“When our friends get into power, they aren’t our friends any more.”– M. Stanton Evans
This has become known as “Evans’ law of political perfidy.”
My friend Stan Evans was a wise and eloquent man. He was an intellectual leader within the conservative political movement, beginning around 1960. He arrived at Yale in the year after William F. Buckley graduated. He replaced Buckley as a student leader. Had he replaced Buckley as the spokesman of American conservatism, the country would be a lot better off today. He was a far more reliable thinker than Buckley ever was.
He served as the editor of the Indianapolis News until he was fired for insisting that Nixon was guilty of a cover-up of the Watergate break-in. This was long before any other conservative news outlet did. He was correct. He later created the National Journalism Center to train conservatives in the art of journalism. That was a worthy effort. He wrote many books. There was not a bad one among them.
He knew politics. He understood how the Old Boy Network in Washington sucks in newly elected conservatives and turns them into clones of the system.
Marco Rubio is simply the most visible example. His concession speech on the ides of March 2016, reveals what happens to them. They adopt some version of “Mr. Sam” Rayburn’s law: “To get along, you have to go along.”
Ron Paul never did. He was a rare exception.
Said Rubio in his concession speech:
America is in the middle of a real political storm, a real tsunami, and we should have seen this coming. Look, people are angry, and people are very frustrated. It really began back in 2007, 2008 with this horrifying downturn. People are very frustrated about the direction of our country. People are frustrated. In 2007 and 2008, there was a horrible downturn in our economy and these changes to our economy that are happening are disrupting people’s lives. And people are very upset about it.
Ron Paul had a clear explanation of that economic crash: the federal government’s deficit spending and the Federal Reserve System’s constant manipulation of the monetary system.
Causes have effects. If you do not correctly identify cause and effect, you are likely to repeat the errors. What has happened in Washington ever since December 2007 has dramatically increased the likelihood of an even greater recession and even greater deficits in the next few years. But Rubio never mentioned this in his campaign. None of the candidates has. David Stocman has identified this: “Amnesty for Janet.”
He blames the elitists, i.e., the establishment which he politely represents in the Senate.
They see America involved in the world and Americans spending money and losing their lives and they see that there is very little gratitude for all the sacrifice America makes. And quite frankly, there’s millions of people in this country that are tired of being looked down upon. Tired of being told by these self-proclaimed elitists that they don’t know what they are talking about and they need to instead listen to the so-called smart people.
Congress could stop this tomorrow. It could simply stop funding the wars. But it refuses. It has refused ever since December 8, 1941.
The Constitution says that Congress must declare war. It hasn’t since December 8, 1941.
The people should blame Congress. Today, like a man waking up from a coma, Republican voters are at long last pointing an accusing finger at Republican Senators. They are saying: “Be gone!” Rubio is merely the latest.
Rubio invoked the economic hard times of his pre-political career.
I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck. I grew up paycheck to paycheck. I know what it’s like to have to figure out how to find the money to fix the air conditioner that broke last night. I know my parents struggled and I know millions of people that are doing that.
Another politician said it better: “I feel your pain.” His wife — it says here — is running for President.
They have felt no pain since being elected.
I know that we are living through this extraordinary economic transformation that is really disruptive in people’s lives. Machines are replacing them, their pay is not enough.
He blames capital spending: “machines.” What about federal spending, which he voted for? What about the Federal Reserve, which — it says here — controls the Federal Reserve? Silence.
But I also know that when America doesn’t lead, it leaves behind a vacuum and that vacuum leads to chaos.
And how does he think America should lead. By bombing countries whose leaders violate Rayburn’s law — who refuse to go along.
Rubio sent this letter to Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid:
I am writing to seek your support for bringing a bi-partisan resolution to the Senate floor authorizing the President’s decision to participate in allied military action in Libya.Furthermore, this resolution should also state that removing Muammar Qaddafi from power is in our national interest and therefore should authorize the President to accomplish this goal. To that end, the resolution should urge the President to immediately recognize the Interim Transitional National Council as the legitimate government in Libya.
He ended his letter with this inspirational call for American leadership:
The world is a better place when America is willing to lead. And American leadership is required now more than ever.It is my hope that you will lead the Senate to take actions along these lines as soon as possible.
Libya today is a failed state, a bipartisan American disaster. So, we hear no more about Libya.
The key is bipartisanship. “If you want to get along, you must go along.” And Marco Rubio is nothing if not bipartisan.
So, from a political standpoint, the easiest thing to have done in this campaign is to jump on all those anxieties I just talked about, to make people angrier, make people more frustrated. But I chose a different route and I’m proud of that.That would have been — in a year like this, that would have been the easiest way to win. But that is not what’s best for America. The politics of resentment against other people will not just leave us a fractured party, they are going to leave us a fractured nation.
They are going to leave us as a nation where people literally hate each other because they have different political opinions.
Hate each other? Has this son of immigrants not read anything of America’s political history? Has he not heard of the American Revolution, Hamilton vs. Jefferson, Clay vs. Jackson, Lincoln vs. Davis, McKinley vs. Bryan, Hoover vs. Roosevelt? When Jackson was asked by the incoming President, Martin Van Buren, if Jackson had any regrets about his eight years in office, Jackson replied: “I didn’t shoot Henry Clay and I didn’t hang John C. Calhoun.” Franklin Roosevelt announced in his famous 1933 inaugural address: “The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.” America’s political history has been based on hate from day one. It is only when Americans turn away from national politics that the nation’s two-sentence confession of faith is revealed as dominant:
Live and let live.
Let’s make a deal.
In Rubio’s shortened time frame, conservatives are partial to blame:
That we find ourselves at this point is not surprising, for the warning signs have been here for close to a decade. In 2010, the tea party wave carried me and others into office because not enough was happening and that tea party wave gave Republicans a majority in the House, but nothing changed. In 2014, those same voters gave Republicans a majority in the Senate and, still, nothing changed. And I blame some of that on the conservative movement, a movement that is supposed to be about our principles and our ideas.
He also blames the political establishment. “But I blame most of it on our political establishment.”
I ask: When did he not vote with the political establishment?
