Tea Party: What the Future Holds

Assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that the Tea Party movement continues to significantly influence political outcomes through the 2010 primaries and general elections. 

In other words, assume that conservative-leaning candidates win their primaries, that Big Government apologists are defeated in the general election, and that the U.S. House of Representatives is snatched back from the radicals. 

What then for the Tea Party movement? 

Are the Tea Party tactics of the past 18 months sufficient for continued success in the future?  Do we proceed with more rallies of sign-toting and fist-shaking patriots?  Do we propagate more speeches and e-mails invoking patriotic icons, anecdotes, and imagery?   Do we indulge in more wistful longing for oldies-but-goodies like Reagan and a Contract with America?  Do we humor more high-profile celebrity, political, and media hangers-on who prove daily that Tea Party success has a thousand vicarious mothers?

None of these tactics are sufficient for future success, even though they contributed to our success in the past.  Past is not prologue for the Tea Party movement.  Widespread success in November will cause our political circumstance to be very different.  When conservatives retake the U.S. House of Representatives, we will no longer be just a boisterous horde outside the castle; we will be a coterie among the King’s court.  The stark reality of our accomplishments will necessitate a different strategy for the Tea Party movement.  This article proposes such a strategy.

First, let’s acknowledge that the Tea Party movement has thus far accomplished things that were both extraordinary and necessary.  The movement has invigorated a grassroots, boots-on-the-ground army of passionate conservative activists.  This is something that the feckless Republican Party, which has been the putative flag-bearer of conservatism, has been utterly incapable of inspiring.  The Republican Party, because of its stodgy, wishy-washy, misdirected political inertia, is not yet even fully attuned to the limited-government tsunami that has cascaded out of the Tea Party movement.  More will be said about that shortly. 

The Tea Party movement has also become the counterpoint to the Left’s radical boots-on-the-ground coalition that includes termites like ACORN (or whatever they’ve disguised themselves as now), Organizing for America, and MoveOn.org.  Tea Partiers, to their considerable credit, accomplished this without the corrupting billions of rogue Soros-like backers or the endless manna granted by foundations and government agencies that typically support left-leaning activists.  The Tea Party movement is truly a grassroots phenomenon, unlike the ersatz publicly and institutionally funded Astroturf organizations of the Left.

Emotionally, the Tea Party movement has infused conservatives with an energy that seemed unimaginable just 18 months ago.  It has reintroduced the concept of limited government into mainstream American political conversation.  It has taught politicians of all stripes that “We the People” is no longer a trite patriotic anachronism, but rather the battle cry of a grassroots electoral tiger with razor-sharp fangs. 

However, the success of the Tea Party movement thus far has certain inherent limitations.  It is one thing to successfully awaken and energize the conservative tiger, which will certainly be manifested as an electoral blood-letting in November.  It is entirely another thing, though, to channel that energy into a defined and executable path forward for the country.  The Tea Party momentum from the impending electoral victories in 2010 must be codified into a widely-embraceable mandate.  It is only through such as mandate that the movement can emerge from the 2012 elections as an executable political revolution.

Said another way, it is one thing to shout “throw the bums out” and to proceed to do just that in the voting booths in November.  It is entirely another thing, though, to elect politicians to stand in place of the evicted bums who can lead with courage, audacity, and steadfast commitment to limited government.  Such is the kind of leadership that Republicans have not recently demonstrated an aptitude for.   There is cause for grave concern on this point.  The end result of our efforts cannot be to merely elect Big Government elephants in lieu of Big Government donkeys.

Therein is our predicament.  How does the Tea Party movement affect the selection of bold new leaders and the execution of a bold new political vision, when it is not a functioning political party and has no national structure or funding?  How does the Tea Party movement gain sufficient organizational structure and financial clout to substantially and permanently alter the political future of the country?  This is a particularly urgent question, since 2012 is just around the corner, in the grand political scheme of things.  Shortly after the November 2010 vote, candidates will begin to emerge, and platforms will begin to coalesce, for the 2012 elections.  If we leave candidate selection and platform development to the Republican Party of recent vintage, we will deserve the disappointment and frustration that will be the logical outcome of such dereliction of duty.

The quickest and most effective solution for this predicament is for the Tea Party movement to simply engulf and transform the Republican Party from the inside.   Bizarrely, the stale carcass of the Republican Party is still the nominal standard-bearer of American conservatism, in terms of the actual mechanics, funding, and structure of party politics on the right of the political spectrum.  Therefore, the Republican Party is incongruously the nominal political leader of the newly-energized limited-government tidal wave that it had virtually no role in cultivating.   

This incongruity seems very much like the tail wagging the dog.  It makes absolutely no sense.

The Tea Party movement has become the heart and soul of conservatism inside the otherwise heartless and soulless GOP carcass.   However, despite displacing the carcass’s heart and soul, the Tea Party movement has not yet gained control of the carcass’s arms and legs.  The newly-energized activism of limited-government advocates must be first fully manifested inside the GOP, before it can be fully manifested nationally in general elections and subsequent administrations.   Champions of limited government must take back the GOP, before they can take back the country. 

The Tea Party movement has no choice but to infiltrate the GOP and take control of its arms and legs.   If we don’t do this, the arms and legs of the spiritless carcass may head in different and unpredictable directions than our conservative hearts and souls desire.  The goal of our movement is to resurrect limited government beholden to the people, not to resurrect a moribund party that is beholden to itself. 

We need to assert our political will inside the Republican Party, and insist that the GOP cast aside the fecklessness, ambiguity, and incompetence that caused its brand to be so brutally tarnished in the past several elections.   “Throwing the bums out” should be an exercise that begins inside the GOP, before it becomes a broad nationwide electoral mission in 2012.  We need to become the Republican Party’s precinct delegates, its campaign volunteers and managers, its party operatives and leaders, and most importantly, its candidates.  We have the energy, we have the boots on the ground, and we have the vision.  We just need the will to do it. 

This proposed palace revolt inside the GOP is not without precedent.  An analogous dethroning happened during the last decade in the Democrat Party when George Soros and his Shadow Party took control of the DNC party machinery with billions of Soros’s dollars and a phalanx of left-wing satellite organizations.     

Even after the Tea Party movement figuratively assaults the ramparts of the GOP and takes control, there will still be a major void that must be addressed quickly.  A critical milestone for a successful limited-government political revolution is the creation of a tenable “big tent” political vision to define it.  A conservative political movement with too small of a political tent is a waste of everyone’s time.  We will simply be left to stand on the political sidelines shouting angry but futile epithets while the radical coalition in power continues to destroy America with ruinous spending and end-runs around the Constitution.  We are not seeking the electoral consolation prize that comes with narrow, polarizing ideological purity; we are seeking victory in the form of fundamental transformation of our government.

To be very clear, we should not create an artificial and unstable big tent by compromising our principles, by collaborating with Big Government apologists, or by linking arms with appeasers and RINO’s.  We will never achieve a return to limited government if we aid and abet the enemies of limited government.   We have come too far with our movement just to squander our efforts by making deals with devils who will sell their souls to collectivism for the mere purpose of maintaining public office.  We do not want anybody in our political tent who cannot embrace a return to limited government based on the U.S. Constitution.  Period. 

The key to erecting a limited-government big tent is to identify and embrace “True North” political principles that are not only inherently righteous, they resonate across a broad spectrum of the electorate.  The process of doing this will necessarily require minimizing discussion of polarizing topics, and maximizing discussion of the broader and more unifying “True North” principles. 

The primary “True North” principle that the conservative movement must embrace is the reestablishment of constitutionally-limited government in America.  Limited government reflects positively on our noble culture and tradition.  It has been thoroughly proven as a successful model by the greatest country in the history of the world.  Limited government is the heart of soul of the American vision.  It is the most morally profound political vision in the history of mankind.  It is not only right and proper as a political vision; it is the essence of the American spirit.  Limited government is a framework that conservatives, libertarians, and fiscally-concerned moderates and independents can rally around.   Such an alliance, if fully unified, can be a powerful electoral force.  This alliance will be our last stand.  If such an alliance cannot successfully take back our country, then all is lost anyway.

Such an alliance can be easily fractured, if other important but less universally agreed-upon concerns are allowed to take precedence over the grander and more universally accepted principle of limited government.   This is a sensitive point to make, but its very sensitivity is proof of its urgency.  For example, there are many positions on social issues that conservatives hold dear.  These include the right-to-life perspective on abortion, opposition to gay marriage, and support for school prayer, among many others.   The “proper” positions on these issues have tended to become litmus tests for “conservative” candidates in the past. 

However, in order for the limited-government movement to be successful in the 2012 elections and beyond, we have to abandon these “conservative” litmus tests.  We also have to abstain from constructing planks in our political platform built around social issues.  This is not to say that those who hold conservative positions on social issues should abandon them as personal commitments.  Quite to the contrary, conservatives should continue to energetically advocate for their positions on social issues in families, churches, communities, schools, the media, and the marketplace. 

We should not, however, allow polarizing positions on these issues to derail our momentum in the political quest for limited government.  If we do not succeed in reestablishing limited government throughout America, then our positions on social issues will be steamrolled in the political forum.  It is limited government or bust.  If the radicals who are opposed to limited government continue to hold power in political offices, the conservative positions on social issues will be swept aside anyway.  The radicals will enact adverse legislation, they will appoint antagonist judges, and they will ignore or erode the tenets of our Constitution.   

Here’s the brutal reality of our circumstance.  The radicals in power dearly want to use the state to wage war on our conservative values.  We need to gain political power to stop them.  But in doing so, we will proceed as champions of limited government.  As champions of limited government, we cannot propose to use political power to force our values on the rest of the nation.  Therefore, the fulcrum and lever in this sticky circumstance is simply advocacy for limited government.  If we pile on by emphasizing polarizing social issues, it will not gain us any friends, but it will fracture our limited government coalition.   

There is only one overriding political battle right now, and there can only be one steely-eyed focus for us in the next few years.  We must remove the radicals from office, and we must reestablish limited government based on the U.S. Constitution.  If we don’t win that battle, nothing else matters.  For every social issue that we insist on polarizing the electorate with, we can automatically cross off a subset of alienated potential supporters.  We gain nothing by polarizing the electorate in this manner.  There is no upside.  It is all downside.  It will only collapse the tent of our otherwise broad coalition, tent post by bloody tent post. 

We need to establish a new Contract with America based solely on the principles of limited government.  We need to stick with it this time.  We must link arms in a broad coalition around this Contract, and carry it forward through successive elections and administrations, until it becomes the mainstream of America again.  For this coalition of conservatives, libertarians, and fiscally-conscious moderates and independents to be successful, we need to reinforce our unity, not accentuate our divisions.

The political platform of this coalition would be built upon the “True North” principles of limited government, individual rights, individual responsibility, and the U.S. Constitution.  Such a platform would:

Embrace fiscal responsibility, which means advocating a dramatic downsizing in government spending, entitlements, and involvement.  It means recognizing that individuals are responsible for their lives, not the state.  It means refocusing the state on protecting individual rights rather than on transferring wealth from one citizen to another.  Limited government is inconsistent with entire classes of citizens being dependent on the state for sustenance.

Embrace economic growth.  A growing prosperity is the only way that our society will be able to support an improved standard of living for the next generations while supporting the commitments that we have already made to the current generations.  Free markets, not governments, should allocate capital and labor, price assets and resources, and choose economic winners and losers.  Strong economic growth offers the potential for all people to come out ahead, not just certain groups.  It promotes trade, which is the amicable and voluntary tie that binds not only citizens in America, but also countries around the world.  Limited government is inconsistent with state intrusion in economic affairs.

Embrace a strong national and civil defense, but only for the purpose of protecting, with extreme prejudice, our citizens, our property, and our interests from attack by rogue nations, terrorists, and criminals.  Our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuing happiness are worth nothing if we cannot protect ourselves.  Limited government is inconsistent with nation-building and occupying foreign lands. 

Insist on a judiciary that adheres to the Constitution, rather than one that seeks to unilaterally change the Constitution.  The role of the judiciary is to ensure our unalienable rights are protected from the majority or an intrusive government, not dissolved by the majority or an intrusive government. Limited government is inconsistent with an activist judiciary inventing powers for the state not defined in the Constitution. 

Embrace immigrants coming to America, as is our tradition, but only if they do so lawfully and can carry their own weight.  Limited government is inconsistent with taking on waves of illegal immigrants dependent on the state for sustenance.

Embrace a limited-government perspective on social issues.  This may run counter to the intuition of certain conservatives, but it is incongruous to demand less government in most things, while insisting that government stick its nose in moral, ethical, or religious affairs.  In the context of limited government, civil libertarianism will not threaten social values held dear by conservatives or liberals.  If civil liberty is properly honored, all people should be free to live their lives as they choose, according to the values that are dear to them, as long as they respect the similar rights of others.  Limited government is inconsistent with the state legislating morality.

Unless the Tea Party movement takes control of the GOP and insists on a platform of limited government, not only for the purpose of winning elections but also for the purpose of actually administering the country, then the success that we have earned thus far will melt into the bitterness of lost opportunity and the gut-wrenching frustration of continuing to stand on the sidelines as the radicals and Big Government apologists from both parties ruin what’s left of America. 

We are passing through a life-altering fork in the road as a nation.  In the 2008 elections, we headed much further and faster down the wrong fork.  It is not too late (yet) to backtrack and change direction.  However, if the 2010 and 2012 elections result in America continuing down the socialist fork it is currently on, then all is lost for conservatives.  It’s all or nothing for us, with an immediacy that can’t be ignored.  This is not the time for faintness of heart or half-measures.  Our time is now…or never.

(If you are interested in similar political perspectives, please take a look at my new book, We've Been Had:  How Obama and the Radicals Conned Middle Class America).  Or, click on this link to visit the author's Facebook page.

 

How to Trample the U.S. Constitution in 100 Days

1. 1. Establish government czars to run private sectors of the country. In bankruptcy cases, reward unsecured political patrons like labor unions by moving them ahead of secured creditors like bondholders. Arbitrarily close independent, successful businesses like car dealerships. Establish compensation levels for private citizens.
   2. Federally fund partisan political groups. Give stimulus money to groups like ACORN, who lobby only for a single political party and who gather fraudulent voter registrations that make a mockery of our democracy.
   3. Declare the very breath of American citizens to be an environmental pollutant. Declare carbon dioxide, the gas that we exhale and the gas that is the very “food” green plants use for photosynthesis, to be toxic to the planet. Create bureaucracies and new taxes to “save” us from this horror.
   4. Evangelize a secular state religion. Involuntarily impose a one-party dogma, which includes the supremacy of the state over the individual, unionism, radical environmentalism, and socialism, on public school students. Propose to expand this indoctrination program by establishing publicly funded zero-to-five education and youth service camps.
   5. Abdicate responsibility to defend U.S. citizens. Neuter our secret service agencies during a period of extreme clandestine activity against our nation. Telegraph weakness and passivity to friends and foes alike. Snub our historical allies and pay homage to enemies who have already demonstrated a willingness and ability to inflict great harm on us. Aid and abet known enemies with taxpayer money. Acquiesce as weapons of mass destruction are developed and deployed by rogue nations.
   6. Diminish the value and purpose of lawful citizenship. Aid illegal aliens with drivers’ licenses, free public services, and proposals for amnesty.
   7. Openly violate the Tenth Amendment. Empower bureaucrats and politicians in Washington to dictate and regulate how governors run their states. Transfer enormous wealth from prudent states to cover the reckless debts of profligate states held captive by favored special interests and public service unions who suckle on taxpayer dollars.
   8. Openly violate our right to free speech. Use taxpayer money to support media that propagate the one-party dogma. Offer bail-outs to newspapers in exchange for control over “editorial content”. Propose to implement rules and regulations that will limit the impact of media voicing opposition to the secular state religion.
   9. Openly violate our right to free association. Propose Orwellian legislation that will allow union thugs to intimidate citizens into joining organized labor against their will, without the protection of a secret ballot.
   10. Impose on citizens a public debt beyond all comprehension. Make eternal debtors out of current and future generations with public expenditures and obligations so enormous as to exceed the value of all assets in the country. Destroy our AAA credit rating, devalue our currency, drive interest rates up, and lay the foundation for a future inflationary period that will ruin the value of our assets and investments.
   11. Appoint justices who will dishonor the Constitution. Nominate Supreme Court Justices who believe the Constitution should be interpreted with non-objective “empathy” based on certain “life experiences”, and who intend to legislate from the bench.
   12. Weaken our very right to life by nationalizing health care. Insert the government in our lives as the agent that rations vital health care and, in effect, determines who ultimately lives or dies.
   13. Harass citizens peacefully expressing fair-minded views. Treat honest, hard working citizens as potential enemies of the state for being committed to their faith, to the Second Amendment, and to the general integrity of the U.S. Constitution. Use the Department of Homeland Security to monitor these “extremists”, rather than to monitor activities of potential foreign terrorists.
   14. Transfer wealth arbitrarily and without regard to merit. Establish laws, tax policies, programs, and bureaucracies to arbitrarily and capriciously transfer wealth from citizen to citizen, from business to business, from state to state, from future generations to the current generation, and from taxpayers to the government. Replace meritocracy with political expediency, patronage, and systemic dependency. Destructively separate the rights of citizens from the responsibilities of citizens.
   15. Openly violate the Second Amendment. Propose restrictions on the rights of citizens to bear arms and to protect themselves from foreign or domestic assaults on their property and their safety.

Fixing Democracy

Democracy is hailed as one of the great advancements of modern civilization. When asked to describe the general political structure of our country, most citizens proudly reply that it is a democracy. Strangely, though, democracy is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. This is because our political structure is more precisely described as a Constitutional Republic. How did we arrive at this strange dichotomy, and is this dichotomy a problem?

First, some very brief history. This country is structured as a Constitutional Republic. As such, there is a defined and limited role for government, with federal power dispersed among three branches and with states empowered with great latitude to exercise their individual political wills. This is the theory, at least. For some of our history, this theory was close to reality, notwithstanding some pushing and shoving between the federal branches, and between the states and the federal government.

Of course, governments are not robotic organizations. They require legislators, executives, and judges. And these professionals require a method for appointment into office. This is where the concept of democracy has edged its way into our political framework. It is not so much the heart of our political philosophy, but rather the method by which we have gradually come to execute it. In the beginning, a very limited subset of our population participated in the selection of leaders. Today, there is widespread involvement by the general population. Unfortunately, time and ignorance have served to blur the distinction between philosophy and method, to the point where now democracy, per se, is seen as the moral and intellectual foundation of our government.

Is this a problem? This author proposes that it is one of the most grievous problems facing our nation. Democracy is simply a method for choosing, such as between candidates for office or proposals on a ballot. There is nothing inherently good or bad about it, and it does not inherently protect anything or provide any wisdom or guidance. The democratic choices made can be good, bad, or even abhorrent. Tyrants can be voted into office. Incompetent legislators who coincidentally have a lot of money or strong family connections can be voted into office. Ballot proposals that are abhorrent and that violate basic rights can be enacted. Mob rule can overwhelm the rightful interests of a minority group. The most villainous policies can be empowered by a simple majority. It is worth noting at this point that the National Socialist (Nazi) Party of mid-20^th Century Germany was elected into office.

The mere power to vote does not provide sufficient moral and structural integrity for a nation. As citizens, we are endowed with certain inalienable rights, according to our Founding Fathers. These rights are protected in our Constitution, which likewise limits the power of our government in favor of these inalienable rights. These rights cannot, and should not, be voted away. And yet, we have become so enamored with democracy, so enamored with building enough of a mob to change the direction of the country to suit our blind, short-term, single-issue collective needs, that the concept of individual rights protected by a Constitution is slowly ebbing into obscurity. The result is a continually growing government presence, a larger and larger share of wealth flowing to the government, and quiet erosion of individual privacy and security.

Sadly, this was predicted by the Founding Fathers, and was one of the reasons why the initial methods for choosing leaders were not as democratic as they are today. Quite simply, the belief was that a large enough mob will always form in a democracy to confiscate the wealth of the minority and to destroy the protections of individual rights. The great fear of our founders was that power would be siphoned into a central government from individuals and states, like a giant sucking vortex. History has demonstrated that their fears were well founded. The federal government today is a leviathan that dwarfs any nightmare the Founders may have lost sleep over. State and local governments have likewise exploded in scope.

The problem is that in a widespread democracy, it is simply too tempting and too easy for candidates for political office to bargain away the wealth and rights of individuals and minority interests for the favor and votes of the majority. You cannot win office without the most votes, and the most efficient method to obtain the most votes is to offer programs and transfer payments that benefit the largest number of voters. This creates an unavoidable bias toward bigger government and eroded individual rights. This has been the history in our country, and will only get worse as more time passes. Eventually, producers will cease to produce, wealth will disappear, rights will be lost, and we will all wallow in the fetid abscesses of our democratic excess.

If too much democracy is the problem, what is the fix? It is important to assess this question in the context of the balance of powers that the Founders envisioned. They created a legislature to make laws and fund the government, an executive to represent the nation in foreign affairs and to carry out the laws of the legislature, and a judiciary to ensure that the laws and the manner in which they are executed are within the limits defined by the Constitution. Checks and balances are established between these branches, so that one does not become dominant over the other.

This is elegant in theory, but the method by which the players in each of these branches are chosen can dramatically skew the outcome. Today, both the legislature and the executive branches are chosen democratically, by simple majority of the associated voting populations. The judiciary is appointed by the executive branch, and approved by the legislature. In practice, therefore, there really is no effective balance of power. All of these appointments are directly or indirectly made by simple majorities of all voters. It is pure democracy, and subject to the biases described above that will lead to our eventual collapse into mob rule. The checks and balances are an illusion. We will inevitably end up with bigger and bigger government. Our constitutional protections will slowly be voted away.

In order to fix it, balance must be restored between the power of the mob and the power of certain individual citizens whose wealth and rights are targeted by the mob. A very simple tactic for accomplishing this is to create separate and distinct methods for choosing each of the three branches of the government. For example, let us argue that is proper for the entire population to choose our chief executive. The executive is charged with representing our country in foreign affairs, and with making sure that laws are properly executed. It seems right and proper for all citizens to be invested with the power to choose this person. Let us further argue that the judiciary should not be chosen by popular vote at all. The judiciary is charged with ensuring that our Constitution is honored, so therefore judges should not be pressured or tempted by the demands of the mob. Their job is not to represent the current popular opinion, but to ensure the protection of our inalienable rights. Lastly, let us argue that the legislature should be chosen by a subset of the voting population. This subset should be the one most impacted by the activity of the legislature, which to a very large extent is involved with the raising of funds and the expenditure and allocation of these funds. It is through this fiduciary power of the legislature that the explosive growth of the government is fueled.

The subset of the voters that should choose the legislators is the property owners. This is the group that the mob would dearly love to target, and the group that the politicians would most quickly bargain away to the mob, if they could. It is the exploitation of this group by the democratic process that is the Achilles heel of democracy. In order to solve the problem of democracy, it is necessary to restore the status of property owners to their rightful place in the balance of our political powers. Since they are the ones that primarily fund the government, let them be the ones who select the representatives that determine the proper levels of taxation and the proper allocation of funds.

So, let the mob choose the president. Let the property owners choose the legislature. Let the president nominate judges, and let the legislature confirm (or reject) them. This will restore true balance between the mob, the property owners, and the Constitution that is designed to protect them all. This will make the balance of powers envisioned by the Founders a real force, rather than an illusory sham. Some may call this approach undemocratic, and by implication, un-American. This author challenges them to read the Constitution, which does not mention democracy, and to consider the logical extension of its premises. That’s what true Americans would do.