Gingrich; An Historic Opportunity

Timothy Birdnow

Gingrich compares the crackup of the Democrats to the collapse of the Republican Party when Roosevelt was President.

Gingrich was a college history professor, of course, and he knows his history. (Sometimes he lets that get in the way - remember how he boldly predicted a Republican takeover in the '98 elections and the GOP lost seats? for the first time in history?) He might be right. On the other hand times were different then and things do change.

In the Thirties you had just local newspapers, and most of the big cities were served by Progressive papers. There was no real alternate media; if it wasn't a local story it came from a wire service back then. On the other hand there usually were multiple papers so there was some diversity of opinion. People had their news filtered far more than now. But now the gatekeepers of news can control it's flow via Google algorithms and whatnot.

Also, Socialist John Dewey set up public education to maleducate Americans. This has become a stranglehold as private schools are disappearing little by litttle and public education is in the grip of the leftist teacher's unions.And more kids actually go to schoolnow than then. Back then kids actually went to work after grade school, if even not before.

So Gingrich is relying on the fact that the Democrats are out of step with current public opinion. True enough. But that public opinion may change in five, ten years as young, dumb, skulls full of mesh mature. These kids are still being amaleducated.

I remember a while back James Carville wrote a book claiming the Democrats were going into another period of absolute power like the thirties and he based it on demographics. He argued the young were all liberal, and the immigrants too. Turns out carville got it backwards. But that is for now; that is subject to change for the same reason he was wrong. The public is fickle.

And once Trump is off the scene what will the Republicans do? They are born followers, not leaders, and they follow not the guy who led them to victory but the media and their friends in the Democratic Party. If you remember they starting dumping Reagan before his body assumed room temperature, and they went right back to the loser's mentality. Oh, they still pay lip-service to Reagan and in fact use his own personal charm as a kind of talisman, which actually has held the party back (they used it to attack Trump, for instance, claiming "you have to follow Reagan, be a happy warrior and positive" when in fact times have changed and Reaganism would fail now - and in fact they opposed Reagan on the same principle then, arguing his rhetoric and approach was dim-witted and that we needed a policy wonk.)

Times change and the Republicans need to change with them. They are in an historic position to become the leaders of American politics, but they have to learn from Trump (and from the Democrats,at least in their historical approach and willingness to fight). Unfortunately most Republicans are more interested in finding a cubbyhole where they can enjoy the trappings and gifts of power without actually doing anything for America. That has to change.

So Gingrich MAY be right, but he may be wrong. Once Trump is off the ballot things may be very different. I am fearful that Trump is one of these types of politicians who appear once in a generation and build a movement but the movement dies with them. We need to start grooming a successor now, and not wait until a year before the election. And we need to start replacing the RINO's who keep throwing monkey wrenches nto our programs. We need a certain amount of ideological purity.

BTW we saw such a collapse happen in American history only twice  before, when the Federalists and Whigs collapsed. The party of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton simply collapsed after the War of 1812 (the Era of Good Feelings, which lasted ten years). They were replaced by the Whigs, who themselves collapsed in 1854, opening the door to the fledgling Republican Party.

Anyway let us hope and pray Gingrich is right.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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