Happy 84/76 Day!
Today is the day we get to choose between a future path to Orwell’s 1984 world or the 1776 world of the Founding Fathers.
Will we choose wisely? I hope so, but many think a vote for Harris and Tampon Timmy is a vote for something they have been told is called “democracy.”
H.L. Mencken said:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
This nation is not a pure democracy, America is a representative, constitutional Republic and it is so for a reason.
The contemporary idea that liberty and democracy exist in equal measures, as democracy increases, so does liberty and vice versa, simply does not hold water because democracy is mob rule, rule by popular opinion, something even our Constitution couldn’t prevent. By and large, the powers we have allowed our post millennium, twenty-first century “democratic” government are those the Americans colonists of 1776 escaped through revolt.
In his 2019 book, Liberty in Peril, Randall Holcombe, American economist, and the DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University, challenged that perception, writing:
“The principle of liberty suggests that first and foremost, the government’s role is to protect the rights of individuals. The principle of democracy suggests that collective decisions are made according to the will of the majority…The greater the allowable scope of democracy in government, the greater the threat to liberty…In particular, the ascendency of the concept of democracy threatens the survival of the free market economy, which is an extension of the Founders’ views on liberty.”
Holcombe argues this is reflected in the changing nature of elections.
“At one time, elections might have been viewed as a method of selecting competent people to undertake a job with constitutionally specified limits. With the extension of democracy, elections became referendums on public policy.”
We know that men are created equal, but all policies are not. Some policies reduce the influence of government in our lives, others increase it. The candidate seeking to reduce government influence fits the definition of the competent person fighting to “protect the rights of individuals” and understands “the biggest threat to individual liberty” is the government.
This is America’s perpetual challenge. In Federalist 51, James Madison explained the problem succinctly:
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The concept of America that Kamala Harris has been told she has is the same as the view of the old Soviet Union – the government should control everything, that not only will the populace be taught 2+2=5, but they will also be forced to believe that it is.
Remember that the USSR had “democratic” elections (spoiler alert, the choices of the Communist Party always won by 95% or better) and a constitution (which never stopped the government from doing what it wanted). She claims to know how to marry the contradictory goals of equity and unity, which can only be joined by force, for to pursue equity means government will choose winners and losers, and you can bet your sweet bippy that the feelings of entitlement of the winners will grow and the losers aren’t going to be happy about that.
It is my hope on this 84/76 day that Spirit of 1776 wins.
If you haven’t already, get out and vote.
Yesterday’s announcement of the abrupt closure and dissolution of FreedomWorks by its board of directors is the closest thing we will get to a formal date of death for the Tea Party movement, which in truth has been dead since Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015. Trump did for the Republican establishment what it couldn’t do on its own in killing the Tea Party and its demands for small, constitutional government.
That impetus may return someday, as it has in the past — nobody during the first seven years of George W. Bush’s presidency was seriously predicting a mass movement against “compassionate conservatism,” Wall Street and corporate bailouts, socialized medicine, and the growth of the security state, any more than anybody in 1955 (outside National Review) seriously predicted the rise of Goldwater conservatism — but this particular iteration of the movement is dead as a doornail. Its institutions, of which FreedomWorks was one of the most prominent, are either collapsed or (in the case of the House Freedom Caucus) entirely repurposed toward MAGA populism. A few legislators (Chip Roy comes to mind) still define themselves in identifiably Tea Party terms, but many of those who rose within the movement have gravitated since then more toward either the MAGA side of the movement (think of Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Ron DeSantis) or the more traditional party (think of Nikki Haley).Luke Mullins of Politico talked to people involved with FreedomWorks, including the group’s president, Adam Brandon, who were blunt that “the decision to shut down was driven by the ideological upheaval of the Trump era”:
After Trump took control of the conservative movement, Brandon said, a “huge gap” opened up between the libertarian principles of FreedomWorks leadership and the MAGA-style populism of its members. FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt…“Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon said in an internal document reviewed by POLITICO Magazine. It also impacted fundraising. “Now I think donors are saying, ‘What are you doing for Trump today?’” said Paul Beckner, a member of FreedomWorks’ board. “And we’re not for or against Trump. We’re for Trump if he’s doing what we agree with, and we’re against him if he’s not. And so I think we’ve seen an erosion of conservative donors.” Brandon, for his part, said some donors would contact him to complain that the organization was doing too much to help Trump, while others called to complain that they weren’t doing enough to help Trump. “It is an impossible position,” he said.
As I argued two years ago in reviewing the wreckage wrought by the 2012 election, the movement missed its moment when it failed to coalesce behind a viable alternative to Mitt Romney:
Trust in the party’s hierarchy collapsed after the fiascos of 2006–08. Presaged by 2008’s popular boomlet for Sarah Palin, the Tea Party delivered populist energy, primary wins, and new stars (such as Rubio and Rand Paul in 2010 and Ted Cruz in 2012). The moment demanded a presidential campaign that was more populist, more combative, and meant to do what it said.
No serious Tea Party candidate emerged, leaving instead the 1994-retread campaigns of Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Newt surged rapidly in the polls after attacking a debate moderator and won South Carolina in a blowout, becoming the only winner of South Carolina not to claim the Republican nomination in the modern primary era. Santorum won eleven states on a mixture of social conservatism and economic populism. These were harbingers. The pent-up demand that might have followed a principled Tea Party conservative in 2012 had moved on to something less restrained than Cruz or Rubio by 2016.
R.I.P., Tea Party.
The last Republican presidential nominee who campaigned on smaller government was … Ronald Reagan. Not George H.W. “Kinder, Gentler” Bush. Nor really Bob Dole. (He was able to recite the 10th Amendment, but that and a tax cut are all I remember of his campaign, and he had no shot of winning anyway.) Not George W. “Compassionate Conservatism” Bush. Not John McCain. (If you’re sponsoring legislation with Russ Feingold, your conservative credentials should be immediately suspect.) Not Mitt Romney. And certainly not Donald Trump.
I’m not sure I agree with these two comments; you might:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
How much of the latter list really counts as smaller government beyond stopping government overreach?