WhatFinger


Why should the Tea Party sacrifice everything to the Establishment now, and on the Establishment’s own premises

Newt-Romney, All-American



In a marriage as unlikely as it is unholy, the Republican Establishment has combined forces with the liberal media to create the primary race they desire. Or, to be more accurate, they have created the fictional narrative that they prefer, with the intention of convincing people that the fiction is reality, and in turn of achieving a self-fulfilling political prophecy.
In recent CFP articles, I have been very critical of both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, looking at Romney’s favored-son status with suspicion, and questioning Gingrich’s judgment and sincerity. Others, in various venues, have made similar arguments. While these critiques have received plenty of agreement, there has also been a goodly portion of angry disapproval, which can basically be reduced to two arguments: (1) Romney may not be the most conservative, but he’s a thousand times better than Obama, so why undermine him? (2) Gingrich may not be the most conservative, but he’s infinitely better than Romney, so why undermine him? I’m no mathematician, but as I calculate this, it would seem that the distilled argument would be that Gingrich is infinitely better than one thousand times better than Obama, or “NG = ∞ x (1000 x BHO)”. That’s impressive—unless of course BHO equals zero, in which case all bets are off.

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The problem with such arguments, however, is that while they may be true, they also tacitly accept the premise neatly set up and propagated by the happy couple noted at the outset—namely that it’s time to accept ‘the race we have’ rather than dream about alternatives that did not materialize. The summary dismissals of Romney’s string of co-frontrunners by the mainstream conservative pundits (not to mention their pre-emptive vilification of Sarah Palin) have been a perfect sidebar to the mainstream and online liberal media’s hit-jobs on any candidate (other than Romney) who has dared to get popular. Together, they have produced seemingly sufficient grounds for doubt about the ‘electability’ of any candidate other than Romney—and now, perhaps, Gingrich. Hence, the subtext of arguments (1) and (2), above: ‘Other candidates are more conservative—i.e. more deferential to the U.S. Constitution, more focused on the real long-term financial catastrophe facing the nation and the globe, more prepared to smash the ratchet that is the Washington political class, less immersed in the petrifying sludge—but if the goal is to defeat President Obama, then primary voters must be realistic and back a candidate who can win.’ If I may be permitted to parse this subtext for you: ‘Don’t back the candidate you like a lot; back one you do not like much at all, because your preferred candidate is dead anyway.’ Let’s begin with the assumption that this premise is true. (It isn’t; but understanding how this fictional premise was invented will be most instructive towards the subsequent effort to counter its effects.) How did all the other attention-getting candidacies wind up in the dumpster?

TEA Party Conservatives: Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann takedowns

Let’s take the two most obvious cases from this campaign, beginning with Herman Cain. He was taken down in barely a week, by a series of allegations dating back to one brief period of his life, more than ten years ago. Most of the allegations, so far as can be gleaned from a media desperate to sensationalize them, amount to Cain having said something to someone—or about some third party—which made someone uncomfortable. The lack of ‘evidence’ is not the point in these cases; the claims themselves, such as they are, appear silly. Cain told someone she was similar in height to his wife. Cain called someone ‘Darling’, in the context of asking her to ‘doctor his tea’—and the third party who spilled the beans on this incident announced, menacingly, that it was his opinion that when Cain said ‘doctor my tea,’ he REALLY meant ‘add honey and lemon to my tea’! Cain asked someone to help him get in touch with a woman who had asked a good question after he had given a speech. Then, of course, there is the more serious allegation, regarding Ms. Bialek from Chicago. Many have raised serious questions about the reliability of the accuser’s claims, and Cain himself has flatly denied any memory of even seeing his accuser before. However, once again for the sake of fairness to the media, though certainly not to Cain, let’s assume the accusation is true as reported. On this account, Herman Cain, after having had a business dinner with a woman in her late thirties, behaved in a manner that was extremely ungentlemanly and crude. If it’s true, he should indeed be taken to task for it, and of course for denying it. Nevertheless, it must also be pointed out that, on the accuser’s own account of the event, Cain stopped his aggressive behavior when she rebuffed him verbally. In other words, though behaving abominably, he finally acted on the tenet that “No means No”. Tea Party conservatives will indeed throw him aside if this one allegation should turn out to be substantiated. However, it was very easy for the mainstream conservative pundits to join the liberal media in condemning this man on the basis of one meaningful allegation and a lot of apparent nonsense. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was never more popular than in December 1998, after a year which included a detailed, first-hand allegation of rape, detailed first-hand accounts of improprieties that certainly equal Ms. Bialek’s claims, and detailed first-hand accounts of a most seedy relationship with a teenage employee, conducted in the Oval Office, in addition to a string of denials, and grand jury testimony which exhibited a monstrous willingness to sacrifice another human being to his own career and ego that almost equals even the most serious allegations of actual physical abuse made against him. No, I am not suggesting that conservatives ought to judge Cain on the Clinton Standard, a standard that should properly be reserved only for sociopaths. My point is that in very recent times, a man has been quickly rehabilitated from far more serious moral crimes and gone on to extremes of lasting approval, while in this case one significant allegation of ugly behavior—no actual affairs, no pattern of similar abuses, no recent repeat offenses—was enough for George Will to leap in and push Cain overboard, almost as though he were afraid that Cain might begin to recover from the accusations before the Establishment’s representatives had had the chance to finish him off. Just trying to keep the Republican Party’s image clean? Spare me. Then there is the (in my opinion) even more outrageous case of Michele Bachmann. Aside from Will’s absurd insinuation (Aug. 14th) that she could not be trusted with the nuclear button, there is also the broader issue of ‘gaffes’. She mistakenly suggested that the battles of Lexington and Concord took place in New Hampshire. She cited Waterloo, Iowa as the hometown of John Wayne (The Duke), when in fact it is the hometown of John Wayne Gacy (The Puke). Awful mistakes, to be sure—but somewhat less egregious, it seems to me, than Obama’s reference to having visited fifty-seven states, and I don’t recall any mainstream Republican pundits declaring him unelectable or untrustworthy on that score. (Perhaps they were too busy focusing on Obama’s substance, e.g. the crease of his pants.) Furthermore, Will, who, as Mark Levin and others have pointed out, was against Ronald Reagan before he was for him, has argued that Bachmann is unelectable because, as a down-the-line conservative, she can’t appeal to independents. Where have we heard this before? And more importantly, how often has it been borne out by electoral results? Does anyone happen to recall John Cleese’s hilarious send-up of Margaret Thatcher, circa 1975? Sporting a moustache, wearing an ugly print dress, banging her handbag on the desk while screeching about the “socialists”, this knock-down parody indicates the Iron Lady’s image among British liberals—a few years before she was elected prime minister three times in a country that had been openly socialistic in its economic and social policies for decades. Which brings us back to the mainstream conservative premise of the moment: The candidates who are most appealing to Tea Party Republicans are dead now, so it’s time to grit one’s teeth and accept the inevitability of the ‘realistic’ choice, be it Romney or Gingrich. Why are they dead now? Who killed them? That is to say, on what actual grounds can Santorum, Bachmann, Cain and Paul be regarded as without a prayer at ‘this late date’? “The polls,” you say?

The Big Lie

Here we have the Big Lie that supports the fictional narrative of this campaign. I have explained the manipulative fantasy of polls in a recent article, “The Death of Citizenship.” Let it simply be said here that in modern politics, the purpose of polls is to create an impression, whether it be one that encourages or one that discourages. In truth, there is absolutely nothing but air here. Polls are the emperor’s new clothes of democratic politics. They achieve their purpose only until someone points out the obvious, as I have tried to do, and will now try to do again. If a poll shows today that 100% of likely voters support Newt Gingrich, does that mean Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum cannot win the actual vote tomorrow? No. All that is required is that voters change their minds. All that is required, in the present, real circumstance, is that everyone recognize the media-manufactured fraud of “momentum” for what it is. Immediately, the imaginary clothes covering Romney and Gingrich—they are electable, they are pulling away from the field, they are ‘winning’—fall away. This is particularly so in light of the fact that so many Republicans are shifting towards these two ‘frontrunners’ in spite of their actual preferences, merely because they have become convinced that their first choice is out of contention. No one is out of contention. No votes have been cast. The premature objection, including from genuine conservatives, that we must be careful not to undercut the records of Romney and Gingrich now, since one of them is likely to be the nominee we’ll have to support against Obama, plays perfectly into the hands of the media and the mainstream pundits, on two fronts: It buttresses the working model of Romney and Gingrich as the ‘serious’ alternatives; and it shelters these two from the close scrutinizing that might help to change minds. (Notice how no mainstreamers used this argument to quell criticisms of Herman Cain’s foreign policy ideas, even while they were already using it in an attempt to hush anyone who might publicize Gingrich’s contradictions on global warming, or Romney’s... well, Romney.)

Regan Mantle

One of the greatest entertainments of recent days has been the new use to which Ronald Reagan’s legacy is being put. For twenty years, no Republican candidate has been able to conduct his campaign without trying to prove himself a “true Reaganite”, indeed a truer one than his rivals. In some years, the debates have almost been reduced to the peculiar spectacle of candidates arguing over which one is the genuine heir to Reagan’s spirit, and therefore most deserving of his supporters. In this sad, distorted primary campaign, during which the true heirs to Reagan’s spirit—the Tea Party conservatives—are being asked to give up the ghost, as it were, even the two candidates (discounting Huntsman) with the least claim to the Reaganite mantle are being defended with invocations of his name. In this case, however, the invocation is unique and pathetic, a reversal of the standard line. “Even Reagan,” say the Newt-Romney apologists, “made mistakes.” “Even Reagan dropped the ball on some issues.” “Even Reagan failed to live up to standards of conservative ‘purity’ [as these voices derisively apply that word].” “Even Reagan,” in brief, “fell short of being Reagan.”

Why should the Tea Party sacrifice everything to the Establishment now, and on the Establishment’s own premises

Thus, the wimpy argument goes, we must cut Newt-Romney some slack. After all, no one is perfect, not even Reagan. Indeed, no one is perfect. Knowing that, ought not the voter’s interest be to try to discern the least imperfect of the lot, and then to support that candidate with everything he or she has got? Why should the Tea Party sacrifice everything to the Establishment now, and on the Establishment’s own premises, at that? If Newt-Romney should ultimately win, then everyone will have to make the best of that. In the meantime, the goal must be to ignore the manipulations of the polls, the fear-mongering of the mainstream conservatives, and certainly these confused attempts to praise bad candidates with faint damnation—“He is flawed, just like Reagan.” It’s time for constitutional conservatives to rally once more around their true, preferred representatives, and to get out there and win one for... well, you get the point.


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Daren Jonescu -- Bio and Archives

Daren Jonescu has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He currently teaches English language and philosophy at Changwon National University in South Korea.


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