If you are over the age of forty, you have been hearing, in one form or another, the argument that you must vote Republican to keep the Left from turning America into a socialist country. The pitch gets punched up with promises on certain issues, depending upon the audience, but the basic argument has never changed. The reason to vote for the Republicans is to prevent the Left from doing socialisms. About half the time, this is enough to win elections and keep the parties equal.

It is hard to pinpoint when this argument became the standard pitch for conservatives and the GOP, but the 1990’s is a good guess. After 12 years of Republican presidents, the degenerate Bill Clinton took the helm promising all sorts of Great Society style programs, like socialized medicine. Newt Gingrich responded with the Contract with America and the GOP took the House for the first time in generations. The reason is people wanted to stop those socialisms!

In fairness, from the perspective of the standard issue conservative, the Clinton years were a golden age. Clinton started no pointless wars of choice on behalf of unnamed people working for an unnamed country. Inflation adjusted per capita spending was flat for the first time in forever. The deficit declined and there were a few years in which there was a budget surplus. Clinton even signed off on welfare reform, a long-standing conservative goal going back to the 1960’s.

Then the conservatives told everyone that Bush was a slightly retarded Reagan, who would usher in a new conservative resolution. In the Bush years the Republicans had the House, Senate and White House. Spending skyrocketed, we got two pointless wars of choice on behalf of unnamed people working for an unnamed country and they added the foundations of a police state for good measure. From the perspective of the standard issue conservative, Bush was a disaster.

In 2006 and 2008, many sensible white people did the sensible thing and walked away from the Republicans. In 2006 and 2008, the Democrats had huge electoral victories, winning the House, Senate and White House. People forget that they had veto and filibuster proof majorities in both chambers in 2008. Again, we heard the cry from Republicans that the only way to stop the bogeyman from putting socialisms on you was to vote for them so they could stop the socialisms.

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is you get what you want. This has been the case with both standard issue conservatives and the GOP. That old pitch about voting Republican worked and it kept working, but in the process, it hollowed out both conservatism and the Republican Party. They went from being a movement with a laundry list of reforms and goals to being a collection of mediocrities at the railyard yelling “stop” for some reason.

There are a many useful lessons for dissidents in the Trump era, but one of them is that the Republican Party is no longer a plausible agent of change. They have become a negative identity, that publicly opposes whatever their good friends in the other party are pitching at the moment, but privately despises the people they represent. Thirty years ago, the call to vote Republican to stop the rollback of the Reagan years was possibly sincere, but since then it has become just another grift.

In the comments of these stories at Breitbart, we are seeing regular people wake up and begin to look forward, rather than backward. That old plea to stick with the Republicans because socialism seems to be failing. After all, they ask, if the vote will be stolen and the Republicans do nothing, what is the point of voting? What is the point of the Republican Party if they cannot be bothered to defend the very system that allows them to exist as a political party?

Republicans and Conservatives have no answer for these questions. It is why they are carrying on as if concerns about election fraud are wild conspiracy theories. Their instinct is always to repeat what the Left is saying when they are in a jam. That alone should be enough to cause people to walk away from the party, but that is not always easy to notice. Conservatives have been conditioned for generations to embrace Progressive morality, so they don’t notice it.

Regardless, the only way forward is for people to abandon the GOP entirely and let them sink into obscurity. Georgia will be the big test. The comments on conservative sites like Breitbart suggest something has snapped. These people did everything they were told, and victory was stolen from them. Now they see the party that claims to represent them defending the theft. The 2020 election may have broken the civic nationalist spell, leading to a break with the GOP.

As risky as it may sound, it is the only way forward within the rules of the current electoral system. Consider it the Flight 93 option or perhaps the denouement to the Flight 93 election. With no other options available within the rules, this is a last effort to preserve the rules by forcing the parties to defend the rules. Otherwise, we are left with John F. Kennedy’s admonition. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa@******************ns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.