Whose Platform? Backroom Deals, Appeasing Donors, Ignoring Constituencies
For the first time since the Civil War the American people have witnessed the calamitous consequence of full and unrestricted Democratic control of the government. It has been a record of unparalleled incapacity, dishonor, and disaster. In administrative management it has ruthlessly sacrificed indispensable revenue, entailed an unceasing deficit, eked out ordinary current expenses with borrowed money, piled up public debt by $262,000,000, in time of peace, forced adverse balance of trade, kept a perpetual menace hanging over redemption fund, pawned American credit to alien syndicates and reversed all the measures and results of successful Republican rule. In the broad effect of its policy it has precipitated panic, blighted industry and trade with prolonged depression, closed factories, reduced work and wages, halted enterprise and crippled American production, while stimulating foreign production for the American market. Every consideration of public safety and individual interest demands that the government shall be wrested from the hands of those who have shown themselves incapable of conducting it without disaster at home and dishonor abroad and shall be restored to the party which for thirty years administered it with unequaled success and prosperity.
– The Republican Platform of 1896, St. Louis, Missouri; June 16, 1896
It’s been nearly 118 years since these words were first spoken. It could have been yesterday. The Obama administration is an unmitigated disaster. From Fast & Furious and Benghazi to Solyndra and the IRS targeting of Conservatives, they’ve left both dead bodies and wasted tax dollars in their wake.
I can’t recall a single campaign promise kept. Close Gitmo? Nope. End the wars? Maybe after Libya. Equal pay? Sure, just not in the White House. How’s that whole “keep your doctor” thing working out?
Since 2008, it’s been scandal after disaster after embarrassment. Obama managed to surround himself with the most controversial and ill-qualified individuals in the history of the Presidency; John Holdren, Van Jones, Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, David Axelrod, Eric Holder, Susan Rice. The list goes on and on and on.
If you’ve forgotten any of those people, it’s not surprising. “Reporters” have done anything but report. I can’t decide if they just enjoy kissing White House ass or if they have Stockholm syndrome. They don’t seem to mind having their phones tapped. They don’t seem to mind having a colleague accused of espionage in an effort to track down unnamed sources. The White House Press Corps has turned into the “King Obama Fan Club.”
Not that it matters. The administration has mastered avoidance of hard questions. Unfortunately, those questions only seem to come during Congressional hearings and they’re usually met with accusations of racism or a complete denial of knowledge. Which is worse, Eric Holder’s race card or Lois Lerner’s bungling of the Fifth?
Recent events in Nevada have led me to one conclusion. The speech of 1896 will not be repeated by the current crop of potential 2016 candidates. Career politicians on either side of the aisle don’t have the testicular fortitude to say what they mean and mean what they say. It’s easier to make backroom deals and appease donors than to consider the wishes of the constituency, all while adhering to the Constitution.
No, 2016 requires the backbone of men like Cliven Bundy. Men willing to stand up to a bully government, even if it means losing it all. Men and women willing to travel across the country, to a plot of land in the middle of Nevada, to arm themselves against the tyranny of government intrusion.
Read it again. Let it sink in.
Every consideration of public safety and individual interest demands that the government shall be wrested from the hands of those who have shown themselves incapable of conducting it without disaster at home and dishonor abroad and shall be restored to the party which for thirty years administered it with unequaled success and prosperity.
Now ask yourself, which party is that? The one we settled for or the one we now demand?
Links:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29629
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obama_administration_controversies
Image: Courtesy of: Backroom Deals, Appeasing Donors, Ignoring Constituencies
