Neal Boortz is right: “social conservatives” will cost the GOP more elections

republican logo

In a recent talk radio show, while filling in for Sean Hannity, conservative-libertarian Neal Boortz (the co-author of the FairTax) warned that Republicans will not recapture the Senate this year, because, says Boortz, they have an insatiable “urge to get into social conservatism”.

Boortz believes Republicans will once again prioritize social issues above all others, advocate radical no-compromise policies on those issues, and once again make stupid statements on these issues. He points to Georgia GOP Senate candidate Paul Broun as an example. (Broun’s most famous statement, other than his defense of Todd Akin, is his claim that evolution, embryonics, and Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”)

Shortly after Boortz made that statement, an avalanche of insults, attacks, and false claims was launched against Boortz from every “conservative” corner of the Net. His critics, and they are legion, claim Boortz is an “establishment liberal Republican” and a “blowhard” just trying to attract attention. They furthermore deny that social issues and radical socially conservative politicians like Akin and Broun have hurt the GOP in the past.

But no amount of denial and false claims can change the fact that Boortz is absolutely right: radical policies on social issues, and politicians espousing such policies, have cost the GOP heavily in the past, and will cost it even more elections in the future.

Why? After all, didn’t social issues mobilize millions of voters in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s to the GOP’s standard? Weren’t American voters overwhelmingly socially conservative in those times?

Yes – but those were totally different times, decades ago. To advocate returning to policies of long bygone eras enacted (or advocated) in a totally different society is to lead the Party to disastrous defeats.

Today, Americans are a completely different society than they were 20-30 years ago. The GOP’s problem is that it hasn’t changed with them.

17  ago, a vast majority of Americans opposed gay marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act was passed with over 80 votes in the Senate and signed by President Clinton. Today, though, according to reliable pollsters like Gallup, a large majority of Americans approves of legalizing gay marriage and of DADT repeal. Banning gay marriage and gays from the military is a decidedly losing proposition supported only by a small minority.  Over time,  this small minority will shrink even further as older, more socially conservative voters die and are replaced by younger, socially libertarian voters.

As for contraception, support for its legality is – and has long been – so broad that most pollsters don’t even bother to ask the question.

On abortion, Americans are roughly equally divided, with the pendulum slightly swinging one way or the other from time to time. However, only a small majority supports banning abortion in all or most cases (per Gallup). So radical social conservatives’ position is again that of a tiny minority and a sure election loser.

The fact is that social issues are electoral losers for Republicans. The American people don’t want politicians to legislate morality anymore than they want them to legislate prosperity (neither of which can be really legislated, BTW – but that hasn’t stopped politicians from trying 🙂 ).

The truth, therefore, is that – as Boortz says – Republicans will continue to lose elections by landslides if they continue to take radical positions on social issues. Or nominate radically socially conservative candidates like Paul Broun.

This truth has proven itself over and over again, even in “red states” like Missouri and Indiana where Republicans should win easily. All it took for GOP Senate candidates to lose there by landslides was a radical position on abortion and one stupid remark about rape. Not only did Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lose their races, they cost other Republicans (like Scott Brown) their races as well.

This is because the voters Republicans need to win over – siphon from the Democrats, to be precise – are suburbanites, most of whom are fiscally conservative but socially liberal (especially suburban women, and American women in general, who currently support Democrats by a large margin). Saying that abortion should be banned in all cases, that a raped woman should be forced by law to bear the child of her rapist, and that two loving people shouldn’t be allowed to marry based on sexual orientation, is an electoral loser with suburbanites, women, minorities, and youngsters.

Boortz’s critics claim this is just a call to make the GOP more liberal, more leftist, and more in line with the GOP Establishment.

On the contrary, if fiscal and defense, rather than social, issues were the conservative “litmus test”, the vast majority of the GOP’s Establishment and its past candidates (including Daddy Bush, Bob Dole, Dubya Bush, and Juan McCain) would’ve had no business being in the GOP, let alone being GOP presidential nominees. Nor would John Boehner have been Speaker.

It is social conservatives who have enabled these RINOs to hijack the party and the country. All these RINOs had to do to win social conservatives’ votes was to promise to work towards banning abortion and gay marriage, and social conservatives supported them, regardless of their lack of fiscal conservative credentials (to say it mildly). So-cons didn’t care that Daddy Bush denounced Reaganomics as “voodoo economics”, or that Dubya was a failed businessman. All they cared about were these RINOs’ useless promises on social issues. As long as the Bushes, McCain, Dole, and Boehner pledged to fight against abortion and gay marriage, social conservatives were willing to overlook everything else.

On social issues, the Bushes, McCain, and Boehner have solid records.

But if fiscal and defense, rather than social, issues were the conservative “litmus test”, those RINOs would’ve had no business being in the GOP. Ditto Eric Cantor, Rick Santorum, and Tax Hike Mike Huckabee.

Social conservatives protest that “social and fiscal issues are inextricably linked.” No, they are not.

In fact, trying to impose one’s preferred policies on social issues on the rest of the society is every bit as much a Big Government statist policy as trying to impose a health insurance mandate, a new tax, a soda ban, or a lightbulb ban. So-called “social conservatives” are every bit as much Big Government Statists as Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, and Nancy Pelosi. They only difference is what exactly their pet issues are. For “social conservatives”, it’s abortion, gay marriage, and contraceptives. For Bloomberg, de Blasio, and Pelosi, it’s lightbulbs, SUVs, soda, and fast food.

But these people are all the same: all of them want to take away YOUR right to do what you want with YOUR money, YOUR vehicle, YOUR stomach, YOUR body, and YOUR home.

As any real conservative will tell you, the ONLY legitimate purpose of any government is to protect our rights and our liberty against those who would take them away, whether that’s you, my neighbor, a religious group in my town, or the majority of the society at large. The only legitimate purpose of any government is to protect our rights and freedoms – and to let us live as we wish to, as long as we don’t threaten anyone else’s rights and freedoms.

Whenever a government goes beyond that purpose, it becomes Big Government – and a danger to people’s rights and freedoms, regardless of whether it tries to legislate morality or prosperity. (And Americans don’t want it to legislate either.)

Therein lies the problem with the two major parties: both want to take your freedoms away. The Democrats want to legislate the economy, while Republicans want to legislate morality. The Democrats want to dramatically limit what you can do with your money, while Republicans want to dramatically limit what you can do with your body. For the last four decades, both parties have tried to do that and look just how dramatically the size and scope of the federal government has expanded.

It is NONE of any government’s business to legislate whether you or I can use contraceptives, whom I can marry, and whether or not a raped woman can seek an abortion. It is NONE of any local, state, or government’s business – and NONE of YOUR damned business, social conservatives.

And just think about it: if abortion, gay marriage, and/or contraceptives were banned, that would require yet another government agency (or agencies), costing billions of dollars annually and employing tens of thousands of bureaucrats and agents, to enforce such bans. You think the IRS is bad and oppressive? Or that the NSA is? Just imagine what a National Abortion Police or a National Counter-Contraceptives Agency would do if social conservatives got their wish.

As for funding for abortion, the fiscally conservative answer is simple: end it.

Finally, social conservatives claim there is a “moral decay in America”, and that fiscal issues cannot be solved without tackling these problems.

To some extent this is true when you look at divorce, single motherhood, alcoholism, and drug usage rates. But instead of targeting these very real and very serious problems and formulating positive solutions to them, “social conservatives” have, in the last 4 decades, railed exclusively against abortion, gay marriage, contraceptives, and DADT, and still continue to obsess about them, even though they are all lost issues.

So few Americans support banning gay marriage and contraceptives, or reinstating DADT, that these issues are, politically, irrevocably lost. As for abortion, it is legally lost because no Supreme Court, especially not one led by John G. Roberts, will overturn Roe v. Wade. If “social conservatives”  couldn’t get Roe overturned in the last 4 decades, they never will.

In fact, abortion, gay marriage, contraceptives, and repealing DADT have not done any damage to America’s prosperity or well-being. Contraceptives have, in fact, helped stem the plague of STDs and unwanted pregnancies (they are highly effective at fighting both). Repealing DADT has saved taxpayers millions of dollars lost on discharging qualified, disciplined men who happened to be gay (and has not caused any turmoil in the military, contrary to grave predictions made in 2010).

Similarly, legalizing gay marriage has not done any harm to anyone. It has only increased people’s freedom by letting them marry whatever person they love. (A few decades ago, when bans on interracial marriage were being repealed, Southern “social conservatives” were saying exactly the same thing they clam today: that repealing the bans would threaten “the integrity of the institution of marriage.”)

If “social conservatives” were really concerned about America’s societal ills, like divorce and single motherhood, they’d be tackling them. But they don’t want to challenge the powerful divorce attorney lobby; instead, they prefer irrelevant issues like “gay marriage” and “contraceptives.”

Gay marriage is not a threat to anyone’s marriage, or to the integrity of the institution, in any way. Divorce – particularly no-fault divorce, now legal in all 50 states, is.

(BTW, know who was the first state Governor to sign legislation legalizing no-fault divorce in his state? Ronald Reagan.)

So Neal Boortz is absolutely right, and so.-called “social conservatives” (I prefer to call them social Big Government Nannies) are dead wrong. “Social issues” like abortion and gay marriage are sure election losers; they alienate suburbanites, youngsters, women, and minorities from the GOP; and advocating bans and legislating morality on these issues is every bit as much a Big Government Policy as banning sodas or SUVs is.

Support Conservative Daily News with a small donation via Paypal or credit card that will go towards supporting the news and commentary you've come to appreciate.

Related Articles

10 Comments

  1. “abortion, gay marriage, contraceptives, and repealing DADT have not done any damage to America’s prosperity or well-being.”

    Wrong, wrong, wrong! And I say this not from any moral perspective, but simply a utilitarian one. All those social issue you state are irrelevant have the same effect – they increase the demand for social services and welfare programs provided by the government.

    So what if Republicans go soft on social issues and get elected. What are they going to do – cut off all the welfare programs? Do you really think that is possible when everyone desires and supports this spending? Do you really think all those soccer moms and gays you convinced to vote for Republicans by avoiding campaigning on social issues will suddenly agree that the government shouldn’t fund the social welfare programs they support and rely on?

    The only way to reduce this spending which is destroying our government and economy is to reduce the DEMAND for it. That is, convince the public to change their collective mind on the social issues that drive the spending.

    That might be a pipe dream, but so is getting Republicans elected by stealth who then push through the fiscal restraint that nobody wants. That subterfuge has no possibility of success. But at least social conservatives campaign (and lose) on the merits.

  2. Show me ONE example of how the legality of contraception and gay marriage or the repeal of DADT have created any demand for new social spending. On the contrary, contraceptives have dramatically REDUCED the need for social spending by preventing unwanted pregnancies and STD infections, and DADT repeal has stopped the taxpayer bleeding by discharging highly qualified personnel who happen to be gay. YOU are the Big Govt Liberal here – YOU are the one wgo wants to dictate how ppl should run their lives.

  3. If the vast majority of Americans approved of gay marriage then places like California (one of the gayer states) would have brought it in via popular vote. But they tried and it failed. When the Iowa supreme court allowed it, all the judges were removed by the voters. The simple fact is that the majority of states disallow it because the majority of the population doesn’t want it. How did you get to write for CDN by the way? If I wanted to read gay marriage and abortion propaganda, we’d read the huffpost.

    1. Which is more relevant to the majority of folks?

      Having a good main street job so you can support your family and community, or stopping gay marriage?

      Successful politics isn’t just about picking issues to discuss, there’s all sorts of issues choose from, with and without majority support.

      Successful politics is about being able to focus one’s attention on the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES to the majority that wins elections…

      Which is most important to focus one’s energy on — having a good main street job to support the family and community or ?

      Political winners would choose the former, regardless of their beliefs in other issues, whatever that might be.

      It also shouldn’t go unsaid that the GOP LOSERship is also incredibly weak on focusing on main street job issues. They are basically mudfarmers who spend most of their time helping their political crony donors out of the burrOcrat muck so the crony can get ahead of everyone else in the race to suceeed. The LOSERship is as clueless about main street job issues as Social Conservatives. To them, everything must have a big gubermint fix that brings them more money and power…

      Which defines what’s wrong with the contemporary GOP — the LOSERship aren’t leaders, they are mudfarmers helping cronies, the Social Conservatives have a extreme fetish for abortion and gay issues with a desire to use big gubermint to force their fetishes on everyone else. Neither are focused directly upon the important main street issues, like jobs and prosperity. The only group that seems close to having a clue are the Tea Partiers. Which is why the LOSERship fights them as Tea Party solutions might reduce the LOSERships ability to mine crony donations to stay in power.

      Meanwhile, while the factions of the GOP are distracted by their own nonsense, the various Social Marketplaces (Education, HealthCare, Energy, Transportation, Housing, Food, etc) are being centralized under federal power by the Ocrats so they can exploit centralization with a ‘Trust in Gubermint’ (not ‘Trust in God’ or oneself) to buy votes with other people’s money.

  4. What the establishment GOP and Godless Democrats don’t want to acknowledge is America’s problems are due directly to social policy.
    Abortion is a curse that began the destruction of our nation and now gay marriage, the explosion of pornography along with Christian values being openly cursed is the final nail in our coffin.
    If the GOP want to be like the Godless democrats then you can bet they will continue their slide into oblivion, and I will gladly cheer that slide. On the other hand if they would pay attention to the outpouring of support to Chick Fill A and Phil Robertson when they take a moral stand on their values then they may have a chance.
    As for me, I will never support another GOP establishment hack and would rather stay home than cast a vote for someone (like Mittens)who morally and legislatively is identical to the democrats.

    1. Guve ne ONE example if how gay marriage, contraceptives, or DADT repeal have destroyed your, or anyone elses, marriage and family, or driven up demand for social spending. You cannot – bc your claims are utterly false. As for the welfare state, it was born in the 30s under FDR, who made 50% of all Americans dependent on a welfare check. Since then its been all downhill for America. This was decades before Griswold and Roe. lbj greatly expanded the welfare state, again well before Roe. The vast majority of those who use welfare are heterosexuals, not gays.

      As for the Establishment, if FISCAL, rather than social, issyes were the yardstick of conservatism, virtually all of its members, including the Bushes, Bob Dole, Juan McAmnesty, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, and Eric Cantor, would’ve had NO BUSINESS even being in the Party, let alone running it. It is YOU social cons who enabled these RINOs to hijack the GOP and implement Big Govt policies like Medicare Part D, NCLB, gargantuan farm/ethanol subsidies, and much more. Everytime I criticize Bush for these, I heard in response “but hes completely pro lufe and pro marriage, so that excuses him.” It is YOU social cons who enabled these RINOs to hijack the GOP, by putting your pet issues above everything else and believing these RINOs’ useless promises.

  5. Exhibit A, B, C, and D — the first four comments couldn’t have made the author’s and Bortz’s case much better.

    Listen to how Cruz and other young guns work — The issues of the day are O-Care, jobs and the economy and don’t stray from that. Redirect any attempts to distract from O-Care, jobs and the economy back to O-Care, jobs and the economy. It’s easy, “That’s not as important of an issue to everyday working families as dealing with O-Care, jobs and the economy”…

    ———

    Controlling other people’s lady parts with Big excessive Gubermint rules isn’t Christian. There’s no 11th commandment to that effect, nor does it sell politically.

    Putting Trust in God (not big government) to sort out the unsortable parts of human behavior (like abortion) is Christian. Or so the Commandments say.

    As for moral decay, seems like there’s a Commandment about not coveting other people’s wealth — you know like how the left’s excessive taxation and redistribution causes much of the moral decay our nation faces. But Nooo…. these sorts of common sense (Christian) values are treated like bad cherries than never get picked…

    Which brings up the fabled 12th Commandment, “Pick and choose what Commandments you want to bring up and ignore the rest…” It’s working great — for the devilish left…

    All the left needs to do is plant a mole in most any Social Conservative meeting and start babbling on in support of banning contraception and abortions, and like a choir, the group will join in that dance, each trying to out do the other. Meanwhile another mole nails it all with a cell phone video, ready and waiting to go viral on You Tube when the moment (for the left) is just right…

    1. Keep wishing. Im a limited govt conservative, you and Jake are Big Govt liberals who want to dictate to ppl how to live their lives. It is ppl like you who enabled socially conservative RINOs to hijack the GOP in a Big Govt direction. We, real conservatives, want the govt to stay out if our boardrooms AND our bedrooms.

Back to top button