No Need to Burn Down an Abandoned House
To find some respite from modern life, including politics, I often travel to my second home on the Mobjack Bay in Mathews County, Virginia. The surrounding area has an interesting history, having gone through multiple phases of economic vibrancy and decline over the last two hundred years. Should you drive the back roads through the county you will be able to enjoy the peaceful farms and huge tracks of wooded lands, beautiful churches at nearly every intersection, and one very interesting and unusual characteristic – many, many empty and abandoned, but still beautiful (if spooky), homes built around a century ago.
Through the turmoil of economic ups and downs residents apparently found it easier to build new houses on their land than try and maintain the old ones, and so these once-stately homes stand rotting and lonely on the landscape, a reminder of what once was and could have been. It is a sad fact that many of these homes were replaced by mobile-home trailers by residents facing tough economic times. But still the old homes stand, for it is easier to just leave them to rot on their own than take them down. Eventually they will fall, but for now there is no reason to burn them down.
This, I fear, is what is happening to the Republican Party. As a former chairman of a county unit I can attest to the dedication of the party faithful, who work tirelessly to execute the grassroots program. Still, there is no denying that the party has lost members and prestige, and that new groups, such as the Tea Party and the “Trump Movement,” have been raised in prominence as the GOP has stumbled.
Knocking on doors, making phone calls, delivering yard signs and handing out literature at polling places, tasks that dominate the local party effort, are all well and good, but these tasks, no matter how well and enthusiastically executed, are not going to win elections on their own in twenty-first century America.
Many see the Republican National Committee (RNC) only as a fundraising organization with little impact on the national political conversation, preferring to get their information from social media and the plethora of clickbait websites. Yes, the RNC has sent record numbers of grassroots workers out to support the state parties, but these people are doing the tasks mentioned above (although they normally still report to the RNC and not the local unit). I may be wrong, but I don’t see an army of staffers working on a sophisticated and strategic program to influence the national conversation.
Meanwhile social media was aflame this week with the Project Veritas video…
…proving what many of us knew all along – that is, that the Democrats use a variety of shadowy groups to win elections.
In this particularly unseemly example groups were paid to instigate violence at Trump rallies in order to generate negative images of Trump supporters. Past videos have shown the Democrats supporting voter fraud, scrapping voter registration forms of suspected Republicans, and planning and executing “astro-turf” protests to foment discontent in the electorate. We also know that some unknown number of leftist “trolls” are being paid to attack Republicans and Conservatives on the internet, and hijack conversations that may be damaging to their cause on social media, while pushing progressive talking points. Hate the tactics if you want (and I say they are reprehensible) but the fact remains, these people have got their act together.
Much has also been written about the book “The Intimidation Game,” Kimberly Strassel’s detailed account of how the left uses a variety of pressure and interest groups to silence conservatives and free speech. Again, the tactics are shameful, the cause dark. But the fact remains – both the breadth of organization and sophistication of the strategy is, when viewed objectively, impressive.
As for today’s news, the choreography of the “October Surprise” campaign against Trump, deserved or not, is clear evidence of a highly organized and effective political machine that, if Wikileaks is to be believed, includes members of the national media elite, government officials, and possibly whole media companies to some extent. Conspiracy theories aside, it doesn’t take a political scientist to know that CNN, to name only one example, is “all in” for Hillary Clinton. Just watch for five minutes and you will know. The reach of the left into all these organizations is both frightening and impressive. Say what you want about the left, but they get it, and they are clearly dictating the conversation.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) knows all this of course. When I attended the Annual Meeting in Cleveland right before the convention this year we were given a presentation that detailed what we were up against. My main takeaway: The Democratic Party is not some twentieth-century citizen’s club featuring volunteers making signs and stuffing envelopes, but instead a complicated network of special interest and advocacy groups, some well-known, others not, each with a particular focus area, all in cahoots to ensure continued progressive political victory on issue after issue. The network is huge, slippery, well-funded and effective.
And what was my second takeaway? Well, while we have a few good groups, we don’t have anywhere near that same machine.
Anger and frustration with the GOP has been a major sub-theme of this election. Conservatives, in particular, are tired of losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate, even though we dominate local and state legislatures and hold the US House and Senate. In discussions with Trump supporters and Tea Party activists this theme is often in the forefront. They are sick of being steamrolled by the progressive movement and frustrated that no matter what they do, they cannot seem to halt the unrelenting progress of leftism, “statism” and “secular progressivism” in America. Many openly advocate “burning down” the Republican Party, which they feel has failed, and has abandoned them to big money interests and the “establishment.” You may disagree with their conclusions, but you cannot deny that their anger is there, real, active and impactful.
As for money, the DNC (including its major fundraising organs) holds a $200 million edge for the 2016 election cycle over the Republicans (FEC data, October 12, 2016, Center for Responsive Politics). Senator Harry Reid loves to obsess about the Koch Brothers, but they are 39th on the list of individual donors, with the #1 and #2 spots held by liberals Thomas Steyer and Donald Sussman, who give their combined $61 million to liberals 100% of the time. The top ten individual donors favor liberals by a margin of $130 million to $74 million. As for organizational giving, conservatives do better (the top 10 is basically a tie), but even there the hated Koch Industries only ranks 12th on the list (Center for Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org).
Chairman Priebus has done yeoman’s work in tough times, but if we are losing the battle by $200 million AND we don’t have the same network of advocacy groups spending other money, then we are getting creamed. Even with unprecedented enthusiasm among citizens new to the political arena, conservatives appear to be losing the argument and consequently the political culture.
I, for one, do not favor burning the Republican Party down. But nor do I support leaving it in the field, an abandoned reminder of what it once was. A better solution is to update it, to fix it, to mold it into the next generation political party that it can be. It is time that the Grand Old Party started being more grand and less old, and time that we get with the program and become a twenty-first century operation. This is not about issue selection, or a call to reject our creed, or even about “reaching out” to non-traditional Republican demographics. This is a problem of how we operate.
I assert there are three big things we can do to propel us towards the party of the future:
1. Increase the importance, prestige, and resources of the local and state party units: More funding (including, yes, higher dues for members), larger membership rolls, more paid staff and more power in the local units. Let local units do the grassroots stuff – they do it better anyway – and get them the resources (i.e. cash, not people) to do it (and I mean, yes, directly from the RNC). Instead of yesterday’s volunteer clubs staffed by RNC-controlled temporary workers, turn the state party organization into a network of 50+ active and well-funded grassroots advocacy operations.
2. Transform the RNC from primarily a fundraising organization into a policy advocacy and data operation for the modern information age: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. If advocacy organizations are kicking your butt, be one. Raise money for operations and to distribute to state and local party units, but stay out of the grassroots operation. Be about winning the argument. Chairman Priebus has done better than most, but we need our Chairman to be a major player in the national political conversation. Should he step down, we need a replacement that is a national figure, articulate and active, who will fight to shape and win the political debate.
3. Support a network of right leaning issue-advocacy groups: Make it clear that the GOP stands with these groups, even if there is not universal agreement on every policy, or even tactics. Allies need only agree some of the time, so get on with growing the modern network of advocacy organizations.
It is said that everything is easy to those that don’t have to do it. And of course campaign finance laws hinder efforts to use the party as the nexus of activism. But if the RNC relinquishes more control to local units, becomes a policy advocate powerhouse, and supports a broad issue advocacy network, we can transform the party into an advocacy operation dedicated to winning both elections and the national conversation. Everyone is working hard, and the RNC people are clearly talented. But we are doing it the same way we always have, and our opposition is not. Republican lawyers, call your office.
We don’t have to pay agitators like the Democrats do, or engage in slimy tactics. But we do need to transform if we hope to compete. Corporations transform themselves all the time, we can to. Let us not abandon our stately GOP, nor burn it down. Let us instead reinvent it for today’s political landscape.
