rConstitution.us
latest boundaries about
Wave Election Harnessing
After the wave passes, the groundswell will keep building.
James Anthony
June 24, 2022
On the surface, wave-election momentum seems to get broken up by senates and incumbent presidents.
In 2022, of the current senate’s 100 seats, only 34 are up for election.
Only 9 are in states considered battlegrounds [1]: the seats now held by Raphael Warnock (D, GA, John Birch Society Freedom Index 0% [2]), Catherine Cortez Mastro (D, NV, Conservative Review Liberty Score—used from here on [3]—6% [4]), Margaret Hassan (D, NH, 6%), Mark Kelly (D, AZ, 8%), Richard Burr (R, NC, 46%), retiring Richard Shelby (R, AL, 57%), Marco Rubio (R, FL, 69%), Ron Johnson (R, WI, 76%), and retiring Pat Toomey (R, PA, 77%).
Another 3 will be changed by other retirements [5]: the seats long held by Pat Leahy (D, CT, 2%), Rob Portman (R, OH, 36%), and Roy Blunt (R, MO, 42%).
So of the 100 seats, change may be coming to only 12.
A future senate presided over by a future vice president and subject to vetoes by a future president can pass bills that advance freedom only if the bills are supported by the senator whose Liberty Score is the 50th highest (given simple-majority voting under which the majority senators count their votes as equal to the minority senators’ votes, as the Constitution requires, instead of as 40/60ths = 2/3rds as powerful under the unconstitutional [6], unwise [7] filibuster cloture rule).
In the current senate, this 50th-highest-Liberty-Score swing senator is Susan Collins (R, ME, 20%).
In the 2023-2024 senate, if the 12 battleground and retiree seats would be won by senators whose Liberty Scores will equal the highest scores in these states’ current delegations, the swing senator would be Mitch McConnell (R, KY, 44%).
If these seats would be won by senators whose Liberty Scores would equal the lowest scores in the current delegations, the swing senator would be Bernie Sanders (I, VT, 7%).
Even if the swing senator would have the higher of these Liberty Scores, little good would be done by a Republican majority whose swing senator would support freedom in only 44% of major votes. Republican senators never have a constitutionalist swing vote, as shown by their scattershot Liberty Scores of 20% to 94%. Democratic and Independent senators, in striking contrast, always have a Progressive swing vote, as shown by their clustered Liberty Scores of 0% to 18%; and excluding Joe Manchin, their monolithic Liberty Scores of 0% to 10%.
But the facts that senates change slowly and that senates have been Progressive don’t tell the whole story.
Beneath the surface of a prospective 2022 wave [8], many-more gains are accelerating.
A constitutionalist wave election in 2022 would be just the latest in a long line in living memory. And each time—Reagan, 2010, 2014, and 2016—better lessons have been taken to heart by activists, media, politicians, and voters.
Activists
Constitutionalist activists are getting much better at doing confrontational politics [9].
Increasingly they are focusing on single issues that motivate voters. Also, they are taking advantage of local and state jurisdictions.
In local and state jurisdictions, the scale is smaller, and smaller proportions of voters vote, so activists can build up groundswells using much-smaller levels of effort. Also, local voters, and even state voters, are more unified [10].
Local and state activism pays off. Local and state governments’ constitutional powers are strong [11], much stronger than most people realize. Plus, compared to the national government, local and state governments are larger [12], so in any given location their power is more concentrated [13]. Local power’s dominance was demonstrated by Prohibition’s failure, which was made inevitable by the local resistance. More generally, across history the power of government people to resist unjust actions by others in government has been decisive in advancing freedom [14].
In legislative sessions, constitutionalist activists are engaging champions to sponsor key bills and to force roll-call votes. Also, they are influencing swing legislators to cast key votes.
In election seasons, constitutionalist activists are targeting key swing legislators who have voted to represent the interests of crony donors instead of the interests of voters [15].
I have detailed how to design a good party using the best-available practice for political organizations. The design closely adapts the Constitution, defining separated, limited, and offsetting party powers. These would limit the party organization, permanently keeping the party’s grassroots in supervisory control. The design would take every precaution possible: a minimum-threshold Liberty Score, moderator-free debates, caucuses not primaries, closed caucuses, caucuses starting where the party is currently strongest, only one caucus each week, and electors awarded proportionally to party strength and to caucus votes received. These precautions would leave voters much-better informed, rendering crony funding powerless [16].
I have described several alternative paths to building such a good party.
In the quickest path, a constitutionalist president would start by using the executive power to furlough everyone in all unconstitutional current organizations and divisions for his whole time in office. He would also build legislative coalitions to repeal these organizations and divisions [17].
In the most-locally-driven path—rSecession (short for “republican form of secession”)—counties would secede from state governments, leaving behind the Constitution-defying Progressive urban-core counties and forming Constitution-supporting county regions in each state that replace their state’s government throughout these regions. These county-region governments would finally deliver on the Constitution’s guarantee of a republican form of state government, by implementing state constitutions that for the first time would closely follow the model given by the Constitution—including by defining limited enumerated powers [18].
Either path would lead to election of a new majority bloc of politicians who might call themselves Republicans but who in reality would be a new, good party and would embrace a good party design.
Media
Constitutionalist media are turning the Internet into the new game-changing printing press [19].
Blaze Media, in video, podcasts, and online print, hosts content from Glenn Beck, Steve Deace, Matt Kibbe, and others—notably, Daniel Horowitz’s podcasts [20] and writing [21].
The Epoch Times, in video, print, and online print, has long been the vehicle for a major group of refugees from Communist China and for other freedom lovers to provide news, investigative reporting, and opinion to awaken and inform others for whom governments’ coercions seem less obvious and less urgent.
One America News Network, on cable and in video, also provides news, investigative reporting, and opinion.
Multiple platforms are getting the word out on true, Austrian economics—notably, Mises Institute [22], and also Lew Rockwell, Foundation for Economic Education, the newly-created Brownstone Institute, American Institute for Economic Research, Cato Institute, and Independent Institute.
Various podcasts and online print pages have hosted otherwise-suppressed information and opinion about government and crony responses to covid [23]. Along with the many media outlets mentioned above, The Joe Rogan Experience, UnHerd LockdownTV, and many newly-created sites have hosted informative content and are growing in reach.
Twitter, the town square for politicians and media, is being acquired by Elon Musk, another immigrant seeking to enable people to find information about freedom.
Politicians
Constitutionalist politicians in local jurisdictions—school boards, city governments, county governments, and state governments—are energized to push back against Progressives’ covid coercions and government-school coercions.
This is not only synergistic but also necessary, since state legislators and local and state election officials are the key to sooner or later ensuring election integrity [24].
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has been using his constitutional powers against others in the national government, in county governments, in city governments, and in other organizations [25].
DeSantis has also been leveraging the power of his office by convening the Florida legislature and recommending to their consideration such measures as he judges necessary and expedient [26]. Like activists but wielding government power, executives are in a position to very-effectively pressure others in government to do what’s right, and to do this well before others who will do what’s right on their own will step up in large-enough numbers to get elected as majorities.
Representatives and senators who support freedom are growing in influence and in number.
Constitutionalist politicians who earned high Liberty Scores even under the Progressive President Trump [27] are recognizable and influential: for example, representatives Paul Gosar (R, AZ, 100%), Andy Biggs (R, AZ, 100%), Chip Roy (R, TX, 100%), and Dan Bishop (R, NC, 100%), and senators Mike Lee (R, UT, 94%), Rand Paul (R, KY, 93%), Marsha Blackburn (R, TN, 92%), and Ted Cruz (R, TX, 88%).
A useful benchmark is a Liberty Score of at least 80%. This shows that for every 1 major vote a politician casts against freedom, he casts at least 4 major votes for freedom.
Towards the end of Trump’s time in office, Liberty Scores of at least 80% were earned by 8% of that past house and 6% of that past senate. Now, towards the middle of Biden’s likely time in office, Liberty Scores of at least 80% are earned by 17% of today’s house and 14% of today’s senate.
In these latter figures, the members who are freshmen make up a full 7% of the house and 2% of the senate.
Such pickups are remarkable, and are of the type and direction that’s needed to change everything.
Elect majorities of constitutionalists in any given jurisdiction—city, county, state, national—and in that jurisdiction the administrative state will be triaged and repealed [28].
Voters
Not just among politicians like DeSantis and Representative Thomas Massie [29] (R, KY, 96%) but also among voters, there’s a growing understanding that for governments to be limited, government people must use their constitutional powers against others in government and against others’ cronies [30].
Activists and media start parties, and then politicians jump on the bandwagon [31], but ultimately what determines success isn’t money but votes.
In primaries, voters mustn’t vote for the Republicans who they guess are the most likely to be picked by majorities of badly-uninformed voters. Voters must instead vote for the Republicans who they anticipate will be the most constitutionalist [32], [33].
In general elections, voters mustn’t vote for Republicans who are not constitutionalist. This is the pivotal action that keeps these seats in the hands of Progressive incumbents throughout their careers. Voters must instead vote for the candidates from any party who they anticipate will be the most constitutionalist.
Wherever, as a result, Progressives end up being elected temporarily, politicians in other jurisdictions will have powers they can and should use to push back. This responsibility, and ultimate accountability, will be theirs.
Eliminate the lesser-of-two-evils dynamic, and in future elections constitutionalists will run and will win.
As voters did back in the founding generation [34], wave-election voters are insistently driving another giant leap up in freedom.
References
James Anthony is the author of The Constitution Needs a Good Party and rConstitution Papers, publishes rConstitution.us, and has written in The Federalist, American Thinker, Foundation for Economic Education, American Greatness, and Mises Institute. Mr. Anthony is an experienced chemical engineer with a master’s in mechanical engineering.
Commenting