How come we are always so grievously disappointed by red state Republicans? You would think these guys would be the hardest of the hard, but instead, they are softer than Chris Christie’s gut. It’s obnoxious. They should be the best, but they’re often the worst. Squishy. Craven. Dumb. Come election year, they are Ripley in “Aliens;” the rest of the time they are Burke.
We’re not talking about Susan Collins here. Maine is a blue state, so she’s the best we are ever going to do. You can’t hold her being a moderate against her because she doesn’t pretend to be anything else. No, I’m talking about the guys from the manly red states. I’m talking about guys who should be channeling Godzilla and instead channel Barney the Dinosaur.
Take Senator Jim Lankford – that’s James to you, peasants! Take him, please! He’s from Oklahoma, so he should be so right-wing he makes Genghis Khan look like a San Francisco pinko pervert. But no. Given the chance to negotiate immigration reform – a proper reform would consist simply of us shutting the border and deporting all illegals – Jimmy rolled over for Chuck Schumer and agreed to the most embarrassingly bad deal since a bunch of Dutch sharpies ripped off the local indigenous peoples by buying Manhattan for 20 bucks worth of beads and some smallpox-laden blankets.
Now, by many measures, Jimmy is a hard-core conservative. Donald Trump endorsed him. He’s pro-America. He likes freedom, within corporately-defined limits, of course. He thinks we have a right to guns, probably. But then again, he also abased himself for correctly questioning the questionable 2020 election results. Pathetic. He’s hard, in the sense that butter is hard when you take it out of the fridge, but when you apply a little heat, it melts into a bubbling puddle of goo.
Jimmy is gooey. That’s what many Red State Republicans are. For gosh sake, you can’t get any redder than South Carolina, and look at what it’s inflicted upon us. Tim Scott. Lindsay Graham. Nikki Haley. Is it too much to ask a conservative state for some actual conservatives? And when I say “conservatives,” I mean 2024 conservatives, not retread 2004 conservatives who accept liberal premises and specialize in competently and soberly managing our decline. I’m talking about 2024 conservatives who want to fight the power, who want to own the libs, who want to win, dammit.
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I’m talking about conservatives who don’t care what they’re saying at the Georgetown cocktail soirees. These studs are out there, but they are sometimes paired with the worst of the spaghetti spine squadron. Here in Texas, my soon-to-be adopted home, we’ve got hard-core Ted Cruz. The libs think he’s the antichrist, which would normally be a compliment to them. Yet he’s paired with John Cronyn (?-TX). Overcooked linguine has more spinal solidarity than John “Common Sense Gun Control Compromise” Cornyn. And Utah’s Mike Lee, who led the cavalry charge into the exposed flank of Schumer’s garbage immigration bill like Theoden led the Riders of Rohan into the flank of Sauron’s army, is paired with Mitt Romney. If Mitt was any softer, he would be a fluid, and he kind of is one.
How does this happen? Why do red states consistently elect unconservative conservatives? Well, I can think of two reasons. The first is that, in a red state, everyone who wants a career in politics has to be a Republican. There’s literally no Democrat path to success, so people who would normally be a donkey party person, like Nikki Haley, have to ostensibly join the Republican Party. But they bring their terrible, terrible ideas with them. That’s the problem with a big tent – it has room for a lot of losers.
There’s another reason as well. In red states, Republicans really don’t have any competition. Their voters tend to stick with the guy they know even though the guy has sold out to the donors and the swamp. That’s why middle-of-the-road mediocrities keep getting reelected again and again and again. People recognize their names, see the “R,” shrug, check the box, and then return to their lives. Senator Noodlespine then proceeds to sell his voters out in Washington for five years until the next election year, when he pretends to be hard-core for a little while, just in case.
Now, there’s no comparable phenomenon for Democrats in blue states. In places like California, there are no moderates. In blue states, you have a race to the leftist bottom. All the Democrats are communists. Why is that, yet it's not true among Republicans? Well, it reflects the obsolete worldviews of conservatives in a world of Marxist opponents. For a long time, Republicans tended to regard Democrats as dumb and foolish but not evil. Some still do. There’s no moral outcry among the normals when a Republican has a dalliance with the Democrats, just frustration. But among Democrats, Republicans are downright evil. Being moderate, much less conservative, is, therefore, a moral failure. You can’t be a moderate Democrat anymore, but you can be a moderate Republican.
There are a lot of costs associated with being conservative, including uncomfortable conversations down at the country club and, frankly, most senators aren’t man enough to stand up to them even if they come from a red state. But there are benefits for doing the bidding of the Democrats. The Washington Post will call you a serious political thinker if you knife other Republicans. The GOP sellout gets to come on Meet The Nation and Face The Press and whatever unwatched show Jake Tapper has right now and be treated like he is some sort of hero for selling out his party. It’s pathetic and embarrassing, and this strange new respect lasts only as long as it’s useful for the Democrats, but it’s a motivator.
So what do we do about it? We start paying attention, threatening primaries, and voting out the guys who can’t or won’t cut it. If they aren’t motivated by ideology, then we need to motivate them by fear for their jobs. Not just in elections years. In all the years.
It’s annoying, but we are winning. I didn’t just start doing this five years ago. I’ve been in politics for decades, so when somebody whines about how bad the Republicans are today, I remember when they were much worse. Believe it or not, the current situation is not merely an improvement but a vast improvement. Yet, we can improve more. We can do better. So, if you’re in a red state, demand conservative conformity. We don’t want “mavericks” or “adults in the room” because when the regime media identifies a “maverick” or an “adult in the room," it’s never a Democrat voting with Republicans. It’s always a Republican stabbing us in the back. So stop putting up with it, red states. Apply boot to butt, and kick collaborators like Lankford to the curb.
See you in 2028, Jimmy.
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