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12.09.2019 0

To truly understand American politics, you need a translator

By Bill Wilson

To truly understand American politics, you need a translator.

Recently we were given a rare inside glance at the true meaning of politics in America, not the sugar-coated day-dreams of the establishment old-guard or the spitting rage and indignation of the professional Left.  Instead we got to see exactly how the whole thing works.  It is not pretty but none of it should be a surprise.

The facts are simple.  After years of propaganda, threats and outright attempts at legal bribery from the federal government, the then Republican controlled General Assembly in Virginia enacted a massive expansion of the government socialist healthcare program known as Medicaid.  More than 400,000 more people were to be included in a program that is literally breaking the backs of taxpayers at the national and state levels.

The Medicaid expansion had been a key element of Obamacare, that reckless exercise in Soviet-style central planning that has been an underlying factor in politics for a decade.  The Republicans caved when offered a “deal” from Democrat Governor Ralph Northam.  If the Republicans would just expand Medicaid by 400,000 people – eventually costing Virginia taxpayers billions of dollars – the Governor would ask the federal government for a waiver to require some portion of the new people to find or seek work.

Known as the work requirement, the Left and their lackeys in the media and the Democrat Party howl with pain anytime the issue of asking someone who the taxpayers support to contribute anything.  And they did again.  But many more seasoned political observers warned it was a ruse, the second they had the opportunity to break the deal and simply ignore the work requirement they would.

And predictably, these observers were labeled every name under the sun.  Don’t you know that “compromise” is the essence of our government?  Why do you refuse to trust the Democrat regime, accept their word that a deal is a deal?  “Obstructionists” screamed the corporate media propagandists.

In the end, a handful of so-called “Republicans” voted with the Democrats to accept the “deal.”  Fast forward to this week.  Governor Northam announced that Virginia would “take a pause” in efforts to require the work rule.  And, on cue, the few Republicans who accept this nonsense expressed their “disappointment.”    The pathetic little play had moved into the final act.  Government expands, taxpayers get reamed, Republicans shake their heads and pledge to “get them next time,” and the Democrats reap the benefits of the growing dependent class.

Were this the only time we had seen this obscene theater we should shrug our shoulders and look to return to the fight to restore liberty in America.  But it isn’t.  This is but the most recent of a continual string of such defeats the stretch back many decades for the Virginia GOP. The quislings there still sit like vultures in a tree waiting for the next chance to swoop down and grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

But recriminations aside, there is one big lesson here, a lesson that anyone concerned about the direction of our country must take to heart and practice every day.

The lesson is simple translation: There is no dealing with the Left.  Their word is no good.  You cannot make a deal with someone who thinks lying and stealing are mere tactics, which the Marxists actually brag about.

Ayn Rand captured the essence of this situation when she wrote, “Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.”  Hopefully Governor Northam’s recent exercise in back-stabbing will drive this message home.

Bill Wilson is the President of the Market Research Foundation and a former board member and former President of Americans for Limited Government.  

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