{"id":6344,"date":"2022-05-24T00:11:27","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T04:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/?p=6344"},"modified":"2022-05-24T00:11:29","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T04:11:29","slug":"the-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldfury.com\/wp\/the-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Change is not on the menu here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Long before Trump, Republican politicians and their apologists in the establishment conservative media labored indefatigably to convince their constituents that, come what may, the GOP would \u201csave the country\u201d from the ravages of the excessive Left. The \u201cReagan Revolution,\u201d the \u201cContract with America,\u201d the \u201cMoral Majority,\u201d \u201cCompassionate Conservatism,\u201d the \u201cTea Party,\u201d and, now, MAGA\u2014these are the media concoctions, the theatrical props, the bright and shiny things that traditional Republican voters have been manipulated into believing for decades. It\u2019s ultimately the same concept repackaged for a new generation under a different label.<\/p>\n

The idea that there is a rock-ribbed, true-blue conservative or patriotic contingent, separate from and opposed to \u201cthe establishment,\u201d promising to pull America back from the precipice of destruction on which she stands has been the GOP\u2019s bread and butter for decades. Every election is \u201cthe most important election of our lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican voters should pause and ask themselves a question that never seem to get thoroughly explored: To paraphrase Reagan\u2019s query from 1980:<\/p>\n

Is the Left more or less powerful in 2022 than they\u2019ve been in the past?<\/em><\/p>\n

The Left-Right paradigm within which American politics plays out is itself a function of the collective delusion from which Republican and Democratic voters alike suffer. Still, for present purposes, we\u2019ll speak the conventional language and say that it\u2019s difficult to conceive of a single front on which \u201cthe Left\u201d hasn\u2019t made considerable advances.<\/p>\n

In some cases, particularly over the last couple of years, during the COVID era, the Left made shockingly, historically unprecedented advances.<\/p>\n

So, why exactly is it that those who have always voted Republican should continue doing so?<\/p>\n

How, exactly, does voting Republican amount to \u201cfighting the Left?\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump tried his best, but had too many powerful forces with which to contend and that ultimately thwarted his plans.<\/p>\n

Republicans gain the House, but\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0tell their supporters that they can\u2019t do the things that they say they were going to do because they don\u2019t have the Senate and the presidency. They gain the Senate, but\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0tell their supporters that they can\u2019t do what they promised, because they don\u2019t yet have the presidency. They gain the presidency, but\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0tell their supporters that they can\u2019t really do what they promised because of the recalcitrance of traitorous Republicans, the cynicism and opportunism of Democrats, the partisanship of the media, and\/or the subversionary machinations of a massive bureaucracy (the \u201cdeep state\u201d).<\/p>\n

Republicans\u2014whether Trump or anyone else\u2014will\u00a0never<\/em>,\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0never, \u201cdefeat the Left\u201d and \u201csave the country\u201d as they promise. And all GOP politicians must, at some level, know this. At the very least, they must know that they can never affect the kinds of\u00a0substantive, enduring changes<\/em>\u00a0that voters expect from them as long as all of the obstacles to which they invariably appeal in accounting for their failures persist!<\/p>\n

In other words, if \u201cRINOs,\u201d Democrats, a hostile media, and deep state apparatchiks have always prevented Republicans in the past from enacting the platform and the agenda on which they campaign, why should voters expect that Republicans will be able to surmount those obstacles\u00a0now<\/em>?!<\/p>\n

What do Republicans, elected\u00a0today<\/em>, plan on doing to ensure that all of the hostile forces that have undermined them since forever will finally be neutralized?<\/p>\n

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result, then voting Republican is insane.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes our biggest, most insuperable dilemmas are expressed quite handily in bumper-sticker slogans: <\/p>\n