It May Be The Economy Stupid, But The Fight is Over the Culture
“My daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn’t leave much to ma and me,
Just this old guitar and and empty bottle of booze.
Now I don’t blame him ‘cause he run and hid,
But the meanest thing he ever did,
Was before he left, he went and named me ‘Sue’.
…..
Now you just fought one hell of a fight,
And I know you hate me and you got the right,
To kill me now and I wouldn’t blame you if you do.
But you ought to thank me before I die,
For the gravel in your guts and the spit in your eye,
‘Cause I’m the son of a bitch that named you ‘Sue’.
I got all choked up and threw down my gun.
I called him pa and he called me son,
And I walked away with a different point of view.
I think about him now and then,
Every time I try and every time I win….
And if I ever have a son, I think I’m gonna name him,
Bill or George, anything but Sue!
I still hate that name!”
I have long pointed out in these missives and other places that the most motivating factor in Congress is the next election. Nobody wants to lose. You see this up close on an individual level as a given member decides how to vote based on what will aid their reelection. But you also see it on the grander scale of who keeps or gains the majority.
In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign famously had signs that read “it’s the economy, stupid” to remind people to stay on that message as the best way for Clinton to prevail. It worked and Clinton won with the help of third party candidate Ross Perot siphoning votes from Bush 41.
So, is it still just about the economy, stupid? In a way, yes. But that’s not really what the fight is about.
People do vote their pocketbooks. If the country is in an active recession or bad economic times are brewing in an election year, the incumbent party loses. This happened in 1928, 1960, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2008 and 2020. Both parties know this. That is why the looming debt crisis is not being dealt with aggressively. To do so means messing around with social security, medicare and medicaid at a minimum. The Democrats have never cared about the debt and have many academics willing to testify that it does not matter. Hence, when they raise taxes they also raise spending at least to match. Republicans, except for Dick Cheney and a few others, do care. But they fear that fixing it will cause them to lose the next election.
So, what you see the Trump Republicans doing now is trying to grow their way out of the problem. This is more politically palatable then the other methods (austerity, financial repression, inflation or default) but slower and less certain. If a true debt crisis hits, whoever is in office will have to do what they have to do to deal with it. But no one knows when that might happen. So in the meantime, the Republican plan is to slow the problem down and hope you get reelected so you have more time to keep slowing the problem down and avoid a crisis.
Economics can win or lose elections. But that is not what the fight is really about. In spite of the rhetoric, much of the new policy (as opposed to extending existing policy) in the Big Beautiful Bill increases taxes on incomes over $400,000, which the Democrats are supposed to support. The spending cuts that many conservatives want are not in there. Isn’t it bipartisan to try and create fewer jobs overseas and more in America? The Democrats should not be as strongly opposed to it as their speeches would lead you to believe. So, why such division?
Because the economic stuff is about winning the next election so the winner can continue to implement their cultural vision. Culture is where the big and lasting policy is being made. Not in fiscal policy, per se.
I have long pointed out that culture is upstream from politics. Win the culture, and you will win the politics. I will use a broad definition of culture here as I believe a number of policy matters are actually part of a web of cultural construction. Immigration, anti-semitism, the border, DEI (race discrimination), education, climate change, voter ID, men in women’s sports, religious freedom, the right to bear arms, abortion, crime enforcement and others are all cultural issues.
A couple of things to note here: The Democrats started the culture wars. There was no argument over Title IX and women’s sports until the Democrats decided to make transgenderism a magnificent thing that needs to be spread and celebrated. Discrimination by race was banned with bipartisan legislation in the 1960s, until Democrats brought it back first with “affirmative action” and now with DEI. Every Democrat wanted a secure border until recently. Showing an ID to verify that a voter was who they say they are was standard until the Democrats decided it was discriminatory.
All of this was fine and had bipartisan agreement until the Democrats decided it must all change. Republicans only recently have decided to fight back aggressively. The left fired the first shots. We are just now shooting back. It is their war, but we must fight it.
So why did the Democrats change so radically? I use the term “Neo-Marxist” to describe the modern Democratic Party. Liberal is a complete misnomer. They are the opposite of liberal now. Hence the ACLU which used to defend the rights of actual swastika wearing nazis to speak, now insists that Republican members of Congress be banned from speaking about climate change and other matters.
Karl Marx was an avowed atheist who sought to tear down Judeo-Christian beliefs and culture (which he called “opium of the people”), meritocracy, capitalism and the republican (small r) form of government. He saw all of these things as evil. Many university professors in “elite” institutions over recent decades have written glowingly about their admiration for Marx and his goals. These professors have formed the basis for the thinking and policies of today’s Democratic Party. I add the prefix “Neo”, because Marx himself could never have imagined S2LGBTQii+++ and all the transgender applications or the climate change hoax. But he must be smiling from hell (where I believe he resides) since all of these things are weapons to take down the culture and institutions that Marx and his modern day followers so despise.
For a long time, the applied sciences in higher eduction were immune from the impacts of Neo-Marxist thought. After all, science is about discovering natural truth and verifying it with rigorous testing. But no more. Medicine, engineering, chemistry and even physics have had their teachings polluted by DEI, CRT, the green new scam and other factors that have nothing to do with real science.
This is where the real fight is. If you lose education and the border and integrity at the ballot box and protection of women and DEI and crime is rampant and unpunished, does a 5% change in tax rate really matter?
The Trump administration, to its credit, is aggressively going after all of these cultural issues. The Democrats always used their control of media and the press to scare Republican office holders into submission. That doesn’t work with The Donald 2.0. Much of the Neo-Marxist political machine is funded by government grants to universities, NGOs, non-profits and the leftist political apparatus. Those are the spending cuts that most distress the left. As they say, when the opposition screams the loudest, that is when you know you are over the target.
I am a fiscal conservative. I always have been. I think we CPAs are born that way. I want to see the deficit reduced and I have been worried about the debt for 25 years. If I were still in Congress I would have voted for the Big Beautiful Bill, although there is much in it I do not like and it does not accomplish nearly as much on the spending side as would be my preference.
But we can’t win back the culture in two years. We need to win at least two more elections to further dismantle the Neo-Marxist control of government, education, media and even science. Hence, if no tax on tips and no Social Security reform are what is necessary to get that done for now, I’ll suck it up hope it works.
Today’s song was an instant number 1 hit back in 1969 with the legendary Johnny Cash. I picked it as an example of how the Neo-Marxists have already changed our culture. This was not a Republican or Democrat song in the 1960s. It was a song that everyone appreciated and found funny. No boy wanted to be named Sue. Any more than a girl would want to be called George. Why would they? The Captivating Mrs. Campbell and I, who have known each other since we were 8 and 9 years old, have often conjectured. She was what we called a “tomboy,” who liked to climb trees and shoot guns. I was a classic “nerd” who was terrible at sports and didn’t want to go outside much.
Today, we might have both been encouraged to be mutilated and switch genders by our teachers at school. Johnny Cash would be labeled a “transphobe” for this song and the song would likely be banned certainly by the NBA and Disney.
This is not progress. It is regression. It is Neo-Marxist.
And for the sake of us all and out offspring, it must be stopped.
Call me Bill or George, anything but Sue!
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free
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