Let’s all extend a handshake and meet the 20th-century Republican party, our Dear GOP. Will the GOP ride a red wave this fall/winter election cycle? Who are these Republicans and are they ready to lead America to freedom and prosperity? Will Republicans save us all from the high gas prices, super inflation, gigantic regulatory abuse, high double taxes, endless foreign Wars, illegal immigration invasion at our borders, and crime waves sweeping across the country? In order to understand the GOP, we can start in the middle of the 1990s and get a clearer perspective of what is going on until we arrive in the future current year 2022.
Contract With America
In the realm of political science craftsmanship, nothing in modern times can compare to the great Revolutionary rise of Newt Gingrich and the Republicans of 1994 during the Bill Clinton era. Momentum and mandates work in tandem by creating political capital that can catapult a nation to greater heights while riding a wave of populism and actionable optimism.
The Grand Old Party (GOP) came through with thunder and lightning rods in tow. A Promise to America under the Newly coined framework.
A Contract with America as eloquently articulated by Newt Gingrich a studious history buff, a nerd with a soft yet booming voice, and a look that reminded you of a deep intellectually engaging professor with a wry sense of humor. He was stern. A tough negotiator who laid out the principles that the GOP had lacked after many decades on the sidelines still smoldering and recovering from the embarrassing humiliation of “the infamous-I’m not a crook” resignation by Richard Nixon in 1973. The Republican party had been in limbo and a fading voice in the desert going as far back as the two-term Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s glory days of the post-World War II era, circa 1953. The G.O.P had been a backbenchers’ party since Roosevelt’s Presidency of 1932 with only a few slight re-alignments during the 1946 and 1952 election cycles respectively. Not until a booming bright light at the end of a dark political tunnel hit the earth like a meteorite, via the people’s Republic of California. That bright light came from a rising rock star and legendary orator-in-chief, the old Gipper, Ronald Reagan. The Ol’ Gipper’s presidency thrust America onto the world stage as a shiny beacon city on a hill. Profiles in great leadership brought about many policy victories that were previously thought undoable and unachievable. Just ask Tip O’Neill and the last dying breed of reasonable, somewhat patriotic Democrats of the 1980s.
The 1990s brought us a new fresh face on the block from Arkansas, in the form of more style than substance, but the electorate bought into it, hook line, and sinker, and Bill Clinton ushered in a new American post-cold war era. A continuity of Ronald Reagan’s 80’s successes. Bill Clinton’s thorn in the flesh was the newly minted and contrasting opposing force of Newt Gingrich, who brought the gravitas of substance over style and nearly achieved complete sanity to the political juggernaut. Wherein, for the first-time, buzz words such as “The Era of Big Government is over” was a breath of fresh air in the political arena and a moment of clarity, magically capturing lightning in a bottle for the nation-state of America. Bill Clinton a notoriously undisciplined personality with gargantuan personal foibles skirted by due to his immense political talent, to triangulate and moderate and govern from the middle as a moderate political figure. Constant, consistent pressure from a principled GOP led by Gingrich managed to centralize an otherwise leftist socialist-inclined Clinton Administration, from going off the rails and taking the American country with it into oblivion. For Bill Clinton’s strategists to pivot from disaster and govern like a centrist, it was a masterful political tactic that paid off dividends that are still lingering on today in 2022 almost 30 years later. It Was the Republican Party with a contract with America under the studious leadership of Newt Gingrich that showed just how a two-party system could work wonders. A two-party system that tackles real issues, real gridlock, real societal conflicts, sharp differences in Governing philosophies, and advances policy prescriptions that add to a vibrant give-and-take adversarial relationship between the ruling party and opposition party. The GOP had an opportunity to paint in bold pastels their vision and trajectory path of execution to their broad appeal plans for a better American future. The jostling back and forth as envisioned by our founding fathers seemed a reality come to fruition, making sure we have a robust debate and created an environment in which the best ideas rise to the top like cream. Great Ideas always rise to the top in a liquid mass and volume experiment. And when those great ideas are implemented, it benefits the majority as well as the minority and not just a select few in the broader sense of society. Indulge the veritas writer of this piece in a few good things that came out of the 1994 sweep by the Republican party (GOP). A time when we still had the semblance of a two-party system, before the Pork laden largesse cronyism system took over the body politick like a gangrene infection to the point where we are today in 2022, as mid-term elections approach. We effectively have a one-party state with no opposition and just a unibrow colossus Uniparty that delivers the same results whichever way you vote. Vote Democrats and you get chaos decline and social-economic upheavals. Vote Republican and you get a controlled demolition, death by slow motion, with Democrats you get to destruction as a nation faster than a speeding bullet train, and with Republicans, you get there, at the same destination on a slow-motion goods train, maybe a bus if you get lucky based on how many constitutional patriots run as Republicans. Some highlights from a by-gone era:
