As a person reads “Isaiah’s Job,” one point that Albert Jay Nock, the author of the article, makes clear is that God’s mandate to Isaiah, as he sent him out to encourage the remnant, was that Isaiah was not to “muddle the message.” When Isaiah went out to preach, he would “preach to the masses” in the sense that he would get out and preach, but he would not change the message to make it more “palatable” to the masses. To encourage the remnant, to make them “stronger in the faith,” it was Isaiah’s job to preach the unvarnished truth, not some watered down message to make the masses feel better about how far from favor they had fallen.
How can that work in politics, you ask me. Aren’t we supposed to get more votes than our opponents? If we don’t “tailor our message” to meet the “masses” where they are, we are not going to get more votes than the Democrats who cater to the whims and passions of the public. Many say, and quite frankly a lot of the professional political class in the Republican party say, we are doomed to failure if we don’t “change our message.”
Quite frankly, that is the easy way out. If one thinks that he or she should muddle the message, that means he or she is not willing to put in the work that is necessary to persuade the public that his or her political principles are the right ones for the organization of the society and community. And, if they are not willing to put in the work, they don’t deserve the job.
The first rule of politics is: The purpose of the political process is to persuade people to entrust you with power. Simply put, in an election, the politician goes out, explains what he or she is going to do with the power that comes with being elected, and explain that what he or she wants to do is what is best for the lives and families of the people who vote for them. If the politician muddles his or her message and wins, that politician doesn’t know if people elected him or her for her beliefs, or for some other reason. Leading and ruling becomes impossible, because the politician is tossed about by the winds of public opinion, and not driven by the power of his or her ideas. The reason so many people think that politicians are “liars” is that these politicians give the impression they believe one thing, but then do something else when they get into office. That causes disillusionment among those who voted for them, and it is the fastest way to kill a revival.
If the California Republican Party wants a revival in California, it must first speak the truth of what it will do if it is in power. The leadership in the Legislature and in Congress has to articulate the message every day, and through whatever medium it can. That message has to break through the cacophony of the various political Capitols, and it has to be clear, strong, and persuasively delivered.
What is that message?
What is best for the lives of Californians and the American people are the basic principles of the Republican Party. We believe in individual freedom, we believe in safe streets and a strong country. We believe in families and communities. We believe that parents should be in charge of the upbringing of their children. We believe that people should keep the fruit of their labor, that taxes should be low, that government spending should be restrained, and that individual labor should be rewarded for its effort and what that effort adds to the free market.
That means, once they get elected, Republicans should be willing to restrain the bureaucracy, and give up the power they gain as government gets bigger. They cannot use the power (as Democrats do) to buy votes with “pork” and special interest legislation. Taxes are not cut to benefit one group, industry or political interest over another. They are cut to expand freedom for everyone. The regulatory structure is not dismantled to benefit one competitor over another, it is dismantled to expand the free market. Power is not transferred to families and communities to enrich or benefit anyone at that level. It is transferred to the local level because that is where the individual voter has the most influence.
Whenever Republicans fail to reduce the federal deficit because they are afraid of the political repercussions, they betray their principles and dishearten the “remnant.” Whenever they increase the regulatory bureaucracy, they betray their principles, and deserve the title of hypocrites.
Another political truth I have discerned over time is that Republicans lose elections because they break their promises. A corollary to that is that Democrats lose elections because they keep their promises. The fact if Republican wish to obtain and maintain their power, they will have to first encourage the remnant to support them by being truthful about what they believe, and then campaign to the “masses” about why what Republicans believe is right for the country, the state, and the voters’ families and communities.
That will take a lot of work, but, right now, our future depends on our willingness to do that work
Tomorrow, I will talk about that work, and a plan to bring about the revival. It can be done, but it won’t be done if we keep doing what we have been doing for the last 20 years.