Recently I happened to read an article on the Politico website titiled “Angry GOP donors close their wallets” and it got me to thinking about just where the Republican Party has gotten itself. The old saying my folks you to say to me “Well, Beau, you’ve gotten yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Now what are you going to do?” I think this is quite fitting to say to the GOP. So what is the Rock and wht is the Hardplace?
I think I will start with the Hardplace as it was the subject of the Politico article that started it all. Simply put the Hardplace is all the Big Money the GOP and conservative have been freeing up the last few decades. I’m not just talking about the individual donors, we’ve always had them, but also the dark money PACs. We’ve all seen them with the great names like “committe to make america great again” or “Protect American Freedoms Committe” that tells you absolutely nothing about just what agenda they’re pushing. An before you jusmp all over on me, yes there are PACs like this on the Left, it is just the Right is Soooooo much better at creating and funding them that the PACS are now causing the GOP more and bigger problems than the Democrats. If you just look at the political science studies on campaign financing you will see the GOP has more big money donors than the Democrats. Warning: Becareful where you look way too many of the Think Tanks out there have a political bias that is often not obvious.
The Rock is a bit less obvious, it is the result of two factors. First the gerrymandering of congressional districts and the 2nd is the ‘Make no Compromise ‘ mindset current in American politics. Because of the extreme gerrymandering of too many of our congressional districts in too many of our states the only real threat to an incumbent GOP congressman is in the primary. Given the fact that primaries usually have low turnout it is only the most ardent party members who vote. Given, next, we have the “Don’t Compromise” attitude of the party faithful. Congressmen are more worried about angering a relatively small number of dedicated voters. The problem is these self same voters are more often than not small donors, not Big Money Doners of the Hardspot. Now add in that the Donor class and the dedicated voters often don’t want the same thing. This problem can be handled if your careful.
As you may ask, why are the Donors the Hardplace and the Voters the Rock. Basically it is this, the Donors don’t need to do anything. They just stop giving money and fade into the background. The Voters on the other hand have to move to have any effect at all. I’d also like to point out that many of the Big Money Donors are very good at various forms of gambling, be it dice, cards, horses, or stocks. As the song “The Gambler” goes:
”You need know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
What has been going on for way to long (I’d say since Nixon’s Southern Startagey but I could be quite wrong) is to come up with nice sounding theories on finance, easy fall guys to blame, and all the other classic political tricks and you can keep the average vote from noticing that they aren’t getting what they were told they would get. Like, passing big tax cuts that go mostly to the very wealthy and corporations and give it a nice sounding name, say “Trickle Down Economics”. Next when the average vote fails to see any positive change in there economic situation tell them they really didn’t get “Trickle Down Economics” because of the “Libretard Socialist” who fought the tax simplification. If that doesn’t really work you next blame it on all of the “Illegals” taking their jobs. Now finally consider this; in politics, like all human activities, eventually you have to pay the piper.
You always have to pay the piper, always. The time is coming that the Conservatives are going to have to face up to the fact that the GOP has been playing them for over 30 years and failed to deliver much, if anything, they have been promising. The rock started moving when Donald Trump wan the GOP nomination and now the Hardspot has reared up. Soon we will get to ask the GOP “What are you going to do now?” Because it looks like the Donor class is deciding to get up from the table and the only question t left is whether to walk or run.