I had Fox News on in the background yesterday when I heard a comment that got me thinking. It was Tucker Carlson, I believe, who was talking about Obama’s fear-mongering statements regarding the sequester and Republicans’ desire to see the societal destruction that the minimal spending cuts would supposedly bring. Carlson suggested that Obama is doing this to divide and depress the Republicans so that he can win back the House of Representatives for the Democrats in 2014.
It was then that it dawned on me. Obama’s strategy is vindication of Conservatives’ interpretation of the 2012 election results. Though he would never say so, Obama knows that he won because of a depressed Republican base, many of whom stayed home rather than vote for another moderate Establishment candidate. We can infer that he and his advisors believe this because of the strategy they have obviously adopted, as pointed out by Mr. Carlson, to win back the House. That is why he continues to pick fights with John Boehner and Congressional Republicans, knowing full-well that they will continue to surrender at every turn. The intended result being to further depress the Republican base and keep them home on Election Day 2014.
Establishment Republicans and the consulting class continue to lie to themselves and the rest of us by claiming that the only way we can win elections is to abandon conservatism and pander to Hispanics by embracing amnesty. Should we follow their advice we will surely suffer another defeat in 2014. The Republican base, that is to say Conservatives, demoralized by two years of John Boehner and the Republicans caving-in at every turn, will stay home again in large enough numbers to hand the House back to the Democrats. Obama understands this. The Republican Establishment does not.
