The Pursuit of Happiness and It’s Relevance to the 2016 Election

Ronald ReaganIt is never easy to swim against the tide. If he were alive, you could ask Winston Churchill. He warned England (and the world) of the growing Nazi menace for nearly ten years before he was heeded. Alas it was too late and the world was plunged into a war that took the lives of more than 20,000,000 people.  (Listen to this radio broadcast in 1934.)

One could argue that all Republican Presidential candidates are swimming against the tide. The democrats have become remarkable successful at convincing the electorate that Republicans are the party of the 1%, and their policies are policies of greed, avarice, war on women, and destruction of the middle class. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it matters not that you and I know that. What matters is what main street America thinks. So the question is , what do we do about it?

The first thing we need to do is stop talking about what we are against. America needs to know what we are for! We can’t be seen as the harbingers of doom. It is our role to lift people’s spirits and give them reasons to be optimistic about the future. We do that by outlining how our policies will give them and their children more opportunity. We do that by outlining a path to happiness from the depths of despair; a path millions of Americans desperately need to see in front of them. I do not use the word “happiness” lightly. Neither did Thomas Jefferson. When our founding fathers settled on “…the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, they did so specifically to make the case that each American should have the right to pursue what he or she considers to be happiness. It could be a pursuit of God, family, love, job satisfaction, self-worth, you name it. The possibilities are endless, and that is exactly what our founders had in mind.

The pursuit of happiness has been drowned by a waterfall of leftist regulation, entitlements, and entrepreneurial stiff-arms. The path to happiness is impeded by the misguided notion that the government can create happiness for its citizens. This deception highlights the fundamental flaw underpinning the foundation of progressive liberal politics. If I had to identify the one tenet of liberal activism that most incenses me, it is the false promise that democrat social engineering produces a desireable outcome for the recipients of its largess. Democrats aren’t stupid. They know that their policies have failed for more than five decades. Their profligate unending social spending has only increased the ranks of our homeless and underprivileged, while simultaneously pushing our national debt and annual deficits to unsustainable levels. Yet they continue to mislead and deceive their political base. I cannot fathom how they have placed manipulation of the people who need them most and pursuit of raw political power ahead of our national interest. I equally don’t know how any rational person can look at what their policies have done to hurt those less fortunate while incurring obscene amounts of debt, and come to any other conclusion!

Conservatives have always cared about and for those less fortunate. There has always been a view that it is government’s job to provide a safety net for those less fortunate. But conservatives build their safety nets with pathways and incentives to upward mobility. Democrats put people in nets and then sew up the exit door; thus trapping the recipients into lives of permanent dependency and nearly impossible means to pursue true happiness.

For at the end of the day, what is happiness but a state of contentedness? At its core, happiness is the satisfaction of knowing that “it’s all good.” And as mentioned above, “it” can be anything!

Republicans need to lift people up by explaining in simple language how our policies are those which can create equal opportunity. Economic history is on our side. We must talk about solutions, not why democrat ideas are so bad. We have to talk about why our ideas are so good! In 1981, Ronald Reagan gave a televised speech to the American people. He didn’t mince words. He told them our country was a mess. He told them in terms everyone could understand. Then he told them how we could fix that mess. And he told them in ways everyone could understand. I encourage you to take 20 minutes to watch this speech here. Ronald Reagan knew just not how to communicate, but to do so in a way that gave people a reason to believe in their future.

No matter who our 2016 nominee is (and I continue to maintain it will not be Trump, Carson, or Fiorina) our candidate must find a way to express how our values are those which are time tested and will provide the best opportunities for those who need a break. Hillary Clinton is a flawed politician and a flawed candidate. She can be beaten. Many would argue the very soul of our nation hangs in the balance. I am one of those many. Let’s hope our candidate is smart enough to campaign about what can be done to lift people up, and not just what is so wrong with everything the democrats have done. let’s face it; we already know how bad it is. Now what are we going to do to fix it?

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