Jeff Deist discusses why COVID is an opportunity for the Right. In my 10th Rule for Patriots (Be Prepared), I mentioned the Democratic mantra 'never let a crisis go to waste'. COVID is not a crisis, but it is messed up situation. That's the closest to a crisis it actually gets. Jeff Deist is right, this is an opportunity, not just a threat. He argues it's an opportunity for new ideas to be presented. He's right, but I think it's bigger than that.
[2023 UPDATE: The above video was removed, here's a related video instead]
What I see as the real opportunity is to further push things like working from home. That facilitates decentralization. Decentralization of any kind, including work environments, enables decentralization of living locations which in turn enables a more rural populace, which is conducive to common sense, and conservatism. To me that's the real opportunity. The other Democratic mantra, demographics is destiny is not wrong, but they have overplayed the racial aspect of that. There are so many attributes that are part of demographics and you can overwhelm the 'systemic racism' messaging with demographics. Rural vs. urban is a lever that serves conservatism. Let people flee California. Encourage work from home, encourage the opportunity for small town values to flourish.
A lot of people both left and right have been claiming that the coronavirus is a trial run for martial law. That's crazy, it's an existential threat and proper precautions need to be taken. What the coronavirus actually is, is proof that decentralization works better than centralization. It's proof of the argument against totalitarianism. And the proof has nothing to do directly with China.
With Democrats arguing that president Trump needs to take radical action, evidence suggests otherwise. Take centralization to the point of absurdity - one world government. If there was a centrally planned response, in that scenario the world would have to pray that the response was the correct one. Otherwise the fatalities and other impacts could be catastrophic to an epic degree. Imagine that the world was run by Italy instead of South Korea. The infection rate and fatalities would be far worse.
Years ago I was arguing what I called the 50 Experiments Theorem. 50 states trying 50 different approaches to combat the virus is better than the federal government mandating one approach for all - one approach that could very well be quite a bad approach. The idea is that the more things that are tried the more chances you have one of your experiments being successful, and everyone else having the opportunity to copy the successful approach and learn from the failed approaches too. More broadly there are over 170 countries, so that offers a lot more experiments. Those who are in favor of globalism and opposed to decentralization argue for political homogeneity (whether purposefully or accidentally). They argue for one experiment in times of crisis. That is an extremely high risk approach.
Five years from now, scientist and planners will have learned what countries reacted smartly and which ones did not. Those learnings can be applied more universally to the inevitable next outbreak. That's a good thing, isn't it?
Decentralization means more chances to solve problems because it means more people trying more things and offers a higher chance of a successful result. By extension, that is proof that capitalism will always work better than socialism to solve society's problems. It always allows for more people trying more things because they have the freedom to try.
Government is an absolute necessity, but absolute government is necessarily evil.
If perception is reality and no two people perceive things the same way, then what two different people need - in addition to the basic necessities of life - will necessarily be different. Consequently, if government's purpose is to fill unfulfilled needs for the governed, in doing so government manifestly cannot fulfill different needs, arising from different perceptions and realities, in equal measure in each and every circumstance. Government is therefore an imperfect vessel for social responsibility. At best.
At it's worst, government can skew not only the delivery of the means to fulfill social and societal needs, but also it's own multi-faceted, compartmentalized, departmental understanding of what those needs even are. If the government does not have an absolutely flawless perception of every individual and every circumstance, it cannot possibly fulfill every need equally. Moreover it certainly cannot deliver for some without it being done at the expense of others.
Governments absolutely create an imbalance in what they deliver and in order to fund their fulfillment, also in what they take. Governments are not creators of wealth, they are merely redistributors of it. If they are flawed in their analysis, they are then also flawed in that redistribution.
But if governments are absolutely necessary to some degree, then what's to be done to ensure that society does not exist at the unbearable expense of an individual or vast swaths of individuals?
It seems that the further away from something we are, the less we understand of it. That's common sense - we are not close to the stars of the universe so we are forced to infer things about them and build our knowledge of them. But closer to home we have been able to explore Mars and understand it more than before we could touch the surface with explorer vehicles. And still closer to home we have yet to fully understand the oceans. But we understand our farmland better than our understanding of oceans and likewise we understand oceans better than Mars and Mars better than stars in distant galaxies.
Using that logic, it makes sense that local government would be more understanding and knowledgeable of proximal problems than state governments, and they in turn more than federal governments and in turn again more than some United Nations panel. Not only would proximal governors better understand a specific problem, that may differ than that in some other locality, they would consequently be able to better devise and assess potential solutions. They would further be able to deliver a response in an infinitely more timely fashion.
Secondarily, if the problems were similar to those in other localities, there would be similar attempts to address the same issue, across these localities, likely with different outcomes. One of the greatest benefits of a non-homogeneous suite of ideas (forget non-homogeneous physical identifiers, that's a red herring), is that with multiple attempts at solutions you immediately have improved your odds of finding a solution that can be extrapolated to those who have tried and failed with different approaches.
If you are playing baseball and you only get one swing at a pitch, odds are you are going to miss. If you have 50 swings, you probably are going to get at least one hit in there somewhere. That one (or more) hit is an opportunity to learn. So too are all the misses. Non-homogeneity of ideas is what ensures success. More specifically, non-homogeneity of ideas combined with multiple real-world attempts to enact them
This is why free market capitalism outperforms command economies every single time - individuals try and succeed or fail thousands of times where in a central command structure you get one shot, that's it. Yes, if it fails you can try again, but what if it fails catastrophically? You've put all your eggs in one basket and if it drops, eggs will break. And even if it is not a catastrophic failure, you have wasted time and have to start over. If it takes 3 or 4 tries to get it right you have spent three or four times as long to get to a solution that a free society has long since moved on to other problem-solving issues: you have fallen behind.
This is why central control is doomed to fail over time. It cannot compete in the long run. That is to say nothing of the fact that in order to prop itself up and mitigate the frustration and unrest resulting from its failures, it has to control speech, and ultimately, thinking. That further restricts ideas and ensures the implosion it someday faces. This is how societies fail. This is why communism, no matter when or where it has been tried or wherever it may be tried in the future, has always and will always fail. The same is true for socialism. These are varying degrees of fatal governments, the only difference being the speed of the death.
How do we avoid falling into that trap, when governments set the rules and therefore are subject only to their own regulation (assuming they even bother to comply with them)? Society must devise a system where the government delegates as much power as possible to those outside of itself and keeps the minimal amount required to serve its base purpose. That means the states, municipalities, non-governmental institutions such as private companies and organizations like churches or charities, and ultimately, individuals are those who need to be empowered to act. The United States Constitution was set out to do exactly that. It's such a brilliant masterpiece of design. Indeed, where its intent has been perverted is where we see unintended consequences and failures. It's precisely where we see creeping avoidance of its imperatives and a resulting bloated state.
Whether you believe America has a deep state or not, it is inarguable that it is a bloated behemoth of a beaurocracy bent on self-preservation at the expense of many (if not most) of those it was designed to serve. At it's core, individual liberty and the creative spark that alone enables are no longer it's primary purpose. The institutions of the American government, set out to foster individual liberty, are now being misused to specifically thwart that noble aim, and in the process are becoming like the dictatorial states America was designed to not become. And sadly generations since the Baby Boomers have become increasingly enamored with a nostalgia for something that has never existed and cannot exist - a socialist Utopia.
I'm sure many of those who long for socialism simply do not understand what it is they seek and seek to replace. Their ignorance does not excuse them from the inevitable harsh judgement of future generations forced to live under the yoke of a statist or globalist hegemony. More importantly it does not excuse those of us in the know of not educating our brethren of the cliff they are hurling us towards unabated. Upon us it is the most incumbent, not ironically at an individual level, to spread the word of individualism and liberty while we still can. The failure to do so means the failed future of that liberty and free society will ours to own.
Previously I have looked at how the McCain campaign failed to deliver both in terms of money and demographics. Today I want to review some of the strategic errors the campaign committed.
Strategy
This is by no means comprehensive, but here's a list of some obvious mistakes the campaign made (in no particular order at this point):
(1) Pennsylvania McCain spent time and money in Pennsylvania. It was a desperation move and it showed. Was he taking for granted Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia? Was he hoping the polls were wrong and hoping for a miracle? Only he and his team know which. But in the Real Clear Politics average of polls Obama was leading in Pennsylvania by over 7% and won by 10.4%. It was clearly not a contestable state.
It might have made sense if he'd started that effort back in July or August or June when he was busier raising money than campaigning because he opted into federal funding. By the time Pennsylvania became a must win, it was over.
(2) Decentralization The decentralized approach to campaign administration didn't make sense. According to Politico,
McCain will lean heavily on the well-funded Republican National Committee. He will merge key functions of his campaign hierarchy with the RNC while also relying on an unconventional structure of 10 regional campaign mangers.
How can you farm out operations and have a message get through consistently. If 'All politics is local' and messages are localized, you've lost on branding and message before you've even started.
For all of Obama's 'change' he ran a traditional Democrat campaign - primary left, general election center. Pick the target states and focus the message and marketing efforts. Whether McCain eschewing that was out of financial necessity or planning, there's a reason it gets used - it works.
(3) Using Character The decision to stay hands-off on Wright was a tactical error. The same is true for Ayers. The decision to stay of Rezko was a tactical error (especially in hindsight with the Blagojevich scandal fermenting today). There are many including in the McCain camp who have argued that this is gutter politics. They're right. But this is the big leagues and gutter politics is part of the game.
The timing of these questions was wrong. This message was never released, but rather than questions like this trickling out in October, this should have been the beginning of a narrative that started in June and carried on until hit sunk in and the narrative could move on to other issues with this as the tie-in.
The reason to hammer this issue home is because when you talk about other issues later - oil, the economy, the sub-prime mortgages it plays to 2 big points; (i) Can you trust McCain to try to do the right things on these issues? (ii) Can you trust Obama to have your best interests at heart when addressing these issues?
If you think of the election cycle as a narrative then it needs a story line. You can't hop all over the place and expect the diverse set of sound bytes to have a common thread and therefore stick. You've got to make the point that Obama's biggest concern was and is Obama and McCain's biggest concern was the nation.
(4) Misusing Palin The decision to start Palin twice off on unwelcome ground without some form of editorial control or input was a major tactical error. No, a blunder. According to an article with an interview with Couric on the topic;
Couric also goes in-depth about her now-infamous Sarah Palin interviews. The interviews were the first serious “vetting” Gov. Palin had received from the mainstream media. Post-election, some of the gossip coming out of the McCain campaign suggested that Couric was selected for Gov. Palin’s first media roll-out because the McCain campaign viewed a female journalist as being more sympathetic (i.e. “softer”) to Gov. Palin.
If that doesn't show a lack of detailed thinking I don't know what does. Clearly the McCain camp felt the need to play gender politics on the issue. They also seemed to think that would outweigh any political bias Couric or ABC might feel.
The decision to 'handle' Palin rather than let her be herself was a tactical error. The decision to not allow her to stick to her strong points was a mistake. It was misuse of his greatest asset.
Andrea Tantaros had an column about it. Newt Gingrich spoke about it.
(5) Debate Prep At the point of the first debate, McCain needed momentum. He was far too soft in both the first and second debates, allowing Obama to come off as being of Presidential timber. He should have tried much harder to keep Obama off balance and on the defensive. Instead he came across as legislative.
This shouldn't have been what the late night talk shows were talking about. McCain should have come out armed with facts, armed with a debate strategy to get Obama off balance from the beginning and keep him on the ropes. That's easier said than done, but the strategy to talk issues and sound knowledgeable did nothing for McCain, nor should it have been expected to do it.
The only other way he could have made a difference was to take the approach that it seems like only Reagan could successfully take;
(6) Suspending his campaign In orderto deal with the bailout issue, McCain suspended his campaign. It was a serious error in a number of respects. Firstly optics - it looked feeble, it looked desperate and it looked confused. It had a negative effect on public perception. Further by signing on to a an unpopular idea (the bailout), McCain's brand was further tarnished by his association with it. Obama came off as cooler, more focused, more sensible.
(7) Complaining about the press like Lanny Davis did, did nothing to help, but not having a workaround to get the message out was the real problem. This is not McCain specific, it is a problem for the entire GOP and conservatives in general. Bypassing the MSM is crucial to future GOP success. The press has shown that they can become more liberal, less impartial and less thorough than we previously thought possible. It's only going to get worse. The Obama victory only served to reinforce their sense of self-importance and is only going to embolden them for more next time. It's going to get uglier. And complaining about it at a minimum antagonizes them, but worse, it distracts us from our own goals - educating the people of America on the real substance behind the issues the country faces.
Next, in Part 4 I'll take a look at the branding issues McCain had with his campaign.
