Riley Parr: Republicans must present ideas in next four years

2020 wasn’t done yet. The Democrats won both Georgia Senate run-off seats, meaning Democrats will control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Practically, that means Republicans will need to rely on procedure and, unbelievably, soon-to-be President Joe Biden (or on Joe Manchin’s finally realizing he’s a Republican) as a moderating force for the likes of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

That’s how you know it’s bad.

Whether Biden wants to play that role, or even is capable of it, is quite another matter altogether. Predictably, Republicans will once again become the party of fiscal responsibility, but, after playing a significant role in adding $7.5 trillion ($4 trillion of which came during the last year—thanks, coronavirus) to the national debt during President Trump’s tenure, calls for fiscal discipline will unfortunately be somewhat scoffed at. Though, not quite as much as the Democrats’ calls for unity after spending every waking moment the last four years trying to undermine and unseat Trump.

By now, I hope those of us on the right have picked up on the fact that Newton’s Third Law applies just as surely to politics as it does to motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Trump’s personality and needless commentary provided easy fodder for a media that long ago abandoned any pretense of objectivity. And the left took that and ran with it. We bet the house that swing voters would be able to look past the less savory aspects of Trump and consider his policies on their merits, rather than an immediate, visceral reaction. We bet wrong.

Where does that leave us? In part, it leaves us with what might be a plurality of leaders at the federal level that, out of a misplaced sense of equality or just sheer ignorance, end a prayer in the House of Representatives with, “Amen … and awoman.” It leaves us with the lunacy of removing the Emancipation Memorial in Boston, which depicts Abraham Lincoln offering a hand to a recently emancipated slave.

Several months ago, I wrote that, at least Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, pushed back against calls to remove the statue of Winston Churchill that stands in Parliament Square. I doubt we can expect the same from the Biden administration.

Reagan brought the country together by appealing to a shared American sentiment—that America was a shining city on a hill. Biden and his acolytes preach unity, but it remains to be seen what that means in practice.

For instance, it is the height of hypocrisy for those on the left to (rightfully) decry the absurdity that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6 when they turned a blind eye six months ago when cities burned.

But as I said, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And as the last four years illustrated, being in the minority can certainly be a galvanizing force. Minority status does have its perks. It must mean, for conservatives moving forward, standing for something just assuredly as it does being against what the left does.

It’s not enough to poke holes in the Democrats’ agenda. Republicans must have ideas of their own, and the ideas must be rooted in free enterprise, liberty, opportunity and growth.•

__________

Parr is a practicing attorney in central Indiana.

Click here for more Forefront columns.