2012: Outing Establishment GOP as the Real Enemy

Few political events have caught fire in the American Heartland with the swiftness of Congressman Allen West’s January 28, 2102 Lincoln Day Dinner address in West Palm Beach Florida. Lambasting the intellectual dishonesty and subversive motives of the left, Congressman West declared in unmistakable terms that Real America will have no more of the liberal agenda. By the following Tuesday, portions of the speech had spread across the nation, being replayed on talk radio and going viral over the Internet.

To nobody’s great surprise, the usual liberal mouthpieces, as typified by Democrat strategist Bob Beckel, reacted with predictable and exaggerated indignation. Nevertheless, mainstream America responded to West with a collective cheer of approval. Finally, someone on the Republican side is exhibiting sufficient backbone to echo the sentiments of Main Street, where common folk have soundly rejected both the ravages of liberalism and the insipid banalities of “bipartisanship” and “cooperation” still touted by establishment Republicans inside the Beltway as the proper course for the nation in this perilous time.

A hero to conservative America, it is appalling that West’s rising star is threatened not by the Democrats, but by the GOP Establishment in his own state. As part of an ongoing effort to disenfranchise and ultimately disband the Tea Party, Republican insiders have hatched a plot to get rid of West, and in the process, deliver a stern warning to other real conservatives of sharing his fate should they fail to play the political game on terms dictated by the ruling class.

In a defining sense, West’s plight is a microcosm of the difficulties faced by the entire conservative movement as it is repeatedly betrayed by liberal opponents masquerading as their kindred. And until grassroots conservatives recognize the nature of this Trojan horse in their midst, and unconditionally reject it as an ally, they will continually find themselves undermined and thwarted at crucial stages of their battle against liberalism.

Considering the intensity of public backlash against Barack Obama in 2010, which culminated in devastating mid-term Democrat losses in the Congress, as well as significant routs in state legislatures across the country, it would seem ludicrous that the Republican Party insiders might even consider “reaching across the aisle” to subordinate themselves to the party America had so stridently rejected. Yet in the months following the elections, it became abhorrently obvious that such was exactly the course the GOP insiders had chosen.

On one occasion after another since Barack Obama’s inauguration, grassroots America had rallied and united in its efforts to stop the liberal onslaught in its tracks. And just as frequently, the moment any conservative victory was achieved, the GOP Establishment set itself to the task of neutralizing and negating everything that had been gained.

In a resounding rebuff of Obama’s relentless effort to drag America into the mire of socialism, the people of Massachusetts stunned the entire world by installing Republican Scott Brown in the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Democrat stalwart Ted Kennedy in a January 2010 special election. Yet to the dismay of everyone hoping for Brown to be a real Republican, the moment he passed inside the Beltway, he cast off his pickup truck driving “man of the people” persona, and embraced virtually every premise of the Washington D.C. status quo. Very quickly thereafter, he publicly aligned himself with almost every tenet of the counterculture and the nanny state.

In like manner, once Republicans had assumed majority status in the Congress, the primary effort of party veterans was to whip the newcomers into line, pressuring significant numbers of freshmen to acquiesce on such defining issues as raising the debt limit and funding the initial phases of Obamacare. In what now is revealed as total insincerity, they made empty assurances that once the GOP had reestablished itself as the majority in both houses and taken the presidency, such matters as deficit reduction and government bloat could be properly addressed.

Yet even as they offered those platitudes, they were working overtime to ensure that no such changes would ever ensue. The entire effort by the Republican Establishment to pre-select former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as the party’s nominee has been a hallmark of insider politicking, trumpeting the ostensible superiority of “moderation” as a means of attracting voters from the political “center” and minimizing the feared liabilities of right wing “extremism.” Among the elites, Romney represents the best hope of never having to deliver on political promises, post election. Conversely, real conservatism is a discordant millstone which drags down the Republican Party.

In keeping with this philosophy, party operatives must work to neutralize any upsurge of grassroots conservatism, even if it means the betrayal of duly elected Republican office holders. In the case of Congressman West, the Florida legislature, despite holding greater than 2:1 Republican majorities in both houses, is claiming the 2010 Census and redistricting requirements as justification for eliminating his congressional seat. Amazingly, the Republican legislative caucus makes this assertion despite the fact that Florida will actually gain two representatives in this redistricting cycle.

Clearly, to the RINO wing of the Republican Party, the undiluted conservatism of Allen West is recognized as more of a threat to its political fortunes than a continuation of deficit spending, back peddling, and the outright betrayal of conservative principles that it regularly perpetrates in its faux political opposition to the Democrats. The existence of Tea Party momentum is ultimately a greater headache to these “Republicans” than anything they might receive from across the aisle.

Conversely, conservative America now faces undeniable evidence that its future as a movement is wholly dependent on surmounting this obstacle within its own camp. Until such time as conservatives begin to deal with Republican “moderates” as devoted members of the disloyal opposition, and refuse quarter to them under any circumstances, they can abandon all hope that their political fortunes will change for the better.