(James Ostrowski is an attorney in Buffalo, New
York and author of Government Schools Are Bad for
Your Kids: What You Need to Know and Political Class Dismissed:
Essays Against Politics." His latest book
is Direct Citizen Action: How We
Can Win the Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot. See his website.)
Note: This is an excerpt from Progressivism: A Primer on the Idea Destroying America(2014).
The utter failure of conservative Republicans
to combat progressivism in any meaningful way explains the nature of GOP
politics today. Like the Seinfeld sitcom, it is much ado about nothing,
but without the laughs.
Having failed to roll
back any major progressive program in the last 100 years,
how does the GOP manage to keep the votes and donations of the rank and file
flowing in sufficient quantities to keep the GOP machine in power? Highly
paid and talented GOP consultants have brilliantly risen to the
challenge. There must be something that keeps the troops anteing up their
votes and legwork and contributions to the mendacious Republican machine that
talks smaller government but never delivers.
There is. Here is how the scam works. The GOP whips up a personal hatred
of prominent Democrats as a red herring to distract their own rank and file
away from their lengthy record of failure.
How do members of the GOP
machine—elected and party officials, government employees and contractors,
lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists, keep the gravy train rolling? Not
by proposing to roll back the very same progressive big government that the
rank and file basically supports. That would likely involve losing
elections which would threaten to cut off the money spigot. Rather, the
GOP machine deliberately distracts the rank and file’s attention away from
ideas, issues and policies, and manipulates the masses into personally hating
the leading Democrats du jour.
Brilliant! Well done. These operatives, by the way, think that Ron
Paul and any other activists who really care about ideas are saps and they are
laughing at us all the way to the bank.
Hillary was right. There is a vast, right-wing conspiracy to whip up hatred
of Democratic icons like Bill and Hillary and Barack and Michelle primarily for
their personal peccadilloes. So long as you hate Obama personally, you
won’t be focusing on the GOP’s pathetic record of never shrinking
government. Who cares if the GOP-controlled House continues to vote to
fund progressive big government? What’s really important is that rascal
Obama golfs too much and Michelle takes too many vacations. The nerve!
Conclusion. Conservatism is an idea whose time has come and
gone. While historical liberalism has a long list of monumental
accomplishments, one struggles to conjure up a single significant
accomplishment of American conservatism. Conservatism will never wage a
winning war against progressivism. Worse yet, because of its
half-hearted defense of market economics; its glorification of militarism and
war and law enforcement; its often hostile attitude towards civil liberties;
and its endless compromises with progressives to maintain power, the Liberty
Movement’s various dalliances with this failed ideology have produced nothing
of value, have tainted the Movement and have caused confusion about its true
nature. The Liberty Movement must sever its ties to
conservatism and move forward.