“Every movement starts out as a cause, turns into a business, and then becomes a racket.” – Eric Hoffer, author, “The True Believer”
The conservative movement is dead.
It didn’t die at the hands of the far left, despite the left’s thoroughly trouncing it time after time and again in recent years, thrashing it at every turn and chortling over its abject acquiescence.
It didn’t die in the poisonous ink of the mainstream media, whose pernicious punditry the conservative “leadership” supinely soaks up day after day with barely an utterance of outraged umbrage.
And it certainly did not die from a lack of sustaining support from the American people, who have continually begged movement denizens to please stand up and fight back (for a change), rather than continuing to pad Conservative Inc pockets with an endless array of increasingly frantic fundraising letters “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
No, the conservative movement didn’t die at the hands of eager enemies, or from a lack of support from erstwhile friends.
It quite simply committed suicide…
On its way to the bank.
The conservative movement died because those within the Washington Beltway, lavishly ensconced in their lush offices, became so self-absorbed and self-indulgent that they ceased caring one iota about the real needs of a nation at risk.
They willingly, willfully turned their attention well away from making waves in order, instead, to make money.
And they have grandly succeeded (just check out the 990 forms of the non-profits to which you contribute to get some idea of how much money they are actually raking in).
Primping, posturing, and polishing their on-air performances, the Conservative Inc “leadership” hastily turned from relentlessly battling an existential enemy to rapaciously building a bulging bankroll.
Endlessly.
And exclusively.
And if that meant going along to get along with sniveling RINOs and snarling Demos… well, they resolved, that’s just the price one must pay to get paid the price one wants to charge.
With their own payday rising exponentially.
At the expense of the peonage way out there in flyover land, who are foolish enough to believe that Conservative Inc “leadership” actually gives a tinkers dam whether they live or die –
When in reality all the hoity toity high rollers really care about is that the checks keep arriving on time with higher totals to keep the machine well-oiled and properly oleaginous.
So, the Conservative Inc movers and shakers emit a steady stream of mendacious missives filled with purple prose about all of the epic battles they are fighting and the ersatz enemies they are squelching.
As all the while, the enemies grow stronger and the battles are routinely lost, one after another, while the conservative rakes and racketeers collect their hefty checks and laugh amongst themselves all the way to the bank…
All at the expense of small and large donors who sadly watch as the country they love descends into the abyss – while those they trusted to ride to the rescue rigorously rid themselves of even the slightest semblance of genuine care and concern.
And send out another fundraising letter.
I say all of this as one who for nearly fifty years worked at the highest levels of the conservative movement in Washington.
I remember well working hand in hand decades ago with such iconic conservative figures as Paul Weyrich, Howie Phillips, Terry Dolan, and Richard Viguerie as they built the movement that vigorously countered Dems, cowed RINOs, ordained and ordered the conservative agenda, and ushered in the Reagan era.
They founded a bare-knuckle, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners movement that put principle before profits and the survival and success of liberty above ego satisfaction and self-aggrandizement.
Today’s conservative movement, with the rarest of exceptions, does the exact opposite.
I was reminded of this earlier this morning when I received an email from a colleague of more than forty years who, without exception, is the finest conservative political mind in America today. Plus, he is a man of unexcelled integrity and has been since the days of our youth.
He wrote, “To say ‘Conservative, Inc. is just a grift.’ is to understate its role. Yes, they are all thieves who sucker old women out of money, and lick the hands of rich old men who think they know everything. But their larger, more important role, is to divert energy away from any meaningful opposition to the regime.”
He knows of what he speaks.
And the window is rapidly closing on having the time and wherewithal to effectively combat Conservative Inc before its dubious and despicable denizens finish selling out all who still truly believe in the cause of freedom and consummately complete their Faustian Bargain with the fascist regime.
So stay tuned for the next Clews Views column, when I outline the steps we need now to take to end the rule of the racketeers.
