What’s transpiring on the Texas-Mexico border could turn out to be an even bigger story than many of us realize.
What could be bigger than a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of children caught in the cross-fire between lawless Latin American regimes and the lawless regime in our White House? What could be bigger than potentially allowing scores of criminals and other ne’er-do-wells to use these children as human shields that allow them to enter our country illegally?
How about the opening salvo in America’s next major political realignment?
Conventional wisdom says the story here is President Obama’s dereliction of duty. Except that’s just the same old song and dance, different verse, for a chief executive already guilty of “a long train of abuses and usurpations.”
Per usual, the conventional wisdom is either wrong or (in this case) late to the party.
See, America’s patriot class already has moved on from playing Captain Obvious. Noting the many ways this president parlays the dystopian fantasies of his fellow Columbia University alums Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven into actual public policy is so last year.
We’re now looking for somebody to do something about it. Oh, and suing the president to ask judges to do the job we elected Republicans in Congress to do doesn’t count. I think we all agree the last thing we need is to grant our black-robed masters more pretend power the Founding Fathers never meant for them to have.
Needless to say, at some point some of these Republicans actually have to justify our voting for them. We didn’t elect them to remind us that our president has more regard for the Koran than the Constitution. We already know that. That’s why we voted Republican. We want the GOP to stop him.
Since it’s become increasingly clear that masculine courage is in short supply among the Beltway Republicans’ surrender caucus … err … leadership, our Republican governors become our next line of defense against Obamaism.
Enter Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
If the market still decides winners and losers, Perry has been one of the more successful governors in recent American history. The market says more people are moving to Texas than any other state, three of the top five fastest-growing cities in the country are in Texas, and since 2000 Texas has taken in at least a million more people than it has lost.
But with his tenure as governor poised to expire, Perry faces his first real existential threat. Simply managing the solid foundation he inherited from his predecessor won’t solve this border crisis.
For, as Perry has correctly noted, the Obama Regime is not blindly ignoring this fiasco, but is sitting back and waiting for the plan they put into action from the beginning to undermine American sovereignty to run its course.
There is no doubt Perry is winning the media war here. During this crisis, he’s been as strong as any elected Republican has been on a national stage the past few years, right up there with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker during his recall and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz during defund Obamacare. For the first time, many of us can actually imagine him as president after the disastrous presidential campaign he ran in 2012.
However, sound bites alone will not roll back Obamaism or bring back the rule of law. It’s a nice start, mind you, and let’s face it — most Republicans don’t even give us that. Nevertheless, victory is ultimately found when narrative becomes policy. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “First you win the debate, and then you win the vote.”
We are rapidly reaching the moment we need a to-do list and not just talking points. Country music star Toby Keith, a max donor to Perry’s last gubernatorial campaign, put it best: “A little less talk and a lot more action.”
If people wanted Obamaism, they wouldn’t have moved to Texas. People are migrating to places like Texas because they want freedom and prosperity, and they understand neither is possible without the rule of law. At least 4 million Californians have moved to Texas the past 20 years. If they wanted to work for illegal aliens, they would’ve stayed home. But they’re putting up with Texas’ at-times oppressive humidity because that’s a small price to pay in exchange for liberty.
The statists have been relentlessly attacking every notion of states’ rights in recent years for a reason. They know at some point the money is going to run out in places like the Peoples’ Republic of Illinois, and they’re going to expect places like Texas to pick up the escalating tab for their folly.
That’s the point of a welfare state — the productive subsidize the poor choices of others. Instead of encouraging excellence, we demand Marxian “fairness” with policies so good we have to mandate them.
In response to this unprecedented federal intrusion, Texans (and people in other “free states”) are going to want to say, “You break it, you bought it. Why are your mistakes our problem? Pay your own way, just like we are. We’ll even let you move here and see what real freedom is like if you want.”
This will prompt the next major political realignment in the country. The country is not going to realign by party affiliation or ideology. The country is next going to realign by population — liberty states and neo-Marxist states.
In fact, this trend already is occurring. When the die is cast, liberty people are going to demand their elected representatives “do something” in response to Washington’s attempts to nullify their choice to move to a “free state.”
In this particular case, once it’s crystal clear Obama has no intention of doing anything beyond never letting a good border crisis go to waste, the people of Texas will transition from cheering on Perry’s media air war to demanding Perry launch a metaphorical ground assault on their freedom’s behalf.
What would that plan look like? What could Perry lawfully do? I’m not sure, but that’s not our job to know it’s his. Just as it’s not our job to know how to fix our vehicle — that’s the mechanic’s job, and if he can’t fix it, we’ll find a mechanic who can.
Sooner or later the pressure from his constituents is going to make a Republican governor “fed up” enough to stand with the people of his state against the tyrants-that-be in Washington, D.C. He’ll tell those feckless bureaucrats to take a long walk off a short pier, and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, just as our Founding Fathers used to tar-and-feather such wannabe dictators.
The first Republican governor to do so will probably be called “Mr. President” one day.
(Steve Deace is a nationally-syndicated talk show host and also the author of the new book “Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again.” You can “like” him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow.)
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