OpinionTrending Commentary

Long Past Time for Conservatives to Abandon the GOP

Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT

It’s my fervent hope the two Georgia Senate runoff elections are the last time conservatives will be forced to vote for Republicans because no conservative alternatives exist. For over 30 years conservatives have been told by the rich who run the Republican party that we have no choice but to hold our nose and vote for candidates who will turn on us immediately after they’re sworn into office.

Republican election victories don’t mean conservatives will win anything. It only means conservatives will lose slower. Compare what Obama did for his base during his eight years in office with what Republicans have done through the decades.

William Voegeli, senior editor of the Claremont Review, refreshes our memory: “Since 1994 Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency for 12 years, and never once during that time did the party ever zero out funding for the National Endowment for the Arts or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“If the low–hanging fruit in Washington is always higher than the tallest Republican ladder, then something is fundamentally wrong. If the conservative high priests don’t take limited government seriously, why should the voters?”

GOP government is only limited when it comes to issues conservatives care about.

The conservative base cares about immigration, jobs, culture and family. Donald Trump beat a field of candidates former Republican George Will called the most talented since 1980 because Trump ran on issues relevant to the conservative base.

And the GOP establishment hated him for it. Trump had two years with complete control of Congress. And what did Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell do? They looked smug, superior and blocked Trump at every opportunity.

Now that Trump may be leaving office it’s business as usual. Republicans can hardly wait to repudiate Trump’s issues and his voters. Senators John Cornyn and Susan Collins, who both just rode the Trump re-election wave, want to grant amnesty to DACA illegals as a first step toward “immigration reform.” What that means is total amnesty for up to 30 million illegals.

Republican Cong. Tom Reed says now “pragmatic” lawmakers will rise to the top, which is code for big-spending RINOs sponsoring corporate pork bills.

And last week I wrote about how every single Republican in the Senate voted unanimously to let US corporations import more low–wage foreign tech workers to take the jobs of middle-class US citizens.

After that final outrage Pedro Gonzalez, assistant editor of American Greatness, tweeted, “Burn the GOP down.”

Yes, and I’ll supply the $2.00–a–gallon Trump gasoline.

The Republican party is beyond reform. It is too entrenched. Too corrupt. And too wealthy. I used to think over time conservatives could beat RINOs in primaries. I was wrong.

Republicans are wholly owned by large corporate donors who are leftists socially and tax Scrooges. Incumbents cannot be beaten in Republican primaries because there are no large conservative billionaires to fund challengers. We don’t have a George Soros or a Tom Steyer.

Two years ago I had hope for a free-market primary solution from the innovative Norbert Richter. He founded FireYourCongressman.com. Richter’s fund pooled money from small contributors and when a qualified challenger arose donations were made in the form of direct contributions and independent expenditures. It was the first free-market effort to fund term limits. It was a great idea. And it failed because Richter wasn’t rich.

In the 2018 cycle FireYourCongressman raised $103,306.00. In the 2020 cycle, he raised $16,655.00. The failure wasn’t because the conservative base is cheap.

Near the midpoint of the 2020 campaign, the cocktail conservatives in Congress were outraged that small–donors had provided more than half of Trump’s billion-dollar war chest and 56 percent of those contributions were in grocery-money-sized checks of less than $200. Conservatives will contribute to conservative candidates if they are aware they exist.

It’s Curator of the Senate Mitch McConnell’s mission to make sure genuine conservatives stay unknown and unfunded.

One conservative Trump supporter even tried a lawsuit. Bob Heghmann, a Virginia Beach, VA retired lawyer sued the national and Virginia GOP contending Republicans “[have] been engaged in a pattern of Racketeering which involves massive fraud perpetrated on Republican voters.”

Heghmann added, “Republicans could have repealed and replaced Obamacare with two–page bill. But the leadership never intended to do it.”

That didn’t work either.

The Republican party is a collection of morally corrupt corporate tools who protect their donors at the expense of their voters. It cannot be reformed. A double RINO victory in Georgia will buy conservatives enough time to start building their own conservative party from the ground up.

Let’s send a message in January: This one and we’re done.

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Michael R Shannon

Michael R. Shannon is a speaker and political commentator who has entertained audiences on four continents and a handful of islands. His dynamic, laugh–out–loud commentary on current events, politics, and culture has connected with audiences in a wide variety of settings including corporate meetings, association conferences, Christian fellowship, political gatherings, university seminars and award dinners. He is the author of "A Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with Added Humor!)" available at: https://tinyurl.com/lcqs87c

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3 Comments

  1. I definitely will NOT vote Republican anymore…after witnessing what the GOP had done to Pres Trump…they are f@*&ing garbage.

  2. Awww! What did they do? Besides think for themselves? Don’t worry, you can reinstate NASDAP, since that’s the ideology you seem to believe in. As a MAN I can’t see me blindly following some political party. I am NOT a “liberal” or a Democrat! And when people try to make these crooked entities seem “benevolent” it cracks me up! ESPECIALLY CONservatives! Modern-day Pharisees! So much against “abortion” (yet they have secret abortions from women they cheat with, and their “God” has killed more babies, by PROXY or DIRECT ACTION, in the OT than anybody!) They claim to be “Christians” but get caught up in theft, murder, DL gay relationships (yeah, “God” created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, not behind closed doors…looking at YOU Mark Foley!)At least with Democrats what you see is what you get. They don’t try to be “holier than thou”.

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