After writing that headline, I know you’d rather set your TV on fire than have a non-stop string of campaign commercials on it every single year, and I don’t blame you. With campaigns for President starting years earlier than they used to and Congressional campaigns seeming only to take six months off, it can feel like we’re already there. But we are not. There is, however, a very practical, and dare I say important, reason to change the system to have permanent campaigns. It sounds crazy, but hear me out.
Have you ever noticed how extremist left-wing politicians change when their term is up for renewal? Former Democrat Senator Max Baucus, for example, would goose-step along with his fellow travelers for five years or so, then start talking about fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, etc., etc. He’d start to sound almost like a Republican.
That’s because Baucus represented Montana, and if he ran as a Senator who’d do whatever Harry Reid told him to do, he would’ve been humiliatingly defeated. He got a good case of conservative-itis, for which the only “cure” was being reelected, then the problem cleared right up all on its own.
Baucus was anything but unique. While this wasn’t an issue for every extremist left-wing Senator – Ted Kennedy never moved to the center because he didn’t have to. Hell, he and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd could essentially rape a waitress at a DC restaurant, it has been reported repeatedly over the years, and neither lost any reelection bids. Kennedy died in office, and Dodd went on to be the chief lobbyist of the Motion Picture Association of America. Even after “Me Too,” Teddy’s memory is still celebrated when Dodd is practicing law for an amount of money we can only imagine.
Their names should be an embarrassment to their party, but they’re not.
Nothing embarrasses a committed leftist; as long as you’re on the team, you have nothing to fear. Democrats can run as Republicans, and as long as it works, it’s all good.
Weirdly, there’s a similar phenomenon on the right – squishy, moderate Republicans became Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan combined when they were about to face voters. They governed dramatically differently.
Republicans are excellent in concept, hit or miss in reality.
When there isn’t the immediate threat of losing their jobs (read: their power), many of them tend to drift toward big spending, big government that is horrible and actually harms people. If they were always up for reelection, maybe that would change.
How many Democrats spent the first three years of the Biden administration either insisting the border was not open or trying desperately to extoll the virtues of a flood of illegal aliens to both the economy and society?
They were our moral superiors, they said. They commit fewer crimes than Americans, we were told. Never mind the fact that Democratic Governors and federal officials expressly forbid the collecting of data to see if people in prisons were here illegally or not – it’s amazing what you don’t find when you refuse to look for it – we were berated by our “leaders” as inferior.
We were also assured illegal aliens were the key to a booming economy, way more so than we stinking Americans. Yet, even in cities where the leftist leadership made these declarations, they are crying mercy and talking about how they simply can’t afford more of them. Since no politician has ever demanded less money come their way, they were clearly lying as if you needed the proof.
Joe Biden and Democrats are at least admitting the border is a problem, that millions upon millions of illegal aliens lying about the need for asylum can’t continue. It’s not quite the “mass deportation and crippling employer fines should companies hire any of these illegals” policy we need, but it’s much better than it was.
Yes, it’s meaningless lip service, but it’s better than it was because it allows the public, who have barely been paying attention, to notice the problem and demand it be addressed.
Since there is an election coming up, everyone is moving to the right. Well, almost everyone, and on almost everything. The safe extremist leftists are still running around declaring everything to be racist and praising the genital mutilation of children, but everyone else is sounding almost like a normal person. The fear of voters will do that to people.
Since far too many Americans fall for the campaign year political seduction of conservatism while only getting big government liberalism in off-years, wouldn’t it be better if everyone were up for election every year?
Instead of voting for one thing and getting another, we might actually get what we vote for. If not, it will make tossing their asses out that much easier because it will be a shorter time between the campaign promise being made and its complete betrayal. Sure, it would make television commercials more annoying, but sportsbooks and insurance companies have pretty much already done that anyway.
Or, better yet, we could just toss all these liars and frauds out in the first place. Now that I think about it, that’s the better option. A constant campaign would ruin television commercials even more than sportsbooks and insurance companies already have. Toss the frauds.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.