Everybody loves a good party, right? But I have to say, political parties are no fun!
The other day, a friend was bemoaning the fact that the Republicans might lose the Senate next year thanks to the sex scandal involving Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore. I said, “Oh no! That means the Senate might not repeal Obamacare!”
I hope the sarcasm loaded into that sentence comes across in print.
Since I started working at the TAC, I have really become detached from partisan politics. I used to be a big Republican guy. I actually believed if we could just get enough good Republicans elected to Congress and a good Republican president, all of our problems would be solved.
I know. I’m sorry.
But when I really started studying the Constitution, it didn’t take long for me to let go of that fantasy world. When you make constitutional fidelity your guiding principle, you quickly realize that violating it is a bipartisan sport.
Republicans are just as bad as Democrats. In fact, as a former hardcore GOP partisan, the Republicans actually frustrate me more than the Democrats do in some ways. Dems are right up front about the fact they don’t really care about the Constitution. They’re for big centralized government and they’ll say it right to your face. But Republicans talk a good game. They tell you they’re for “limited constitutional government.”
Most of them seem to be able to talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.
So, like I was saying, I’ve become pretty detached from the partisan stuff in recent years. I don’t run in those circles. Now that I’m away from it, I find it shockingly frustrating when I’m thrust into the middle of it again.
Last week, I appeared on a national radio show called The Right Perspective. The hosts were great and we had a good discussion about the Constitution, political decentralization and nullification. But one thing drove me crazy through the course of the interview. Both hosts kept referring to Democrats and progressives as if they were the sole source of every problem facing America. “The Democrats did this. Progressives do that. Liberals say this.”
During the show, I even pointed out that Republicans massively expanded government healthcare (through Medicare Part D) before Obama made it cool. That didn’t even seem to faze my intrepid hosts. They simply weren’t willing to lay blame at the feet of their “teammates.” They made excuses, or they just tried to pretend those guys weren’t really “on the team.”
Of course, Democrats do it too. Just look what happened to the anti-war left when Obama ascended to the White House. Suddenly, the wars were no big deal once that “war criminal” G.W. Bush wasn’t running them.
So, I find the whole political party thing absurd – especially when it comes to national politics. Devotion to either side of the great “red vs. blue” divide seems to completely blind people to reality. We need to break that paradigm and just focus on the Constitution.
