Republicans Form A Circular Firing Squad

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." — Thomas Jefferson

We may be witnessing the death of the Republican Party. The party apparatus has lied to its faithful for years: The party of small government… the party of freedom… the party that supports the Constitution… the party of the 2nd Amendment — the party of free enterprise. The rhetoric has never matched the performance, but the faithful proles always held out hope that next time would be different. They held their collective noses and voted for the candidate the elites shoved down their throats.

Once again, the party elites have pre-determined the nominee. It’s Mitt Romney. Romney has received endorsements from two of the party’s biggest losers: Senator John McCain and former Senator Bob Dole. With friends like those, no wonder the proles are looking elsewhere. So the party has formed a circular firing squad.

So what is the composition of the circle? It is divided into four quadrants. In quadrant 1 we have the Republican establishment with Mitt Romney as their leader. In quadrant 2 we have the stated conservatives with Newt Gingrich and Rick Sanatorium. In quadrant 3 there is Rick Perry, the social conservative from Texas, and in quadrant 4 we have the extreme Libertarian Ron Paul. John Huntsman until this week was in quadrant 1 with Romney, but he decided to bow out after getting his “ticket to ride” in New Hampshire. Previously Michelle Bachmann was in Quadrant 3 and Herman Cain in Quadrant 2.

In the center of the circle is the condemned man, Barack Obama. Every time the order to fire is given the firing squad shoots at Obama, but they end up hitting other member of the squad and miss Obama.

The utopians and statist have been building their totalitarian state for 150 years now. It’s been a glacial, but inexorable march, because gradualism of the Fabian Socialists works best. They are near their goal, and Paul and the 2012 election is probably their last obstacle.

We are living in the last days of life as we have known it. Our currency has been debauched to nothing; our savings stolen right out from under our noses through inflation and regulations. Our houses have lost a third to a half their values — for those who still have them. Millions of people — 7.3 million were receiving unemployment checks as of Dec. 24 — are looking for jobs that no longer exist. Only food stamps, unemployment checks and welfare are holding off street riots that would make Arab Spring look like a park stroll.

America is not just economically bankrupt; it’s morally bankrupt. Government agencies now promote immoral behavior. The public’s minds are numbed by the cesspool that is prime time television and “art” foisted upon us by Hollywood, and they are caught up in euphoria over the successes of their favorite sports teams.

America has become as Rome. Pleasure, entertainment, empire and money-printing are our drugs.

Real learning is anathema to the people. Having been fed the garbage pushed on them in government (non)education indoctrination centers teaching loyalty to the state, they now wallow about, growing fat on processed foods. Their further education comes from the propaganda that passes as daily news from fools, whose loyalty is to party and the new world order rather than the country and Constitution.

It is this mind-numbed ignorance that allows the Republican Party — the so-called party of conservatism — to promote a pack of status quo moderates, such as John McCain, as conservatives and get away with it. It is what allows the doublethink to thrive: Unless the Republican Party can coalesce around a solid conservative message and begin to line up its shooters in a straight line with the liberals in their sights it’s looking more and more like the GOP is going the way of the Whig Party that spawned it.

This happened to the Democrats in 1968 when the party was in awash in controversy and mixed messages. This allowed Richard Nixon, a statist in his own right, to get elected twice. The Democrats realized they could win the hearts and minds on the electorate, especially minorities and poor, by developing a message that promoted the welfare state. They were able to get their friends in the media on board and since that time they have controlled the dialog and dominated the media. Republicans, on the other hand have tried to be Democrats Lite and have continued to lose. Why is this?

The latest Gallup Poll shows that political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.

The percentage of Americans calling themselves "moderate" has gradually diminished in the U.S. since it was 43% in 1992. That is the year Gallup started routinely measuring ideology with the current question. It fell to 39% in 2002 and has been 35% since 2010. At the same time, the country became more politically polarized, with the percentages of Americans calling themselves either "conservative" or "liberal" each increasing.

Gallup measures political ideology by asking Americans to say whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal. Relatively few Americans identify with either extreme on this scale, although 2 in 10 Republicans self-identify as very conservative -- double the proportion of Democrats calling themselves very liberal.

The majority of Republicans say they are either very conservative or conservative, but the total proportion of conservatives grew 10 percentage points between 2002 and 2010, from 62% to 72%. At the same time, the percentage of moderates fell from 31% to 23%. Relatively few Republicans say they are liberal -- just 4% in 2011. Republicans' ideology largely held at the 2010 levels in 2011.

Given that the adults aged 18 to 29 in 2000 make up the majority of 30- to 49-year-olds in 2011, it appears that conservative views take hold as Americans age, which may also explain the even higher rates of conservatism among 50- to 64-year-olds and seniors. However, in addition to these age patterns, it appears that conservatism has increased overall since 2002 because of heightened conservatism among all age groups of Americans 30 and older.

The percentage "liberal" rose slightly among all age groups over the past decade, although spikes in liberalism among certain groups in 2007 and 2008 did not last.

As you can see by these graphs the nation is moving to the right as the population ages. This is no surprise for it was Winston Churchill who said “that if you are not a liberal at the age of 21 you have no heart and if you are not conservative at 40 you have no mind.” This Churchill quip seems to ring true and is no doubt the Republicans are attempting to out conservative each other while the Democrats are going after minorities and the poor who have a vested interest in the welfare state.

The problem is that we are focusing too much on the candidates and not enough on the unified message of the party. Each candidate has a mixed message some conservative, some social conservative, and some libertarian. Each one has some good ideas on governance and each one has some ideas that are not high on the voters list of concerns. This means the message is not unified. Be sure that Obama with his billion dollar war chest will stay on his utopian message.

This conservative message was spawned in 2010 with the advent of the Tea Party, a group that the current pack of Republicans seems to be ignoring. The Tea Party got them to the dance and now they want to dance with the liberals so they will be liked

No more compassionate conservatism or kinder-gentler. No more going along to get along. No more funding of federal programs and departments that work against the interests of the American person and business. No more bloated bureaucracies that rule by fiat. Unless the Republicans can coalesce around a unified conservative and Constitutional message aimed at smaller government, more personal freedom, and fiscal responsibility they may indeed go the way of the Whigs.