Wanted: A few good statesmen/women
History is replete with bad decisions and wasted opportunities. With perfect hindsight we can look back at all the wars that could and should have been averted by good statesmanship. But that would be "Presentism," meaning to judge past actions based on what we know now, rather than based on what the actors knew back then. It is Presentism that unfairly fuels the current counterculture movement.
Looking forward the presidential election of 2024, what the Republicans should do is this: 1. All the leading candidates should hold a meeting, decide who among them has the best chance of winning, and all work together to elect their chosen candidate. That would be an act of statesmanship. 2. Also, the GOP must learn how to use mail-in ballots as well as the Democrats. 3. The GOP must finish its transition from Country Club/Hedge Fund Elitism to Working-class Popularism.
Those of the Greatest Generation might hope that the Democratic Party would return to being the party of Harry Truman. But that is just as unlikely as the Republican Establishments acting on the three steps outlined above.
Although the crystal ball is very cloudy this early in the presidential race, it is a good bet the GOP will field a high number of candidates. Some of them just raising money for personal use or to trade campaign cash as favors to other candidates playing the same fund-raising game. A few will be in the race to build future name recognition. Ergo: a plethora of candidates might result in another Ross Perot-type three-way race that elects the Democrat candidate who is very likely to be Michelle Obama, standing in for Barack Obama.
Mrs. Obama just published a campaign-style autobiography and is making the rounds of the MSM talk shows promoting her book and herself as the champion of middle-aged, pro-choice women. She knows her demographics. She even has a podcast. By side-stepping what she thinks about President Biden*, Michelle lends credence to the idea that Biden*/Harris will not be on the Democrat’s next presidential ticket..
Meanwhile, the reelection of a four-time election loser to continue to lead the Republican National Committee (RNC) tells us the old pro-Deep State Guard does not understand the GOP rank-and-file is increasingly made up of skilled and unskilled members of the working class.
Amazingly, the GOP is becoming like the party of Harry Truman while the Democratic Party has become the party of Alinsky, Marx, Lenin, and Goebbels complete with mastery of the FBI, the intel community, the MSM, and, except for Elon Musk’s Twitter, all of Social Media. We are being eye-witnesses to an historic political party switcheroo, albeit the Bush-era GOP leadership refuses to acknowledge a seismic shift of America’s workers from Fabian Socialism to the thinking of Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan.
While former President Donald J. Trump has thrown his golf cap in the ring and others are showing signs of doing so as well, we really do not know which hats will remain in the ring and which additional hats might be thrown and which will be withdrawn. All candidates must answer for themselves the question: If elected, is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life? Stay tuned.
Suggested reading: Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman, 1980. Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, 1971.
©2023. William Hamilton.
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