To Connecticut Republicans Sitting in Darkness

You’ve asked me half a dozen questions and begged me to be brief in my responses, pointing out that brevity is the soul of wit. That is true, except in those cases in which brevity is witless. Mark Twain, never witless, tells us: Say the truth always; that way you don’t have to remember what you’ve said. Elsewhere he says that telling the truth will astonish your friends and disappoint your enemies.

Your first question touched on foreign policy. How do we construct a rational foreign policy?

The answer is deceptively simple. A rational foreign policy should be rooted in sound principles and a just appreciation of friends and enemies. The leaders of some foreign policy players – Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China, and Iran’s most recent fundamentalist Ayatollah – have successfully defined themselves as America’s enemies. U.S. foreign policy should be adjusted to reflect such foreign policy preferences.

You ask: How can the Republican Party in Connecticut regain parity with Democrats? This one demands a more detailed answer. The change in Republican Party prospects in the northeast is fairly recent. The end result of the change is across the board dominance by Democrats, beginning with the state’s larger cities. All the members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation are Democrats; all the state’s constitutional offices are held by Democrats; the state’s General Assembly is lopsidedly Democrat in both the House and Senate; and important supporting institutions in the state, including major media outlets, look with disfavor on Republicans.

The mudslide first began in January 2009 with the election to the presidency of Barack Obama – lately regarded by Democrat leftists as somewhat disappointing -- and it has continued with minor interruptions ever since. There are some signs that the advance of Democrats nationally is in abeyance. Connecticut Republicans must be disturbed that formerly Republican districts have fallen by the wayside. Firm Republican redoubts – the towns comprising Connecticut’s so called “Gold Coast” for instance – are under attack. Former reliably Republican towns such as West Hartford are flirting with the northeast’s improbable neo-progressive Democrat Party agenda.

If we think of the two state parties as castles, we may confidently say that the Democrat Party castle, featuring impregnable thick walls, is heavily fortified, while the state Republican Party resembles a watchtower, necessary but indefensible. The practical power of the Republican Party in Connecticut has become little more than a voice – some would say a whisper – in the General Assembly. There are in Connecticut twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans. Unaffiliateds slightly outnumber Democrats. News reporters and opinion writers, both in the nation and state, regard themselves as unaffiliated with the major parties. In current jargon, they regard themselves as non-partisan, but their reporting and opinionating tell against them.

If there were among us a Republican Machiavelli what would he advise?

Say the truth. Scream it from the rooftops. And remember what Democrats rarely forget: that there is a profound categorical difference between campaigning and governing. The Brits, before the practical destruction of their monarchy, used to advise potential monarchs: “To be the king, play the king.” Before becoming president, Joe Biden played the “moderate” or “liberal” president flawlessly. Only in governing was Biden unmasked as a fraudulent neo-progressive president in moderate campaign clothing. In Connecticut, Biden even now has his defenders who by their silence signify their assent to fraudulent campaigning. They are committed to what Twain called “stretchers,” politically opportunistic exaggerations of the truth, more noxious than lies.

The truth is that neo-progressive Democrats in the state have fallen victim to the absurd notion that an exception to a valid rule, political or cultural, invalidates the rule. This is a precursor to moral, cultural and judicial anarchy. An opposite and equal reaction to this anarchy, with a view to asserting sound principles and a return to cultural normalcy, serves as a survival sign for what is best in human nature – – the uncluttered sense and will to carry forward into the future the blessings that in the past have served us well.

In his 1963 book Rumbles Left and Right: A Book about Troublesome People and Ideas,” the ever prescient Bill Buckley wrote, “I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise.”

“Beware of intellectual arrogance” should be the first commandment of any aspiring Connecticut Democrat. Republicans are, for the most part, far too modest in this regard. Their powerlessness has warded off arrogance, the province of politically engage shakers and movers.