WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU...

BY CINCINNATUS

Senator Obama is now President-Elect Obama. Democrats have picked up significant seats in both the House and the Senate. Come January, we will live under the unified rule of a liberal Democrat government. For most of us, this is just about as bad as it gets. In the next four years, this new government will do some pretty terrible things. It will appoint liberal, activist justices to the Supreme Court. It will pass the Fairness Doctrine. It will expand the size of the federal government and increase spending. And worst of all, it will sabotage the progress in Iraq by forcing an early withdrawal. Conservatives have known all of this from the outset, but it appears the American electorate is more upset with Republicans than it is afraid of Democrats. So be it, that’s fair enough. Conservatives have to live with that fact. So, while the next four years look bleak for America, I’d like to take a moment to focus on some positives that may come out of liberal, one-party rule.

The Democrats have made a profitable business out of the blame game and they’ve had plenty of ammunition since 2001. The Republicans ran the government for six years and made an easy target. We’re seeing the benefits of the Democrat strategy with their expansive gains. They’ve hung the economy around the Republicans’ necks and sunk them with it. But now they’re in charge, and they likely will be for at least four years. They can’t blame Republicans anymore (though I’m sure they’ll try). If they can’t fix the economy, and I promise you they can’t, they’ll take the heat. If their precipitous withdrawal from Iraq results in sectarian massacres in Iraq and a failure of that democracy, they’ll be in the crosshairs. If, as Vice President-Elect Biden promises, we are attacked or challenged by our enemies under President Obama and bungle the response, they’ll get the scorn. This election season has been one of courtship between Obama and the nation. Come January, that courtship will bud into a marriage, which will begin with a short honeymoon. Obama will be able to do no wrong. But eventually, the honeymoon will come to an end. Americans will see that as much as Obama promised to reconcile us with the world, there’s just no pleasing some people. Even though he’s a breath of fresh air, he still represents an America that is intolerable to certain regions of the world, and he’ll be hated just as much as George Bush and burned in effigy in the streets of Damascus. His tax policy will screw up the economy and send us into a tailspin. I must say, it’s liberating in a perverse sort of way to no longer be “responsible” for all of America’s crippling problems. We’ll sit in the cheap seats and watch the Democrats destroy themselves before 2012. And I promise you they’ll lose big.

While the Republicans are on this retreat from power, a great deal of soul-searching is in order. It is the defining characteristic of conservatives that when we lose, we don’t cast the blame on our opponents but rather we look at ourselves to see what we did wrong. I’ve always loved that about us. And we have plenty to answer for. Under “conservative” governance, the federal government ballooned in size while it binged on an enormous budget. Under “conservative” governance, government intervention in the economy culminated in the passage of the odious $700 billion Bailout. This is why the Republicans lost. They forgot who they were and what they stood for and they became fat cat sell-outs. There is a great deal of talk in the mainstream media that in fact conservatism is to blame for the Republicans’ thrashing. The suggestion is that, in order to remain competitive and relevant, the GOP will have to shift more toward the center on many issues. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. It is the ascendant liberal movement attempting to frighten a panicking Republican Party into fracturing itself even further in its moment of weakness. True conservatism wins elections; it loses when it is compromised or polluted with the antithetical ideas of big government and socialist economic principles. But even if the Republican Party does buy the hype and dump conservatives, this isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Conservatives can find common cause by banding together as a new and powerful voting bloc, or throw their support to Libertarians if worse come to worst. These periods of introspection are good for us, and they inevitably lead to a clarity of vision for movements that have been ousted from power. Just look at the Carter Democrats, left-wing liberal populists. After thirty years of wandering in the wilderness, they’ve just retaken the government. And they did it with a platform that is fundamentally unchanged from those many years ago.

Things are going to be hard folks, don’t get me wrong. But you must always look for the silver lining, and if there is one it is that the Democrats will interpret this election as a mandate for liberalism and show Americans who they really are. When the voters don’t like what they see, they’ll send the con men packing. In the meantime, let’s focus on getting our message and our mission honed and polished so that we can remind Americans of what truly makes this country great: not buzz words like “change” or “hope,” but individual freedom and limited government. And this time, let’s back up our words with our deeds.