As you no doubt assume, I've been thinking about where to start in on assessing all that has occurred this week, and its various levels of impact.
I'll say something here, knowing it can easily be taken out of context and used to bite me in the tail end. The risk is worth it, though, because it needs to be said, and much constructive elaboration can actually ensue. It is that much so-called analysis from the same old wonky white guys (and one white gal of note, Ann Coulter) still fails to grasp the level of cultural sickness that has made for the America of November 2012. There are, of course, the spectacularly wrong prognosticators, ranging from Michael Barone to Dick Morris to Rush Limbaugh, who now, with one more gaze into their crystal balls, draw the brilliantly original conclusion that conservatives are now outnumbered. But I'm also a little frustrated even with the likes of Victor Davis Hanson. All he has to say is that the election left the landscape in Washington much as it was. Not a word about an emboldened FHer base, executive fiat, the thug machine surrounding the MEC, or the spot, that is to say situation amounting to blackmail, in which the Pub-dominated House, finds itself. Or the consequences - that is, the inevitability of the fiscal cliff. (If Pubs resist tax increases during the lame-duck session, FHers have all the ammunition they need to blame them for said cliff; if they acquiesce, we go over the cliff anyway.)
What I've pasted below is a reader comment underneath the unsigned editorial at NRO today, in which that magazine's editors do what they can to get the biggest-possible-picture take on what Tuesday's electoral rout means. The reader, who calls himself WisdomVision, does a far better job of explaining our current juncture than the editors. In fact, better than any pundit's observation I've yet seen.
So many bad, bad things, it is hard to begin to sort them out. Our beloved country has made a tragic error. The resilience and character of the American people is not what it once was. The majority of our countrymen prefer regulation and easy subsidy now. The phrase, "Greatest Generation" seems quaint and antique now; the phrase, "Wisdom of the Founders" seems oddly racist.
When the GOP thinks about attracting unmarried women in the future, it should remember that this group is growing extremely fast. And the reason it is growing so fast is because so many young women are rejecting marriage. A pastor I know in a large California parish told me he has not seen one case, in 8 years, of a young couple coming to the church and saying, "We're in love and we want to get married." It's all half-brothers and shacking up and serial live-ins and ruined children. The GOP will never be able to match the democrats when it comes to freebies for unmarried women, or for anyone else. And our efforts to emphasize "traditional family values" (another sincere effort, now translated as hate speech by most of America) have utterly failed.
When the young woman asked the candidates what they would do to correct the fact that women are paid 72 cents on the dollar of what men make, both candidates accepted her premise. Both knew it was a lie, one of those statistical "facts" that drive sane people crazy. But both knew they were in a promising contest, and no liberal is ever going to lose a promising contest with anyone. And so I wish the GOP luck bringing these voters into our fold.
The American people heard about the HHS mandate and yawned. They know nothing about the (again, hear the quaintness) phrase, "religious liberty," but they know everything about Dancing with the Stars. The once-mighty coalitions of Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, and mainline Protestant churches made tiny sounds, inaudible really, like mice with asthma. Soon gay marriage will be guaranteed by US law, and Catholic churches who do not agree to preside over ceremonies where men marry men will be closed. The church is going to pay a price, then, for their timidity in fighting religious oppression in 2012. I wish my fellow conservatives all the luck in the world on this matter as well.
Conservatives, properly, worry about the high percentage of Americans that pay no income taxes. I wish them luck in attracting voters from the millions of citizens who pay no income taxes today, by making the argument they really should pay something. I would also encourage them to look at the numbers of people paying no taxes overall, but also by ethnic group. They are going to find out the people who voted against them in the highest concentrations Tuesday, have the highest rates of paying no income tax, and also the highest rates of government subsidy. Educate this group, my fellow Reaganites, on voting Republican, because they will show you the virtue of adding you to the rolls of taxpayers, and removing you from the roles of subsidy. Good luck on this quest my friends.
We are entering a period of steep national decline. The incredible virtues that made America what it was are fading away and can never be recovered. Virtually every conservative hero since the Revolution has warned this day would come if we continued doing bad things, but strangely, now that it is here, even National Review cannot recognize it.
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