- Gingrich, Newt with Joe DeSantis et al..
To Save America.
Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2010.
ISBN 978-1-59698-596-4.
-
In the epilogue of Glenn Beck's
The Overton Window (June 2010),
he introduces the concept of a “topical storm”,
defined as “a state in which so many conflicting thoughts
are doing battle in your brain that you lose your ability to
discern and act on any of them.” He goes on to observe that:
This state was regularly induced by PR experts to cloud and
control issues in the public discourse, to keep thinking people
depressed and apathetic on election days, and to discourage
those who might be tempted to actually take a stand on a complex
issue.
It is easy to imagine
responsible citizens in the United States, faced with a
topical storm of radical leftist “transformation”
unleashed by the Obama administration and its Congressional
minions, combined with a deep recession, high unemployment,
impending financial collapse, and empowered adversaries around
the world, falling into a lethargic state where each day's
dismaying news simply deepens the depression and sense of
powerlessness and hopelessness. Whether deliberately intended or
not, this is precisely what the statists want, and
it leads to a citizenry reduced to a despairing passivity as
the chains of dependency are fastened about them.
This book is a superb antidote for those in topical depression,
and provides common-sense and straightforward policy recommendations
which can gain the support of the majorities needed to put them into
place. Gingrich begins by surveying the present dire situation
in the U.S. and what is at stake in the elections of 2010 and
2012, which he deems the most consequential elections in living
memory. Unless stopped by voters at these opportunities, what
he describes as a “secular-socialist machine” will
be able to put policies in place which will restructure society
in such as way as to create a dependent class of voters who will
reliably return their statist masters to power for the foreseeable
future, or at least until the entire enterprise collapses (which
may be sooner, rather than later, but should not be wished for
by champions of individual liberty as it will entail human suffering
comparable to a military conquest and may result in replacement of
soft tyranny by that of the jackbooted variety).
After describing the hole the U.S. have dug themselves into, the
balance of the book contains prescriptions for getting out.
The situation is sufficiently far gone, it is argued, that reforming
the present corrupt bureaucratic system will not suffice—a
regime pernicious in its very essence cannot be fixed by changes
around the margin. What is needed, then, is not reform but
replacement: repealing or sunsetting the bad policies
of the present and replacing them with ones which make sense.
In certain domains, this may require steps which seem breathtaking
to present day sensibilities, but when something reaches its breaking
point, drastic things will happen, for better or for worse. For
example, what to do about activist left-wing Federal judges with
lifetime tenure, who negate the people's will expressed through
their elected legislators and executive branch? Abolish their
courts! Hey, it
worked
for Thomas Jefferson, why not now?
Newt Gingrich seeks a “radical transformation” of U.S.
society no less than does Barack Obama. Unlike Obama, however,
his prescriptions, unlike his objectives, are mostly relatively
subtle changes on the margin which will shift incentives in
such a way that the ultimate goal will become inevitable in the
fullness of time. One of the key formative events in Gingrich's
life was the
fall of the
French Fourth Republic in 1958, which he experienced
first hand while his career military stepfather was stationed
in France. This both acquainted him with the possibility
of unanticipated discontinuous change when the unsustainable
can no longer be sustained, and the risk of a society with a
long tradition of republican government and recent experience
with fascist tyranny welcoming with popular acclaim what
amounted to a military dictator as an alternative to chaos.
Far better to reset the dials so that the society will
start heading in the right direction, even if it takes a
generation or two to set things aright (after all, depending on
how you count, it's taken between three and five generations
to dig the present hole) than to roll the dice and hope for
the best after the inevitable (should present policies continue)
collapse. That, after all, didn't work out too well for
Russia, Germany, and China in the last century.
I have cited the authors in the manner above because a number
of the chapters on specific policy areas are co-authored
with specialists in those topics from Gingrich's own
American Solutions
and other organisations.
June 2010 