#War More Years

by Ben Shapiro 

With Mitt Romney’s projected defeat in the presidential race tonight, Americans are very clearly divided into two camps. 

The first camp is those who want a country of unending bailouts, of free giveaways, of government-provided goods and services – a camp of Americans who want to forfeit the future to guarantee ease and comfort in the present. The second camp is those who understand that that world is unsustainable, who recognize that freedom is the only guarantor of the present and the future.


This has been the battle over the past four years. Actually, it has been the battle over the last several decades. The Democratic Party has unceasingly grown government. And the Republican Party has gone along for the ride, attempting to trim around the edges without getting to the heart and soul of the question: should Americans depend on government for the raising of their children, the provision of their birth control, their healthcare, their retirement? Is that system either sustainable or moral in the long run?
Mitt Romney was a trim around the edges candidate, despite President Obama’s attempts to paint him as a slash-and-burn hardcore conservative. So was John McCain. Both candidates were favored in the primaries by the mainstream media over more conservative candidates – and the mainstream media savaged them in general election campaigns, falsely labeling them extremists to protect their more liberal opponents. George W. Bush was a moderate. And George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” brought him to the point where he endorsed socialism to save capitalism, paving the way for President Obama.
The answer here isn’t to end the war against liberalism – a philosophy that will bankrupt the country in the long run and steal its constitutional soul in the short run. The answer is to fight back.
That fight begins with the Republican Party. The mainstream Republican Party will point to the losses of Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri as evidence that the Tea Party picks rotten candidates – but Scott Brown went down in Massachusetts and Connie Mack went down in Florida. The only victories the Republican Party can point to since 2008 are Tea Party victories. The Republican Party primary process is geared toward elites on the coasts, who monetarily support the most moderate candidates. And the Republican Party honchos are interested in unending growth of the party, which can only occur with greater and more powerful government to fight. The Republican Party must be converted, changed. It must be brought back to conservative principle. We will fight that fight.
The fight does not end with retaking the Republican Party, though. It extends to the palace guard for liberalism – the media. Without the media, Barack Obama would never have been the Democratic nominee. And he would certainly not have been re-elected with an unemployment rate near 8%, a debt of $16 trillion, and a disastrous foreign policy culminating in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi. The media is full of bullies who will stop at nothing to shut down the political debate. The media must be exposed. And we will expose them.
The Democrat-Media Complex, as Andrew Breitbart labeled the nexus between the Democrats and their journalistic guardians, must be defeated. So must their educators in the university system; so, too, must their allies in Hollywood, who change culture in order to change politics.
And the fight against liberalism does not end. Tonight was a loss for conservatism. But it was a reminder that America is not a liberal country. It is a country that is split down the middle. And that gap is growing wider. The only way to rectify the breach is to fight for unification under basic constitutional principles.
We will not heel. We will not stop. The defeat of Barack Obama would have launched the beginning of America coming together. But apparently, liberal America prefers to battle for the soul of the country.
And so we battle.
Democracy works. We still believe in democracy. We still believe in the power of ideas. But the only way to win in the battle of ideas is to fight the bullies, as Andrew did. Democracy is not blood; that’s a miracle. But the civil war for the heart and soul of this country is real.
We’ve made gains; perhaps we will even win the popular vote. In any case, the election of 2012 was not the election of 2008. But the battle has only just started.
The war begins now.
#War