What The Mid-Term Results Mean For The Grass-Roots Leader

From Campaign For Liberty:

What the Midterm Results Mean For the Grassroots Leader


By Adam de Angeli

View all 7 articles by Adam de Angeli

Published 11/05/10



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This is the first time the two houses of Congress were controlled by opposing parties in 24 years.



That's not counting June 2001 through 2002, since Democrats and Republicans were essentially one War Party after 9/11. They aren't one party this time. The Republicans' mandate was absolutely clear: shut down the Pelosi agenda.



The legislature is deadlocked for the next two years. Sure, there will be some defensive federal battles. But they will all be easy compared to what we had to do last year. Even "moderate" or "bi-partisan" threats, like environmental regulations or Internet regulations, will be easy to stop.



The exception, sadly, is the interventionist foreign policy. But that issue will get a hearing in the 2012 Presidential race, if indeed Ron Paul runs.



For the most part, though, Congress will be frozen.



Don't expect other groups--especially Republican Party organizations--to tell you this. They want your time, talent, and treasure working for their candidates.



We should know better. Change is brought about by the infliction of pain, not pleasure.



And when you support a politician, a funny thing happens: you begin to excuse his bad behavior. Facing his bad votes means facing that you were a poor judge if character or competence. Most people would rather not face that fact.



Republicans will also offer their Constructive Republican Alternate Proposal (CRAP). There is Newt Gingrich's "American Solutions," an ideological mess, based on public opinion surveys. Whether it's the weak-willed "Pledge to America" or the Newter's Solutions, it is a hopeless fight, known to its leaders as such, but useful to them for shaking down supporters for money and volunteer time.



The real agenda here is to turn the swing voters into Team R's baseline vote. That it guarantees a return to the un-accountable right of the George W. Bush years is not important to the people behind this agenda.



We will benefit from alerting organizers to this deception.



And we will really benefit from recognizing this deadlock in Washington, and focusing our efforts on state-level battles, and growing our state organizations.



In my state of Michigan, Republicans just took the state house, governorship, and judiciary from Democrat hands. They now have a supermajority in the state Senate.



They had better make good on these victories. It's our job to ensure it.



It will not be as easy as it sounds.



Remember when Team R controlled the White House and Congress, 2003-2006? Remember how their despicable acts led to Democrats taking it all back? That will happen again, if we let it.



Savor just how bad that scenario was. Republicans stood behind record-breaking expansions of government power. The grassroots could not be mobilized against "their" party. Even as it discredited their philosophy and ultimately led the voters to look to the left for answers.



In Michigan, it's our job to prevent that. We need very substantial, positive action from the state government, to reign itself in. Republicans campaigned on doing this.



We need to treat every politician who will not support substantial, positive action for liberty as an enemy.



And here's the hardest part. Where Republican politicians fail us and vote against us, we need an army to mobilize opposition against them in 2012. Why, I explain in another article, linked here. But how? It will not be easy.



It will involve persuading people about tactics. That will involve teaching people about the real nature of politics, and about why they must remain in the 6% swing vote.



People tend not to be swing voters because they view it as some sort of ideological inconsistency. The capital-L Libertarian could never support a Republican. The true conservative, by a Republican's definition, will never vote against a Republican.



But the pragmatic organizer, and the pragmatic voter, sets the bar where some politicians make it and others don't. His vote is in play.



Most Republicans got my vote this year. Some didn't. Some Republicans got my support; others I spoke out against.



In this way, I maintain with any politician that we can be their friend or their enemy. This enough people doing the same, this is how we achieve our agenda.



The next year will not be as easy as the last. We will have less in common with the Republicans. We will have to attack them for bad votes and they will attack back. Grassroots will be harder to mobilize. Money will be harder to raise.



To prevent this, we will now need to focus on educating people about tactics. Supporters must understand why we are doing what we are going to be doing, or else they will be taught, by the politicians and their allies, that we are the enemy for endangering "our" wonderful majority.



The future of the Revolution, at least for the next two years, will lie in its success at building state-level groups that can confront and mobilize against politicians of either party. There will be pied-piper organizations to distract us from this.



It will be a war of tactical philosophies as well as a war of ideas.





P.S. One offensive federal battle that could be won next year: Audit the Fed.