I recently had a couple exchanges about the matter of "true conservatism," and how the GOP needs to get away from Trumpism and back to what it should be about.
Policies require a commitment to something other than politics and self-aggrandizement. We're talking about principles and those are in all too short supply today. That's why I value your column.
It is up to us to make the noise that the pols need to hear. When my feed is mostly "Walz is the type of guy..." jokes with only sparse mention of his leftist policies, the net of blame lands also on the consumers.
Considering how humans are, I don't see how it could ever be anything other than what it is in a system where people vote for their favorite candidate.
An entirely different system structured to put policy first would look like:
Party ratifies a policy platform
Voters choose the party to take office
Winning party selects an executive to execute the policy platform
That still doesn't avoid the Free Stuff for Everyone / TANSTAAFL dichotomy, but at least it avoids the cult of personality.
The Republican Party used to vote on a platform at the convention. They would make a big showing of what they stood for. Today they seem to be competing with democrats for every degenerate group that sticks their heads out of the closet for votes.
I don't see how the trend of personality over policies and tribalism over citizenship is reversed, but the best approach I have seen to date was the Contract with America. There the GOP laid out its policy objectives in advance of the election, even including an (overly optimistic) timeline for when they would enact such policies. The problem with that is only wonks care about the boring details and it's panic stricken shriekers who provide most of the votes.
I imagine some of it has to come from the candidates. They need to stump on specifics - what they'll do and why it's the right thing to do.
Some will have to come from us. I ignore all the "Walz is the type of... Vance is the type of..." jokes and memes, figuring that starving them of attention will make them eventually go away. Of course, I'm but one vote, so unless many others similarly ignore the junk, it'll persist.
Policies require a commitment to something other than politics and self-aggrandizement. We're talking about principles and those are in all too short supply today. That's why I value your column.
It is up to us to make the noise that the pols need to hear. When my feed is mostly "Walz is the type of guy..." jokes with only sparse mention of his leftist policies, the net of blame lands also on the consumers.
Considering how humans are, I don't see how it could ever be anything other than what it is in a system where people vote for their favorite candidate.
An entirely different system structured to put policy first would look like:
Party ratifies a policy platform
Voters choose the party to take office
Winning party selects an executive to execute the policy platform
That still doesn't avoid the Free Stuff for Everyone / TANSTAAFL dichotomy, but at least it avoids the cult of personality.
The Republican Party used to vote on a platform at the convention. They would make a big showing of what they stood for. Today they seem to be competing with democrats for every degenerate group that sticks their heads out of the closet for votes.
I don't see how the trend of personality over policies and tribalism over citizenship is reversed, but the best approach I have seen to date was the Contract with America. There the GOP laid out its policy objectives in advance of the election, even including an (overly optimistic) timeline for when they would enact such policies. The problem with that is only wonks care about the boring details and it's panic stricken shriekers who provide most of the votes.
I imagine some of it has to come from the candidates. They need to stump on specifics - what they'll do and why it's the right thing to do.
Some will have to come from us. I ignore all the "Walz is the type of... Vance is the type of..." jokes and memes, figuring that starving them of attention will make them eventually go away. Of course, I'm but one vote, so unless many others similarly ignore the junk, it'll persist.