Bid 2016: How to Beat Progressives

This morning, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz announced his bid for the 2016 Presidential Election.  He will have significant competition, but not just from Democrats.  Republicans Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker, among others, are also serious contenders who have not yet officially announced their candidacy.  But the greatest threat to liberty, in my opinion, comes from the potential competition between liberty-minded contenders.

Picture this doomsday scenario: About 50% of Republicans fall for the “safe”, “traditional”, “centrist” Republican candidate Jeb Bush, while the other 50% of liberty-minded Republicans split their vote between Cruz, Paul, and Walker.  What does this mean?  Jeb Bush gets the nomination.  Hillary Clinton will almost certainly secure the Democratic nomination (she could probably kill a puppy on live TV and still get the nomination).  Does anyone in their right mind think that Jeb Bush, the mushy Republican who might as well be a Democrat, will beat Hillary?  Even if she didn’t have a giant political machine backing her, she could easily secure the Independent vote by looking like a “centrist” after Obama’s eight years of far-left radicalism in the White House.

How is such a scenario prevented?  We true conservatives–libertarians, liberty-minded individuals, Constitutionalists–whatever you want to call us, must unite behind a single candidate.  We must not squabble amongst ourselves about secondary social issues like gay marriage, or even abortion.  I am not endorsing either (that discussion is for a different blog post).  I am simply saying that our nation’s liberty is at stake.  The very fabric of our society, our Constitution, has been shredded by the White House for most of my adult life.  If we do not recover and begin to undo some of the damage, the damage may be irreparable.  People my age and younger will never have known a time when true liberty existed, and Progressive demonization of wealth, racial tension, and foolish foreign policy will become accepted as ‘normal.’  So let’s argue about gay marriage later.  There will be plenty of time to focus on those kinds of issues when we have some sanity restored to Washington, DC.

But we can’t unite behind a liberty-minded candidate unless those candidates unite, themselves.  It doesn’t matter how much we want to vote for a single candidate, it will be impossible to pick one if all but one liberty-minded candidate does not withdraw from the Primaries.  Let’s say Ted Cruz is the man.  He can promise Scott Walker a position on his cabinet and Rand Paul the vice presidency if they withdraw from the race.  Or some might favor Scott Walker as President–then Cruz is promised the vice presidency and Paul a position on the cabinet.  Or however they want to do it.  Honestly, I don’t care.  If they really want to save America from itself, they won’t care, either.  They will give America a clear choice–mushy Jeb Bush or Liberty.  And America will pick Liberty.  Then America will pick Liberty over Corruption (Clinton), and we can start to recover from what will have been an eight-year trek into darkness.  No, I don’t mean the movie (though sometimes Progressives make me want to scream KHAAAAAAN!!!!).

Even if we do win the 2016 Presidential Election, we won’t have beaten the Progressives.  You don’t spend 100 years espousing class warfare ideology and infiltrate all of the major universities in the country and then magically lose all of that psychological infrastructure because of one presidential election.  No, it’s going to take a lot more.  It will take generations upon generations of liberty-minded individuals teaching their children what freedom is.  It will take a shift in public opinion about freedom being not a guarantee of results, but an opportunity to exercise one’s full potential.  It will, in my opinion, require at least a majority of us to return to God, and to ask Him for His assistance.  The class warfare narrative is a powerful one, justifying theft from the demonized rich while keeping the poor disadvantaged and dependent.  It blames the damage it does to the poor on the rich, leaving them with resentment and anger instead of a desire to become rich, themselves.  It takes away the incentive to achieve, and leaves people feeling hopeless and alone.  So more than any ideological thought that we must teach our children, we must espouse the importance of charity and love for our fellow brethren, even when they don’t love us back.  Only when the poor see us reaching out to them with open arms and loving, helping hands, will they see the difference between true love and abuse.

Hate cannot be combated with more hate.  If we want to combat Progressive ideology, we must do it with love.  And we must be in it for the long haul.  It might take 100 years for class warfare as national policy to die out.  And the seed will always be there, ready to threaten liberty again.  But we must take it one step at a time, and we must start today, right now, by shifting our attitude and getting more involved in our communities.  We must begin with love.  That way, if we lose the 2016 Presidency, we will have already begun building the foundation to beat the Progressives eventually.  Even if it falls upon our great-grandchildren to do so.  In short, neither the candidates nor we can afford to allow in-fighting to break us down.  We must unite as brethren, and provide liberty to all.