The Path To Real Change

The fact is that the American people aren’t listening. They just want change. They are worried about all the excitement that Republicans have brought them over the last seven years.

First there was 9/11. There was the bursting of the tech bubble and the bursting of the real-estate bubble. There was the doubling of gasoline prices. Then there is the Iraq war and its constant reminder that the world is a dangerous world.

All of this, remember, happened on President Bush’s watch.

So Americans want to “change” the watch. They just want some “change” from all this change. Republicans are turning to the Republican who did most to oppose President Bush. And they are turning to a Clinton for a reprise of the happy-go-lucky 1990s.

But despite the general agreement that the American people want change, nobody is offering it. Republicans do not have a candidate offering transformative change. Nor do the Democrats.

The Democrats are offering two solid liberals for President of the United States. The Republicans are offering candidates who, if even they present themselves as conservatives, are not exactly committed conservatives like the sainted Ronald Reagan. John McCain is conservative as far as his obstinate nature instinctively guides him and his lust for for the adulation of the beltway media permits him. The defeated Mitt Romney is a businessman and a manager. He’s a decent sort but he is not a transformative leader.

Senator McCain certainly cares about the war, and maybe about the judges. So maybe Republicans have the candidate that can stop the Democrats from losing the war on terror, like Jimmy Carter almost lost the Cold War. And he can prevent the appointment of four or five liberal justices to the United States Supreme Court.

This inordinate fear of Democratic government misses the point.

We cannot win the war on terror with partisan trench warfare. And we cannot win the culture war by stuffing the Supreme Court with conservative justices and hoping that over time we get to fill more vacancies than the liberals.

We need to create an America in which Democrats believe in the war on terror and believe that our western culture deserves to be not just defended but celebrated. We need to create an America where liberal justices on the Supreme Court have soured on the notion of the “living constitution” and only with great reluctance overturn the wisdom of the founders.

In other words, we need to win the larger war for hearts and minds. It is useless to drag the great questions of our times into vicious partisan mudbaths. All that does is cover the great questions with mud and make our liberal friends more determined than ever to defend their programs to the last minority woman.

We need to change liberal hearts and minds. We need to change their minds about life. We need to change their minds about the family. We need to change their minds about the economy. We need them to begin to question their faith in the benefits of compulsory government programs.

How, for instance, are we going to change the minds of the liberals about the war on terror?

The answer is bracing. We must give them a chance screw it up, like Jimmy Carter screwed up the Cold War with his 1977 claim that the US had got over its “inordinate fear of communism.” After President Carter had really screwed up the Cold War and really screwed up the economy, then the American people were ready for Ronald Reagan.

That is the conservative way. You treat Democrats like adults. You let them make mistakes and you hope they learn from them. When they don’t learn then you get to win landslide elections.

The liberal way is to treat people like children. You legislate law libraries full of laws to micromanage behavior. You force people to live healthy lives and keep them safe, and you give liberals lots of jobs administering the laws. But under the liberal way people never learn, because they never get to make mistakes.

The American people are right. It is time for a change. Then we’ll show ’em.

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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The Path to Real Change

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