A friend of mine told me this story.
He sat that there bragging about getting a tax cut for friends of his.
I said, ‘you do realize, don’t you, that you’re just like the Democrats, except you’re giving taxpayers money to a different special interest.’
He looked at me and said, ‘but our special interests do good with the money.’
My friend was talking about the second highest-ranking Republican in the Missouri House at the time.
That’s Establishment thinking. The idea that legislators can spend . . . I’m sorry, “invest” . . . your money better than you can.
Okay, so maybe I have a fixation with the Establishment. Just maybe, though, my fixation is justified.
The Establishment does some good. It has access to lots of money and media. It has database and training programs to help candidates win. It throws great parties in really cool hotels, allowing ordinary people to watch drunk Republicans skinny dipping with Dumbo-ear water wings.
Most importantly, the worst, most corruptible, most cynical, most self-serving of the Republican Establishment is still better for America than the best of the Democrat Establishment. (Don’t forget when when you’re vilifying a candidate between now and the primary.)
There’s still something wrong with the Establishment. It’s purpose is to advance and perpetuate the Establishment.
Our purpose is to advance and perpetuate a uniquely American freedom.
In 2010, our purposes happened to blend very well with the GOP’s. That led to harmony on the right and a big win for Republicans.
After the swearings-in, the Establishment did what the Establishment does: like any organism from a simple protozoan to an advanced primate the GOP started working on self-perpetuation.
Like Obama, the Republican Establishment believes that people cannot run their own lives. Instead, other super-people (called politicians and bureaucrats) must run our lives for us.
The GOP Establishment supports subsidies for corporations that should be able to stand on their own. It supports bailouts for company that should be allowed to die their own. It maintains regulations for matters that the market regulates better. It chooses winners and losers, from Government Motors to the failed Aerotropolis here in Missouri.
The Establishment demonstrates its mistrust of people and markets every day.
**We utterly reject that notion. **
The reason the Tea Party exists is not to end the Establishment. As I wrote last week, that can’t really happen.
Instead, we hope to mold the Establishment into a vessel of liberty and good government, not a tool for social engineering.