A Response by Founding Father
In a recent SD Rostra blog comment, I asked Rostra regular, Brian Brady, to explain his apparent dichotomy as to how he could profess a Sanctity of Life moral position and yet support an Abortion candidate for the GOP nomination, in the 52nd Congressional District race in particular. His response to that inquiry is linked here.
I want to thank Thor’s Assistant for allowing me the opportunity in a “guest” blogger format to address Mr. Brady’s article. It was a well-thought out and in-depth response to my initial comment inquiry. As promised, Mr. Brady illuminates precisely what I was looking for; the impetus and reasoning behind the apparent shift in GOP ideology, support, and direction primarily with regards to Abortion by people (at least one man) of conviction. It is a noble and sincere effort for which I am honestly grateful and honored to have been the recipient.
On the sheer, political practical front, there is mutual clarity on the distinct need of priorities for political governance. We are in violent agreement that compromise is a necessary constant in the democratic/representational political calculus and I would add often becomes the defining legacy of leaders. More disturbing, yet equally as real, is the apparent influence referenced in the post of a powerful few that, at a minimum, tacitly set the agenda for thousands of others in San Diego County before a candidate is even presented or a single vote has been cast…let alone not one debate in the case of the 52nd District held by the Republican Party of San Diego County…not one…between GOP candidates…the RPSDC made its choice.
For context, see this September 2013 article in Voice of San Diego.
On that, warts and all, we are also clear. Where we will diverge is on the agreement of those priorities.
A primer– Negotiation 101: One needs a position from which to compromise. The value of one’s position is fundamentally based on what one is NOT willing to compromise; one’s conviction. (i.e. the compromise is only a true compromise if one has conviction, a moral or conscience “price-point” if you will…otherwise it is just political haggling and retains no value to those being represented) This is where our national, social, cultural, faith, and historical positions within our political views are represented by one’s political affiliation. But how far does one compromise to where one is now abandoning their convictions?
For me, over 30 plus years, and my parents and grandparents before them, that political affiliation was the GOP. When I moved back to San Diego several years ago, I immediately donated a relatively sizable amount of money to the RPSDC GOP…not because I was trying to influence people I did not know (I knew no one) or expect some quid pro quo… but, because that is what good, GOP-backers do. That is how much faith I had in the platform, the WHOLE platform. Not a purist, rather a “generalist,” confident the GOP represented my values, convictions, and positions across the conservative spectrum. It “prioritized” my politics in a way I was satisfied.
For millions of Americans, including me, that conviction, from where the value of what we are willing to “give up” or not, was defined within the tenets of the Republican Party as I had known it. Contrary to dis-informational campaigners on Rostra railing against those that have been questioning the GOP’s clear and admitted shift on Life and Marriage, these did not become “single” issue battles for me before the GOP itself decided to abandon my position. This assuredly woke the politically lethargic and socially comfortable “non-purists” within the GOP in large measure because it was simply something unfathomable for them as an issue from where to “compromise.” This could not have been something unforeseen by the local GOP leadership; a markedly and definitive change as this is, it was bound to elicit blowback and equally reasoned and sincere criticism (and “no” not “extremism or intolerance” as some have impugned, but reasoned criticism of the GOP, its selection for endorsements, and its future based on those choices).
Additionally, for most Evangelicals and Faithful Catholics, this came as an equally debilitating “compromise.” For them, the Judgment of their actions as professed by Our Savior, are not negotiable. Christ is abundantly clear as to His position on the life and treatment of children. Though there are a few ambiguous and loose references to actual abortion in the Bible, what is thoroughly clear and universally acknowledged is the persistent call for great benevolence and practical concern for the most vulnerable and least powerful members of the community. The implication here, and inherently understood by our extraordinary, albeit fallible, Founders was a just society based on Judeo-Christian precepts that will adapt its laws to protect, in particular, pregnant women and unborn children, and will provide refuge for both in times of peril. This transcends their practical political calculus. As for members of profound faith, “compromise” and the right for them to express their religious freedoms and convictions were not previously threatened or abandoned in the political process…and why would it? They had the GOP and the GOP had them.
What is now clear, and where the GOP has chosen to compromise, is on the Sanctity of Life. All the standard euphemisms of “right to choice, reproductive rights, better support, fund other options” etc. while intellectually curious, and perhaps politically assuaging, do not negate the fact that the GOP is NO longer the Party of Life.
…In San Diego County, the GOP is no longer the Party Of Life…
Sadly, that is irrefutable at this point, and to have GOP politicians (and their websites, including the California GOP and Republican National Committee organization sites claim otherwise) tap-dance with understatements and exhaustive explanations that they may be or not, is moot, disingenuous, and insulting. (This, btw, is not you, Mr. Brady)
The GOP is now something else…It has prioritized other issues. Where Mr. Brady, I, and many agree, the fiscal calamity facing our nation has such widespread economic, social, and even cultural and national security implications that encroach on the very nature of our existential being. I get that. And, when the GOP was the Party Of Life, the fiscal threat as Mr. Brady adroitly illustrated was a Tier One imperative for me as well that must be dealt with. I didn’t have to deal with the other…precisely because it was implicit of the position of the Party Platform.
As Mr. Brady may know (outside of my Rostra Nom de Plume), I have lectured, participated on panels, spoken to meetings, rallies, and been interviewed locally and nationally on national security issues and have spoken myself directly and passionately on the nexus of our security posture, vis-à-vis our debt/fiscal policy crises, and the vital need for retaining our ability to project all the tools of our national power to remain geo-strategically relevant. As Sun Tzu stated, “The Defense of the State is paramount, for all other endeavors are moot without it.” This has been a passion of mine in addition to my vocation for many years both in and out of government service. I have consulted both publicly and privately as to my views on such issues. So…
“The country has a bigger problem”…
This was a standout statement for me. As expressed above, I have dedicated a great deal of my personal and professional “capital” on these issues and the articulation of said policies as they related to a healthy, vibrant, and prosperous national posture. And if we are concerned about the impact a particular policy may have on Americans, their well-being, safety, security, etc., what can be more pressing than the systematic deaths of 55 million of our own children…and counting? Unlike the characterization of some flaming-pitch throwers regarding “extremism” and “purity,” the Abortion issue, while a conscious concern of mine, was something so matter-of-fact and boiler plate as a life-long Republican, it was a fait accompli because the GOP was the Party Of Life…we inherently new the GOP, at various levels, and with varying degrees of voracity, was going to stand against Abortion. If a secular fiscal-conservative, social-progressive, Pro “Choice/Anti-Life” proponent had issue with that, they could feel free to accept that precept or go somewhere else and back another candidate.
The reality is that I, and thousands of others in San Diego County, and millions of Americans across the nation, are being told, “Feel free to go somewhere else and/or back another candidate.” Another reality is millions within the GOP find both Abortion and Marriage other than One Man/One Woman incongruous with their faith and religious freedom, while others, more secular, philosophically equate the horrific deaths of aborted children in America today as morally misaligned with other 20th Century horrors such as the Jewish “Final Solution” or Soviet “Centralized Economic Planning” leading to the deliberate starving deaths of millions of Ukrainians, or the reprehensible “one-child” rule in China, where millions and millions of young baby girls are snuffed out over the economically more desirable boys. Even Belgium recently has adopted a euthanasia policy for infants. All of these secular, humanistic-centric libertine constructs believe (ed) they also have more urgent matters; Racial purity, political genocide, population control, or selfish and ruthless “child” selection. Yet, the GOP leadership has “prioritized” supporting Abortion candidates as the new “normal”, and that though many sympathize with the 55 million children killed since Roe v. Wade, even struggle morally, religiously, and ethically, it doesn’t reach the level of urgency currently occupied by other issues; for Mr. Brady, well articulated and sincere, it is the fiscal crisis. For others, less noble, it is personal political aggrandizement in the form of political influence and sweeping social correctness. For others, it is precisely that the GOP is not the “purist” party of “intolerant” swamp rubes, aka Duck Dynasty that they desperately attempt to craft as a demonizing and ad hominem narrative of “racist/homophobe” etc. and they can now tackle the fiscal and prosperity issues in a broader irreligious, libertine, “reasonable” way within the New Generation/Majority GOP without being associated with those “fanatics” and “zealots.”
However, the GOP switched out morally convicted “fanatics” for more fiscally convicted libertine “fanatics” (…and “no” again, this does not refer to you, Mr. Brady)
OK. I get that…but if that’s the case, then why proceed with the offensively blatant and duplicitous platform notions of “Life” and “Marriage” within a recalcitrant GOP strategy? It is either done out of a sense of ignorance or patronizing, or is a deliberate act of disinformation that is perpetrated on the less informed…in either case, it is wrong.
I see Mr. Brady made what he and ultimately the RPSDC thought was a practical choice in backing DeMaio over Jorgensen in the 52nd. He articulated this well as such with regards to the Abortion issue. Yet, what had initially infuriated many others, including me, regarding the 52CD race are the patent obfuscation of the other issue raised; powerful backers and inside influence in the form of media brokers, realtors, high-level business execs, and select political power agents in the form of the Lincoln Club and the New Majority within the SDC GOP. This is unconscionable not because we were splitting fiscal approaches on a tax percentage point or two, or whether we should have a 300 ship navy or not, or if candidates should sign a term-limit pledge, or varying degrees of school-choice options between two strong Republicans…it was the fact that the “New GOP” influencers decided essentially unilaterally that the backing was going to be de facto for DeMaio…at the EXPENSE of the platform of the GOP, and if you all, the Exec Committee and the Central Committee, don’t get on board, well…their will be political hell to pay…That aspect, Mr. Brady, is NOT the political pragmatism that you so aptly, and no doubt sincerely, articulated that got overtaken in what appears as political cronyism, opportunism, and manipulation…and it was at the expense of fracturing the party and deeply held convictions by a large percentage of its members. A Party I staunchly supported, even through the difficult Bush years, and weak presidential candidates like McCain and Dole, and failed senate races such as Fiorina.
So, those of us formerly of the ideology and position of the previous GOP are left with a choice of our own; 1) Accept the “new normal” and abandon our own deeply held convictions of faith or philosophy for the new priority, or 2) rally to the “new” priorities that were once accepted and recognized” boiler-plate” issues as their own priorities within their own calculus for candidates, compromise, and conviction. That is what I, and others, have been doing both here and in other fora regarding the abandonment by the “New” GOP.
In my calculus, Mr. DeMaio’s candidacy simply was not worth all that. Contrary to what some desperately try to paint as intolerance, extremism, and various “phobias” the truth is Mr. DeMaio as a Republican is not very strong. What added insult to injury, is we advanced a weak Republican AND felt we needed to throw our convictions away to do it.
Convictions that, for many, are simply not “compromise-able.”