The Republican Party is still reeling from the loss of the 2008 elections, still looking for the next Lincoln-Reagan-esque hero to save us all from the loss of America and the rising tide of liberalism. After taking a step back from the elections, these are five ways to renew the Republican Party right now—this is what the GOP needs to do if it doesn’t want to lose the momentum it began building during the Reagan era.
5. Reintroduce the basics.
Motown Records’ vision for creating music was KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The GOP needs to get back to the basics: small government, true investment in our future, building (not burning) bridges, legal immigration, traditional morality, and true separation of church and state. We had massive debts before the Obama stimulus packages—did anyone ever spend their way out of a financial crisis? We need to cut our spending while managing our priorities: education vs. environment vs. research of a rare species vs. health care, etc. How can we protect our way of life when our children’s children are going to be fitting the bill so that we can live comfortably? Our Founders told us we had a right to pursue happiness, not that we were guaranteed the right to be happy. If the GOP overcomplicates things and resorts to politics as usual, the American people will simply continue their march towards the left.
4. Review the Constitution.
The problem with people today is that we’re lazy when it comes to knowing our own history. We may know European history, bits and pieces of the indigenous tribes of the pre-Columbian Americas, and even the philosophical and religious systems of Asia and the Middle East. But do we truly understand our own Declaration of Independence and Constitution? Since when did the First Amendment, where “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,” mean that it was okay for the government to eradicate religion from all public sectors and prevent pastors from preaching to their congregations on the values that have been held dear to America for centuries? When did the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave former slaves full citizen status, give illegal aliens the right to free education and free health care in the United States? When did that same amendment, guaranteeing rights to “all persons born” in the United States, deny the rights of all persons unborn? The problem with America isn’t that we’re stupid; the problem with America is that we’ve allowed our education system to brainwash us and our children into believing history happened a different way—that America is innately racist, unfair, unforgiving, unfaithful, and the international bully of the world. As Hawk Nelson, a Canadian punk rock band asks in their song “Letters to the President” (2004), “Do they even know?” We say we know what our rights are and what we’re guaranteed under the Constitution, but do we even know for real? That, for example, the Constitution, as stated in the Declaration, guarantees a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but that there is not an inherent right to privacy (outside of possessing property), choice, and the removal of God from the public square? A good citizen is one who knows his or her true history, not the history spoon fed to him or her in school. There’s so much out there that we need to know, and it is our responsibility to learn it properly.
3. Reinstitute checks and balances in government.
What good is having a government established under the tyranny of the majority when only a few people have the power? Last time I checked, the Constitution’s Preamble read, “We the People,” not We the President, We the Congress, or We the Supreme Court Justices. Yet every year, we go to the polls, vote in our politicians, and let it go. Since 1776, the US government has borrowed and spent over $11,285.5 billion; do any of us really know what the government has spent it on? How much of that money was the US government’s? Zero. All that money is generated by the American taxpayer—the US government does not generate its own cash at all (unless it prints extra money, but that causes inflation). Politicians throw around terms like Universal Health Care, Welfare Programs, Public Education, Government-Owned Business, “the Government’s gonna pay for it all,” etc., without the people truly understanding what it all means. The government doesn’t pay for anything—the American people do. Shouldn’t we at least be informed as to what we’re spending our money on? Needless to say, are we to trust our government? Yes—anarchy is not an option. However, are we to blindly believe that every single politician and every single administration that enters office always looks out for the benefit of the people? Of course not—the ultimate check and balance is the American people on the government; as Thomas Jefferson said, “When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” In addition, the legislative branch needs to check the judicial branch. For far too long, the courts have been legislating from the bench, which is unconstitutional. For the past fifty years, our basic liberties have been stripped out from under our noses through judicial actions. This has to stop immediately.
2. Rekindle the true civil rights movement.
In Chapter 2 of Booker T. Washington’s My Larger Education (1911), he writes:
[T]here have always been in every Southern community a certain number of coloured men who have sought to gain the friendship of the white people around them in ways that were more or less dishonest. For a number of years after the close of the Civil War, for example, it was natural that practically all the Negroes should be Republicans in politics. There were, however, in nearly every community in the South, one or two coloured men who posed as Democrats. They thought that by pretending to favour the Democratic party they might make themselves popular with their white neighbours and thus gain some temporary advantage. In the majority of cases the white people saw through their pretences and did not have the respect for them that they had for the Negro who honestly voted with the party to which he felt that he belonged. (emphasis added)
Interesting, so according to Booker T., the party of the African American since the late 19th century had been the Republican Party—the party where “he belonged,” and to be an African American registered as a Democrat was seen as a pretending, dishonest poser. History, however, took its course; FDR’s New Deal brought many African Americans into the Democratic Party, and Kennedy’s affiliation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, although the Republican-controlled Congress was to credit, cemented the African American community’s loyalty to the Democratic Party for the rest of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, around the same time, the belief that America was inherently racist rose as a philosophical truth. Affirmative action became a staple of race relation policy. Our Founders became nothing more than racist (and chauvinistic), slave-owning white boys, establishing America in such a way that would perpetuate the status quo of the dominant white man. A true study of history, however, would reveal a more gentle view of Our Founders, one that demonstrated a Spirit of good will toward all of God’s creation, regardless of creed or color. It is this Spirit that we must rediscover.
1. Restructure its priorities in the culture war.
Republicans are seen as hypocrites because they tout high traditional moral standards, and then become embroiled in scandals dealing from pedophilia to pornography to extramarital affairs. Besides doing some in-house cleaning, the GOP must restructure its priorities in the culture war. While Democratic counterparts will deny that there is a culture war still going on, the fact is that the culture war is still strong and vibrant. Liberals would have you believe that the traditional lifestyle is dead and unlivable in the 21st century, that one-man-one-woman marriage, abstaining from sex until marriage, being pro-life, and even an individual’s right to carry a gun are things of the past. This is far from the truth as more and more young people are choosing to be more traditional as society comes out of the backlash of the Sexual Revolution, post-Roe v. Wade era. The GOP needs to show young people how the culture war is relative today, and how the loss of the culture war will mean bigger problems down the road for everyone. “How is allowing a woman ‘the right to an abortion’ going to affect me at all? Should homosexuals have ‘the right to marry’?” are a few of many culture-war questions young people are asking today and need to be given the facts about it all, without coming across as hypocrites and social dinosaurs. Young people today are more socially motivated than in previous generations as well. The Republican Party needs to show young people how they can be positively involved in social justice issues—the difference between volunteering your time to help fellow Americans stricken by a hurricane vs. volunteering your rights to individuals who may not necessarily deserve them. This would be the GOP’s top priority issue.
As we press on into the 21st century, with issues and opportunities just as devastating and promising as the 20th century, the GOP has received a gift in losing the 2008 election. It’s time to regroup, reprioritize, and renew the party. Let go of what’s been hurting and develop what’s been working. The party of Lincoln and Reagan is not dead. It’s just hit a rough spot. But it’s time to get back on track before it’s too late. There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, and we need to be ready for the rain.
Posted by Michael DeNobile in 
