We know that vampires and werewolves don’t exist for very good reasons. For the same reasons, we know that Manchurian candidates do exist. We’ve been watching them for years. We watched many of them when they first became candidates and followed them through their elections and then watched in amazement as they proceeded to violate their stated principles and campaign promises. Over and over again. Remember how excited we Tea Party conservatives were over the candidacy and election of pseudo Tea Party girl, Mia Love of Utah? A black female Tea Party conservative! I mean she was the Holy Grail of conservative politics, right? Only she wasn’t what she seemed. And do you remember how disappointed we were when she almost immediately allied with the Republican establishment? And do you recall how many times the same story played out? We didn’t understand it then. Now we do. They were all Manchurian candidates following their scripts.
John McCain – Manchurian candidate, maybe even one true to the book’s character.
Trey Gowdy – Manchurian candidate.
Mia Love – Manchurian candidate.
George W. Bush – Manchurian candidate – ran as a Christian conservative and governed as a Godless progressive. Spending was out of control. Didn’t veto anything until more than seven years into his presidency. No true Christian could have participated in the “build the wall” scam, all the while knowing, intending, that it was just that. Allowed poor Scooter Libby to rot in prison, a casualty of the investigation of Bush himself. Why did we have to wait for a President Trump to right that wrong?
It would be nice if the above list was comprehensive, but it isn’t. The sad truth is that Congress, and, indeed, government at all levels, is infested with these vermin. Manchurian candidate is what I call them, because I think the name fits so well, but it doesn’t really matter what we call them as long as we now understand the con that they have perpetrated upon us for decades. And as long as we understand that this did not happen just by accident. As FDR once (reportedly) said in a rare moment of candor, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Evil was with us from the beginning, and it will be with us right up to the very end. In the meantime, we can’t eliminate it, and we can’t defeat it. All that we can do – all that we have ever been able to do – is to hold it back, and that is an every day job. Maybe not technically 24-7, but close to it. So long as we value liberty to the extent that we are willing to pay the price to have it, we will never have the luxury of thinking this job done. One day, at the end of days, evil will be vanquished from the Earth, but it will not be we who vanquished it.
So we know what our job is. It is the same as it has always been – support good and oppose evil and do both with conviction and vigor. As we have learned, however, evil is not always easy to identify because its practitioners are so good at masquerading as something else. A huge part of our job, then, is to educate ourselves as to how to identify our enemies, even when, especially when, they come to us cloaked as friends. Or brothers. In identifying the Manchurian candidate problem in the conservative movement, we have made a small step in that direction, but, as we have said, where liberty is concerned and at stake, there will be no time for pausing to reflect upon our accomplishments.
The Founders warned us that a Republic is not appropriate for an ignorant people, yet here we are. Have we made progress? Yes. Must we continue to move ahead in our education? Absolutely! Can we save the republic? That remains to be seen. I have not the slightest doubt that it is possible to save it, only whether we are up to the task.
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Jere Moore has been blogging about political matters since 2008. His posts include commentary about current news items, conservative opinion pieces, satirical articles, stories that illustrate conservative principles, and posts about history, rights, and economics.