It’s now clear to even the most casual Republican voter that the enemies of President Donald Trump aren’t just the Democrats, the militant left and the fake news media. It’s also a number of moderate establishment Republican creatures of the DC Swamp.
The GOP in the Senate has a slim majority, 52-48. However, while it’s a Republican majority it’s not a conservative majority. And any three rogue Republicans can wander off the reservation, vote with the D’s, and kill anything the GOP wants to advance.
So under the circumstances, it’s quite possible Republicans in the Senate will, indeed, fail to honor their promises to repeal Obamacare before the 2018 elections.
But the dynamic could dramatically change AFTER the 2018 elections.
You see, there are 23 Democrat senators — plus two “independents” who vote lockstep with the Democrats — who are up for re-election in 2018, and 8 Republicans. Only the GOP could possibly be incompetent enough not to significantly increase their majority under an electoral map like that.
But don’t sell ‘em short. It wouldn’t be the first time. Remember how the GOP lost seven seats, including five incumbents, in 2008?
But the solution to the problem that has resulted in the GOP’s failure thus far to repeal Obamacare isn’t to just elect more Republicans in 2018, but better ones as well.
As longtime conservative icon Richard Viguerie wrote in his excellent “how to” manifesto, “Takeover,” in 2014, “Merely having an *R* next to your name on the ballot does not mean you will hold fast to limited-government constitutional conservative principles.”
Sad but true.
Which is why it’s not enough for conservatives to simply challenge Democrats in general elections, but Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) in primaries — both as a matter of principle and party discipline — as well.
When you allow Republican politicians to get away with flipping off the party’s conservative base, they’ll just keep doing it. Such Republicans are a cancer on the party. Their betrayals eat away at voter support, ruin the brand for every other GOP candidate up and down the ballot, and demoralize both the party’s volunteers and its donors.
“It is hard for many conservatives to understand that establishment Republicans are the enemy,” Viguerie continues, noting that those establishmentarians “are not people who can simply be talked out of their commitment to Big Government; they must be defeated, because they are blocking the path to saving America.”
Indeed, in the LONG scheme of things, they are NOT better than the Democrat alternative. Such serious actions of sabotage MUST have consequences. If you let a kid continue to throw temper tantrums, he — and others watching him get away with it — will continue to throw temper tantrums.
The other reason why Republican primaries are so important is that it’s not enough to simply have more conservatives with a seat at the table. If you really want to move the limited-government ball forward, unapologetic, principled conservatives who aren’t afraid to rock the boat need to be at the HEAD of the table.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com.