Tom McClintock: Do not change the GOP

In spite of a lost election, Tom McClintock reminds us it was a *narrow* loss, and that going wobbly will only fail. Emphasis in bold.

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"I will begin with three incontrovertible truths about this election.

First, the same election that returned Barack Obama to the White House also returned the second largest House Republican majority since World War II - bigger than anything Newt Gingrich ever had.

Second, according to polls before, during and after this election, the American people agree with us fundamentally on issues involving the economy, Obamacare, government spending, bailouts - you name it.

Third, the American people are about to get a graduate level course in Obamanomics, and at the end of that course, they are going to be a lot sadder and a lot wiser.

That is not to say that there aren't many lessons that we need to learn and to learn well from this election, particularly here in California. But capitulation is not one of them.

Have we forgotten that just two years ago, Republicans campaigned on clear principles of individual liberty and constitutionally limited government? We took strong and united stands to oppose Obamacare, rein in out-of-control spending, roll back the regulatory burdens that are crushing our economy and yes - dare I say it - secure our borders? Have we forgotten that the result was one of the most stunning mid-term elections in American history: a net gain of 63 U.S. House seats, six U.S. Senate seats, 19 state legislatures, six governors and nearly 700 state legislative seats?

Now we're told, just two years later, after a net loss of just eight House seats, two Senate seats and a 2 1/2-percentage point loss of the White House, that we must abandon these principles or consign ourselves to the dustbin of history."
(...)
The first of the cold stove lids we are told not to sit on {issues where we are told we must capitulate} is illegal immigration. Republicans, they say, must accept the notion that our nation can no longer control its borders and we should declare amnesty for the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens now in this country. We should do so, we are told, because our position on border security has hopelessly alienated Latino voters who would otherwise share our values.

It is true that Latino voters are a growing part of the American electorate - making up ten percent of the vote in 2012, of which 71 percent voted for Barack Obama, according to the CBS exit poll.
Sean Trende is the senior political analyst for Real Clear Politics. Last May, he published an article addressing this argument directly. He made three points.

First, Latino voters are not a monolithic group on this issue. Citing 2008 exit polling, he noted that a majority of Latino voters "either thought that illegal immigration was fairly unimportant or thought that it was important and voted Republican."

And sensibly so. Mexican American U.S. citizens--shoved aside by illegals--would logically not be happy about what is going on! And *they* are the ones who will vote GOP, not the ethnic activist leftists.

So why are Latinos voting for Democrats? Very simply, he said, once you adjust for socio-economic status, Latinos vote pretty much the same as the general voting population. But because they are disproportionately poor, they tend to vote disproportionately Democratic. However, as they begin to work their way up the socio-economic ladder and assimilate into American society, they become more and more Republican.

Second, citing research from the Pew Institute, he pointed out that the wave of illegal immigration has now crested, and may actually be reversing. He noted that every immigration wave has followed this pattern. Those who stay become more and more assimilated and more and more Republican as the years go by.

As recently as 30 years ago, we used to hear a lot about the Italian vote or the Irish vote. We don't hear about that anymore because they have melted into the general population. The demographic tide, he said, is not running against the Republicans, but running with them.

Third, he points out that a very sizeable part of the Republican base is firmly opposed to illegal immigration, and that abandoning that position could be politically catastrophic. He reminded us, "In a large, diverse country, every move to gain one member of a political coalition usually alienates another member."

Heather MacDonald makes the same point in the aftermath of the election. She notes that 62 percent of Latino voters support Obamacare. They overwhelmingly support higher taxes to pay for a larger government and more public services. These are not voters who will suddenly flock to the Republican banner because we have reversed our position on border security.

That's not to say Republicans should ignore the Latino vote - far from it - and I will get to that in a few minutes. But to suggest that Republicans need to reverse themselves on a fundamental issue of national sovereignty and the rule of law is unprincipled, counterproductive, self-destructive and wrong.

Ironically, the issues where most Latino and African-American voters do agree with us are the social issues, like abortion and marriage -- but of course, we're told by the same naysayers that we should repudiate our position on these messy social issues.

Let's look closer at the polling on the social issues. According to exit polling by Public Opinion Strategies, it is true that five percent of voters last week said that the most important issue in their vote for President was their pro-choice/pro-abortion position. Five percent of the entire electorate is nothing to sneeze at.

But four percent of voters said that the most important issue in casting their vote for President was their pro-life/anti-abortion position. That's a statistical tie.

I have a question for you. How many of those hard-core, single-issue abortion-on-demand Obama voters will suddenly switch their votes to Republicans once we've renounced our position on this issue?
 
Now, here's a bonus question: how many of that four percent of the electorate who support us solely because of our pro-life position are going to stay with us once we have repudiated them?
 
It is important in politics to know the difference between addition and subtraction. Addition is what creates majorities and subtraction is what destroys them. In this single exercise, we have just subtracted four percent of the entire American electorate from our vote and added little or nothing.

Now, repeat this process on every other so-called social issue, and tell me if we will be better off or worse off for taking this advice.

With all this said, there is no blinking at the fact that we just lost an election that we should have won, and to pretend there's nothing wrong meets Einstein's definition of insanity. There's a great deal wrong and a great deal that we need to address.

The voters who appeared at the polls agree with us on Obamacare. According to the CBS exit poll, by a plurality of 49 to 44 percent, they want to repeal some or all of Obamacare.

They agree with us on the size of government. By a margin of 51 to 43 percent, they believe that government is "doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals."

They agree with us on taxes. By a resounding margin of 63 to 33 percent, they disagreed with the statement that "taxes should be raised to help cut the deficit."

Perhaps most telling of all, 52 percent of voters agreed "things in this country today are seriously off on the wrong track," and yet then voted to continue down that wrong track for another four years.

As Lincoln said, "The voters are everything. If the voters get their backsides too close to the fire, they'll just have to sit on the blisters a while." It is a painful experience; but it is a learning experience. And at the end of that experience, they emerge sadder but wiser and in time for the next election.

We are winning the issues. And that means over time we will be winning the votes -- but only if we stay true to our principles and true to the millions of Americans who are already with us and many more who may not consider themselves Republicans today - but who believe as we believe.

What was the single biggest political movement in 2009 and 2010? It was the much-maligned, politically incorrect Tea Party, which energized fully one third of the American electorate across party lines. Although 60 percent were Republicans, 20 percent were Independents and 20 percent were Democrats. Long before the Tea Party, we had another name for that phenomenon. We used to call it the "Reagan Coalition." But this year, those who tell us we need a bigger tent told the Tea Party to get out. And many did.
 
Who brought a tidal wave of young people into the party? It was the much maligned and politically incorrect Ron Paul, whose simple message of unadulterated freedom resonated deeply on college campuses. Eight thousand UC Berkeley students turned out last year to hear that message. But this year, those who tell us we need a bigger tent told Ron Paul and his supporters to get out. And they did. In fact, many of their votes went to Obama.

A well-intentioned supporter e-mailed me last week and said, "we've got to kick the religious right out of the party." I reminded him that we did that in 1976, when the religious right voted for Jimmy Carter.

My point is, you cannot build a majority by systematically ejecting the constituent parts of that coalition. You build a majority by adding to that coalition by taking your principles to new constituencies.

Working Americans of every race know instinctively that you cannot borrow and spend your way rich. We need to appeal to them.

Immigrants came to this country to escape the stultifying central planning and corrupt bureaucracies that ravaged their economies. We need to appeal to them.

For the first time in our history, young people face a bleaker future than their parents enjoyed. We need to appeal to them.

The very groups of voters most damaged by Obama's policies are those who voted for Obama - we need to appeal to them.

Not in the closing days of a campaign poisoned with partisanship - but right now.

We need to recognize that a large portion of our population is not familiar with the self-evident truths of the American Founding and has no compass with which to follow back to the prosperity, happiness and fulfillment that is the hallmark of free societies.

Without that clarion call - without a party of freedom willing to paint our positions in bold colors - I am afraid that as the economy suffocates under the avalanche of government burdens, intrusions, restrictions, regulations and edicts, people in their growing despair, will increasingly turn to the false hope that paternalistic government offers.

The only antidote to that is the self-evident truth of the American founding: that freedom works and we need to put it back to work.

Like it or not, we are at this moment the only party equipped to revive and restore those truths and take them to the millions of Americans who are desperately searching for them.

Great parties are built upon great principles, and they are judged by their devotion to those principles.

Since its inception, the central principle of the Republican Party can be summarized in a word: freedom. The closer we have hewn to this principle, the better we have done; the farther we have drifted from it, the worse that we - and the country - have done.

Dick Armey put it more simply: "When we act like us, we win, and when we act like them, we lose."

 

The Frogman's Prophecies

A great blog post from "The Dissident Frogman", a French expat, now in America, about what we have done to ourselves in this most recent election:

Now that a slight majority of American voters have caught the French, I will share visions of the times ahead with those who are still immune to this ghastly Western Occidental disease, and with the infected themselves.

Hear ye, hear ye, Great American Tribe: thou hast lost thy ways and hast forged thyself chains of iron. Hear the Revelations of the prophet Frogman, he who wandered through the barren wasteland of Europa under a wooden yoke and witnessed the terrible plight and dreadful blight that will now descend upon thee:

TO THE GLOATERS crowing over the comments sections of every conservative and Republican websites: burn through every gallons of that sweet euphoria as quickly and fully as you can, for it will very soon become stale and leave only the putrid taste of rot in your mouth. I know you, for I’ve seen your peers and walk among them in the Land of the Frenchmen. Tomorrow, the effects of your plebiscite will pierce through the exhilaration of your victory, and they will crush you as much as they afflict those you mock today.

Just as they did in France, the policies you champion will affect everyone’s standards of living, directly and indirectly. If you are wealthy today, your wealth will dwindle tomorrow. If you are already poor or believe yourself so, you will never rise and prosper.

Soon, just as the French did, you will realize that you’ve elected yourself servants of an unaccountable oligarchy courted by a small intelligentsia to which you will never belong, from which you will never profit and of which you can never get rid. Then, you will join the legions of what the French call les déçus de la Gauche, or "the Left’s disappointed"—Indeed, even in Left wing France, the Left never fails to disappoint its followers for it is made of and thrives on fallacy and deceit.

Just as the French, when you realize that the effects of the political model you tout today cascade and accumulate to the point where you have effectively handed that oligarchy a permanent majority that begins to feed on its pawns—you—it will be too late and your loss will be complete.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter retort of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen your future because he lives in it: you, my friend, who laugh today will cry twice as much tomorrow.

TO THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF LIBERTARIANISM, whether followers of the cranky Dr. Ron "The Bane of the Fed" or hipsters swapping commodity traders’ jokes on Zero Hedge as they wink-wink-nod-nod "wait for the Titanic to sink". You who decided against opposing the Eurobama Project rather than banking on the Romney & Ryan ticket who, despite all its shortcomings (whether real, perceived or invented) would nevertheless have been far more receptive to most Libertarian ideals and would have been easier to steer in the directions you favor than the Chicago Machinist will ever be, here is an enigma:

Have you ever heard about the French Libertarian Party?

Me neither. True, there’s a couple of pretenders to the title, but they are merely social clubs, where every now and then attendants get a tingling in the pants by quoting good old Ludwig Von Mises and Claude Frédéric Bastiat between connoisseurs. Their true distinctive feature when compared to the other French is that they won’t even bother entertaining any delusion of grandeur or relevance—they know they have no place in the French political process, and no chance to ever gain one.

So hear this, Friends of Gary the Third Party and other Principled Abstentionists: by choosing ideological purity over strategic thinking, you’ve effectively hedged your own political future in the one competing force that is most capable of propelling you into irrelevance and oblivion—as we say in France: Bravo!

Just as in France, once a majority of the US population—no matter how slim—has tasted the poisonous fruits of the State, they will demand the keys to the cornucopia and regard with disdain, scorn or hostility any soul brave or foolish enough to call it unsustainable and propose to lock the larder. The fact that you are right will not matter at all. Just as they do in France, the people will ask for more and tout de suite, never realizing or willing to acknowledge that they are effectively cannibalizing themselves and their offspring—as we’ve been saying in France for quite a while: Après moi le Déluge!

Thank in no small part to you, Obama now has more time to multiply the locusts, thus depleting your future ranks. You shall keep fancying yourselves as The Smart Ones, when compared to those Neanderthaloid Conservatives and Liberal Zombies, until one of you wonders aloud why the lights went off in the Libertarian cave, and hears only the echo in answer.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter retort of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen your future because he lives in it: you, my friend, who didn’t oppose Obama today will be politically extinct tomorrow.

TO THE REPUBLICANS, INDEPENDENTS AND, YES, DEMOCRATS—after all, between Lot and his family, even in Sodom there were a few righteous—who saw that great Evil roaming the land, pledged to do anything in their power to stop him but ultimately couldn’t muster a big enough army.

Some of you believe that shifting demographics have now relegated the American Right to a permanent minority status, and that to regain the initiative, you must disown the "Right-wing nut jobs" and "move to the center". That notion would be stupid and self-defeating enough at face value, even if it wasn’t echoed by a slew of Left wing pundits, who smelled the blood and see your doubts as a unique opportunity to demolish you further.

For the results of such a ‘strategic’ move, one needs only to turn, once again, to France.

Look at the French Right. See it? Look harder, as it is now very difficult to distinguish from the Left. Back in 1981, when the French elected their first officially Socialist president in a long time, and the French Right went on a losing streak, collapsing at the polls under what was then dubbed la vague rose ("the pink wave". Rose in French meaning both the color pink and the rose flower, emblem of the French Socialists) they figured, quite cynically, that they had to give the voters whatever they demanded—and moved left. They are now only nominatively Right wing, yet are consistently chided and scorned by the French press as right-wingers, ultra conservative and free market fundamentalists.

In other words, the French "Right" is now always wrong, and only has herself to blame.

I am not going to lecture you on what Republicans and conservatives should or shouldn’t do—if you want patronizing political advice, ask any of the other 60 millions+ French, they’ll happily oblige—but in light of the rapid destruction of the French Right, I’ll just state the obvious: what you need to change isn’t your principles, it’s the narrative.

Some of you believe that societal collapse or civil war are coming soon hereafter, and advocate stocking supplies and ammunitions for the conflict they see ahead.

Truly, there isn’t such things as too much food and weapons, and yes, collapse and conflict could come to America. Yet it is not written.

The various flavors of Social Democrats who run Europe (into the ground, admittedly), and share so many features and aspirations with Obama have learned the mistakes of the less subtle autocrats who preceded them. If France can teach you one thing, it’s that Obama will never bleed you dry or push you beyond the threshold of revolt, only to the nearest edge of it: you are now more likely to bleed from a thousand cuts over a thousand years than to get a quick, if violent, resolution to the relentless assaults against your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness—snarky Libertarians who opted to let Obama squat in the Oval Office unopposed on the deluded notion that "it doesn’t matter" and will bring the fall of Leviathan sooner, may want to take notice.

Even the French have not yet managed to completely plunder and ruin their comparatively much weaker economy, and the good Lord knows they’ve been trying for the best of the last 80 years or so.

Just like in France, the rates of taxes, duties and fees unleashed upon the good folks of the US of A will not only augment, they will also metastasize over an incredibly varied and ever expanding range of products and services, in addition to your income and profits. You will suffocate under an unrelenting onslaught of new regulations, red tape and audits by a growing army of government agencies and bureaucrats all tasked with the mission of controlling that nothing passes through their nets, and punishing you ruthlessly for anything that does.

And still: you will live through it, and you will live well enough—for a given value of "well"—to never really have a legally and morally unquestionable motive to rise up in arms and go full scale de oppresso liber on the tyrant. This will not be, as many of you imagine when they think about France, North Korea only with more cheese, wine and broads who don’t shave their armpits. Instead, you will find yourself in a multi-generations limbo of "too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards"—as, ironically, a Libertarian once said.

Just like in France, this will turn you into a depressed, cynical and pessimistic people, until they finally manage to kill your spirit whole, and nearly everybody is on the dole.

That’s when they’ve won. They do not need to kill you, they just have to break you.

Understand this: I am not a US citizen nor a resident in the USA, so this is not the bitter augury of a sore looser. This is a prophecy from a foreigner who has seen one of your possible futures while living in it.

Yet you, my friend, are all that’s needed to change that destiny.

If, as some say, this is all about demographics, then look at demographics and rejoice: no matter the color of your collar, you are the the productive class, the entrepreneurial class, the creative class—quite literally, the working class—the likes and numbers of which France has never seen. You are guided by family morals and work ethics that are long gone in France, assuming they’ve ever existed here. And you are living under the cover of the most formidable declaration and system of self-governance, one that simply never existed in France.

Thus the only future I can predict is the one where you go French and surrender. You, and only you can turn this debacle around and me into a false prophet.

Sadly, some among you seem to have all but given up. Reading through your reactions in the comments at PJ Media, Breitbart, Hotair and others, I see cries that "the Republic is dead", and even claims—shocking claims, for this Americanophile—to burn the flag because "it doesn’t mean anything anymore".

Old Glory doesn’t mean anything, simply because you woke up last Wednesday to a measly 4 millions popular votes difference? A battle of nearly 121 million voters finds you outnumbered by four and hear, hear: the Republic is dead and the war is lost?

Try and tell that to those Americans who found themselves outnumbered and outgunned by far more disadvantageous enemy ratios, whether in a forest in the Ardennes, a hill in Korea, a valley in Vietnam or a mountain in Afghanistan. Try and tell them you’re considering giving up and burning the flag in despair.

Even though I am just a French, I am quite certain I can predict their reaction.

Once again, you don’t need a lecture from this Frenchman, but it seems to me that some of you, in the emotion of that unexpected electoral defeat, forgot this simple fact: America is always outnumbered.

This unique nation, founded not on feudal or religious fault lines but on a radical philosophy of individual freedom isn’t the norm in this world: it is an anomaly. If you needed a quick and simple reminder on the basis for American exceptionalism, there you go.

America is always outnumbered and, until the rest of the world sees the guiding light and builds shining cities on America’s model—if that day ever comes—America will always be outnumbered.

Yet it doesn’t matter: America’s strength isn’t in numbers, it’s in her soul.

Hear this final prophecy America: only one man can kill the Republic, and it isn’t Barack Obama. The one man who will kill your Republic is the one man who will last give up and renounce it.

Don’t you dare be that man.

 

It's not 1980 anymore

Many patriots are left asking, "How could this happen? Surely people remember the Jimmuh Cartur disasters? How could another liberal fool get elected twice?"

However, the sad truth is that the American electorate has changed. Some of this is merely a new generation, or maybe two, coming of age without memory of The wretchedly liberal late 1970's. As one comment I ran across on Yahoo! News put it: "Dude, I wasn't even *born* when Jimmy Carter was president...."

For months, conservatives have been likening the conditions of the 2012 presidential race to that which saw the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The American Spectator's own Jeffrey Lord proclaimed that President Obama could be beaten handily“because the past four years really have been Jimmy Carter's second term.”

Victor Davis Hanson of National Review Online put it this way: "What does 1980 tell us about 2012? Barack Obama, like Carter, can run neither on his dismal four-year stewardship of the economy nor on his collapsing Middle East policy."

Hanson went on to write: "The winner probably won't be decided by old video clips, gaffes, or even campaign money, but by turnout and the October debates --depending on whether incumbent Obama comes across as a petulant Carter and challenger Romney appears an upbeat Reagan. As in 1980, voters want a better president -- but they first have to be assured he's on the ballot."

This goes even more so for California. I remember joking on a chat board, Yelp.com, that the Jerry Brown for Governor campaign theme song should be "You're No Good" by Linda Rondstadt, and again, a good many younger readers did not understand what I was getting at.

Well, Obama did come across as petulant in the debates while Romney was upbeat. And yet it wasn't enough. At the end of the day, despite Obama's dismal economic record and an ineffectual Middle East policy, his well-oiled organization turned out his vote and Romney could not. Romney could not break through in key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan nor could he put Ohio and Florida back in the Republican column.

And yet Obama didn't win on turnout alone. He won because America has changed. We're not in 1980 anymore.
(...)
At the dawn of the '80s, a critical mass of the American population knew what life was like in the Great Depression and WWII, understood the evils of Soviet communism and did not take kindly to American diplomats being held hostage. But when we have an education establishment that is skeptical of the use of American power and weans high school students on Howard Zinn's communist A People's History of the United States, should it come as a surprise that many shrug when an American ambassador is murdered? Still, Romney had not one but two chances to expose the folly of the Obama Administration's insistence the attacks in Benghazi were a result of a YouTube video, not a terrorist attack and twice he failed to do so.

In 1980, Americans would not tolerate rising unemployment. In 2012, not only is high unemployment accepted as a fact of life but receiving food stamps is encouraged. There was also no concept of gay marriage in 1980. In 2012, Obama endorsed gay marriage (albeit sooner than he wanted to on account of the loose lips of Joe Biden). Nor was it conceivable in 1980 that a sitting Commander-in-Chief's re-election campaign could have put out a commercial featuring a woman likening support for the President to the loss of her virginity. Thirty-two years ago, being wealthy and successful was considered something to aspire to and be proud of. Today, it is a source of bitterness, envy, resentment and, in some quarters, the very epitome of evil.

In the final analysis, it must also be remembered that a significant segment of the electorate was emotionally vested in Barack Obama in a way it never was with Carter -- and I'm not just talking about the mainstream media. Obama received a near unanimous vote from African-Americans and a substantial majority of Hispanics as well as people under 30 (especially women). That doesn't necessarily mean we've entered the permanent Democratic majority which Ruy Teixeira and John Judis wrote of a decade ago. It is certainly possible that America could again elect a conservative Republican President. But conservatives must recognize that the American electorate has changed and that 1980 has come and gone, never to return.
 

Moreover, demographics have changed. And NO, Hispandering with an amnesty or phony "comprehensive immigration reform", or a "DREAM" (sic) Act, won't change the voting trends. People with a favorable view of big government will vote for the Democrats, even the full blown Commierats. Victor Davis Hanson proves:

As far as the grand bargain, the Dream Act, comprehensive immigration reform, or whatever the rubric of the day that a clueless Republican establishment employs: just imagine the opposite to learn the truth. If the Republicans were to agree to amnesty for, say, two million who were brought here as children and are in school or in the military, do you really think the “Latino community” in response would celebrate and then also agree to deport those who did not qualify? Or do you imagine the deal would at least result in deportation for those entirely on public assistance or with a criminal record? Did the Reagan-era Simpson-Mazzoli Act amnesty lead to 1) an end to calls for amnesty, 2) closing the border, 3) a surge in Latino support for Republicans, or 4) none of the above?

Does a conservative message of lower taxes, less government, and fewer regulations really appeal to Latinos en masse, who define La Familia values as something that includes a big and paternalistic government, along the Spanish/European model? 

(...) 

So family values are defined somewhat differently from the Republican silk-stocking view that Latinos are natural Republicans — if only (fill in the blanks). Again, I would like the Democrats to introduce the Dream Act, and then watch whether closed borders, E-Verify, and deportation of criminals were part of the deal. That is not to say one should not talk in softer tones and be magnanimous; but one is fooling oneself if one believes a cheap Dream Act endorsement would mean anything.
(...)
The truth is that the present system of illegal immigration is quite logical and thrives because too many are invested in it, well aside from corporate employers. California is a permanently blue state. Latino leaders, many of whom can no longer speak Spanish, represent a vast underclass of illegal aliens whose numbers warp all statistics on Latino achievement and become a permanent argument for set-asides, more government help, higher taxes (think: who just voted for California’s higher taxes?), affirmative action, and changing demography. Why simply give that up, and join a party of the melting-pot, up-by-the bootstraps, self-reliant, shrink-the-government types? To go to Parlier or Orange Cove is to drive through a maze of federal/state clinics and government facilities, many eponymously named by those who secured the government funding for them. No, I am sorry: I don’t see a natural Hispanic constituency for what Mitt Romney was trying to offer.

VDH concludes that once again, the Demunist Commiecrats played their class warfare card and the Republicans did not effectively respond:

I also confess that stupid ads like Lena Dunham’s sex-equals-voting-for-Obama ad and stupider ones like the African-American garbage collector, who said Romney never talked to him at the curb, worked. 

I sense the same misinformation about the “wealthy” and the “job creators:” Just think the opposite and the truth emerges. Most in the top brackets voted for Obama; eight out of the ten wealthiest counties did at least. Many of the people I know in Silicon Valley, who this year passed on the signs and bumper stickers, nonetheless voted for Obama. The fact is that the Democratic Party, to generalize, is largely now the subsidized lower classes who pay no federal income tax and receive a growing array of federal largess coupled with, on the other end, a technocratic blue-state elite making over $200,000 annually. If taxes go up under Obama, at least theirs will, too. Another truth: the Republican Party is basically made up of a shrinking middle class and upper middle class, flanked on both ends by Democrats who, for various reasons, on one end, either do not appreciate their success or, on the other, hate them for their hoity-toity, un-PC tastes and culture. Yet how strange that the two ends of the Democratic coalition have so little to do with each other — a partnership based on cynical opportunism on both sides. All that is missing are the Roman tribunes, or perhaps the wealthy demagogi.

What Lost the Election?

Marco Rubio would not have won the Latino vote this year. A ticket of Condoleezza Rice and Herman Cain would not have won the black vote. Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley would not have won the Asian vote. Obama, in brilliant fashion, marketed himself as the above-the-fray great healer and our post-racial future, while his surrogates waged the most vicious race-, class-, and gender- divisive campaign in history. More likely, what lost the race for Romney — a decent and strong candidate — was instead the failure of the white working classes to turn out to vote en masse.

Why so? I was in Michigan, near the Ohio border, for all of September, and each night was stunned by the variations in the class warfare ads, mostly brilliant and effective in painting Romney as your kill-Detroit, wet-suited, jet-ski-setting, multi-home employer — a veritable John Kerry, John Edwards, or Ted Kennedy — and “us” as a disabled, homeless, starving, and out-of-work collective victim as a result. Millions, who did not prefer Obama, just stayed home and thought that they would pass on voting for the guy who had too much money and gave them their pink slips. In 2004 they saw Kerry as the wet-suited wind surfer; in 2012 it was Romney.

A Vision 0f 2016?

I was originally emailed this back in 2010. After this re-election, it bears repeating:

This belongs in the "Email Hall of
Fame"

How's this for apocalyptic literature. This was written by a pastor's wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events. It is brilliant. And it came to pass in the Age Of Insanity that the people of the land called America, having lost their morals, and their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One". He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you." My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who proceeded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed. And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said "We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!" And the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!" Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" And He added, "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!" And the he said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody." And a man called "Joe The Plumber" asked, " Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom! Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free electric cars for the people!" Then "The One" said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!" And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!" Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said, "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!" And so the employers decided to leave the nation. Then "The One" said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas." And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?" Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with the ACORN and your troubles are over!" Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king! And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support. Then "The One" said, "I am the "the One"- The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him: "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more..." And "The One" said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!" And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!" And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built. And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more. You may think this a fairy tale, but it's not. It's happening RIGHT NOW...

Election Post-Mortem: The cracks in the dam

Well. There it is. A slight majority of Americans, a sizeable one in electoral terms, believe massive unemployment, massive debt, government health care, and not a single thought of how to address the coming cataclysm of entitlements is OK with them. We are whistling past the graveyard...

Meanwhile, here in California Governor Moonbeam effectively extorted taxpayers with the schools gambit with Proposition 30, while a $60 billion and counting choo-choo that no one will ride will continue to be studied, if not built.

Almost unnoticed, Proposition 39, a phony "closing of tax loopholes for out of state businesses", passed. These "loopholes" *don't* really exist (of course out of state businesses don't pay California income taxes on their operations, because they are not located in California!). All of which really means out of state businesses *won't* locate here. And what revenue that Proposition 39 *does* raise will go to more failed "green energy", which somehow does not include hydroelectric dams, the one proven source of such energy. Expect blackouts and utility rate hikes in our future.

From Gregory Bradford on Facebook:

Well, It's official folks. The country I loved as a free and right state has ceased to exist except on paper.

The progression as I see it is as follows:

- In the mid 90s America was tolerant of allowing a President to sully the office of the Presidency and well, quite frankly let him get away with probably staining the carpets in the Oval Office.

This tolerance was a major crack in the dam and foretold of things to come.

- 2000-2008 saw a supposedly Conservative Presidency *still* spend money on a trajectory like we had never seen previously. The spending was tolerated by practically all.

Water was flowing through the cracks in the damn at this point in time.

- 2000-2008 also saw a distinct rise in partisanship. Both sides of the isle participated.

(And while I don't agree with probably a majority of the policies of those years Presidency I do feel President Bush was a fairly honest and sincere man. His activities after the Presidency have reiterated that for me.)

The partisanship was effectively water starting to breach the top of the dam.

- 2008-2012 saw the passage of Obamacare and the installation of a Congress in 2010 that did not one single solitary concrete thing to abate the problems facing the country (i.e. talk is cheap Darrel Issa).

This was water flowing unabated over the dam.

- 2011-2012 saw the Supreme Court uphold Obamacare.

Big junks of the dam are being washed away at this point in time.

- November 2012 we just witnessed the American people re-elect a President that has a record as stellar as it is.

The dam is gone.

America is no longer the land of free. You now live in a socialist country.

It is simple. There are now enough people who are willing to take what is yours and give it someone else. And you have no way of stopping it. Last night proved that point.

So, you may as well get used to the new golden rule.

"Do unto others as much as you can conceivably get away with."

This is even more true in California, where the Dems now have a 2/3 supermajority in the Legislature, and can now impose tax hikes on a whim. While not all of them are Commiecrats, the leadership is, and they will bully the "Blue Dogs" into line.

And Jeff Goldstein on Protein Wisdom is always spot-on:

Looks like the Mayans were right, after all.

Sadly, there is no going back now. At least, not by way of elections. The masses here are content to run out the debt clock, get theirs, and say fuck it to the next few generations, who will bear the burden of what will be an inevitable collapse. So there’s really no going back, period.

{Given the Senate, the Congress will be no help}. McCaskill — whose family raked in stimulus money; Sherrod Brown, the Senate’s most leftwing Senator; a fake Indian; and a rubber stamp for Obama in Donnelly, a former Obaman DNC chair running as a “moderate” in VA, all winners. So the Presidential election doesn't even matter.

The mainstream press once again bought Obama the election. Which will buy him 4 years of an imperial presidency with nothing to stop him.

End of country.

Time to maybe start a new one, I think. Because I’ll be goddamned if my family is going to work to pay for other people’s shit; and I most certainly won’t live in a post-Constitutional police state — at least, not without putting up whatever resistance I can. 

Robert Stacy McCain is also spot-on:

The American people -- or, at the very least, a sufficient plurality of them -- decided that they want another four years of clumsy policy failures and vengeful "progressivism," as Democrats nowadays describe their agenda for wrecking what remains of our constitutional republic. Even before the unmitigated political disaster of November 6, 2012, a date that will live in infamy, the prospects of salvaging the United States were not particularly hopeful. Now, however, we are permanently and irretrievably screwed.

Let's not mince words, eh? It was one thing, obviously, for the electorate to choose Barack Obama in 2008, when Bush-era "brand damage" was still a fresh irritant in the wounds of a war-weary nation. Four years ago, Obama was untested and enshrouded in the glowing mantle of Hope. No intelligent person could possibly believe that "Lightworker" crap anymore, but then again, it's been a long time since any intelligent person believed anything a Democrat said. The cretins and dimwits have become an effective governing majority, and the question for conservatives at this point is perhaps not, "What does it mean?" but rather, "Why should we bother ourselves resisting it any longer?"
(...)
What is left to hope for? That the American people will soon regret their choice? That another four years of economic stagnation and escalating debt will cure them of their insane appetite for charismatic liberals? If four years of endless failure have not rid them of this madness, the disease may well be terminal. Perhaps others will still see some cause for hope, and in another few weeks my friends may persuade me to see it, too. But today I will hear no such talk, and I doubt I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. At the moment, I am convinced America is doomed beyond all hope of redemption, and any talk of the future fills me with dread and horror.

California Propositions November 2012

It's that time again for damage control in this once great state.

Proposition 30. "Temporary" Sales and Income Tax Hikes to Fund Education, Guaranteed Local Public Safety Funding — NO!!!

For starters, as long as they intend to spend at least 60 BILLION, and more likely nearly 100 BILLION, on a choo-choo that WON'T be "high speed" after they get through routing it, I plan to vote NO on *any* new tax or bond measure.

Governor Brown's threat is disgusting: "Your Wallet or Your Kids!" Either approve $36 billion in higher sales and income taxes or else Gov. Brown threatens to shoot the schools. How about "Your Choo-Choo or The Schools"?

The proponents, again and as usual, claim that the new income taxes are only on the "very wealthy," but it turns out the "very wealthy" include many small businesses filing under sub-chapter S, meaning lower wages, higher prices and fewer jobs. Moreover, the sales taxes hit all of us, even the poorest.

California already has one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country and yet has just approved a budget to spend $8 billion dollars more than it's taking in. Moral of the story: it's the spending stupid.

Proposition 31. A Trojan Horse for "Regional Government"--NO

I acknowledge there are appealing aspects to this initiative. Shouldn't the state constitution and law be amended to require government performance reviews and two-year budget cycles, and to prohibit the Legislature from creating certain expenditures unless offsetting revenues or spending cuts are identified? That all sounds great.

However, this initiative locks into the State Constitution an incredibly anal process for local communities to adopt "Strategic Action Plans" serving such open-ended, and frankly sinister, objectives as "community equity" and nudges them into establishing regional governments to push this agenda. The purpose of local governments is to provide basic services, not to pursue utopian four-year plans, which will prove to be dystopian.

The National Review observes:

"The measure is meant to bail out California’s failing cities by creating regional super-governments empowered to raid and redistribute suburban tax money. It’s the end of the system of local self-government that has served as the bedrock of American democracy since the time of the Founders — in the nation’s largest state, no less. Yet virtually no one is paying attention.

Proposition 31 allows collections of local governments to pool their tax receipts. While this “tax sharing” is supposedly voluntary, the initiative sets up rewards and punishments that effectively force California’s local governments to submit to redistribution, or accept second-class status instead. Once California’s municipalities have been swallowed up by de facto regional super-governments, citizens will come under the thumb of officials unelected by the public they control."

In other words, if you moved to a nicer community or county to get away from the garbage you were getting in certain inner cities, the inner cities are subtly trying to rope you back in. Vote NO.

Proposition 32. Political Contributions by Payroll Deduction. Contributions to Candidates — State of California--YES!!!

Should unions, corporations, government contractors and state and local government employers be prohibited from using payroll-deducted funds, or in some instances their own funds, for political expenditures? Oh my YES.

In the "It's About Time" category, this measure would finally prohibit unions, corporations, government contractors, and state and local governments from deducting money from employees' paychecks for political purposes without their express written consent.

As Jefferson wrote, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." This puts an end to this despotic practice.

Proposition 33. Auto Insurance Companies. Prices Based on Driver’s History of Insurance Coverage--YES

We have seen this one before, Proposition 17 in June 2010, so I might as well repeat what I wrote back then:

This measure deletes a small part of the state law that currently prohibits automobile insurance companies from providing “continuous coverage” to new customers. This prohibition was a strange part of Prop. 103, which was narrowly passed in 1988 to establish a number of insurance regulations). Even Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature agreed with removing the ban several years ago, but the courts struck that down, ruling only the ballot voters can amend a ballot initiative like Prop. 103.

Why YES: If you have been a long-time customer of an automobile insurance company and want to keep your "good driver" and “continuous coverage” discounts, passing Prop. 17 will mean you won't lose those when you change insurance companies. The opposition to this claims that people who let their insurance lapse and stop driving for an extended period of time will get rate hikes, but really, how many people like that are there in California?

Why is only Mercury Insurance, one of the smaller California insurance companies, funding Prop. 17? Probably because they think they can win new customers, and that’s just fine. Let’s open up more competition among private insurers, which benefits consumers.

Proposition 34. Abolishing the Death Penalty--NO!!!

"Why do we kill people who kill people when killing people is wrong?" Because murderers deserve to die, you treasonous pinkos.

This proposition is justified in economic terms, because the cost of capital trials and prosecutions is so onerous. But this is a self-fulfilling prophecy by, and a sinister intention of, the death penalty opponents.

Worse still, these treasonous anti-death penalty activists have "Innocence Projects" going where they try to fabricate the "innocence" of the most disgusting people on earth, because obviously no one wants to see an innocent person executed. This is why disgusting murderous creeps like Stanley "Tookie" Williams and Wesley "Mumia Abu-Jamal" Cook get nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes and are turned into "civil rights" martyrs, and utterly fabricated evidence and claims of innocence are made on their behalf.

I don't just use terms like Demunists, or Commiecrats, to describe these "activists", for rhetorical pizazz. Proposition 34 is proof.

Proposition 35. Human Trafficking--YES, with reservations.

It's hard to be opposed to something well intentioned that just seems to be on the side of the angels. Who doesn't find this practice disgusting, usually the exploitation of vulnerable young women, often underage? Raising the sentences on such scum is just and proper.

There are some provisions in Prop 35 that could make it ripe for prosecutorial abuse, including limiting the ability of defendants to cross-examine witnesses and broadening the definition of trafficking to include those who never had direct contact with the victim. I suppose this was intended for internet producers and viewers of illegal exploitative videos, for example. And indeed, here the 21st century has changed the scope of the problem.

Moreover, with this initiative, there is a glaring issue overlooked--border control. How many of these exploited young women--or young men, for that matter--are illegal aliens from Mexico, Latin America or elsewhere?

All that said, reading through it, I have no qualms with raising the punishment for such acts.

Proposition 36. Trying to undo the "Three Strikes" Law--NO!!!

After many years of rising crime rates, Californians finally struck back with the three-strikes law. It is actually a two-strikes law: after two serious or violent felonies - in which one has murdered, assaulted, raped, robbed or pillaged his fellow citizens - he is on notice that any further misconduct will remove him from polite society.

Prop 36 would require that the third strike also be a "serious" or "violent" crime, giving dangerous criminals yet one more opportunity at atrocity. The Left predicted that "Three Strikes" would have no effect on crime - in fact, crime rates have plummeted. When it ain't broke, don't try and fix it.

As with Proposition 34, I don't just call them Demunists, or Commiecrats, for pizazz. They keep trying, in a sinister fashion, to undo what the people overwhelmingly want, and they keep trying to undo what is settled policy.

Proposition 37. Genetically Engineered Food Hysteria--NO

This is the latest effort of the Nanny State Left to tell us what to eat. It requires foods that contain any ingredients resulting from biotechnology advances to carry the scary warning: "GENETICALLY ENGINEERED."

There is not a shred of evidence that biotechnology is the least bit dangerous - it often reduces the need for pesticides. Moreover, hybrid plants date back to Gregor Mendel and "animal husbandry" is not exactly new.

To avoid branding their products with the Scarlet Warning, food processors and local grocers would have to prove that every scrap and crumb in their fare is devoid of biotechnology or face crushing lawsuits. Grocery prices high enough yet?

Proposition 38. Tax to Fund Education and Early Childhood Programs--NO!!!

As if Proposition 30 wasn't bad enough. Those even to the Left of the Democrat Party Establishment want to do even more economic harm.

Proposition 39. "Green Energy" Taxes--NO!!!

As if the Obama "stimulus" that shoveled money into these fiascos was not bad enough.This is a $1 billion per year tax increase on California businesses to subsidize a whole new generation of Solyndra scams, just for our state. But remember, businesses don't pay business taxes; they only collect them from employees through lower wages, from consumers through higher prices, or from investors through lower earnings. Prop 39 might be bad news for California's employees, consumers and investors, but it's great news for the Nevada Chamber of Commerce.

Proposition 40. Ratifying the State Senate Districts—YES, depending

This initiative is a monument to the stupidity of some Republican Party leaders, who spent nearly $2 million of party funds to qualify - and then drop - this referendum to overturn the Senate reapportionment because several state senators didn't like their new districts. They had hoped to run in their old seats, but after qualifying the initiative they found out via Court rulings that they couldn't run anyway. A "Yes" vote affirms that the new non-partisan Citizens Redistricting Commission works.  So if you think it does or does not, vote accordingly.