. What do I get? “But, but, but…Hunter Biden. But gas prices. But Russia. But Woke-istas. But big tech. But YOU ARE A DEMOCRAT” This is zero sum argument, the false choice argument, and it is one I anticipated in July of 2020, when (on the old blog site), I wrote a post called “Getting on the Record about a Biden Presidency”. I knew I would one day wind up in this position—doggedly adhering to my long-held political principles and deeply conservative—but being accused by people who haven’t spent a moment of their lives on political theory or in fashioning a set of political principles—of being a “Democrat” because I do not agree with their party preferences or more to the point—their personal adulation of the most divisive figure in American history since Robert E. Lee.
There is nothing about the modern Democratic Party that I find either politically or ideologically appealing. Zero. The suggestion that because I am a vocal critic of the GOP I am therefore a Democrat is lazy, ignorant, and ridiculous. Not to mention, false.
Put another way, it goes without saying that I am uninclined to support candidates in the Democratic Party or initiatives of the Democratic Party, because not only are those candidates and initiatives unlikely to reflect my political ideology—but they are also likely to be openly hostile to that ideology. For those saying “But you voted for Joe Biden” remember—I considered (and continue to consider) Donald Trump to be a unique threat to American national security.
Candidates in the other major party, the GOP, are far more likely to espouse my ideas, and to the extent that I find modern American politicians interesting, they are overwhelmingly Republican. Joe Biden and his party have made a hash of things, they have spent far too much time on the unimportant, and to the extent that they address the important, it is with the wrong approaches (although I think they have gotten Russia right). I knew when I voted for him in 2020 that he had only one thing I needed him to do, and that was to remove Donald Trump from office. Despite Trump’s best efforts, Biden succeeded in the only thing I knew I would support him for. And yes, even in view of the mess that Biden has both created and contributed to, I am glad that he is the President today and not Trump. But as I survey the growing list of GOP presidential hopefuls in 2024, there is only one who I would not vote for over Joe Biden. Just one.
Texas School Shooting
I cannot say or write anything that hasn’t already been said or written about the senseless, evil, and tragic deaths of schoolchildren and teachers in Texas. It is always best to stay off social media when events such as this occur, as wingnuts and arsonists from multiple perspectives are at their worst.
Most seek to attribute mass shootings to monocausal rationales that are all equally wrong for the degree to which they ignore other important factors. We see and hear from those who believe the answer is fewer guns and there is a lot to that view. We see and hear from those who believe that the number of guns in the country are immaterial, and that law-abiding citizens are not committing crimes with guns. There is a lot to this view.
The problem for the anti-gun side is the Constitution and the straightforward rights it enshrines in the Second Amendment. The problem for the pro-gun folks is that there is a direct relationship between the number of legal guns in circulation and the number of illegal guns. Plus, the “road to Damascus” conversion to mental health advocates of many Second Amendment boosters is somewhat undercut by years of support for cutting state-supported services by Second Amendment adjacent/friendly voters.
For the longest time, I’ve said that the two most divisive issues in our country—abortion and gun control—were terribly difficult to navigate because of the high cover granted by the Constitution. Pro-choice advocates were able to take refuge behind Roe and Casey for fifty years, but Roe and Casey were always on dubious Constitutional grounds and in the leaked recent opinion, there is hope for abortion rights that are consistent with regional attitudes, with the people and their state legislatures working out the details. The Second Amendment is explicit, and these “but the Framers didn’t know we’d have the kind of weapons we have” types must be able to think through how this approach applies to the internet and the First Amendment. Anything but cosmetic (and likely ineffective) measures are unlikely to pass Supreme Court scrutiny, and that is a good thing, as they are there to interpret, not legislate.
To those who wish for greater levels of gun restrictions, I suggest putting your efforts into amending the Constitution, perhaps as follows: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed by the federal government.” Four words (those in bold italics) and the states can implement “common sense” gun laws as are “common” to the views of those living in the state. You can bitch and moan and tweet and facebook, but until you come right out and say that we need to amend the Constitution and work toward that end, you’re just blowing off steam and performing for your fellow travelers.
As for mental health initiatives, we (us, our society, ‘Merica) allowed a misplaced sense of humanity and privacy to destroy the mental health infrastructure that existed in this country. In-patient facility beds have plummeted, and the seriously mentally ill are a factor in everyday life of our cities and mass transit systems. Two years of compression in COVID lockdowns of various degrees have not helped, and the twin tech evils of video games and social media serve as party lines for the deranged.
We have a lot of work to do if we wish to meaningfully lower the number of gun murders including mass murders in this country. As long as extremists on both sides cling to monocausal explanations, we will continue to have these terrible events occur routinely.