At the same time we are seeing speakers at the Values Voters Summit dump on “establishment Republicans” like John McCain, Peter King, and Lindsey Graham for failing to stand strong alongside Ted Cruz for conservative principles, Sean Hannity appeared in a video on mofopolitics.com – the “official arbiter of conservatism” – yesterday to call for a conservative third party.
Everyone is taking sides. Hannity wants this new party separate from what he sees as the establishment-controlled Republican Party, which is apparently full of Obama enablers. On the other side of the equation we have one of those “establishment Republicans” (identified as such by his opposition to Ted Cruz), Peter King, who says, “We cannot allow our party to be taken over by the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. I mean, these people are isolationists. I consider them RINOs…” Meanwhile a poll at mofopolitics.com lists Paul Ryan as a “RINO wimp.”
S.E. Cupp, a Ryan defender, laments that “once again, Republicans have decided to cannibalize themselves viciously and needlessly instead of uniting over common goals.” To say there is a struggle right now to determine what it means to be a Republican hardly does justice to the battle that is brewing for the soul of conservative America.
Take a listen to Hannity:
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So you have two different groups here and at best, you’ve got the establishment and they kinda want to pick around the edges. They’re not really up for a big fight. I think they themselves, a lot of them – I’m speaking broadly – I’ll get specific in a minute – they kinda like the bureaucracy. they don’t want to have bit fights. They want to work things out. They want to negotiate. they want to compromise. Not that those things are necessarily always bad. They’re not. They’re not leftists but they’re bureaucrats and bureaucrats tend to want to protect the bureaucracy. They argue they want to fight against healthcare, they campaigned against Obamacare, said they would do everything in their power to repeal Obamacare, but I would argue that the more establishment types don’t really have the stomach to fight for this. I think if they have their way they’ll get little victories here and there, negotiate whatever crumbs Obama and the Democrats are willing to feed them and in the end America’s gonna be more in a state of managed decline. That will be best result because I think there’s a point where compromise hurts in the long run. There’s a time to stand up and there’s a time to compromise, You have to have the wisdom to distinguish between them.
Yes, you just heard Sean Hannity speaking of wisdom as though he has any, let alone knows what it is. A myth he busts a moment later by attacking what he sees as moderate Republicans, including Bob Dole and John McCain. “The argument has always been,” he complains, “that the more moderate candidate has the greater appeal in presidential elections and you always hear that from the establishment wing every election.”
Gosh, ya think they might say this because it’s true?
But Hannity, refusing to see this, goes on to object to the establishment Republicans telling conservatives “they have to suck it up when they lose” and because they lost the primaries, must support the moderate who won because the Democrat is far worse. Hannity doesn’t like that establishment Republicans tell conservatives, “We need a more electable moderate.”
You would think “losing the primaries” would be a clue to Hannity that all is not as it seems to the extremist base, that they do not speak for all Republicans, let alone all Americans, as they would have us believe. No, for Hannity, the solution is to dig in their heels and not only refuse to give another inch but to demand the unconditional surrender of their opponents.
“Now as a conservative myself,” he says, “I think…this is the moment where conservative solutions need to prevail”:
There problem here is the more establishment wing of the Republican party they didn’t stick together with these guys (Cruz, Paul, etc),” he accuses, speaking of people like John McCain, who has also been attacked at the Values Voter Summit. “And Instead the establishment has been out there trashing principled conservatives.” He complained that the establishment is attacking the Tea Party and that establishment Republicans “have declared war on principled conservatives like Ted Cruz, doing the bidding of the Democrats and the leftist media. Now you’ve got the establishment Republicans trashing the conservative base of their own party.
I don’t think this country is gonna survive with half measures,” he said, meaning, in other words, compromise. “Either you believe that we need radical positive oriented solutions for this country and you’re willing to fight for them or you’re not. Is it a third party we need? I’ve often argued no. I’m not so sure anymore. It may be time for a new conservative party in America. I’m sick of these guys.
The Heritage Foundation’s Tim Chapman, their Heritage Action Chief Operating Officer, seems to be thinking along lines similar to Hannity but of a takeover of the GOP by the base rather than the establishment of a third party. And according to Chapman, he conservative base isn’t planning on half measures and they’re not planning on sucking it up. Speaking to all those valueless voters, he issued a clarion call to arms:
As we speak, Republican leaders are speaking to the White House and they are cutting a deal and I promise you the deal is going to be total garbage.
We are at the point right now where we are seeing a complete cleavage away from the Republican Party of the conservative movement. You are going to see massive upheaval in the next election on all fronts…We have an opportunity to take over the party and it will be in the next election
David Frumm warns in an opinion piece on CNN that a third party would like help Democrats rather than put the tea party in charge. He also opines “that a tea party exit would be a blessing for the GOP” because, basically, the tea party has screwed the GOP over:
Right now, tea party extremism contaminates the whole Republican brand. It’s a very interesting question whether a tea party bolt from the GOP might not just liberate the party to slide back to the political center — and liberate Republicans from identification with the Sarah Palins and the Ted Cruzes who have done so much harm to their hopes over the past three election cycles.
It’s worth repeating over and over again. Add Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska — and you have half a dozen Senate races lost to the GOP by extremist nominations.
Maybe the right answer to the threat, “Shut down the government or we quit” is: “So sad you feel that way. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Words people like Sean Hannity and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul would do well to consider, but which you know they will ignore, because, after all, their time has come, and they’re winning.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
