by Ryan Thompson
December 21, 2004
I am not going to make many friends with this column, but the opinions in it need to be stated. Conservative thought does not require an individual to be religious or apply it to politics. Further, by failing to capitalize on this, we are holding our movement back.
Now I know some out there are jumping for joy, but others want to burn me at the stake. The various reactions show how we are failing to truly unite the conservative movement. The secular conservatives are being ignored while religious conservatives are not willing to compromise with the secular conservatives. Right now, these groups are being held together by a common enemy, the Democratic Party.
If the Democratic Party gets its act together and attracts one of these groups away, the Republican Party will be in trouble. Neoconservatives will not defect because the Democratic Party does not care about national defense. Fiscal conservatives are against the social programs advocated by the Democrats so an alliance with them is unlikely. The group most likely to jump ship are the social conservatives. These individuals base their politics purely on the social issues and could care less about defense or economics.
an example of their insanity deals with their attack on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld over the boy scouts. Secretary Rumsfeld did not prohibit the boy scouts from meeting on base, but said that they did not want to fund them. They did not think for a second that the Defense Department cut the boy scouts for budget reasons. Instead they automatically thought he was waging a war against their organization appeasing the aCLU.
The left clearly knows the social conservatives are not firm members of the conservative movement or Republican Party. John Kerry in a recent speech to left-wing 527 groups stated that the Democrats need to reframe the debate when it comes to abortion. Instead of following the drumbeat of the abortion lobby, they will try to say they’re against abortion personally, but against overturning Roe V. Wade.
I doubt that these overtures will work, but we must remember the background of most social conservatives. Social conservatives used to be distributed between both parties based on economic status until the left became clearly secular. Most social conservatives used to be Democrats because they wanted social programs. In essence, most social conservatives are former socialists who love big government.
With this type of background, most social conservatives cannot be considered loyal voters. If an alternative arises that features, their social agenda coupled with big government, they will likely accept it.
How do we prevent any movement from taking our majority status away? Expand it by making the key issue of the Republican Party national security. The majority of conservatives and moderates along with some liberals support a strong national defense. Most americans have animosities towards the United Nations. This should be the key issue for all Republicans because it is the issue that can unite us into a true majority.
another issue the Republican Party should use to unite it into a true majority is economics. By promoting the "ownership society," President Bush is creating a society where most citizens own property and investments. By giving everyone a stake in the system, President Bush is creating a society that will want limited government as a way to keep taxes low. Seeing that the Democrats can only answer this with more social spending, the Republicans have an opportunity to create a majority concerned with spending and taxation.
These two conservative policies are clear ways to create a true majority for the Republicans. Even if the social conservatives would defect from the GOP, we would have a large enough voter base to compensate for it.
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