I’m a Republican from SCGOP on Vimeo.
Nowadays, I’m feeling sorry for the Republicans. There were times in the past when I felt sorry for Democrats, but not at the moment. I don’t like the parties at any time, but at least I can work up some sympathy when they are losing.
I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s, as the Republicans marched inexorably forward in lockstep toward their dominance of the state, I found the Democrats totally charming in their own feckless way. They remembered a time before party politics (when there’s only one party, there might as well be none), and they were sort of Ashley Wilkes-like in their gentlemanly wistfulness for a time when people weren’t so crass about party affiliation. (The Republicans, meanwhile, were more like Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, doing whatever it took to succeed, with no looking back.)
Now the Republicans are the hapless losers, and they are taking on the tone and vocabulary of losers, and since I love seeing parties lose, it makes them lovable in my eyes.
This is the inescapable point to be mined from the latest party video, which borrows from another lovable loser, the Microsoft-based PC. After Apple had so devastatingly mocked the haplessness of the PC alongside the oh-so-hip Mac in ad after ad, Microsoft came back with the message, “I’m a PC,” in which it embraced the image of the four-eyed, unhip loser, and tried to make THAT cool.
Now S.C. Republicans have their derivative “I’m a Republican” ad, which endeavors to make the same point: No we are NOT cool, but we like ourselves the way we are and hope you will, too.
The ad has its good points — at a time when many in the rest of the country believe Joe Wilson meant “You lie, boy!,” the ad preaches a message of inclusiveness, showing black and brown faces in far greater preponderance than you will see at most GOP gatherings. While it may stretch credulity, it’s a good message to send right now, to South Carolina and to the nation. The fact that they wanted to send that message deserves praise.
And the production values aren’t too bad.
Beyond that, the hackneyed phrases sort of grate at me. I find myself thinking, Is this the best we can do in South Carolina, or in the nation? Just repeat these same, often meaningless, lines?
Not that it doesn’t get creative, but when it does, it’s kind of weird. My good friend Eric Davis mentions “conservative solutions,” which strikes me as a bit off. If you’re a conservative, doesn’t that mean you think things are fine and we don’t need any solutions? Maybe not, I think further. Maybe it means that we DO need solutions, but the time-honored ones we employed in the past will work just fine.
But then he throws me another breaking ball that causes me to swing and miss completely — “conservative change.” I’m sorry, but I thought being conservative means not wanting change, sort of by definition. You know, “conserve,” as in “keep,” “stay,” “maintain,” “preserve,” and so forth.
The message I come away with is this: “We know y’all want change, change you can believe in, which is why you’re not voting Republican. But hey, we can give you change; we can give you … conservative change! Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Some will say, “The Democrats aren’t delivering change, either, just the same old partisan games,” and if you’re speaking of the Democrats running Congress, for instance, you’d be completely right. But it IS what they run on. It IS kinda their brand, you know. You’re supposed to judge them (and for my part, I judge them fairly harshly) on how well they deliver what they promise.
But Republicans aren’t about change. They’re about conserving. Stick to what you know, guys. Don’t try so hard to be cool.
So you like being what you are, and are proud to call yourselves Republicans. Fine. Whatever floats your boat. Me, I like using PCs, even though Macs are cooler (one of my daughters just bought one last week), so I understand. To each his own.
But stick to what you know.
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Democrats, as you perceive them, no longer control the national Democratic Party.
Just look at Obama, his czars, many of his advisors, and over 100 members of the House and Senate – all former members of a communist or socialist political party or group, an most of them still members.
Brad,
Surely you understand the basic principles of a person who describes himself as conservative?
So “conservative change” is a very valid concept when it comes to reversing the excesses of government that have been enacted by politicians who do not follow conservative principles.
Conservative change would include:
1) Cutting government spending (because it is demonstrably inefficient)
2) Simplifying and cutting taxes (because that would promote fairness)
3) Enforcing laws related to illegal immigration (because our strength as a country comes from following the rule of law)
4) Balancing budgets (because it reduces the boom-bust risk)
We have very few conservatives in Congress. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. All we have is a bunch of self-interested career politicians.
When you want to change BACK to something, isn’t that technically reactionary? I don’t mean to bad-mouth it (unfortunately, “reactionary” has become almost as much as an epithet as “liberal”), I just mean technically, in terms of what the words mean?
But CONSERVATIVE CHANGE is a contradiction in terms.
> When you want to change BACK to
> something, isn’t that technically
> reactionary?
In a word, no.
To use a term favored by McCain, when you stop spending like a drunken sailor, that would be called “wising up” not being reactionary.
True conservatism is intellectual, and understands exactly what is wrong about all the perversions of our government from Woodrow Wilson, on through FDR, LBJ, Carter, and the Bush-Clinton-Bush squishy liberalism.
Obama, being a radical socialist, has awakened millions more who had not been studying history and believed it couldn’t happen here.
Socialism is reactionary, because it is not intellectual, and it is an attempt to change back to a time before free market capitalism, back before 1776.
The only bright side to the socialist attempt to seize power under Obama, which is a long way from over, is that there will be a reaction that cleans out Washington and installs a new GOP electorate that will pull up all the socialist programs by the roots, back beyond FDR.
Interesting video. But I would say if you hold the following positions and you call yourself a Republican, you might be lost :
1. Against wasting hard earned money
2. For the Constitution
3. For equal rights for all
4. Against government handouts
5. Against bailouts
6. Think China owning our debt threatens our freedom (the most blatant irreconcilable position to support of the GOP)
7. Against government being in the health care industry
Birch, that betrayal of conservatism by the likes of Lindsay Graham and John McCain is why 4,500,000 registered Republicans did not vote for Bob Dole or John McCain.
It is not the Republican base or conservatives who are lost. It is the cowardly, go-along-and-get-along RINO politicians who are lost.
Now we have Democrats who are much worse on every item listed above. They have quadrupled the deficits and plan to keep them there as long as they are in power.
The grass roots revolt you see at Tea Parties and the huge 9/12 Rally threaten to clean out the RINOs.