Don't Give an Inch!

“That is what good politicians do; create coalitions and find acceptable compromises.” – Donald Wittman, economist

“But compromise is not a mediocre way to do politics; it is an adventure, the only way to do democratic politics.” – Jean Bethke Elshtain, political philosopher

I used to think that Wittman was right and Elshtain was spot-on. Now, after eight years of Barack “Elections have consequences” Obama, followed by four years of Democratic intransience and subterfuge during Donald Trump’s presidency, I stand corrected.

If I had any remaining doubts, the first 10 months of the Biden administration – with its record number of executive orders and a “my way or the highway” approach to bipartisanship – has settled the question once and for all. Given the opportunity, the liberals and progressives who dominate and control the Democrat Party have chosen to shove their radical ideology down America’s collective throat… like it or not.

That is why, should the Republicans gain control of the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024, my advice to them is simple: Don’t Give an Inch!

In the classic Halloween special, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” there is a famous scene in which Lucy tries to convince Charlie Brown that she will not pull the football away from him as he prepares to kick it. Charlie Brown is skeptical, but Lucy produces a signed contract promising that she will not trick him again. Always the trusting sort, Charlie Brown is persuaded by Lucy’s apparent sincerity and agrees to try it one more time.

Of course, history repeats itself as Lucy pulls away the football at the last minute and Charlie Brown winds up flat on his back. Lucy’s callous explanation is that the contract was never notarized, thereby making it nonbinding.

Sounds like “business as usual” in Washington D.C. to me!

Whenever the Democrats are in the congressional minority, they insist that the Republican majority plays fair and meets them in the middle. Historically, the GOP falls for that line over and over, wasting a golden opportunity to enact its own legislative agenda. However, as soon as the tables are turned and the Democrats resume a majority position, they adopt a “take no prisoners” approach. Outflanked and outmaneuvered, the Republicans – just like Charlie Brown – find themselves hopelessly duped and in an embarrassing and helpless prone position.

When will the conservatives ever learn that liberals have no honor, no conscience, and no core values? Unencumbered by a sense of decency, the progressives follow a scorched earth policy, leaving the GOP, the middle class, and American taxpayers to suffer the consequences.

As an amateur historian, I remember all too well the way Adolf Hitler played a feckless and naive Neville Chamberlain like a fiddle in the lead-up to World War II. The Munich Agreement that both men signed in 1938 traded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany in exchange for an illusionary promise of “peace for our time.” Did I say “traded?” I meant “surrendered.”

History reveals that Chamberlain was hoodwinked by a master strategist and maniacal despot… and World War II followed shortly thereafter. Simply put, a policy of concession and appeasement does not work with people who lack a soul. Nor does negotiating in good faith – Chamberlain called it a “discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will" – because that phrase, let alone that concept, is foreign to progressives.

Israel learned that lesson the hard way when it repeatedly swapped land for peace with the PLO, only to be subjected to thousands of missile attacks from Gaza in subsequent years.

From the days of Saul Alinsky and his “Rules for Radicals”, the progressives have followed a Machiavellian playbook in which the end always justifies the most nefarious of means. That is why it is high time for conservatives to stop bringing a knife to a gun fight. Instead, our unified game plan should be as follows…

Play hardball. Go for the jugular. Step on their necks and show no quarter.

Why be so cold and calculating, so unyielding and unrelenting? Because America’s future – and the lives of our children and grandchildren – are at stake.