for bush is an honorable man

According to the Stupid Party, the support of feminists, blacks, hispanics, etc. is only one gesture away. Bush I didn’t exactly win the black vote with the Thomas appointment (although it turned out to be a good decision for other reasons).

The problem this exemplifies is one that will destroy the Republican Party if it does not change its management (most unlikely). Even though the Republican Party’s electoral base is white, native-born, tax-paying Americans, the party’s Bush-Rovian leadership has decided that non-white and immigrant votes are, in moral terms, worth more and more worth pursuing, even if the likelihood of getting them is slight, than those of the whites who do support the Republican Party.

The GOP is not a conservative party, and is not about to become one. (Has it ever been? About the only truly conservative Republican president I can think of is Calvin Coolidge.) Rep. Ron Paul is a very lonely voice in a party where he is not welcome. Shackled by fear of being labelled racist and grovellingly eager to be spoken well of by the mainstream media, the Republicans will go stupidly along enacting 85% of the Democrats’ agenda and claiming victory, even to the point of importing a new hostile electorate through mass immigration.

In an important sense, the Republican Party is a greater danger to true conservatism than the Democrats. The Democrats are an open and identified enemy one can fight. The Republicans pretend to be conservative, and thereby succeed only in keeping truly conservative ideas off the political market. HRS

“The Republicans pretend to be conservative, and thereby succeed only in keeping truly conservative ideas off the political market.”

I’ve argued that myself, but I’m no longer sure. It seems also possible that if the Republican party and the mainstream conservative movement “got out of the way,” the left would just take over completely, as in Europe. In any case, whether the Republican party stays or goes, it doesn’t change the need for conservatives to build a viable conversative movement and party.

A conservative politician has to be on the right wing of whatever is. If most people have decided there’s nothing wrong with big government, then the politician will come up with a conservative form of big government — and he did!

A conservative prophet need not command the allegiance of 51%, and if he is doing his job correctly, will be a purist who will say shocking things. If he is persuasive to politicians and the people, if history bears him out, if he is willing to endure years in the wilderness, then he will see a watered-down version of conservatism enacted.

Each of these is “conservative” within his own sphere, and each must have some modicum of respect for the other. Together, this unequally yoked team might do some good.