Everything was going swimmingly for the GOP. Two years before, they had captured a Congressional majority for the first time in decades; and their nominee was a shoe-in against an unpopular President, who seemingly had no answers for the crises roiling the nation. Giddy with what they assumed was the certain prospect of Republicans controlling […]
Everything was going swimmingly for the GOP. Two years before, they had captured a Congressional majority for the first time in decades; and their nominee was a shoe-in against an unpopular President, who seemingly had no answers for the crises roiling the nation. Giddy with what they assumed was the certain prospect of Republicans controlling the Congress and the Presidency, the party grew haughty and engaged in internal jockeying and sundry other extraneous pursuits as the election impended.
And they were upended.
All the Republicans received for their electoral cockiness was the iconic photograph of the beaming, victorious Democratic president hoisting the Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Well, that and the GOP majorities in both the House and Senate got their walking papers back into the minority.
In one version or another, we’ve heard the warning that those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. Yet, while the GOP – both its elected and party leaders and its grassroots – has heard it, the question is whether they’ll heed it.
Granted, heading into the 2022 mid-term elections, the GOP’s present prospects appear promising, if not intoxicating.
Due to the redistributionist, spendthrift policies of the President Biden and Congressional Democrats, inflation continues to ravage Americans’ wages, earnings, and retirement accounts. A recession is said to be impending, though most Americans sense it is already here.
To appease radical environmentalists, President Biden, Congressional Democrats, and their comrades amongst institutional investors refuse to free up America’s domestic energy production, in order to foist the “Green New Deal” upon an unwilling population. Gas prices remain exorbitant, large swaths of our nation, such as in California, will see rolling blackouts, and the costs of goods and services will continue to rise due to high energy costs.
A porous border – born of President Biden and Congressional Democrats’ reckless immigration policies – remains an invitation for drug cartels and human traffickers to lure migrants into their web of rape, exploitation, and death. Criminals and potential terrorists enter the nation and promptly fall off the radar screen and into neighborhoods across our country. The Leftist corporate media largely ignores the problem and/or actively downplays it and decries those who seek a solution.
President Biden, Congressional Democrats, and their allies in the radical teachers’ unions have prioritized radical indoctrination over education, condemning children to a future without the full complement of learning skills they deserve; and for which teachers and administrators are employed by taxpayers, like their parents, to provide.
President Biden and his Democratic Congress continue to weaponize the police and surveillance powers of the federal government against their political opponents. They further implement and demand court packing, scrapping the filibuster, proxy voting, public-private collusion for censorship, and numerous other erosions of the very “democratic norms” they claim to support.
There are numerous other contentious issues upon which the Democrats are vulnerable, including their support for extreme abortion laws, including permitting it up to the moment of birth, despite the opposition of the vast majority of the public.
But despite the propitious portends, the GOP would be wise to stop looking beyond 2022. Too many Republicans are crafting wish-lists of what the expected GOP Congressional majority must do. Too many Republicans are crafting another list of which GOP members must be purged from the expected majority. Too many Republicans are posturing to enhance their own political position with the expected majority; and others are figuring out how to exploit the expected majority for their own benefit. Similarly, too many Republicans are speculating on 2024 and the presidential prospects of potential nominees, and which one will better work with the expected GOP Congressional majority.
All of this ensures a Congressional Democratic majority.
It is July, 2022. Americans are beset and besieged by the dire ramifications of President Biden and Congressional Democrats’ radical debilitating policies. Yet, today, the Republican Party remains in the minority. Tomorrow, the Republican Party may become the majority. But overconfidence and arrogance are the enemy. Only incessant sacrifice and laser focus can make a Republican Congressional majority a reality. For our free republic, the 2022 mid-term election is a triage election: it is imperative to uproot and replace the radical Congressional Democratic majority with a Republican majority, and stanch the damage and start the healing now.
Still, if too many Republicans ignore the lessons of history and count their chickens before they hatch, you will have no one but themselves to blame.
Just ask President Dewey.
A Human Events contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) represented Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the "John Batchelor Radio Show," among sundry media appearances.
