Maggie's Farm

The concept of building a 'Big Tent' Republican party is that all the factions join in for the commonly held understandings and to address factional needs. If political parties are not to reflect their supporters, then what good are they?

That is a social compact made to have political parties: work for the common and agreed-upon agenda that brings disparate groups together. If one is seeking power purely for party basis and not for the agreed-upon agenda then the party had best say so. The mainline party support has not been to that agenda and the number of incumbents who have been Upon the Hill for decades and now seek to 'remain in power' and use the power of Congress to do that is no better and, indeed, far worse than the pandering of the Democratic party as the Republicans espoused a higher set of ideals to remove that capability from government.

It is very strange to have a 'reform candidate' a third time around who has not only not accomplished the simlpest of reforms by addressing them to the body he is elected to but who, instead, turns on the People to restrict them first. The simplest thing to do is not to seek a law but to reform the ethics rules of the house in question, being the Senate, which requires a grand total of a majority vote to do so. If a Senator cannot lobby those in his own party and those that have been bitten by corruption scandals to reform their own ways, then what are the chances a more wide-ranging bill turned into law can be adhered to when administered by outsiders?

That is not asking for the majority of the American People to support you: that is asking for 50 other individuals, the majority of which are in your own Party, to do so.

The broader goals of the Party, if their elected officials who have had the majority in both Houses, cannot abide by the Party's views then are breaking with the Party. They should be forming their own Party instead of being hypocrites inside one they have firm, substantive and deep disagreements with on the subject of governing. When a political party does not meet the broader goals that it had to form to get those seats and those that are in the party see that, they will not put party before Nation if they do believe the goals of the party are the best for the Nation.

If the party is not made to accomplish those goals set to it by its members then something is seriously wrong with it as an organization: it is now seeking power for the basis of the few within it elected to high office and not the support of those who backed them. Saying the opposite gets you individuals like the Clintons and Obama in the long run - individuals out for their own agendas and twisting the party to their own needs via identity politics. Which, given the class warfare views of its current leading candidate, is just what is happening.

And doing that in both parties has turned off a percentage of the population that has starkly grown since 1968 because the parties have come to stand for their identity politicians and not for underlying ideologies of what is best for the Nation. That is at the point where democracy, itself, as a system to validate the views of the people are not only suspect, but are now reflecting the will of a rather delimited set of minoritarian views that no longer see the good of the Nation as primary to getting themselves elected to power. What is highly worrying is that this was described during the founding era by such as Federal Farmer Nos. 3 and 17, Luther Martin's Address No. 4, and even in the outcomes by Maryland Farmer Essay VII. Their views on what happens when civil society, republics and democracies break down across all of the founding generation are stark.

It is too bad we are repeating those mistakes. By putting party ahead of power and division ahead of the common good.