3 … 2 … 1 … Happy New Year!
Hope you all got to see the ball drop, view Ryan Seacrest’s endless narcissism ring in another year, and Harrys, I hope you won over your Sallys.
The New Year is here — 2020 — a new decade, a new Virginia, and new resolutions lay ahead for the Republican Party of Virginia. The question is, in such a vital year, will the party follow these resolutions if they write them down?
Will we stick on that diet plan? Most resolutions last a week, and you’re back to eating sweets, drinking soda, and convincing yourself that it’s just one of something. We contributors here at Bearing Drift
know what the Republicans need to do to lose that Dad Bod and quit smoking rolled-up Nativism.
But in case they have not read my various contributions, I have made a list of New Year
resolutions for RPV, free of charge.
1. Make New Friends
There are many voters out there that RPV has not bothered to reach out to — voters who are people of color, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community — Virginians. The RPV has no coherent or cohesive or inviting message to these groups. Just a mothball-riddled blanket that is said to fit all. Focus Group answers of “Liberty,” “Free Market,” “School Choice,” and “Freedom” are vague and shallow. Random Words do not make a policy, and a policy should not be using single words as its foundation. To paraphrase Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, “If you stand for nothing then what will you fall for?”
New groups of voters want to know how the Republican Party will help them or perhaps provide an alternative. So go out of your comfort zone. Talk to people. Come up with ideas that real people and all people care about.
2. Read More
Belittling liberals as college elite snobs that care about books and lattes and higher education and being opposed to those things because they like them is stupid. Even lattes. There is nothing wrong with being a well-read party that encourages a well read populous. Jefferson said an educated mass of people is the only way liberty will be preserved.
When the party does not have a clearly defined plan on education, candidates that are against public education and educators, and dismiss higher ed, how is this ensuring that liberty will prevail? What happened to conservative intellectualism? Buckley? Hello? Right wing populism or any populism is not an ideology or a lasting strategy.
3. Lose Weight
The alt-right, Corey Stewart stans, white nationalists, and neo-Confederates are under no
circumstances a part of a nutritious Virginia breakfast. They never should have been indulged in the first place. But RPV has been secret-snacking on these vile and cancerous toxins and it has to end now. No more. Never again. Please clean out the pantry and lose this horrible weight. And this time, keep it off.
4. Find a New Job
Party elders, representatives, and king makers that have been there for 20-30 years that pass only a handful of bills and have done nothing to stop the rise of alt-right fever that led to a Blue Virginia need to go. Now. New voices need to be heard, term limits across the board need to be implemented, and gate keepers — please turn in your keys. Whatever you’re doing ain’t working. Too many pieces to clean up after the mess that occurred on your watch.
5. Quit Drinking (the Kool Aid)
It’s okay to have different opinions within the party. It’s okay to all be under the tent. The purity tests need to stop; we all don’t have to be on the same page drinking the same cocktails. Independence and free markets, right? Free markets of thought is a good thing and should not be dismissed. What works for a candidate to win in Southside will not work for a candidate to win in NoVa. And that’s okay.
Now, let’s hope RPV takes heed of these New Year’s resolutions. It can be a great 2020 — which sets up a great 2021. Activate that gym membership.