The Conservative's Dilemma: What About the GOP?

During the years leading up to the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and throughout his 2 terms of office, I had been a card-carrying member of the Republican Party.

As one of the original foot-soldiers in the Reagan Revolution, I had worked within William F. Buckley Jr.'s Young Americans for Freedom, which advocated for a fair hearing for conservative principles on college campuses, during almost the entirety of the 1970s.

One of the goals of that organization at that time was the election of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency.

Thus, I was proud to be a Republican and a very conservative one at that. I was even prouder when I watched Reagan take his first oath of office in 1981.

The GOP during those years was constrained by the sheer force of Reagan's personality to turn decidedly more conservative, although the liberal eastern establishment Republicans, such as those of the Rockefeller mindset, grumbled underneath their breaths.

Reagan's resounding success at home and abroad came with its downside. There is an aspect of winning that leads to a certain complacency...and a tendency to forget the core principles that led to the fight to win in the first place.

Unfortunately, the GOP exhibited (and still does) that complacency and that amnesia concerning the principles that made the Party so successful under Reagan.

Since the late 1990s I have not considered myself a Republican. I have rather enjoyed the freedom that goes with being Independent. But there is still a big part of me that longs for the GOP to recapture some of the greatness it achieved under Reagan.

It was the Party of distinct conservative values and ideas. Sometimes these ideas were entirely innovative and creative. But they were based upon sound OLD ideology born of the vision of the Founding Fathers--limited government, individual initiative and responsibility, individual liberty that is unfettered by oppressive government regulation, and free enterprise.

And this brings us to the present dilemma. The GOP seems to have forsaken its core values. Sure, the voices for liberty are still there, but right now they are in the minority, and they are being muzzled to a degree.

The answer for me is certainly not Democrats. And no, it is not the Libertarian Party, either.

There is a certain deep resistance yet toward abandoning the GOP altogether. And this goes much deeper than simply a nostalgic wish for the good old days. There is a very practical reason. To totally abandon the Republican Party at this point is to weaken the conservative voice and play directly into the hands of Democrats who WILL use it to their advantage.

Simply look at what happened in 2006 and 2008.

But one thing is for sure. Conservative patience with the GOP is not an endless virtue. Sooner or later, unless the GOP leadership gets the message, we will totally abandon the Party in order to forge a new venture somewhere else that values the conservative point of view.

For an even deeper look at this fascinating subject, read Larrey Anderson's excellent essay at American Thinker.