A single fatal shibboleth stalks political elites on the Right. This is the confused notion that Republicans must mimic the Democrat Left to be successful in presidential races. When you take a hard look a recent political memes, what you see is the inexorable drift back to a neo-Marxist model: special pleaders, onerous taxes, intemperate spending, deficit, debt, and bigger, yet incompetent and unaccountable government at all levels. Social democracy seems to be crumbling in slow motion.

Need we mention Flint, Michigan or Baltimore, Maryland as exemplars? Baltimore merely sets itself afire; Flint literally poisons constituents. First, the city goes broke and then the same dingbats who rode profligacy to ground now maim their citizens with lead laden water in the name of economy. Flint, like most urban centers in America, is a broken liberal monopoly, a polity that will shop until it literally drops – or squanders taxes until you drop. A dependent activist majority on the left now defines the agenda for an ever shrinking passive, yet barely productive, minority. Democracy, as a virtue, may be reaching its sell-by date.

Not that performance is any better inside the Beltway. Washington has invested in wasteful serial wars abroad that no one at DOD or the US State Department has any intention of winning. Here; debt, deficit, and the dead don’t matter. When it comes to lives that matter, the only difference between Michigan and Iraq or Afghanistan is that you are likely to get maimed or killed quicker in those remote Muslim wars than you will in Michigan or Maryland. Pointless sacrifices in either case. Indeed, if you included foreigners in the body count, poor policy choices have killed more folks in the past decade than all Islamic terror groups combined. That’s a number that you will never see above the fold.

Dying for democracy or freedom is one thing. Dying for elected incompetence, or political cowards and their ephemeral legacies, is something else. The dark side of democracy is the inclination to vote for the worst among us. The most offensive part of the wasted treasure and lives, abroad especially, is the companion banality. To wit: the enemy is not named, war is not declared, Islam is appeased, and those serial failures in the Ummah have no names or expiration dates.

The horns of modern conflict dilemma are two; no foreseeable end to small wars and no humane solution to the predictable refugee problem – no solutions short of open borders and cultural fratricide. After a decade of dithering, the great national security questions are now “when” not what or if.

Indeed, it’s a toss-up for which comes first, fiscal collapse or unilateral cultural surrender?

Now comes another American presidential election in 2016, dominated again, for the most part, by politically correct conventional wisdom on both sides of the aisle. Donald Trump is now a no man’s land of candor between two pandering major American political factions. With the decisive women’s vote in play, the Republicans are now “feministing” along with Democrats. Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina is the now the femme face du jour for establishment Republicans. Haley is celebrated, right and left, as a rising political star.

She made the PC honor role by lowering a flag symbolic of Southern history and select racial scabs that just will not heal. No healing because state houses and the White House keep scratching racial sensitivities until they bleed. If all tainted American icons must fall, why not the Jefferson Memorial, Monticello, Mount Vernon, and every town and city in America named after George Washington?

If we are to take down all the monuments to all heroes who have fallen out of favor with millennials, then we might clear the public squares across America, starting with the capital. Indeed, Marion Barry could replace Thomas Jefferson at the Tidal Basin. Jefferson’s soaring rhetoric could be replaced with rap, rant, or doggerel such as: “The bitch set me up.”

Withal, veiled history is still history. The past cannot be altered by fiat, felled statues -- or flags.

Gov. Haley was invited up from Dixie to respond to the President’s State of the Union address. Faced with a target rich field on a national stage, you might think that Nikki would go after Obama or Clinton. No, Haley didn’t make headlines for any critique of Democrats. She is now above the fold for friendly fire, a lame attack on Donald Trump. Clearly, Nikki is channeling the RNC.

Specifically, Haley accused Trump of being “angry,” as if anger would be a handicap in 2016. Trump volleyed with effect, accepting the angry label as the legitimate mantel for the mood of apostates in both parties. 

The Haley cheap shot is a symptom of all that Trump rants about: clueless political elites, especially the Republican establishment.  Ironically, Republicans are slip streaming Democrat operatives; playing the same shame game and trying to “tango foxtrot” the front runners. Nomenklatura of both parties are conspiring to veto the people’s choice, a foolish gambit especially for the righteous Right. Blue collar, evangelical, and conservative stay-at-home votes made Mitt Romney a footnote in the last election. 

If Trump picks up his marbles and goes back to making money in 2016, he will take a legion of unhappy voters with him -- and Clinton III becomes a sure thing. Nikki Haley may have her own agenda too, a preference for any woman, even Hillary, rather than Trump. Playing the race and vagina cards in the primaries is usually a tactic of the left. Republican elites, by moving left too, are perilously close to alienating the angry, ethical, God fearing, hardworking, productive, and taxpaying demographics. Political apathy, like civic enthusiasm, is a created culture. 

If conservative thinkers worthy of the name had any good instincts, they would allow the primaries to play out, winner take all. Let democracy work the way it is supposed to. Trust the wisdom of crowds. Who needs another anointed, politically correct shape shifter?

At the moment, unfortunately, the usual media pundits and the RNC have taken their eyes off the ball. Instead of illuminating Clinton sleaze, Republicans are directing most brickbats at their own front runner. Mrs. William Clinton’s most significant qualification for high office is her husband’s coat tails. Indeed, Hillary may be the worst possible role model for women, wives, and girls in America.

If Trump gets the Republican nod, consider all the talent he has to choose from for vice president, cabinet posts, and department heads. The Republican bench is deep: a woman CEO, an accomplished black surgeon, two Hispanic pit bulls, and several portly, yet experienced, white governors. Politics and governing are team sports.

Hilary’s bench is two shades of pasty white far left pandering, including a profligate socialist and, yes, a former mayor of smoke stained Baltimore, Maryland.

Donald Trump, warts and all, makes a better candidate than he does a defector. Republicans need to recalibrate their gun sights on the Obama/Clinton camps. Imagine, if it helps, Bernie Sanders as US Secretary of the Treasury.    

G. Murphy Donovan writes about the politics of national security.