The Parties are Over

We’re not sure either political party will survive the election of 2010. We can only hope.

The Democrat Party is now controlled by the far left to such an extent that if its agenda were accompanied by truth in advertising, the honest message would be: we seek the overthrow of the American Constitutional republic.

The Republican Party is controlled by elitist thinking that wants to co-opt the passion of the tea parties into Republican control of one or both houses of Congress, and then apply the anesthetic of Beltway moderation so that they can lead the unwashed newcomers into the real business of smarter management of the magnificent federal government.

A huge majority of the American people reject both parties’ current thinking.

It will be interesting to see how serious adults scramble to pick up the pieces. The November 2010 election will be a massive repudiation of the radical left agenda, and no serious adult (if there are any left on the Democrat side) will think a couple of years of clever spin and Pravda support will return such an agenda to popularity by 2012. Fiscal recklessness on the scale practiced by this group may by itself be irredeemable. But the dirty little secret of what may be the Democrats’ biggest problem: blacks, Hispanics and other minorities are not inherently radical leftists. A few coming out of left-wing academia are, but the common folk are not. And the common folk are waking up to the fact that they don’t feel comfortable with America-hating, business hating, class-based hating, etc. Lots of experts think 90+% black votes for Democrats will continue indefinitely; we think that pattern will be broken in this election, and will never return. The Democrat Party in the hands of the far left will be a 15%-20% factor going forward.

The far more interesting challenge faces the Republicans. They are completely out of touch if they think the surge of American patriotism and love for America of the founding represents an embrace of a political party. The stunning fund-raising success of conservative candidates throughout the country—without any help from the “party”—ought to have Michael Steele in a private sweat. Americans know how to go around things they don’t like.

Yes, there is a load of entrenched thought that says American must have a two-party system, and within the memories of almost all living Americans, that has always meant Democrats and Republicans. There are endless pundits who will lecture the tea partiers about the need to stay within the two-party system so as not to cause a self-inflicted splitting of the vote that results in the defeat of everything they care about.

We think entrenched thought and popular lectures are due for a major overhaul. We believe the American tea party movement represents a solid 60% of Americans. It is a party inspired by the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence and an instinctive recognition that there is transcendent truth in those sentiments. All men and women created equal; rights endowed by God and not alienable by government; individual freedom and responsibility under God; self-reliance joined with trust in divine Providence, rather than victimhood and dependence on government—these are central organizing principles around which 60% majorities exist. They generate an agenda of radically smaller government, dramatically less government spending and borrowing, and significantly less taxation and regulation. They are not entangled by refined policy debates among the secular think tanks nor by theocratic debates among the elitist hierarchies of organized religion; they are simply intuitively grasped as true and right by individuals throughout the nation. And the American people are demanding that action be taken to conform their government to these principles.

The Republican Party of the last 20 years has shown essentially no capacity to take these actions. If they don’t in the next 12 months, we wouldn’t be surprised if an American Tea Party emerges even before the 2012 election. And to the surprise of the ruling class, it will be the majority party of America, Democrats will have their 15-20%, and the Republicans will have less than the Democrats. The Olympia Snowe’s and Susan Collins’ of the political world will find that they have about a 20% following during this period of the Second American Revolution.

It’s an energizing picture. “We the people…” is a beautiful thing.

Paul Gable

October 17, 2010