Republican Nation?
October 20, 2003
by Bernard Chapin
With
Arnold’s significant victory in California and the surprising conservative
outcomes of the 2002 elections; many people have proclaimed that the
United States is now becoming a conservative country. I do not hold
this to be true. I believe that the Republican Party’s success cannot
be attributed to the presence of a more conservative population, but
that it is instead due to the rising chaos and radicalization of the
Democratic Party.
The evidence for the transcendence of the Republican Party is rather convincing. Even if we exclude this year from calculation, it is evident that Congressional Elections have been changing for the better for sometime now. Fred Barnes documents this in the latest edition of The Weekly Standard:
In 1992, Democrats captured 51 percent of the total vote in House races to 46 percent for Republicans. By 2002, those numbers had flipped--Republicans 51 percent, Democrats 46 percent. And Republicans have held their House majority over five elections, including two in which Democratic presidential candidates won the popular vote. They won 230 House seats in 1994, 226 in 1996, 223 in 1998, 221 in 2000, and 229 in 2002. They also won Senate control in those elections. [October 27th 2003 online edition]
To all this I bellow “Wonderbar!” Yet, we cannot mistake Republican success with being the result of the public’s conversion to conservative ideology. No, if you ask me, this country continues to slide further and further into relativism and libertinism regardless of who gets elected. The recent court cases over sodomy, the pledge of allegiance, and affirmative action are indicative of the fact that much of our country, even if they don’t agree with it, are willing to negligently endorse wrong over right on an ongoing basis. Further, due to the power of political correctness, most adults are afraid to assert their real views in daily conversation.
In interpersonal relations, the media’s constant celebration of sex as “mindless exploration” is now a part of our daily lives, and it is not going away anytime soon. Almost no television sit-com currently on the air would have made it past the internal censorship of the networks back in the seventies when I was a boy.
Recall Dan Quayle’s comment about Murphy Brown and her out-of-wedlock child. Nowadays, no politician would say the equivalent even if Murphy began working part-time as a lesbian bondage club. Nobody would say a word (other than to nod affirmatively when informed that she practices safe sex). We’ve all been pacified by a sexual revolution that continues to revolt even though it decimated its opposition long ago.
This was most recently expressed in the Brittany with Madonna with Christina Aguilera tonsil massaging on MTV. It’s gotten to point where all we can do is to shrug our shoulders as there is little left to be surprised by in our culture’s slouching decline. Indeed, one can’t help but wonder what the public’s reaction would be to the making of homosexuality compulsory. [I assume that before any such movement begins it will coincide with a crusade to confiscate all of the nation’s privately owned firearms, however.]
No, we are not more conservative in 2003. The reason why we are increasingly becoming a Republican electorate is because the right has not self-destructed like the left. The Democratic Party is no longer populist at any level. To quote the brilliant Grover Norquist, “they are a party of competing parasites and coercive utopians.” Unless, you’re a spoiled adolescent, you have the wits to know that utopia means “no where” and that social justice does not mean “robbing your neighbors.” But the Democrats seem immune to reality at present.
Another writer summed up the Democrats current strategy as being “Higher Taxes, Lower Defenses.” This sums up the donkey party’s void of intellectual vision. The Democrats would fare even worse, than they have in the last decade, if their supporters actually took the time to examine exactly what it is that their candidates stood for. One hears their lower rung constantly claim to be representative of the little guy and their party stands as a bulwark against the powerful.
In fact, as most know, in 2003, the Democrats are the party of the millionaires, and that most of the high-dollar political donations are given to Democratic candidates. They represent a the rich elite that is so well-off that they don’t care about how much suffering they create for the rest of us.
It’s true that at one time America was a racist, oppressive state. Now, however, it is the freest in the world (and you could argue it was a whole lot freer than other nations even when it was oppressive). Yet, the metamorphosis of our citizenry is lost on the group that labels itself “progressive.” Ironically, the left still rallies its storm troopers over claims that John Ashcroft is Bull Conner and that questioning the media’s racial biases is equivalent to advocating for the return of segregated lunch counters.
I have found that most leftists use their politics as a bull whip to lacerate those who have slighted them. These individuals have no concern for the common man. During an argument at work over Bush’s tax cuts, a fellow employee stated that they only favored the wealthy [yawn]. I answered him by pointing to another co-worker across the room. The man I pointed to makes 48,000 dollars a year and supports a family of seven. He received 2,000 dollars over the summer in the form of a rebate check. I asked the anti-tax cut proponent, “Is this the face of the rich elite that exploits us?” Without waiting for a response I commanded, “Tackle him before he robs us all!”
Unfortunately, I changed few minds as, despite the evidence, the lie that “Democrats help the poor” remains a truth to the majority of my co-workers.
My place of employment aside, the polity is beginning to tire of the endless ovulars in leftist dogmatics that the media and Democratic politicians preach. It’s become clear that Americans are no longer sexually repressed, and that the Republican Party does not exist to foist its morality upon everyone else.
Further, 9/11 energized the majority of Americans. We were given notice that our happiness will not continue absent military vigilance. Meanwhile, the left was caught in the shower singing the same old rap about imperialism– as normal, ethnically diverse workers plummeted to their deaths while millions of their brothers and sisters watched on the television.
The left has gotten “so far out there” that’s it’s impossible to call ideological clash with them conservative. It’s more appropriate to label anti-leftist thought simply “common sense.”
Do most Americans think that more racism (affirmative action) will decrease overall levels of racism? No, but nearly every Democratic politician does. Do most people think that we can only save our schools with yet more huge expenditures? No, except for those on the political left. Does the majority hold that we should only militarily intervene overseas when it provides us with absolutely no advantage or benefit? Of course not, but ask the Democrats and they’ll explain it to you as they did when they advocated for troops in Liberia.
In summation, as it’s not in my nature to be coy, let me come out definitely and state that Bush will win in November 2004. He’ll do this without the help of dangling chads, Supreme Court justices, or intervention by the hand of G-d. And his victory will not be due to our country embracing the same ideology as conservative reservoir dogs like me. No, Bush will win by default as the Democratic Party has forfeited reason altogether. You see, reason, in their mind, is just one of many equally valuable tools with which to examine one’s problems. To them, rationality is not imperative and could well be oppressive. They will never escape their delusions and hysteria in thirteen months time. I would not be surprised if the party splinters into three subgroups: the reds, the greens, and the still mentally healthy. Luckily for the rest of us, the result of this implosion may be that the Democratic Party will join Communism on the ash heap of history.
1. Fred Barnes’ Column.
Bernard Chapin is a writer in Chicago.
