Trump, they say, is tapping into the
big anger of Republicans at the Establishment.
Been there, done that. I think
the real story is more interesting. As I noted in a previous blog, I hit the
ceiling when my church was told what kind of ministers they could hire by the
federal government. But, “ministers of
the gospel” were our church-trained school teachers. The issue didn’t resonate with many other Protestants. Nonetheless, I talked to a Lutheran pastor who told
about attending our assembly. These normally mild-mannered pastors
were talking about doing civil disobedience and leading protests, ala Tea
Party. He’d never seen anything like it
in all his years.
Indeed,
even once the church won a 9-0 SCOTUS decision, I was chagrinned. Had any President ever done anything like
this? Why was this not immediate grounds
for impeachment? If we won’t impeach a tyrant,
who? I kept writing down impeachable
horrors by Obama. When I got to 50, I stopped writing in disgust over Congress’s
inaction. Ted Cruz kept logging and in
his constitutional expertise says there are 146.
No
one will to impeach because the media chastised Congress (in the eyes of People Magazine public) over Clinton. No big deal! Leave the man’s private life alone! The only people who you could find horrified
rather than bemused were old veterans. “Do
you know how much a commander who has affairs with unknown women jeopardizes
the battle?” they seethed. Congressmen
only saw the SNL skits and vowed never to impeach when Dems would block. Too bad.
If they had moved forward with impeachment upon Obama’s executive orders
to make 5 million illegals legal (and possible voters), they would have hit the
same resonance with the public that Trump is getting today.
And
they would have sent a message that no future impatient dictator need apply. So
why didn’t they? I think it is because
they are married to campaign money and they crave the recognition of authored
legislation. The campaign money via special
interest groups is an old story. But less known is that
these special interest groups come to loyal congressmen with written bill
proposals. Do you know how hard it is to
write a bill yourself? You have to be
both a creative genius with great knowledge of public behaviors and a lawyer of
ability to know how this fits with current law.
And it takes a lot of time to craft a bill. So much easier to rely on, say, the teacher’s
union or some commerce group to hand you a pre-written bill they will support
with gusto.
Think
about the Republican interest groups--Chamber of Commerce types. Business groups don’t like controversy
and chaos which is always tough on biz. Gay Marriage? Yeah, they can live with
it, or even promote it to gain brand. Thus, they would advise Congress don't
impeachment because of its disturbing effect.
Instead, do bailouts that keep the status quo, not Creative Destruction
of the marketplace. The more dependent a
R-congressman is on biz groups, the more compromising they are of
conservatism. That’s why Senates are
always more liberal than Houses—both fed and state—because House Reps are
closer to people. Hence, a few abusers compromise our Constitution.
But
nobody realizes that, they say. People
just see their wages stagnant, their culture changing, country under siege by
Muslim radicals and illegals. True, but
if we don’t have any sense of our system should work and how it has been
trashed, we might fall for some guy with no specifics. Someone who comes along and promises to
simply change things and give us nebulous hope, who trashes his opposition, who
won’t work with the rest of his friends, who is so egotistical he thinks he can
simply overcome all opposition by his words of negotiation or else he’ll just
fire them and write the law himself. Let’s see, are we looking for a Republican
version of Obama? Trump, maybe? Isn’t
this sweet siren people fell for with the French Revolution? Lenin?
Santa Ana? Like my dad used to say, "The grass is always greener on the populist side because it is fertilized by bullshit."
Bingo ! Well said.
ReplyDeleteF.C.