Politics should be driven by principle, not hate
Politics should be driven by principle, not hate
"Democrats are worse" is not a defense of Republicans advancing anti-conservative policies,
When Donald Trump wrote "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!" on his social media platform, he summed up the problem with our politics today in four words. Too many people see politics and policy not through the lens of making things better. They see politics through the lens of animosity toward the other side. Conservatives used to say that we think liberals are wrong while they think we are evil, but that is not true anymore. It is worse now than it was a decade ago, but this mentality was very strong twenty years ago. Now, negative partisanship is the primary motivation for both sides.
I really do not care what liberals and Democrats do. Sure, less personal animosity would be great, but conservatives need to clean our own house first - both for the good of the Republican Party and (more importantly) for the good of the country. One of the reasons conservatives have been so tolerant of Donald Trump weakening the Republican Party's opposition to child murder and even proposing the federal government pay for both daycare and in vitro fertilization is that "Democrats are worse."
It would be easy to blame this on Trump and his most devoted fans, but this goes back much farther than 2015. When George W. Bush signed a campaign finance "reform" law that violated the First Amendment and was struck down by the Supreme Court, and when Bush signed a law that created a brand new federal entitlement program, I was repeatedly told "John Kerry is worse, because he will..." blah blah blah. When you cannot defend a Republican pushing an anti-conservative agenda, the default response is "The Democrats are worse."
I am a conservative, not an anti-Leftist. At the federal level, I want lower taxes, less regulation of the economy, laws protecting the unborn, significantly less government spending, and a restrained foreign policy that sees military intervention as the last resort. At the local level, I want lower taxes, restrained spending, more permissive planning and zoning laws, better police and fire protection, and strict financial oversight to make sure money is not spent inappropriately.
Yes, negative campaigning is necessary. But too much of the "conservative" movement and especially the Republican Party is not interested in reducing government's control over our lives, protecting the innocent, and restraining spending. They only care about opposing Democrats. I get a ton of spam text messages and e-mails about how terrible the Democrats are, but substantive proposals for a conservative agenda are sparse. That is not going to change until conservative voters start holding Republicans accountable for advancing anti-conservative policies.
