THERE CAN BE NO “honeymoon” in the wake of this election—the most divisive since America’s Civil War. Republicans must drop their attitude that these political conflicts are “business as usual” and must begin to confront the fact that the progressive agenda is a dagger aimed at the heart of America’s social contract and the security of the American people. Two points in Trump’s campaign speech at Gettysburg, which he called his “Contract with the American Voter,” underscore this point. Trump pledged that on his first day in office, he would “begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back,” and he would “suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.”1 The fact that Democrats had vigorously opposed both attempts to protect Americans, calling Trump a racist and a xenophobe and un-American for even raising these issues, revealed the gap between the two parties and the threat that progressives’ “globalist” ideas and open-borders aspirations actually pose. The New Republicanism must be a movement opposed to the progressives’ sellout of American sovereignty, of America’s historical uniqueness. It must be unapologetic in its patriotism and in its commitment to rebuilding America economically and militarily. Third, the New Republicanism must show its contempt for a political correctness that denies the virtues of America’s culture, which is founded on individual rights and equality before the law. It must oppose progressive “multiculturalism,” which seeks to replace this culture with anti-American hierarchies of gender, class, and race.
To begin to stop the progressive juggernaut, Republicans must take the political wars to the progressive bases of power. Taking political agendas out of America’s classrooms must become a priority. It is unconscionable that K–12 children should be indoctrinated—at taxpayers’ expense—in the anti-American prejudices of the political left. It is an outrage that universities have purged conservatives from their faculties and reading lists and that conservative speakers should require bodyguards and campus security to ensure their safety when they speak. It is unacceptable that universities should recognize and fund groups that obstruct speakers and harass conservative students.
Republican legislators can begin to restore classical liberal values to universities by making intellectual and political diversity elements of all diversity programs. But the centerpiece of a true reform of education from the K–12 schools to the college level must be the voucherizing of all American public education. Education tax dollars should be put directly into the hands of every American parent to allow them to choose the school that will teach their children. Trump laid the groundwork for this in his Gettysburg address, promising a “School Choice and Education Opportunity Act,” which would redirect education dollars and give to parents “the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice.”2 The US Department of Education should be restructured to administer the vouchers and its other powers removed. These measures will take the power away from bureaucrats at the federal and local levels and put it in the hands of the people.
Government unions are blatant conflicts of interest and a corrupting force in the body politic. This is particularly true at the local level, where the unions’ power to elect their employers and hold elected officials hostage has encumbered state and municipal budgets with unsustainable burdens. It is also true at the federal level, where government unions are able to block necessary reforms and use their political influence to advance the interests of their members over the interests of the public they are supposed to serve. This is especially tragic in our inner-city public schools, which are failing because the teacher unions place the interests of their adult members over the needs of the children.
The shadow political universe of tax-exempt foundations and advocacy groups, which is overwhelmingly on the left, should be the focus of congressional scrutiny and reform. Multibillion-dollar trusts that exist in perpetuity and are accountable to no one while they invest massive funds in social engineering projects constitute a large and growing threat to our democracy. Their empowerment of radical, violence-inciting groups like Black Lives Matter has obvious and disturbing political implications. When a handful of powerful foundations can put $100 million in the hands of a group whose “protests” result in millions of dollars in civic damage, injuries, and fatalities to ordinary citizens; assassinations of police officers; and a resulting spike in homicides in the cities affected, the implications for social order and for future political conflicts are deeply disturbing. Congressional Republicans should be on the case, drafting legislation to address this.
Black Lives Matter is part of the Democrats’ strategy to keep 90 percent of African American voters casting their ballots for the party every four years, after which they can safely ignore them. This is a vital Democratic base that Republicans have ceded for far too long. In a speech in Charlotte, Trump offered a new deal for Black America:
Today I want to talk about how to grow the African-American middle class, and to provide a new deal for Black America. That deal is grounded in three promises: safe communities, great education, and high-paying jobs. I have a message for all the doubters in Washington: America’s future belongs to the dreamers, not the cynics. And it’s time to extend that dream to every African-American citizen in this country. African-American citizens have sacrificed so much for this nation. They have fought and died in every war since the Revolution, and from the pews and the picket lines they have lifted up the conscience of our country in the long march for Civil Rights. Yet, too many African-Americans have been left behind.3
A new deal for African Americans would lay siege to the Democrats’ most secure and important stronghold. Trump continued: “The Democrats have run our inner cities for fifty, sixty, seventy years or more. They’ve run the school boards, the city councils, the mayor’s offices, and the congressional seats. Their policies have failed, and they’ve failed miserably. They’ve trapped children in failing government schools, and opposed school choice at every turn.”4
This is the gauntlet that Republicans must throw down to the Democrats to break their stranglehold on America’s large urban centers, which have delivered states to them with large electoral vote totals, thus creating the electoral “lock” that confronts Republicans every four years.
If this election season did nothing else, it served to dramatize Trump’s claim that “the system is rigged,” and the level of unchecked corruption is greater than anyone thought. The FBI is already engaged in a criminal investigation of the Clinton Foundation. But why were the Clintons and their associates able to conduct such an operation for so long without an investigation? Why was Secretary of State Clinton able to take large sums of money from foreign governments throughout her tenure without anyone asking what’s going on?
In his Gettysburg address, Trump promised several measures designed to end the influence-peddling of government officials, including “a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress; a 5-year-ban on White House and congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service; a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government; and a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.”5
The IRS must be investigated and reformed to prevent Democrats from using it to suppress the opinions of their political opponents. IRS officials who participated in the effort to prevent conservative think tanks and advocacy groups from tax exemptions available to their liberal adversaries should be prosecuted. During the Obama administration, the Justice Department became a political arm (and fixer) for the White House. Attorney General Holder added 130 new DOJ lawyers during his tenure, every single one of whom was a leftist or a far leftist. The department’s role in serving partisan political agendas while pretending to enforce the law has been well documented.6 Reform of a Justice Department that has been stacked with left-wing operatives and no longer operates on the principle that its mission is to impartially enforce the law must be a first order of business. The corruption of an FBI investigation at the highest level, as revealed during the 2016 campaign, severely damages the respect for the law that is crucial to holding a society together. The facts are clear. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly violated multiple provisions of the Espionage Act. She then obstructed justice and perjured herself to cover up her crimes. She lied to Congress and to the public—as only the guilty do—to cover up her violations of the law. But she incurred no legal consequences. How damaging is that to the rule of law and to the core idea that ours is a government of laws and not of individuals who can get away with anything if they have the right friends?
In regard to respecting the law, the obscenity of Sanctuary cities that have pledged to subvert the nation’s security has to be ended. In his “Contract with the American Voter,” Trump promised to “withdraw all federal funding from Sanctuary Cities.”7 That’s all well and good, but it does not go nearly far enough. Sanctuary Cities are seditious threats to the safety of all Americans. Elected officials who pledge to break the law and then act to do so need to be removed from office and prosecuted. So-called civil disobedience cannot be an option for officers of the law. State governments that are not in the hands of progressives need to act to remedy this situation and provide an object lesson in what it means to be patriotic officials in a law-abiding society.