Is the Conservative Party Dead?

George
Will, like a bewailing Cassandra, fears Trump nomination will end of the
GOP. Well. Bill
Kristol advises his like-minded colleagues to consider creating a new
political party if “The Donald” gets the nod at the convention. Heaven forfend!
Ben Shapiro asked: “Is
the Republican Party over?” The conservative news heads are splitting about
Republican divides. Please.

The Republican Party has faced growing pains before. Liberty
permits open disagreement. I like liberty, even if it’s a little risky, a
little messy. Let’s discuss the alternative. How about the political machines
which dictate who runs and when, what passes and what doesn’t, and you have no
say in the matter? Or a vote that never counts? “As long as I count the votes,
what are you going to do about it?” growled Boss Tweed of New York.

By the way, I have worked with local politicos in the Los
Angeles area, many of them former Democrats. One of them had guns pointed at her
if she did not go along with demands from local (mafia) interests. Others were
routinely silenced, told to “wait their turn” before running. Excuse me? This
is America, not Grand Theft Auto USA. For the longest time, the Democratic
Party has not permitted open dissent, and yet in California it’s happening
already. The major difference? The Media don’t report it on Democratic divides
ad nauseum. Another difference? Those LA Democrats are now Republicans who run
on conservative values.

Once again, for Republicans, dissensions are the norm. The
party started out as a grassroots amalgam of interests, all opposed to slavery
(and polygamy!), liberty and family the key components then. . .and now. Yes, Will
talks about the divided GOP, but he neglected to mention that the Democrats of
1860 were just as divided on the slavery issue. Actually more so, since a
Northern Democrat (Stephen Douglas) and firebreather Southern Democrat (John
Breckinridge) split the votes and permitted a Republican rail splitter from
Illinois to take the Presidency. . and later end slavery.

Men and women then and now care about faith and family, they
care about God and country, secure borders, and individual liberty. Today, GOP
leaders (not every elected official, but the Old Guard) in Washington and their
Democratic counterparts (yes, they too!) do not want to fight for liberty, and
they do not want to defend the family. They want to keep the money flowing in
from the taxpayers to the federal coffers, protecting Big Business, or Big
Labor, all while Big Government gets bigger.

Donald Trump has challenged rhetorically this statist status
quo, and has channeled the widespread well-spring anti-Establishment
enthusiasm. Republican leaders in DC don’t like the Donald? They have themselves
to blame. Democrats far and wide hate the Donald. Good!

So, will a Trump nom destroy the GOP?

Let’s talk about what many prognosticators thought would
destroy the Republican Party, once called “The Party of Old White Men”:
demographics. Even left-wing pundit Eleanor Clift remarked that the Republican
Party would adapt to the challenges of the country’s changing ethnic
electorate. The second place and rising Election 2016 contender, Ted Cruz, already
acknowledged that the Republican Party would go the way of the Whigs without
outreach to other ethnic communities. Come to California or to Rhode Island, or
to Kentucky, and you will find more conservatives of every color taking office
at the local and state level. Look at the current Republican bench of
Presidential candidates. More color, more flavor, and more winners all around.

Let’s take another, closer look at Will’s argument, that a
Trump Presidency would mean the death of the conservative party. No. It. Will.
Not.

There are conservatives all over the United States (even in
New England and Illinois) pushing back against Big Government statism. One:
Scott Walker, who beat down the Big Labor Democratic money machine on the front
lawn of Progressivism. It astonishes me that so many worry about the preeminence
of “Big Daddy Government” Democrats, when they have been trashed statewide many
times over.  In Michigan, Right-To-Work
caught fire, and the unions could only watch as their houses burned down.
Illinois’ Bruce Rauner has held his ground, and Larry Hogan is the real future
of the Republican Party.

The coalition emerging among Republicans across the
Magnificent Fifty signals a growing, healthy distrust of expanded executive
power into the states and onto the people. Libertarianism is on the rise, a
trend which George Will already embraced in
an interview with Reason Magazine. Before, conservatives simply lamented
George W. Bush’s compassionate expansionism. The Tea Party said “Enough”, and
conservatives rallied. A California Democrat who votes Republican reminded me
of this growing conservative insurgency.

Would the work of Taft and Goldwater falter like chaff with
a reality TV host gaining the GOP nom? 

Nope. Big Business enablers would see
their aims dashed for good. For the record, Will has kind of caved on the
liberty fight. He actually
called Kim Davis, the Kentucky Clerk who refused to hand out homosexual
marriage licenses, a George Wallace throwback. Excuse me? She stood up to a
rogue Supreme Court – hardly supine, as Will had alleged – and refused to allow
five bad lawyers in black dress drag redefine an institution around longer than
you, me, or anyone else. Once again, Kentucky has a black, Tea Party allied
Lieutenant Governor. So, on another level, that George Wallace thing makes no
sense.

Today, political parties are no longer aligned along Democrat
and Republican strictly, but Washington vs. the states. And the states are
winning. I did not say this. Congresswoman Mia Love of
Utah, the first black Republican family Congresswoman declared this fact,
and before her election replacing Democrat in name only Jim Matheson.

Ronald Reagan cut the taxes, but not the spending. Americans
by and large have had enough of both, plus the politicians who campaign as
conservatives, then cave to special interest pressures in office. Not any more.
The Conservative party is not dead. Our coalition is not fraying, but rather
gaining strength.