You could see this day coming.  The communists and socialist
movements had been laboring hard to take over the Democratic Party,
educational institutions (from K-graduate school), popular culture and
the media.  Their work is paying off now.  They have elected a
socialist in the guise of a Democrat.  Their hand is on the pilot wheel
of state, and it is hard over Left.

While the Left won, the Republicans decided to resist their
efforts by supporting the measures favored by Democrats rather than
returning to their principles.  So the Republicans have become the
Party of Big Government, but less Big than the socialists want.

What are those Americans who love liberty and its political
principles to do?    The answer is singular in intent but multifaceted
in scope:  Struggle against socialism by learning from the Left and
acting against it–while there is still time.  IfObama’s policies are
not reversed, the country will become socialist.  Americans must
connect again with their political principles.  This means being
educated about them.

The Left cut out many of America’s principles from the educational

system in their effort to place American on the path to socialism.

Individual rights and liberties conflict with the Left’s desire to crush the

individual in favor of group identity.

All Americans can work to require American political principles are taught
again in schools and universities.  Americans can create and support
popular culture that supports America.  When Oprah or other Leftists
appear on television (which is almost always) turn the channel or turn
off the TV.

Recognize that popular culture is a tool of the Left,
and so no longer support it.  If Americans are strong enough to do
this, popular culture will have to change or go extinct.  Leftist
newspapers provide the model.  They refused to change their bias, and
once Americans had a choice through New Media, they baled from the
turgid Leftist rags, leaving the newspapers to fail.  That offers hope, but keep it in perspective, the Left dominates elite media, both Old and New.

Much needs to be done.  We will return to this topic.

So how will history judge President Bush.  The Left will write the history, so the answer is “not well.”  Iraq will be figured prominently, as indeed it should.  But the positive and negative aspects of Iraq deserve attention, although the former will not receive their due.  The calculus will be Bush=Iraq, unless Iraq is a stable, good ally.

Conservatives should be upset with the Bush presidency.  For most of it, Republicans held the Hill.  Yet, no progress was made stemming the tide of illegal immigration, eliminating affirmative action, or any of the other measures that would please the Republican base.  Just the reverse, Republicans in power govern like moderate Democrats on domestic and social issues.

After 9/11, Bush had a chance to make progress in domestic policy.   For example, to illustrate the absurdity and perniciousness of multiculturalism and to restore sanity on immigration policy.  His great failing as a president was that he did not act when he had the opportunity.

The time is now to change the Republican leadership and restore conservative principles to the Party.

What was the Bush presidency?  A very good one in foreign and defense policy.  Leaving the ABM Treaty was a positive step.  One that allows America to be partially protected from ballistic missiles.  That work continues in Europe, with the construction of the European site for missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland.  The list continues:  Forging the 9/11 coalition of states; de-escalating the tension between India and Pakistan; expanding NATO; forcing Libya to surrender its WMD and rolling up the A.Q. Khan network; calling attention to North Korea’s uranium enrichment facilities (started under Clinton); and readily assisting after natural disasters.

On domestic policy:  He was a failure–marked by lost opportunities to make progress.

What was the Bush presidency?  A Bush presidency.  You knew how he would govern in 2000.

Let us hope that he is not the last Republican president.

There is merit to that argument.

Unfortunately, this means that the Republican Party abandons conservative political principles.  The Left has won.

Alternatively, the leadership of the Republican Party could return to its conservative principles.

This will be difficult.  The cost will be high.

The Left does not want this–they want the monopoly on political principles–and they own the public sphere.  So to pursue this path requires enduring the wrath of the Democrats, Old Media, pundits, Hollywood, the education system, etc.

But that is precisely an argument for doing it.   Only by so doing can the Party hope to reclaim a place for conservatism in the public sphere.  If the Republican Party will not do this, the conservative movement is eclipsed, perhaps permanently.  Those known as conservatives will be Democrats Lite, a la John McCain.

Q: Are we witnessing the end of the Republican Party’s 40-year cycle of power, as Chalmers Johnson says in The Nation?

A: I’ve written that. I think what is killing the Republican Party is the alteration of the electorate. You have to remember when we put this Nixon coalition together, probably 92 percent of the electorate was white. African-Americans were probably 7 percent, if that, because they didn’t vote in the South, and the rest was 1 percent. Now the white population is down to 66 percent and in voting terms it’s probably not much more than say 75 percent.

Republican (strategy) is (based on winning) the white vote. Nixon and Reagan won it by 67 and 64 percent and that simply was enough to win the election. But now you’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to start getting some of these other minorities to put together a coalition and eventually, by the time as we move closer to the center of the century, if you got every white vote in the country, you couldn’t win on that alone. (laughs) And we can’t get them all! (laughs) Let me tell you this to make a flat statement: Foolishly, the Republican Party is condoning the importation of a brand new electorate which will doom the Republican Party.

Q: And that is?

A: This new electorate? Ninety percent of the immigrants coming in are from Third World countries and every single minority population which comes from the Third World votes Democratic — anywhere from 60 percent to 95 percent. These folks are predominately poor — and they believe in government. And the reason they believe in government is the best of reasons for them; they get more out of it than they pay in. The bottom 30 percent in income in the United States doesn’t pay any income taxes at all, I don’t think. When Barack Obama says we’re going to hit the top 5 percent (of income earners), the top 5 percent pay 60 percent of all income taxes.

Buchanan is right that immigration has had a profound impact on both parties. The Nixon and Reagan coalitions are in decline. That is bad news for the Republican Party. The opposite is true for the Democrats. Immigration, legal and illegal, has been their not-so-secret weapon. Immigration, especially from poor countries helps the Democrats in the way Buchanan identifies, but also ensures a permanent welfare state. So, the Democratic coalition is growing in strength.

The Republicans are in decline because their core constituency is.

John McCain has many strengths, but he is a Democrat in all but name on the immigration issue. The Republican Party needs to look elsewhere for a leader to reverse their decline. More on this important topic later.

Comment from PatrickHenry
Time September 8, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Good observations. The following article might be of interest to readers:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1430/

Not only does it confirm the fact that Republicans have been designated the blue party on several occasions, but it highlights the history of the color coded system and the formula the media uses to assign colors in an election (developed because both parties wanted the blue designation – further proof that red is associated with socialism). Conveniently, the formula has been abandoned this year, see below:

“This year it looks like the networks and other news outlets have abandoned the old color-switching formula, since the system would assign blue to incumbent Republicans and red to the Democrats. (See, for instance, the online electoral maps from ABC, CNN, the New York Times, which all use the blue-for-Dem, red-for-GOP coding.)”

With the 2008 election, it is the Republicans turn to be blue but the Democrats obviously do not want to give up the color and become red again. I encourage all readers to go to the link provided by PatrickHenry to learn the background of color associations for the Democrats and Republicans.

Three points:
1) We should ponder why the Democrats so afraid of the color red.
2) Americans should consider why the media are not making the change in color affiliation for This is more evidence that the Old Media are branches of the Democratic Party.
3) It is time for Republicans to stop referring to themselves as red or as living in red States, and to correct friends and colleagues if they do so. We need to correct the media as well. Time to reclaim the blue. We need to start now.

Consider these examples of electoral maps from 1980,

1984,

1988,

and 1992.

But something curious happened in 1996, the colors representing America’s two major political parties changed. Republicans became red and Democrats blue.

Political parties have images to represent themselves, the donkey for the Democrats and the elephant for the Republicans. Colors too are associated with political parties. Red is the color of the political Left. For example, the Labour Party in Great Britain is represented by a red rose. The Right is captured by blue, as in the Christian Social Union in Germany or the Conservatives in Great Britain.

Why did the Democrats suddenly start identifying themselves as blue? Look at the electoral maps from 1996,

2000,

and 2004.

This seemed to have just happened. Do you remember any explanation provided? I don’t.

A similar change happened at about the same time to an important American icon. The Capitol Christmas Tree became suddenly about the same time the Capitol Holiday Tree until Speaker Hastert made the change back to the Capitol Christmas Tree in 2005.

Could it be the Democrats are sensitive to the color red, with its long association with socialism? Many Democrats in the Clinton White House were socialists. They were veterans of the 1960s where they would proudly associate with socialist red. But having come of age, they would be sensitive to any association with socialism.

So, once in power, the Clintons and their allies would decree: no red for Democrats.

They fear would be images of Bill Clinton, or Hillary, or Barack, or Howard Dean against a red background. An association with the color red might get people thinking and questioning the origins and direction of the Democrats’ policies.

Of course, not that the Democrats fundamental policies changed: the march to socialism would be gradual, not the direct assault on the state they envisioned in their youth in the 1960s and 1970s. Old socialist wine in new Democratic bottles.

A related question is easier to answer, why did media suddenly make the change? Most of the Old Media are in the Democrat’s pocket, and so if requested, they would make such a change, without fanfare or explanation.

The Democrats and their media allies made Republicans red. And, as is so often the case, the Republicans did not notice and went along with it.

It is time for Republicans to fight back. Let’s publicize these electoral maps. Let’s reclaim the blue. Let’s make Democrats red again.