Boy Scout Politics Won't Work Anymore

I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics. -- Newt Gingrich

The former Republican Speaker of the House, the first to hold the office in over forty years, was by many metrics no boy scout. Extramarital dalliances ruined his first two marriages. He failed to foster the necessary strong consensus to maintain the House Republican majority after four years in the Speakership. To this day, there are conservative activists and pundits who have no respect for him, and view a self-affirming opportunist out to further his ambitions, whether everyone else agrees or not.

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Yet on the issue of politics, Gingrich identified a key problem plaguing conservatives and the Republican Party as a whole. He typified the new combative approach needed to bring the federal government back under control, a method needed now more than ever. The previous minority Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Robert Michel of Illinois, embraced a nice-guy persona which allowed him to pass bills. Gingrich was combative, and wanted Republicans to take back the House and engineer real reforms. Gingrich attracted conservatives throughout the caucus, and working with them and the American People, they achieved a Republican Revolution in 1994, one which exploited Democratic weakness, dysfunction, and corruption. If politicians want to win, they have to win the majority. Michel was interested in passing laws. Laws unmoored from ideological purity or respect for the United States Constitution create bloated government less security, more instability. Values require vetting, and if one side wants to remove those values, the other side must be prepared for fight for them. We don't need Boy Scouts in politics right now. No offense to Robert Michel, who indeed witnessed warfare in the army, but a clash of ideologies is raging in Washington, and We the People need representatives willing to fight and win for our side. No offense to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, himself an Eagle Scout and community leader of great distinction, but at the national level, he was not making the grade. He refused to cut his teeth and split some lips in the blood sport of the national Presidential primary process. Nice just does not get the job done. When Donald Trump was picking fights with everyone, including his prospective Democratic challengers, Walker was busy fighting with his prior views and establishing his present platform. The fight and vigor he showed as Governor – and continues to demonstrate -- against the labor unions in Wisconsin did not play out in the national field. It’s unfortunate because that resolute leadership is exactly what this country needs right now, and more than ever. We don’t need an apprentice in the White House, Walker had chided Trump in the second GOP debate. Walker was right. However, we don’t need a boy scout either. We need patriots in Washington, soldiers for the conservative cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, who will not just give their time and resources for the mission, but ensure that the most virulent opponents to these truths will lose their lives, too.