On the heels of the vote in Great Britain to leave the European Union, in fact, as the results were being announced, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he was stepping down from his position.
I think perhaps the resignation was met with less surprise than it might otherwise have, given that Cameron had been firmly on the "stay in the EU" camp and had actively campaigned for Britain to stay. What I suspect was a bit surprising, at least it should have been, is that Cameron was prime minster as leader of Britain's Conservative Party.
Now, I will give voice now to the notion that we all rather understand that British Conservatives and American Republicans are not necessarily the same things. However, as you can interpret from this piece from 2014, what makes an American a conservative would, if the person were to be transported to Britain and to British citizenship, make them a Conservative. The specific issues on either side of the pond might invoke some variance, but the impact of each individual's upbringing would still apply.
So the question then, is this. "Brexit" is, by its nature, a conservative-leaning concept. People who are essentially conservative tend toward nationalism vs. globalism, toward independence vs. reliance on a large government, toward bearing responsibility for one's own rather than, by decree, having to take on the burdens of those who failed on their own (e.g., Greece, Ireland, Portugal).
Why, then, would the leader of the Conservatives not be behind what is logically a conservative initiative?
I think that, for Americans, the answer is to be found in our own Congress. In 2010, after two years of the contempt for Americans shown by Obama (and his lapdog then-Democrat Congress) in ramming Obamacare down our throats, the voters turned the House Republican, where it is today. In 2014, after four more years of Obama due to an ineffectual 2012 Republican presidential campaign against a vulnerable president, the voters turned the Senate Republican as well.
And yet nothing got fixed. Congress did nothing. And voters who had asked for -- mandated -- change in Washington decided to make sure their voices got heard, and made Donald Trump the Republican candidate.
However could the Republican leadership in Congress -- particularly the Senate under Mitch McConnell -- be so deaf?
To me it is not that hard, and it applies to Cameron and the Brexit issue. There is an incredible inertia in Washington, driven by the entrenchment of many, especially the leadership, in Congress, and their singular focus on reelection and keeping themselves in power. The status quo, for them, is associated with their own positions of authority and the gravy train that goes with congressional power.
If the conservatives leading Congress were primarily focused on doing what was good for the USA from a conservative perspective, they would actually be putting such a platform together as a legislative package and moving it forward. They are not (although there are hints that the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, is trying to). They are not, and the people who voted them in know it -- and resent it.
It is hard not to see the analogy in the UK. David Cameron may be the leader of the Conservative Party, but conservative principles favored Brexit even if he didn't. At least based on the commentary the day after the vote, it appears to be the consensus feeling that Cameron's opposition to Brexit was grounded in a status-quo motivation, where the way things were going was good for keeping him in power.
We here get that. We look at the inactivity in the Senate, particularly in January 2015 after the Republican-majority Senate was sworn in, and we seethe at the lack of evident leadership there acting out of a sense of responsibility to the voter who had given them that majority. We look at Mitch McConnell, rightly or wrongly, as the symbol of that deafness to the voter.
McConnell should have started out last January with a solid legislative agenda and a strong outreach to the voter -- right past the White House -- to communicate precisely how Congress was now going to act in accordance with the wishes of the people that gave them the majority. He did nothing of the kind, because that would involve a level of boat-rocking inconsistent with his stability in power.
David Cameron should have gone for principle over his own stability in his position and, as a result, he lost that position. The British political system exacts its punishment a bit different from that system here, and so Mitch McConnell will continue in office for the foreseeable future despite his inaction.
But the similarities between the two situations -- a conservative and a Conservative acting against the best interest of their constituent conservatives and conservative principles -- are striking. Both went for retention of power over the good of their people. And both should be ashamed.
When Donald Trump becomes president, though, they ought to have a pretty good idea why.
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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