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I have asked myself this question many times.  Have recent events changed my mind?

The headline blares, “Nunes steps aside from Russia probe.”  Why?  As Nunes puts it, "Several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics.  The charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power."

Do you think if this was House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Democrat Adam Schiff serving as the head of the committee he would step aside?  No way.  If this was going on against a Democrat the entire Progressive establishment would be attacking the Ethics Committee for even accepting such accusations. 

In a second example let’s look at the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.  He recuses himself from the Russian witch hunt over non-issues.  Does anyone remember that Obama’s last AG Loretta Lynch meeting with Ex-President Clinton on an airport in Arizona while her department was conducting a criminal investigation of his wife?   Did she recuse herself?  Of course not only Republicans are held to those standards.

Or look at the fake news tsunami about Russian meddling in our recent election.  After all this inquiry there is no evidence to support it.  WIKI Leaks has provided documents that show our own intelligence organizations routinely hack computers and make it look like the Russians did it.  And besides as I have been pointing out all along if the Russians did hack the election and Hillary won the popular vote who was the recipient of any Russian help?  Now it comes out that President Obama’s political hatchet woman Susan Rice was the one unmasking people from the Trump campaign and transition team in broad sweep intel gatherings.  So it looks like if any government was trying to interfere in a fair election it was ours.

And yet the media drum beat and the hearings, investigations, and charges continue.  If this was happening to a Democrat, say to President Obama what would we hear?   The media megaphone would be blaring day and night that it was a racially motivated witch hunt.  And unlike the Republicans who have some of the leaders of their party in and out of government and those in the media joining in the attacks in a similar situation the Democrats would circle the wagons and defend the attacked 24/7.

Like Charley Brown trying to kick the football over and over again only to have Lucy pull it away; each time the Democrats keep running the same play and the Republicans keep falling for it.  This brings us to the question of the day, “Are Democrats smarter than Republicans?”

I was a fourth generation Republican who cut my teeth in Nixon’s first presidential campaign back in 1960 and then in Barry Goldwater’s failed Presidential bid.  I worked for Goldwater, Reagan, and all the following Republican flag wavers who tried to rally the country to a return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  That is I did until Trent Lott’s Republican Senate Majority gave us the impeachment debacle and the explosion of government growth and spending under Hastert, Lott, and Bush.  When the Republican Senate refused to impeach President Clinton for crimes he later admitted and when they and their House brethren became Democrat Lite as the party of power, I mailed my membership card to the party that was no longer the Grand Old Party of my great grandfather and became an Independent.

For most of my life I was a party man: accepting some things I didn’t agree with for the greater good of electing a party with a platform I could agree with.  However, once it became apparent that as far as the budget went we had elected the foxes to watch the hen house, that the conservative social agenda received a tip-of-the-hat during elections followed by no action, and that the only victims of the impeachment were those brave enough to bring the charges the scales fell from my eyes.  Once I saw that the Republicans had lost their moorings and were swilling at the public trough, I realized the platform we conservatives battle so hard for and hold so dear is merely a mirage held in front of social and fiscal conservatives to keep them loyal to a Party captured by the Progressives.

Back in the Dream Time, when my mind was still locked in the glow of Ronald Reagan and all his example and message meant to America, even then I wondered, “What’s wrong with these leaders of ours?  Why do the Democrats always seem to outsmart them at every turn?”

Even Reagan, the best of the best, was hoodwinked by Tip O’Neal in the amnesty bargain: we would grant amnesty and then seal the border.  The problem is the illegal immigrants got the amnesty; however, America’s border was never sealed.  He also signed several tax deals with the Democratic majority.  We the People lost many deductions in exchange for lower rates.  The deductions never came back even though the rates started rising again as soon as the Gipper said good night and George the First forgot to read his own lips.

George Bush the Elder was out maneuvered by the Progressives so many times that 20% of his base ran to Perot opening the door for Clinton and the first attempt to ram national health care down America’s throat.  That time they overplayed their hand and the last great strategist among the Republicans, Newt Gingrich, was able to sell a Contract with America and bring the first Republican majority in Congress in 40 years. 

Newt kept the promises and brought some fiscal sanity back to Washington.  Within a few short years the Republican led Congress ended welfare as we had known it for generations and balanced the budget.  Unfortunately the Party of Lincoln then nominated someone who campaigned as if he had voted for Lincoln.  The 1996 Republican campaign would have had to improve several thousand percent to make it to dull.  Suddenly, with an assist from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media it was Clinton, who had been dragged kicking and screaming to the benefit and spending cutting table, who was the author of everything positive Congress had accomplished.  The Republicans had been outmaneuvered and outsmarted again.

According to every one of the serial re-counts Bush the younger won Florida and legitimately the presidential race of 2000.  Yet, to this day people talk of him being selected not elected.  After the dastardly deeds of 9-11 the rhetorically-challenged George captured the hearts of America and the admiration of the Western world by taking a bullhorn and talking to a crowd at ground zero.  Yet by fighting and winning America’s first preemptive war and then losing the peace through the lack of planning he soon lost the PR campaign which led to the Pelosi-Reid Congress in 2006 and eventually to the absolute triumph of Progressivism in 2008.

Once their secular messiah was enthroned at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the Progressives with their filibuster proof majority took the reins of single-party rule and imposed their radical agenda to transform America into a Nanny-state based upon the re-distribution of wealth.  This wanton destruction of the traditional American society based on limited government and free enterprise sparked a vast rebellion of the silent majority resulting in the teanami of 2010 which brought a Republican majority back to the People’s House and an expanded minority to the Senate.

And what is the first thing these political savants do?  They reaffirm the same tired leadership and strike a deal that anyone who was paying attention could see was tailor made to save the discredited Obama presidency and set the stage for him to follow in Mr. Clinton’s footsteps taking credit for anything good the historic election might have made possible.  What were these so-called leaders thinking?  They turned the victory of the grassroots into a capitulation to the elites.  Not only did they sign a deal that extended uncertainty and raised estate taxes, they gave the Administration cover for a stealth stimulus filled with porkulous pay-offs designed to help re-elect the President. 

Along comes 2012 and the Republican establishment and their friends in the Progressive Media engineer the nomination of the one man who couldn’t beat the worst president in American History with the worst economy since 1932.  They surrender the issue of a massively unpopular Obamacare by nominating the author of its prototype.  Mr. Romney spends the last debate agreeing with the President’s handling of foreign policy and ignoring the raging controversy over the debacle in Benghazi.  If he didn’t throw the election he tossed it away.

Then came Trump, he wins fair and square yet he is illegitimate.  There is no evidence of any collusion with the Russians but the seriousness of the charges demand an investigation as is the Democrat standard operating procedure.  All of this smoke and mirrors might easily be a cover so that no one gets to investigate the real scandal, that the Obama administration spied on and distributed the findings in an attempt to sabotage the incoming Trump.  And the Republicans are either right in there working with the Democrats, they recuse themselves, or they’re merely ineffective in dispersing the smoke and revealing the truth.

So, “Are Democrats smarter than Republicans?”  The answer is they aren’t.  It isn’t a matter of intelligence it’s a matter of people with dedication to something larger than themselves, as opposed to people with dedication to seeing themselves as something larger than they are. 

The leadership of the Democrat Party is composed of committed radical Progressives.  They have a long term agenda to transform America into a socialist welfare state with an unlimited government, and they never lose sight of that goal.  They’re willing to commit political suicide, or more accurately they’re willing to encourage their follow travelers who do not occupy safe seats to commit political suicide usually with pay off jobs in government agencies.  They never take their eyes off the ball.  They’re constantly pushing to move closer to the goal line even if it’s one inch at a time.  And after the debacle that was Hillary they are warming to the idea of allowing an outright Socialist to become the leader and agenda driver of their Party. 

They say a leopard can’t change his spots and at least the sheep’s clothing is falling off the Faux Socialists who call themselves Democrats.  It is interesting to remember that the Communist Party USA went all in for Obama and Clinton.  Why run your own candidate when one of the major parties is doing it for you.  These are some dedicated community organizers who aim at nothing less than fundamentally transforming America.

By comparison, the leadership of the Republicans is composed of professional politicians. They’re pragmatists who do whatever they have to do and say whatever they have to say to retain their seats, their power, and their perks.  They believe the inside the beltway press who tell them how visionary they are to compromise, losing sight of those back home in fly-over country who instead believed the campaign promises and expect their representatives to stand up for principles.

The Party of Lincoln over-and-over chooses to be on the receiving end of Pickett’s Charge instead of behind the spit-rail fence firing point blank as their enemy wastes itself in a senseless assault against an immovable barrier.  The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.  They could be that immovable barrier holding back the advancing forces of bankruptcy and collapse.  Instead the Progressives of the right are once again embracing the frivolous and spurious attacks of the Left against anyone who is really trying to lead away from the super state.   Soon they will join the Progressives of left in a bi-partisan campaign to continue the spending, increase the debt, and fool the public.

Paraphrasing the first Republican President, Historian Will Durant once wisely observed, “It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”

Looking at the question which is the title of this essay, “Are Democrats smarter than Republicans” over many years of pondering this question, I haven’t changed my mind.  Singleness of purpose and focusing on a goal will make one appear smarter than someone who is merely in it for what they can get.  In other words, people who are dedicated to achieving long-term goals who have the ability to delay gratification will always trump self-serving pragmatists who can see no further than the feathers in their own nest.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2017 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens