I suppose you know that, like any black conservative, I swim against the tide by being a Republican voter. Black people are "supposed" to be Democrats, at least according to conventional thinking, and I guess I'm doing it wrong.
But as I've pursued my goals in life, I've gravitated toward the Republican Party because it seemed to me that the Republican philosophy was more in line with my own, and with the things I've found bring success in life.
What is that philosophy?
As far as I can tell, it's that government should not try to solve people's problems when they can and should solve these problems for themselves. Rather, government should enforce reasonable laws, provide for the common defense and do other things that only government can do. And it should do these things very well. There's nothing wrong with providing help to people who need it, but that help should be very limited and designed to get people through a rough patch, not to lock them in dependency.
And absolutely, without a doubt, government should not be allowed to grow so big that its primary mission becomes to perpetuate its own size, power and influence.
There is room for disagreement on how far you go with some of these points, but for the most part, when I became a Republican I thought pretty much all Republicans embraced this same definition. This is what it means to be a Republican. It's how Ronald Reagan governed, and it's how America enjoyed a period of sustained prosperty under his leadership.
But when I look at the latest failure to repeal ObamaCare, I'm not sure there is still a single definition of what it means to be a Republican - not even a very broad one - that everyone can agree on.
I have no idea why Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are Republicans. They oppose virtually every effort to curtail spending, regulation or the continued encroachment of the federal government into people's lives.
I don't really know why John McCain is a Republican. I guess he's in favor of a muscular national defense, which is good, but he seems more committed to things like traditional Senate procedures and "bipartisanship" than he is to limited government or free markets. Time and again he is happy to be the cog in the machinery while the rest of his party is trying to pass legislation that makes things better.
It doesn't make sense that Rand Paul is a Republican. He says he wants freedom and limited government, but he opposes almost every attempt to limit the government because he says it doesn't go far enough.
At the state level, I don't understand why people like John Kasich are Republicans. All the Ohio governor does is wring his hands about how mean and horrible the rest of the party is, while hectoring us for not being interested enough in helping people or something.
The point here is not to beat up on certain people. It's always easy to do that. Rather it's to highlight the fact that even when we have a so-called majority in Congress, we can't make any real progress on the issues we claim to be committed to, because these majorities can't agree on even the most basic things.
In the House, the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group seem as much at odds with each other as two opposing parties would be. These are all Republicans! They can't even agree on basic things that advance the Republican philosophy?
In the Senate, even if you can get 50 votes to pass something, it's still usually impossible to pass it because Senate rules give Democrats a veto over anything that doesn't have 60 votes, and the Republican majority can't agree to change these rules.
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The result? We still haven't passed a real budget. We haven't reduced the size, scope or influence of the federal government at all. We haven't reduced spending. We haven't cut taxes or simplified the tax code. We haven't repealed or replaced, or even modified, ObamaCare.
These are all things that every Republican will tell you on the campaign trail that he or she is committed to doing. But once in power, Republicans cannot agree to do them.
Let me tell you why this is a problem: Democrats know exactly what it means to be a Democrat, and they all agree. Democrats believe in expanding the power of government everywhere they can, any way they can, as much as they can . . . and then coming back later and claiming it wasn't expanded enough.
Given majorities in Congress, Democrats will do this every time. Offered the opportunity to work with Republicans on "bipartisan" legislation, Democrats will refuse to support anything that reduces the size or influence of the federal government even the tiniest little bit. And Republicans will usually cave because they can't get a deal if they don't, and because caving isn't inconsistent with what it means to be a Republican.
Because no one even knows anymore what it means to be a Republican.
I think Republican voters know what it means. They still believe free markets and self-reliance will produce better results for everyone than central planning and massive public sector spending. They still look for Republican candidates to vote for who will do these things, and they find lots of them who say they will.
But once in office, any Republican consensus on these things is non-existent.
I am not saying there can be no divergence in opinions on anything among Republicans. I understand some will be more conservative and others will be more moderate. But something is wrong when there aren't even any basic points on which everyone can agree. Is there a single thing Ted Cruz and Susan Collins agree on? Is there a single thing Mike Lee and Lisa Murkowski agree on? I can't think of anything. And yet they are all members of the same party. Why? What commonality binds them together?
I know why I became a Republican. I know why Ronald Reagan became a Republican. I know why most of my listeners are Republicans, or at least want to be. They believe the things the Republican Party allegedly stands for.
This is not a call for a third party, although some may see this as an argument for why we need one. It's simply an appeal to people who run for office as Republicans to identify some common belief that binds us all together - some fundamental policies we all agree we'd support, even if we disagree on the details or on other issues. Because right now, I don't see that, and as a result this Republican Congress is failing.
Mark my words: If Democrats take over, they know exactly what they stand for, and what they want to do. And they'll do it. That's what Democrats do.
And then when the voters hate it and put Republicans in charge to undo what Democrats did, Republicans will fail. Because at the moment, that's what Republicans do.
