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Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause

Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing • 2006 • 271 pages
Conservatives Betrayed

Warning to the Republican Party: conservatives are unhappy again. The irresponsible actions and lack of leadership by today’s governing class — Democrats, Big Business, Big Labor, the educational establishment, and big-spending Republican politicians — has set America on the pathway to ruin, and discredited conservatism in the eyes of many who wrongly associate it with today’s GOP establishment. But in “Conservatives Betrayed: How Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause,” Richard A. Viguerie (who helped create the Reagan Revolution by pioneering the use of direct mail fundraising) surveys the disaster and provides a solid series of remedies — offering a powerful conservative manifesto for the 21st century.

When conservatives are unhappy, Viguerie notes, bad things happen to the Republican Party. Yet Republican leaders, he argues, have only worsened the disaster that now looms for America. He details how GOP politicians have happily abetted the growth of our now obscenely “obese” government. He exposes how the U.S. Congress has, contrary to what the Founding Fathers intended, become as haughty and remote from popular concerns as the British House of Lords. Big Government conservatism? Viguerie shows here that it’s just corrupt, not compassionate. Viguerie even provides a series of “Conservative Articles of Indictment” against President Bush.

But Viguerie doesn’t just discuss the problems — he offers sound and practical solutions. He explains how conservatives can succeed now in restoring the Right to Life and the Culture of Life, and prevail in the Culture Wars. He provides strategies for restoring democracy to the political marketplace and standing up for the U.S. in a dangerous world. And, reaching back into recent conservative history, he sketches out two inspiring case studies for today’s conservative activists: how Phyllis Schlafly defeated the ERA and how Wayne LaPierre and the NRA defeated gun control.

Without conservatives, Republicans cannot win. Conservatives Betrayed shows how they can — and why they must — win them back into the fold now.

Some of the problems — and the solutions:

  • Why Republican leaders — including President Bush — must take the blame for runaway government growth and spending
  • Pork barrel spending: pervasive everywhere in this Republican administration — and far worse than what Democrats have done in the past
  • How GOP politicians lost sight of conservative principle — and lost touch with conservative voters — by catering to Big Business and other special interests
  • How it wasn’t the Republicans who stopped Jimmy Carter and his peanut brigade in Congress — it was conservatives, acting independently of the GOP
  • How, if George H.W. Bush had listened to conservatives in 1991, there would have been no Saddam to overthrow in 2003
  • Why laws like McCain-Feingold are not “reforms,” but simply incumbent-protection laws
  • Hacking away at Big Government: how most of the legitimate functions of the Energy Department involve tasks that the Defense Department could perform more efficiently — such as restricting access to nuclear materials
  • Why, given a choice between a judge who’s “personally” pro-life (but believes in judicial activism) and one who “personally” supports abortion (but supports originalism), conservatives must support the second choice
  • Why they came for Terri Schiavo, and how they’re coming for you next
  • How we can reverse the present trend toward the cultural balkanization of the United States
  • Why, as European socialism collapses, we must turn away from a foreign policy approach that focuses too much on Europe and too much on commitments that are no longer relevant in the post-Cold War world
  • How polls repeatedly show that many, if not most, independents are conservative not only in their economic beliefs but also in their positions on religious, cultural, and family issues — and how conservative activists can capitalize on this
  • Why the partial-birth abortion debate of the late 1990s and early 2000s has been so valuable to the pro-life movement
  • Changing the popular culture: it won’t be easy, but it can and must be done
  • Six steps to reunite a fractious, squabbling conservative movement
  • Plus: A comprehensive bibliography of essential conservative reading

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