[Salon] Opinion | GOP Senate candidates Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno don’t deserve to win - The Washington Post

[Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com>]

I seldom agree with George Will (speaking as a “reformed,” ex-Conservative, though relatively briefly), but do with his denunciation of Kari Lake as a Trump loyalist. Though definitely not for his aspiration for a “larger, long-term conservative objective,” knowing what that means far better now than when Reagan sold “limited government, military strength, collective security through sturdy alliances and a general inclination toward a sunny Sun Belt libertarianism . . .” My disagreement with Will here begins with that line and then with his follow-on statement that these are "everything the Trump-saturated GOP rejects. Of those four points, #1 and #4 are false in that the massive military buildup under Reagan, and under Trump, was anything but “limited government," and as with Trump’s, it wasn’t a “sunny” Sunbelt libertarianism,” but one intended as a massive wealth transfer to the already existant Oligarchs and budding Oligarchs, like the Koch family, the rich Texas oil-men, like George H.W. Bush, et al. 

While I appreciate how Reagan broke out of his ideological conservative strait-jacket and reverted to his earlier “liberal” inclinations and reached Arms Control agreements with Gorbachev, against opposition from the American “New Right,” (1 of 3 now, but actually a continuous line) as by Jesse Helms and his clone, John P. East (so beloved by Traditional Conservatives here), as another model for Trumpism. Omitting by Traditional/New Right Conservatives how their “forefathers” opposed Reagan for being too “liberal!" As here: 

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/08/magazine/thunder-from-the-right.html

With the attached files on Helms a sound counterpoint to New Right revisionism, and what and whom “Traditional Conservatives” actually were, are, and for. In the case of Helms, first as a "Southern Democrat,” and then as a “mainstream Republican Conservative.” In the case of Willmoore Kendall, he remained a "Southern Democrat," until dying in 1967. Who can be seen as Helm’s and John East’s ideological mentor, especially with his anti-First Amendment/Bill of Rights ideology, shared with his fellow “thought control Conservatives” who can be deduced as Eric Voegelin, Richard Weaver, Leo Strauss, and Kendall, as John P. East celebrated here: https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/06/lie-of-the-open-society.html. All of which can be seen today in, and is celebrated by, the latest so-called “New Right,” of Trump, DeSantis, Jeff Yass, Peter Thiel, Yoram Hazony, et al. And, in the Democratic Party by its majority ultra-hawkish wing, correctly called the “Helms Wing,” when carried over from when Helms remained a Democrat! Minus the extreme racism of Helms, but equally as militaristically Hawkish! Outdone in that only marginally by Republicans and more particularly, by the New Right. As the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 adopted in total by the New Right shows. And how that is virtually indistinguishable from what CNAS and other Democratic Party leaning think-tanks call for. Or, if one prefers, Goldwater Democrats. 

Attachment: Jesse Helms Politics-2008.pdf
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Attachment: Reversing Gears- Jesse Helms's Embrace of Christian Zionism.pdf
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But Will in keeping with his “tradition” of being wrong, and supportive of right-wingers, gets it wrong as he wrote here: "Granted, if elected senators, Lake and Moreno would be votes against ending the Senate filibuster, a Democratic aspiration that would unleash even more statism than Trumpian “national conservatives” favor. And Lake and Moreno would be obedient votes for sound judges. Both would, however, impede a larger, longer-term conservative objective."

If by “sound judges,” he means “anti-constitutional Conservative judges, as we’ve seen is what is actually demanded by Conservatives, he is absolutely correct. But more “statism than Trumpian ’national conservatives?’” How can any form of government get more “statist” than what is plainly a form of outright fascism, as can be seen in its “Mother Country,” Israel, and its total control over speech by Palestinians and anti-genocide Israelis? I could go on, but “libertarianism” as defined by Trump’s and the Republican’s co-ideologists, like libertarian Jeffrey Yass demands a form of totalitarian imposed “consensus.” As Kendall, Helms, East, all celebrated!  

While the first article on Helms goes a lot into his early life in local politics, its value is also in (as I highlighted) how it correctly describes “Conservative” ideology, and  politics, as here: 

"While in Washington during the early fifties, Helms became acutely aware of the ideological jumble of American political parties. Southern Democrats often favored conservative Republicans such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy over other Democrats. It was the Republicans who had reliably nominated conservative presidential candidates. Advocating political realignment once he was back in his home state, Helms complained that Americans had forgotten that parties formed around ideology: "Nowadays, a lot of our party leaders are trying to sell us on the idea that we should have the same ideas and philosophies because we belong to the same particular party.” The 1952 elections demonstrated that "[t]he people of the Democratic South, fundamentally a conservative people, will never be able to reconcile their views with such people as Senator [Hubert H.] Humphrey, Senator [Herbert H.] Lehman, and to a lesser degree even Adlai Stevenson."

"For Helms, like most who joined the New Right, the modern Republicanism of the Eisenhower administration, although a welcome respite from the policies of liberal Democrats, was not conservative enough. "[T]he people of the South, believing as they do in states rights and basic conservatism, have no place to go," Helms protested; "on most of the issues which seem important, both parties may be observed going thataway." He felt the solution was "a complete realignment of the two parties?the sheep on one side, the goats on the other." Although hoping for change, Helms expected the parties to continue as usual and defended the independent voter, who was often labeled unstable in the conformist fifties. "Being a realist, we predict that the regular Democrats and the regular Republicans will continue to try to compromise among themselves, while the independent voter goes to the polls and really makes the decision for us," Helms wrote in 1956. "Makes that unstable, independent fellow look important, doesn't it?"6 Most Democrats and Republicans put their party ahead of ideology. Ticket-splitting independents, Helms realized, made conservatives of both parties viable. As one of those independents, he supported the most conservative candidate regardless of party. 

"Helms recruited and supported conservative candidates from both parties, offering his aid behind the scenes with fund-raising and strategy and even running for office himself. He dispensed advice, edited conservatives' speeches, and hid his hand whenever desirable. "

. . . 

"Helms wanted the federal government restricted on social issues-especially efforts to end segregation-but Washington should have a free hand in foreign policy and maintaining tradition."

Clearly, Jesse Helms must be seen as the ideological founder of the supporters of the Military Industrial Complex, the National Security State, and Perpetual War, for both Democrats and Republicans of today! With the late Joe Lieberman, and Joe Biden, the Clintons, and their friendships with Helms, Thurmond, etc., exemplifying that for the Democrats, through the Democratic Leadership Council, an extension of the Republican Party; itself an extension of Likud!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/29/kari-lake-bernie-moreno-republican-senate-campaigns/

Opinion These two GOP Senate candidates exemplify today’s political squalor

George F. Will

Kari Lake, left, and Bernie Moreno. (Alex Brandon; David Dermer/AP)

PHOENIX — From Herbert Hoover’s “a chicken for every pot” (1928) to Ronald Reagan’s “It’s morning again in America” (1984), some campaign slogans have been humdingers. The slogan of Republican Kari Lake’s Senate campaign could be: “Oh, never mind.”

Here in Arizona and in Ohio, GOP Senate candidates force conservatives to choose between awful outcomes: the consequences of losing the Senate, or the disappearance of the conservative party.

Running for Arizona’s governorship in 2022, Lake practiced the kamikaze politics of subtraction. Today, she says she was joking when she told John McCain voters — they elected him to two House and six Senate terms — to “get the hell out” of a GOP event. McCain voters were not amused. She lost, then mimicked her hero, saying that her election was stolen. Courts disagreed.

Today, she seems intermittently aware that many Arizonans are weary of her high-decibel imitation of Donald Trump’s sour, self-absorbed, backward-looking, fact-free, sore-loser, endless grievance tour. So, she sometimes seems to say of her protracted harping on 2022: Oh, never mind.

A former local TV news whiz, Lake has the sheen of Limoges porcelain, and the manners of Al Capone. It was revealed in January that she secretly taped the state Republican chairman, then accused him of bribery because he suggested finding her a job pending her run another year. Seasoned Republicans here believe that the candidate she defeated in the 2022 gubernatorial primary would have easily won, and today school choice and other conservative achievements would not be endangered.

Lake’s Democratic opponent this year, Rep. Ruben Gallego, is a Marine Corps veteran of combat in Iraq but otherwise a standard-issue progressive who dismays conservatives regarding almost everything. Lake dismays Arizona conservatives who are political legatees of Arizona’s Sen. Barry Goldwater, whose 1964 presidential nomination prepared his party for Reaganism: limited government, military strength, collective security through sturdy alliances and a general inclination toward a sunny Sun Belt libertarianism — everything the Trump-saturated GOP rejects.

In Ohio, three-term Democratic Senate incumbent Sherrod Brown is a progressive reliably wrong — and indistinguishable from Trump — regarding many matters. These include ignoring the unsustainable trajectories of Social Security and Medicare. And embracing the nonsensical notion that national security will be jeopardized if a superior steel company (Nippon) from an allied nation (Japan) buys U.S. Steel, which has a market capitalization about equal to the Skechers shoe company and fewer employees than BJ’s Wholesale Club. Brown is, however, a progressive more concerned about practicalities (e.g., jobs) than pronoun protocols.

His Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, once called Trump a “maniac” and a “lunatic” akin to “a car accident that makes you sick.” He scoffed at Trump’s claims of election fraud and called the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters “morons” and “criminals.” But Trump, like a marsupial, has tucked Moreno into his pouch, and the amazingly malleable Moreno calls (as does Lake) the Jan. 6 defendants “political prisoners” and says the 2020 election was “stolen,” Joe Biden should be impeached and Trump is swell.

Moreno, who projects the Trumpkins’ chest-thumping faux toughness, disdains bipartisanship. Evidently, he plans to advance his agenda with 60 Republican votes. There have not been 60 Republican senators since 1910.

Granted, if elected senators, Lake and Moreno would be votes against ending the Senate filibuster, a Democratic aspiration that would unleash even more statism than Trumpian “national conservatives” favor. And Lake and Moreno would be obedient votes for sound judges. Both would, however, impede a larger, longer-term conservative objective.

Opinions on the 2024 election

The nation no longer has a reliably conservative party of sound ideas and good manners. If conservatism is again to be ascendant in their party, Republicans must stop electing the likes of Lake and Moreno. They would join other chips-off-the-orange-block in a Senate caucus increasingly characterized by members who have anti-conservative agendas, from industrial policy (government allocation of capital, which is socialism) to isolationism. And whose unconservative temperaments celebrate coarseness as an indicator of political authenticity and treat performative poses as substitutes for governance.

Gallego and Brown are mistaken about much, but they are not repulsive. Conservatives can refute them and, by persuading electoral majorities, repeal or modify progressive mischief. The new breed of anti-conservative Republicans think persuasion, and the patience of politics, is for “squishes,” a favorite epithet of proudly loutish Trumpkins, who, like Lake and Moreno, seem to think the lungs are the location of wisdom.

The current version of Moreno says: About my talk regarding the maniac, lunatic, sickening-car-accident Trump? Oh, never mind. Moreno and Lake are useful, if only as indexes of today’s political squalor. Neither, however, should be a senator.