The Politics of Power

Conservatives need to learn how to play the game

Two centuries ago, Carl von Clausewitz described politics as war by other means. More recently, Curtis Yarvin, who wrote political philosophy under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, described democracy as a sort of war where two armies take the field, but instead of shooting each other, they take a headcount. Today, too many conservatives still conceive of politics as being a high-minded debate where statesmen engage in the marketplace of ideas and craft grand compromises.

At its heart, politics is about the adjudication of power. “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Civilized societies require some sort of governing body to handle disagreements between citizens, lest every argument come down to who has the most guns. Thus, every political philosophy is at its core about the basic question of who gets to decide, who is in charge, who enforces the laws.

Laws and constitutions mean nothing unless the people in power decide to enforce them. We see that clearly today:

• Antifa thugs get away Scot free after burning down police precincts, while MAGA protestors who entered open doors on January 6th rot in prison without bail

• Hunter Biden can break every law on the books and face no consequences, while Donald Trump is indicted for no reason other than the fact that he poses a threat to the regime

• Our southern border is wide open, and migrants are let free with no expectation of accountability, while pro-life pastors are arrested for praying outside of abortion clinics

You get the picture. Counting on the Constitution to save you is foolish when it’s clear that our current ruling regime sees it more as a guideline than a legal code. Adding more amendments to the Constitution, as my friends who support a Convention of States suggest, won’t change anything either, because our current rulers will just as easily ignore those as well.

No, the only way forward is to take power ourselves by winning elections and then impose our will.

That sounds crass, doesn’t it? It doesn’t sound very winsome, it’s not statesmanlike. But it’s true. Leftists obviously believe this - they see power as their birthright, and believe they have a mandate to use that power to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Just look at how the left has turned the Civil Rights Act into a de facto national religion, one whose high holy days are being celebrated at government buildings and corporate offices alike this month.

What happened the last time the Republicans had a major electoral mandate? In 2017, the GOP controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency, and their only major piece of legislation was a tax cut. On the other hand, when Democrats controlled the government in 2009, they passed a sweeping overhaul of the healthcare system that forever redefined the relationship of Americans to their doctors. Democrats play to win - each time they have power, they use that power to get more of it, so they can fundamentally transform society as they see fit.

The biggest conservative victory of the past fifty years came out of the Supreme Court, not Congress, and was only made possible because Donald Trump was willing to hold the line on appointing solid pro-life justices.

I think too many conservatives are drawn to the idea that a good statesman is someone who comes in without any strong positions and instead works with all sides to get stuff done. Consider, however, that Abraham Lincoln did not compromise on slavery or the integrity of the Union, and today he is regarded as one of our greatest statesman.

Conservatives seem almost embarrassed to win. Before the Trump Era, the Republican Party seemed to enjoy losing more than winning. In the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain was content to be the graceful loser to America’s first black president, but VP candidate Sarah Palin missed the memo. She attacked Barack Obama, earning the ire of McCain’s team despite the fact that it energized the campaign and briefly catapulted McCain into the lead.

The purpose of politics is not to compromise. If you went into politics hoping to compromise, then did you have any principles to begin with? When Democrats offer compromise, it is only ever a temporary measure. They suggest red flag laws one year, waiting periods the next, then restrictions on certain types of guns after that, and before you know it, you’ve compromised your way to gun control.

I think it’s a myth that voters want to see compromise. People cast their votes in the hopes that their elected leaders carry out their will. That is the purpose of voting - to decide who gets to rule your community. I often say that politicians are like naughty puppies who should be swatted with a newspaper when they do wrong but praised when they do right. When our elected representatives betray us, then we need to let them know in no uncertain terms and work to replace them with better candidates if possible.

Another myth that conservatives need to forget is the idea that power in our country flows through the voting booth alone. Sure, that’s the way it’s supposed to work, but we all know that’s not the case in reality. Gay marriage is a perfect example of where true power lies. Even as late as 2008, when Barack Obama won a solid victory in the presidential campaign, most Americans still believed that marriage was only between a man and a woman. Obama and Hillary Clinton even said so in their primary debate. The same voters that gave California’s electoral votes to Obama voted overwhelmingly to enshrine the definition of marriage in their state constitution.

However, a small group of wealthy donors and high-powered lawyers wanted to change things. They abused the legal process to throw out Proposition 8 in California and succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to impose gay marriage on the entire nation in 2015, all the while blanketing the country in pro-LGBTQ+ propaganda. Nobody in America voted to change the definition of marriage that had existed for thousands of years, but it happened anyway, because people with influence decided to make it so.

Rather than concentrating on electing legislators and congressmen who would impose gay marriage, these power brokers worked to change the environment instead. You can see the same effect when it comes to mass immigration. If the people won’t vote for your preferred policies, simply elect a new people. Conservatives must learn to utilize every lever of power available rather than ceding the field to our ideological enemies.

“What is best in life?”

The lesson we must learn in Idaho is that politics is a sort of war, and it is a war that we must win. We need to do everything we can within the confines of the system to get our preferred candidates into office, and then hold them accountable for using their power to do what must be done. Rather than quibbling over how many hundreds of millions of dollars we should spend on public education or Medicaid, let’s talk about completely reforming (or even abolishing) those institutions. Rather than trying to build consensus with the left over issues such as abortion, transgender surgeries for children, or obscene materials in libraries, let’s just do what we know is right and, if the other side complains, invite them to go somewhere more to their liking.

Doing so means attracting nasty hit pieces from corporate media. It means making enemies in the statehouse. It means forgoing cushy sinecures at the big lobby groups. Nobody said doing the right thing would be easy. If you’re going into politics hoping to be liked then you have already failed. You cannot effectively represent your constituents or fight for your principles if you’re constantly seeking the approval of leadership, of the media, or of the corporate establishment. Machiavelli said that it is better to be feared than loved, and politics is a Machiavellian game, no matter how much we might wish it wasn’t.

All of this is to say that we need bold leaders in Boise. (Such people are too few and far between in DC, which is why I place zero hope in national politics.) We need people who are willing to stand up for what is right and use the power we the people have given them to implement policy based upon our shared principles. Anything less is a waste of time and energy.