The job of conservatives is to keep the Republican Party driving on the right-hand side of the road.
There are many ways we do this. We argue, we publish, we lobby, we campaign for conservative candidates.
Another thing we do is, when the GOP goes off the rails on really key issues–size of government, the National Question, Wilsonian adventures–we stay home on election day.
Look, we’re not ever likely to get a govt. that follows a purely conservative line on all issues. We are an influence, that’s all, and that’s all we can reasonably hope to be. But when faced with a GOP government intent on massively expanding the welfare state, on open borders, and on “nation-building” in remote places, we should acknowledge that we are being no influence at all. We have gone from being an influence for good policies to being an enabler of bad policies.
The only thing we can usefully do then is to assert our existence as a voting bloc in the one way that’s available to us: by not voting. That lays down a warning to any future GOP administration that might be tempted to go as badly wrong on important conservative issues as this one has.
This nation survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will survive Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, when our kids are voters, some GOP administration and Congress might be tempted to violate core conservative principles as egregiously as this one has. But they will hear key voices, the voices of party elders and wise commentators, warning: “Remember the Great Congressional Massacre of ‘06! Let’s not risk that happening again!” And Congress and the admin. will then turn the wheel to the right.
So stay home Nov. 2nd—Er, for the sake of the children.