— by Odysseus
In the wake of last week’s (s)election, we have had time to step back from the boxing ring and to analyze what happened. While the left and its allies in the info-tainment industry are more than happy to propose the analysis that Conservativism is a dead ideology of old white men whose time has been erased by the changing demographic of the country, this more reflects their wish than reality. This argument carries less weight because it has been their argument since the late 1960s. In every election since that time, they have claimed that the changing demographic of the country made future Republican victories impossible unless the Republicans became Democrats, yet no other commentator has stepped in to note that adopting the enemy’s ideology and form of governance has never been called “winning”. Rather, it has, usually, been called “surrender”.
The fact remains that, at least, 72% of the country still self identifies as “white” and this is despite innumerable incentives for it to do otherwise. Myriad benefits now accrue to identifying oneself as anything other than “white”. If one can conceivably call oneself a part of any minority, then special opportunities abound. In addition to scholarships and set-asides to gain special access to education, there are special business grants, loans, opportunities, and support organizations, etc. In job opportunities, there are benefits as well because employers strive to “diversify” their workforce.
That individuals will “stretch” their identity bona fides is evident in the personal self advancement of our new Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren to defeat Scott Brown of Massachusetts in this selfsame election.When individuals in historical America could “pass”, they would self identify as “white”. Consequently, the percentage of “white” America seemed much higher than today without any actual change to the demographic. Many self identifying Latinos today would not have classified themselves as such throughout American history. It is the rise of the propaganda called “multi-culturalism”, which intentionally divides Americans today rather than the “melting pot” of traditional immigration, that gives rise to hyphenated Americans and the statistics-based deception of the “demographic shift”.
In truth, America and the American way of freedom, individualism, self-reliance, and opportunity has never been about “race” or demography. The ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers have found popularity across the globe, on every continent, regardless of race, religion or color. In the last election, the proponents of liberty and smaller, less intrusive government failed to adequately communicate the message in a way that was persuasive. The marketing of the idea was poorly executed, and, rather than give up on the ideas on which America was founded, more focus should be brought to bear on these points.
If a company has been in the toothpaste business for 100 years and its marketing department does a poor job, resulting in a painful drop in market share, the first answer is not to get out of the toothpaste business and to start manufacturing dog food. Rather, it is to see if there is truly no longer a desire for toothpaste or determine whether marketing failed. Regardless of the quality of the product, it will not move without a decent salesman. Even an “adequate” salesman of a superior product can lose to a smooth, unprincipled salesman of a competitor.
The GOP lost the presidency to Barack Hussein Obama, twice, because it keeps hiring awful salesmen. The point of Part I of this article is to note that failure in this election cycle is properly laid at the feat of the GOP establishment and the earnest but inadequate efforts of Mitt Romney, the candidate doomed to fail from the very start.
While Mitt Romney was a better salesman than John McCain, it was not by much. Certainly the man was qualified, good, with a spotless background, and was telegenic in apprarance. However, he was not a salesman. He was a banker and he came across as a banker. Deep down in their guts, the Republican party faithful knew this going into the election. There was a reason that they failed to coalesce behind Romney and, instead, flirted with every available alternative for over a year, only to reluctantly settle upon Romney.
Willard Romney was simultaneously a poor salesman of the ideas of the age of the Enlightenment and was a two-dimensional caricature of how the Marxists have portrayed proponents of the Enlightenment ideology since before Lenin considered going back to Russia. The GOP establishment handed this election to the Marxists on a silver platter by giving the Marxists their ideal opponent. If the leftists had handpicked the GOP nominee, they could not have selected better. Considering that the role the info-tainment industry played in the election, perhaps the selection of Romney was, indeed, its hand picking of the GOP nominee.
The left wants to inaccurately characterize the ideas of freedom from government as belonging solely to wealthy, privileged scions, who have no understanding or compassion for those less fortunate, and wish to maintain their dominance of both power and privilege. In point of fact, this notion is perpendicular to the truth, and it is through the use of crushing government regulation and power that the left wing elites destroy potential rising competitors from challenging their own dominance. The ruling elites do not fear the under-class, they fear the bourgeoisie (the middle class) and use government power to continually raise the barriers for the bourgeoisie’s success and to keep it out of the Manhattan and Beverly Hills country clubs. However, this is more than adequately explained in Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.
Unfortunately, the Presidency of the United States of America is not simply a job. Americans don’t hire their President based on “qualifications” or “experience” or “letters of recommendation”. We are not only the country of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, we are also the country of P.T. Barnum. The President is our “King”, and, to many, his selection is a popularity contest.
We all experienced this in the election of a “Class President” in high school, and, sadly, little has changed from that. The President of the local chapter of the National Honor Society is never the “Class President”. The school Valedictorian is never the “Class President”.
To be elected by the masses, the first order of business for a candidate is that he not make the average person feel uncomfortable. On this criterion alone, Mitt Romney failed. His is not a story or background that really anyone can identify with. His very successes make him ever more “alien” to the average person.
– He came from a good family and his father was a governor. (Strike One).
– He is a brilliant man who went to Harvard, getting both a law degree and business degree simultaneously. (Strike Two).
– He has become fabulously wealthy through his own efforts. (Strike Three).
– He is happily married to his first wife and has a large number of successful, stable children (Strike Four).
– He is unnaturally handsome, and his wife even seems to be able to overcome what for others would have been a permanently debilitating illness. (Strikes Five and Six).
In a population that is driven at least as much by envy as ambition, which we have become, Mitt is the living, walking, and talking reminder of their own failures and shortcomings. Because of this, he makes them uncomfortable.
In the field of computer animation, a phenomenon has been found called “the creepy valley”. Audiences watching computer animation have been found to not “accept” the most realistic computer animated rendering of the human form. It limits the appeal of films like “The Polar Express”. While viewers cannot identify exactly what appears “unreal” in the animation, its very nearness to perfection makes it somehow unsettling. The professionals in the animation industry have found that they can overcome this phenomenon by making their characters less “realistic” and adding features of traditional animation. Disney and others who make their living from animation continue to make films with hyper-real animation, but the human figures are made more cartoon-like, which makes them somehow easier for the mind to accept, such as in the recent retelling of the Rapunzel story “Tangled”.
What we are suggesting is that Willard Romney somehow falls into “the creepy valley”. His very perfection turns many people off. The American voters want to choose a “heroic” president, but, in any tale, it is the hero’s fallibility that makes him likable. It is his weaknesses that make him endearing and they can identify with him. Yet, in their quest to appease the hostile info-tainment industry with a candidate that is perfectly unassailable, the GOP establishment selected a candidate that was unlovable, even “alien”.
It did not hurt the candidacy of George W. Bush that he had recovered from an alcohol problem that nearly wrecked his marriage; it made him understandable. It did not hurt Ronald Reagan to have been the first candidate for President who had been divorced, nor that he had made widely-panned movies with a monkey. Previous failures in life and flaws of character make American presidential candidates easier for the average voter to identify with. They make him someone that average people can aspire to be and look up to. Not only do people want a leader they can identify with, they want a leader they think might be able to identify with them. One never sees the Democratic Party ostracizing one of their own elected representatives for weakness or for personal failure; they learned this lesson long ago.
The Republican Party and conservatives need to understand and to re-emphasize that the message of the Enlightenment is the strength of the movement. It is its strength because of its power to uplift absolutely every person. It speaks to not just achieved greatness, but also to the potential greatness that lies in the soul of each person. It speaks to the deeply-buried spark that lets people know that they not held back by the powerful, that, with just a little more faith in themselves, a little more self discipline, and a little more perseverance, either they or their children have a shot at greatness.
The power of the message of the Enlightenment is its recognition of the fact that an overly empowered government will abuse its power to protect established wealth and influence. It does so by giving entrenched parties unfair assistance and stifling potential competitors who cannot yet purchase the power of the state. America needs the message again that our national traits as Americans are not based on envy, but upon ambition. The salesman for that story must be a Horatio Alger; he cannot be a perfumed prince. No matter how genuinely sincere, the salesman comes across as disingenuous. A salesman cannot effectively sell a Ford when the buyers see him drive up in a Volvo.
The conservative movement has to reconnect with its true core values and be willing to select a champion from outside the ranks of the establishment.
To be continued … and then followed by Part II, an alternative, darker hypothesis of this loss and the solution.
