Restore America by Delivering Safety and Happiness
“Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.” This is the promise of America and the plan Republicans must offer.
The following is a sketch of a positive vision of action that I hope the Right will cohere around and eventually accept as its core, organizing principle. The time for mere criticism of the Left’s absurdities, contradictions, and hypocrisies is long past; if nothing else, it’s boring. We need to start making moves toward something substantive so that, when we do gain power, like the Left, we’ll have a plan for what to do with it. Otherwise, the country will be lost. This is my offering to what I hope will be a vigorous and healthy debate in the coming months and years about what the Right should do and how it should think about how to do it. I always appreciate shares and feedback, but I would especially appreciate it for this one. Thank you for your support. –DAK
America is bitterly divided because there are two Americas. Each has its own concepts of justice, the common good, and human flourishing. And both are vying for supremacy. The way out of this mess is the same as it’s always been: through. We need a realignment, which, once accomplished, will embody and reflect a broad agreement on principles of justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence and actualized by the Constitution. This realignment will transform our disputes; they will become about means and not ends, as they are now.
The last major realignment in American politics was the imperial presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Regardless of what you think of him, Ronald Reagan only managed to effect a partial realignment. Besides desperately and fervently praying that Providence might provide us with an historically once-in-a-century-or-so a realignment for the 21st century, what can we do to hasten its arrival?
The deepest hurdle to our longed-for domestic peace—the fruit of unity, grounded in a shared vision of ends—is that Red America and Blue America do not agree on the nature and purpose of the human person and, by extension, government. We are hopelessly divided on basic things; each side is watching “two different movies,” as Scott Adams would put it. Thus, one side’s appeal to “justice,” “fairness,” “what is right,” and the like is immediately interpreted by the other as despicably partisan, i.e., not aimed at securing the good of the country and her people. Even appeals to the Constitution have a sectarian ring for far too many.
This is, of course, a serious obstacle to achieving anything at all, let alone effecting a necessary regime-level shift. What to do?
Read the rest at American Greatness.
There's a lot of truth to what you say, but I fear "safety" and "happiness" are subject to just as much spin and ambiguity as the "first principles" you talk about. Your strategy won't work on progressives and Dems, therefore, because they inhabit a different reality. It might work on independents and swing voters, but I'm not sure how we can deliver tangible, practical benefits to voters if we don't control the executive branch. Even when we DID control the executive branch, and even when Trump DID deliver real benefits -- like the vaccines and a robust economy -- the media worked furiously, and successfully, to obscure those accomplishments. So...none of what you suggest will be easy to do.