During the Obama years, the Democrats ceased being a coalition party. This is the true legacy of Barack Hussein Obama: He handed his party’s keys to the radical leftists.
And nothing in America has been the same ever since.
Until Obama took office, the Democratic Party was left-leaning, but the other members of the coalition offset the radicals: union workers, minorities, day laborers, single women, corporatists, environmentalists, and single-issue activists (abortion, gay rights, etc.). What unified this coalition was less ideological than pragmatic; a union dock worker in the Northeast had little in common with, say, a socialist in Seattle. But the common denominator was that all coalition members believed the Democratic Party was their best vehicle to stake a claim for an extended feeding at the Government Trough.
In other words, they worked together because they had to — not because they actually believed in each other’s causes — which is the fundamental weakness of coalitions.
After the GOP obliterated President Clinton in the 1994 midterms, his party put the liberal wing to pasture. For the final six years of his presidency, the Clinton administration “triangulated” its way through various legislative, budgetary (and, ahem, “personal”) entanglements.
Never again would a leading Democrat dare say, “The era of big government is over.” Today, it’d be utterly unfathomable!
Next came eight years of President George W. Bush. His failures in Iraq and the economic crisis gave the radical leftists the opening they coveted.
And on Election Day 2008, they took control of everything.
Meanwhile, the GOP embraced the banner of conservatism under Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) in the 1960s and President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. We’ve been operating under these ideals for most of the last 100 years: The Republican Party is the conservative party. We believe in limited government, personal liberty, and rugged individualism.
At this point, it’s hardwired into our DNA.
Like many of you, I became a conservative because I believe these values will maximize peace, prosperity, and opportunity for my countrymen — it’s how we safeguard our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I firmly, wholeheartedly believe that conservatism is our best defense against tyranny. (Probably our last defense, too.)
But as a conservative, I’ve always struggled with the War on Drugs.
For purely ideological reasons, I’m troubled by the government banning adults from living how they want or having the freedom to make their own decisions — especially in the privacy of their own homes. We ought to have the right to make our own choices, even if those choices are destructive and unhealthy.
Look, if you wanna eat Twinkies, smoke pot, scroll Instagram, and drink Jack Daniels all day, you should have the right. (Just don’t ask the rest of us to subsidize your lifestyle.) Freedom of choice necessarily implies the freedom to make bad decisions, too.
Such is the horror — and the curse — of free will.
But do you really have free will if you’re a drug addict? By definition, an addict is addicted, so probably not: Your brain, body, and soul are enslaved in chemical bondage, which makes it absolutely antithetical to free will!
And I’m unsure how to reconcile this contradiction.
There’s also more pragmatic concerns: The two most heavily abused drugs in America are alcohol and nicotine, and their commonality is obvious: They’re both legal. Seems reasonable to assume that if you make more drugs legal, there’d be more Americans using (and abusing) drugs.
We already see this with the pro-marijuana movement: As more states legalized marijuana, its usage skyrocketed. There are now more daily pot-smokers in America than daily alcohol drinkers. By some metrics, the number of cannabis-involved ailments and emergency room visits has jumped by nearly 50%.
It’d be stupid to assume that’s purely coincidental.
Should we suspend the War on Drugs, we'd better double down on rehab centers and medical facilities, because the number of U.S. drug users will grow considerably. The social cost will be in the billions.
Maybe even trillions!
Then again, the Drug War has ALREADY cost taxpayers over a trillion dollars. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There really aren’t any good options, alas; it’s a choice between what’s bad and what’s (likely) worse.
Full disclosure: I used to serve on the board of directors of Drug Free America. Despite my misgivings, I liked ‘em and (mostly) supported their efforts. (I was also very honest about my own background when they recruited me: I’ve done PR for liquor brands, alcohol products, gambling, and other “sins.” They told me that was fine — they needed help with their messaging.) So if you want to call me a hypocrite, you’d have a point.
I’m far more passionate about expanding personal liberty than curtailing it.
So, in the immortal words of Axl Rose, “Where do we go? Where do we go now?” What, if anything, should we change about our Drug War?
Post-Obama, conservatism and liberalism are both North Stars — ideologies that push their adherents in a specific direction. And because they’re both North Stars, they also share the same weakness: Some ideas work far better as theories than as “real-world” policies, because the social cost is simply too great.
And my suspicion is that’s why we can’t end the War on Drugs. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week.
Probably not ever.
Too many people would be hurt. And, paradoxically, too much freedom would be lost.
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