Conservatives Are Strangers in the Republican Party

By Richard Moss MD

In the aftermath of the recent Republican primary in Indiana it is clear that the conservative movement has suffered a setback.  This was the anti-incumbent, anti-establishment year, wasn’t it?  It was our opportunity to take back the Republican Party and make of it a credible, opposition conservative party that stood on principle.

To paraphrase what I had written before: “Yes, we the conservative base have had it with the quisling Republican Party in Washington, with the moribund Republican leadership and their water-carriers in Congress who cave on every issue.  We can no longer tolerate big spending Republicans who come home during election time and campaign as conservatives and return to Washington and vote as liberals.”

I took solace in the Republican Presidential Primary process early on.  This is why, I surmised, the base had rejected the “Establishment.”  Jeb Bush, Chris Christy, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich, establishment figures all, were either out of the Presidential race or had no chance of winning.  It was only the outsiders left, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, a sure sign of the frustration the base felt towards the Republican ruling class.

But it didn’t quite work out that way in the Indiana primary.  With the defeat of conservative standard-bearer Ted Cruz, and the many questions surrounding Donald Trump’s commitment to conservative principles, conservatives are wondering what happened?  It would have been one thing if Trump had succeeded and Marlin Stutzman had defeated Todd Young in the race to replace retiring Republican Senator Dan Coats.  But Young won handily, with significant support from Mitch McConnell and the Chamber of Commerce, thus giving the nod to someone who embodied the reason why people were supposedly voting for Trump in the first place. Further, we failed to nominate a single new conservative to the Senate.

In 2016, a year when the GOP voters were supposedly more anti-establishment than ever, every single moderate/liberal Republican incumbent House member easily won reelection.  Trey Hollingsworth, a wealthy lifelong Democrat carpetbagger from Tennessee, spent millions of his own money to win the primary in the open seat to replace Todd Young in Indiana’s 9^th Congressional District.

Then there was the Republican Presidential primary process that resembled more a cage match rather than a substantive debate over critical, conservative issues.  The Republican Party managed to squander its best opportunity in a generation to make their case for balanced budgets, limited government, and free markets against the debacle of the Obama years.  But then what would you expect? The old bulls that run the Republican Party at the national level will be content to “cut deals” with Trump (or Hillary) as they did with Obama, and the reckless spending will continue unabated, the same deficits and debt, the printing of money, and the unsustainable growth of government and the welfare state.

These were the issues a responsible, fiscally prudent Republican Party was supposed to grapple with. But there was not a hint of this in the primary process, nor any discussion of other major concerns such as restoring separation of powers and Constitutional order, the assault by Obama and his pen, phone, and executive fiats that merged the legislative and executive functions in lawless, unconstitutional acts, from Amnesty to Obamacare to Sanctuary Cities to the destabilizing and dangerous Nuclear Deal with Iran.  Nor was there a debate regarding the overarching federal bureaucracy, the “fourth” branch of government that release thousands of pages of regulations each year with the impact of law and virtually no Congressional oversight, burdening and stifling economic activity, a completely non-democratic process that usurps Congress’s legislative function.  The Republican Congress that seemed unwilling to rouse itself from its stupor to defend the prerogatives and powers of Congress ignored all this and much more.

And so constitutional conservatives wander in the wilderness, strangers in our own party.  We recognize the power of the media and incumbency, “name ID,” the “Establishment” and money to decide outcomes despite our best efforts. These forces effectively undermine insurgent candidates that seek to challenge the status quo. Furthermore, Establishment candidates run on our issues only to abandon them later.

In my recent campaign for Congress to represent Indiana’s 8^th district, I attempted to sound, however unsuccessfully, these themes. Although ultimately defeated, I hope that this message will animate Congressman Larry Bucshon, other Republicans, and perhaps moderate Democrats in the general election and beyond. The Republican Party must decide if it is to become a principled conservative party that stands for liberty and limited government or remain the big government, big spending, liberal, progressive party it is today.

I would like to thank my many volunteers, supporters, and voters.  Regardless of individual defeats, the cause to restore our Constitutional system and save the Republic continues.

Richard Moss MD

Recent Congressional Candidate

Republican Party

8^th Congressional District