A GOP strategist earlier this week summed-up the legacy of the Obama Presidency best with a succinct Tweet. Republican activist Roy Cooper tweeted Tuesday that “Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 house seats, 13 senate seats.” These numbers are nearly unbelievable, until you think about the repetitive “wave” elections over the past seven years that have resulted in huge Republican gains. Indeed, a glance at the above numbers would portray President Obama as the single greatest campaigner for the Republican Party in its history.
That is exactly the problem going forward.
Republicans have won primarily because Americans are fed-up with the out-of-control growth of government at every level under President Obama. The constant erosion of personal liberty, loss of upward economic potential, and a sense that our nation’s best days are behind us are driving Americans away from the leftist ideology of our current commander-in-chief. Americans long for a return to individual and economic liberty, which have been the hallmarks of the American experience since our nation’s inception. As such, we have voted in droves for Republican candidates who have promised to repeal Obamacare, balance the budget, stand-up to our adversaries and “make America great again.” Even after casting these ballots, however, most of us feel that the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Republicans have benefited greatly from the failed presidency of Barack Obama; they have been rewarded electorally in ways few opposing political parties ever are during their opposition party’s presidency. This is not enough to save the conservative movement going forward. There is a growing sense inside the GOP that the party is not committed to its own base, or the principals that make up the party’s own platform. If this sense of growing antagonism between the Republican establishment and the party’s conservative base is not bridged in the very near future, the gains made by the GOP during the Obama years will be for naught.
We need a reinvigorated Republican Party committed to busting-up the “Washington Cartel” of influence peddling, special interests, and bloated bureaucracy. We need a GOP that is no longer content to preside over the demise of a great nation, but, instead, is poised to lead it back to greatness. We need a conservative movement and a Republican Party that march hand-in-hand, not as forced partners in the political dance.
If freedom is to reign in America again, it must first reign in the heart of the Republican Party. If the cause of freedom is to be led again in this country, it must come from courageous conservatives committed to reinvigorating the individual liberty and economic freedom message of the Republican Party. Americans are ready to reform the government that is holding them back, and the GOP better decide soon if it is going to be part of the solution, or part of the problem that the American people are ready to remedy.
