Conservatives lost more than an election

By Chuck Baldwin

That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no one. The real story, however, is not how Obama defeated McCain. The real story is how McCain defeated America’s conservatives. For all intents and purposes, conservatism—as a national movement—is completely and thoroughly dead. Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W Bush and McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Soon after Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no conservative. On the contrary, Bush has forever established himself as a big-government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush’s portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal and ultimate destruction of conservatism. And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain neocon agenda.

For example, Bush and his fellow neocons like to categorize and promote themselves as being “pro-life,” but they have no hesitation or reservation about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in reckless and unconstitutional foreign wars. By the same token, how many unborn babies were saved by six years of all three branches of the federal government being under the control of these “pro-life” neocons? Not one! Ask the more than eight million unborn babies who were killed in their mothers’ wombs during the last eight years how “pro-life” Bush and McCain are.

As a result of this insanely inconsistent and pixilated punditry, millions of Americans now laugh at the very notion of “pro-life” conservatism. Bush and McCain have made a mockery of the very term.

Consider, too, the way Bush and McCain have allowed the international bankers on Wall Street to bilk America’s taxpayers out of trillions of dollars. Yes, I know Obama also supported the Wall Street bailout, but it was the Republican Party that controlled the White House for the last eight years and the entire federal government for six out of the last eight years. In fact, the GOP has won seven out of the previous 10 presidential elections. They have controlled Supreme Court appointments for the past 30-plus years. They have appointed the majority of Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairmen. They have presided over the greatest trade imbalances, the biggest deficits, the biggest spending increases, and now the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

Again, the American people look at these so-called “conservatives” and laugh. No wonder such a sizeable majority of voters yawned when McCain tried to scare them by accusing Obama of being a “big taxer.” How can one possibly scare people with a charge like that after the GOP has made a total mockery of fiscal conservatism? That’s like trying to scare someone coming out from a swim in the Gulf of Mexico with a squirt gun.

Then there was the pathetic attempt by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to scare gun owners regarding an Obama White House. Remember that McCain is the same guy that the NRA rightly condemned for proposing his blatantly unconstitutional McCain/Feingold bill. McCain is also the same guy that tried to close down gun shows. He even made a personal campaign appearance for a pro-gun control liberal in the State of Oregon a few short years ago. In fact, the Gun Owners of America (GOA) gave McCain a grade of “F” for his dismal record on Second Amendment issues. Once again, Chicken Little-style paranoia over Obama rang hollow when the alternative was someone as liberal as McCain.

But the worst calamity of this election was the way conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—surrendered their principles for the sake of political partisanship. Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before McCain’s neocon agenda.

In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth, and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday.

Again, it wasn’t Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was Bush, McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to blame but themselves.

And since it is unlikely that the Republican Party has enough sense to understand any of this and will, therefore, do little to reestablish genuine conservative principles, it is probably best to just go ahead and bury the scoundrels now and move on to something else. Without a sincere commitment to constitutional government, the GOP has no justifiable reason to ever govern again. Therefore, put a fork in them. They are done. Let a new entity arise from the ashes: one that will stand for something more than just “the lesser of two evils.” As we say in the South, That dog just won’t hunt anymore.

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Latest 15 of 58 Total Comments Show All

GW at 05:18 PM JST - 9th November

OTR thankfully yr type are in the minority, wud be a scary world otherwise & yr bud GWB almost got you to that scary place, hopefully now the US will turn from the road to ruin
hereandthere at 07:25 PM JST - 9th November

this election was a lose - lose situation, anytime your only choice is between senators there is no "win" possible.
Sarge at 08:31 PM JST - 9th November

Conservatives lost a battle, mainly because they didn't nominate a conservative for president and because they are unfairly perceived as causing the financial crisis.
Sarge at 08:36 PM JST - 9th November

"Barack Obama trounced John McCain"

52% to 46% - a real trouncing!
USAFdude at 09:04 PM JST - 9th November

Conservatives lost

'Nuff said, other than Thank God!
jeancolmar at 01:02 AM JST - 10th November

Baldwin is not a good writer. And on top his not been a good writer he is not a particularly good thinker. In fact he is clueless. The only thing interesting about him is that he belongs to a fringe of the American right-wing. He opposes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but he is an Isalmophobe. He opposes the Patriot Act but also opposed a woman's right to choose abortion. He is a pro-gun nut who favors private militas. He is also a fundamentalist Bible-beater who hates Martin Luther King for theological reason and because King had a better sex life than he has. He was a member of Moral Majority. He supports profiling. He is the sort of right-wing "libertarian" who in the end would be as totalitarian as Bush if he had the power.

But he doesn't. He is an eccentric with a small following. He is probably not that well funded. Not as well as the neocons.

Anyway, this last election was won not over ideology but mostly over the economy. Not even over Iraq. People's stomachs spoke. The Republicans were seen as the chief instigators of the mess by a critical mass of voters. If the economic crisis hadn't hit McCain just might have won. And, yeah, the US might have bombed, bombed, bombed Iran.

No one in power is as pure as Chuck. If they were they wouldn't be in power.
nagoyait at 10:09 AM JST - 10th November

No, it is also the Christian conservative that is on the way out. Stop trying to find a scapegoat and point to all the other stupid things the Republicans/Christian conservative/Bush did and say it wasn't us. Your just as guilty.
jeancolmar at 10:31 AM JST - 10th November

Quite right, Christian cons have contributed greatly to the dumbing down of the US.
FrEcKlEfAcE at 04:11 PM JST - 10th November

Let them stew in their losing slop, while we work to establish a permanent progressive majority in American....

Yes we can!
zurcronium at 04:42 PM JST - 10th November

Sarge,

53 percent Obama to 46 percent are the final numbers. And the electoral college numbers are over 2 to 1 for Obama, and that as we know from 2000 is how presidents get elected.
Molenir at 07:08 AM JST - 11th November

Something to consider in this whole thing, is the regional aspects of this election. The vast majority of the states were close, some for Obama, some for McCain. However there were several states that were in no way close, and contribute disproportionally to the margins. Specifically, states like California, New York, and obviously Illinois. These 3 are very large states, and taken together add roughly 6 million votes to Obamas margin of victory. Without those margins, Obama would have still won, but it would not nearly have been by as much.

The point I'm making here, is that Obama is not nearly as universally loved as some people are making him out to be. This election really was close, except in some disproportionately liberal states. This suggests that the majority of America is divided over him, and certainly, that he didn't win by a landslide.
Molenir at 07:12 AM JST - 11th November

You're obviously not a member of the US military. Please don't try to act like you are.

Nope, I'm not a member of the Military. Oddly enough though, I am from a Military family. Yes that means most of my family is now, or has served in the Military. I think that gives me sufficient grounds to speak from. And while 85% might be high, I've only ever actually met 1 person in the military who didn't consider themselves conservative. Met hundreds who do. Maybe I'm biased, maybe I've just been fortunate in my friends, and in who my family brought home. But there ya go. Take it as you will. I don't really care what you think anyway.
USAFdude at 01:58 PM JST - 11th November

I don't really care what you think anyway.

Of course you don't, sweetheart! That's why you post to me, yeah? Bwahahahahahahahahaha! xD

PS: Ask anyone in your military family; they'll be quick to tell you that you have no idea what's it's like to you actually sign up.
TPOJ at 10:10 PM JST - 11th November

Based on what you wrote here, I'm making the assumption that you are definitely not conservative. It doesn't take long to figure out that there really is a bias in the news media.

My perception that complaints of liberal bias are overblown means I'm not a conservative?

Define "conservative." I fail to see how perception of the media plays into a conservative ideology one way or the other. You think there's an "obvious" bias, I think it's ridiculously overstated, and used as a distraction. So...now I can't believe in small government? Care to explain that one?
powderfinger at 06:18 PM JST - 18th November

"Conservatives lost more than an election"

And you could say that when people as racist and treasonous as Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers are find themselves, their twisted messages and radical agendas protected and even defended by the mainstream media the Left won more than just an election.