Republicans And Social Issues

For thirty years and more, Republicans in Connecticut have been fleeing with their pants on fire what the Democrats call “social issues,” a flight from the political battlefield – and reality – that has abandoned all the social turf to progressives, some of whom are radical social engineers with knives in their brains.

It is a serious mistake to suppose that President Barrack Obama has twice won office because his economic vision was superior to that of his Republican opponents, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Mr. Obama’s two elections were won on social issues, largely because Republicans refuse to engage Democrats on matters other than the domestic economy.

 Concerning the economy, Mr. Obama’s first election was a head fake in the direction of moderation: Mr. Obama talked a fairly moderate game during his first campaign but walked a straight and narrow progressive path once he had been elected.

Mr. Obama’s foreign policy was always a paint-by-the-numbers pacifist, utopian vision that bore little relation to objective reality. The predictable results of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy, shorn of comforting rhetoric, now lie before us: Israel has been brought under severe rocket attack by Hamas in the Gaza Strip; having annexed the Crimea, Vladimir Putin is now in the process of dismembering Ukraine; the Middle East is a boiling cauldron of Islamic extremism; ISIS opposition to Bashir al Assad of Syria, a client of Mr. Putin, has pushed its way into northern Iraq, once a client of the United States; Iran, supported by Mr. Putin, is well on its way to developing nuclear weaponry; and the United States has reduced its military spending to such a degree that the county can no longer prosecute a two-front war.

A real-politicker such as Mr. Putin, reading the signs of the times, correctly concluded that the West, led by its “lead from behind” president, would stand idly by as Russian supplied and supported sappers inside Ukraine delivered cities in the Eastern section of the country to Russia. Russian oil pipelines to Europe lie beneath the ground Mr. Putin hopes to expropriate from Ukraine, most recently by means of the direct intervention of Russian troops into Eastern Ukraine. . 

The Democrats are pursuing a health care initiative than can only succeed here in the United States by reducing insurance companies, still a significant part of Connecticut’s economy, to boutique carriers that service only those portions of the health insurance market not yet monopolized by the federal government. Obamacare is but a baby step in the direction of a European styled universal health care system. Mr. Malloy has rejoiced that Obamacare, an expensive failure in many states, is a glowing success in Connecticut. However, everyone knows that the success of Obamacare in Connecticut will depend ultimately on the success of a faltering, underfinanced, federally regulated system elsewhere in the county.  

On the abortion front, U.S. Congressman Richard Blumenthal, the “Senator from Planned Parenthood,” has introduced a bill that would prevent states from regulating the abortion industry. It is more than ironic – It is horrifyingly hilarious – that such a bill should have been introduced in the Senate by Mr. Blumenthal who, during his more than twenty year stint as Connecticut’s Attorney General, had put before the state’s General Assembly hundreds of recommendations regulating everything in Connecticut from soup to nuts. Thanks to the efforts of progressives such as Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Malloy, Connecticut is now among the highest taxed and most regulated states in the nation. As a U.S. Senator, Mr. Blumenthal, Connecticut’s first full-fledged consumer protection Senator, has not given up regulating companies that eagerly contribute to his campaigns. But for reasons known only to himself, Mr. Blumenthal wishes the federal government to order states that they may never promulgate restrictions on abortion facilities – ever, for any reason. Mr. Blumenthal’s bill was introduced in the Senate only a few months after partial birth abortion “doctor” Kermit Gosnell was hauled off to jail for having failed to abide by laws governing late term abortion chop-shops.  Should Mr. Blumenthal’s bill pass in the Congress, future Gosnells will merrily go about their bloody business without fear of harassment from moral epigones such as Mr. Blumenthal.

In the face of the most progressive and socially experimental government in Connecticut’s history, Republicans continue to wave a white flag, conceding more than half of the political battlefield to Democrats on the mistaken premise that campaigns can be won on economic issues alone. They are wrong.