Before I came to Mississippi, I was a Member of the British Parliament for 12 years for Clacton. Donald Trump's friend, Nigel Farage, has now decided to run for election in Clacton on July 4th.
I'm delighted and I encouraged Nigel to run the moment it was announced that there would be a General Election. (I know, the Brits do politics differently with flexible, rather than fixed, terms)
Back in the old country, the Conservative party faces
annihilation.
Having sat in office since 2010, Britain’s
Conservatives have failed to govern on conservative principles. Today,
their supporters are abandoning them for Nigel Farage’s new Reform party.
Perhaps this should serve as a stark warning for those who campaign as
conservatives, but who govern as progressives.
Here in Mississippi, Republicans have been in
charge since 2011, about as long as Britain’s Conservatives.
Where are the big strategic changes our state needs? What reforms are being advanced to elevate Mississippi?
There are, I would suggest, three top challenges
Mississippi faces:
- The state of education: Sure, there might have been some marginal improvements in standards thanks to the use of phonics. Overall education standards remain poor. Two out of three 4th graders in government schools fail to achieve proficiency in reading or math. Almost one in four Mississippi students are chronically absent from school.
- Low labor participation: At a time when millions of migrants are moving to America to work, often illegally, nothing of substance has been done in our state to address the fact that 48 percent of Mississippi adults of working age are not even active in the labor market.
- DEI in state institutions: Despite having
conservatives elected, many of Mississippi’s public institutions,
including universities, are run by those beholden to Marxist academic
ideology.
Imagine if we were to use the notionally conservative majority in our state to
accomplish actual conservative reforms to tackle any of this?
Here is a list of some of the bills that were
blocked in the most recent legislative session:
- Ballot initiative, passed by the House, blocked by the Senate.
- Anti DEI legislation, blocked.
- School choice. Allow families to choose schools between different districts. Blocked.
- Healthcare reform. Repeal intentionally restrictive laws that limit the provision of healthcare. Blocked.
The one big achievement of the session, Rep. Rob
Roberson’s INSPIRE bill which personalizes school funding for students, passed
because of Speaker White’s drive and determination. Eight weeks ago there
were still some in the Senate intent on preserving the old Soviet-era funding
formula.
Morton Blackwell, a great American hero who I happened to meet for tea in
Jackson, once said that “In politics, nothing moves unless it’s pushed.”
He’s right. If we want to see
conservative policies implemented in our state, we are going to have to do a
lot of pushing!
Nobody likes to be pushed, particularly
politicians. Leaders will
not thank you for making them do something they would preferred not to have
done, as my experience with Brexit taught me.
Here at the Mississippi Center for Public
Policy we are 100 percent in the business of pushing for the kind of bold,
principled conservative reforms we need.
We need to start using our conservative majority
to deliver the kind of changes we are starting to see in Republican-run states
throughout the South.
Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. MCPP sponsored this post.
13 comments:
"Do Nothing Conservatives" is redundant.
Bravo!
The definition of conservative has certainly changed over the last 30 years. No thanks.
Met Douglas and really enjoyed him.
He is right. My "conservative" pals get so defensive when I point out how ineffective our leaders are.
The truth is they are only incrementally better, and only slightly less liberal than Dems.
I do not care about politics but just to speak to a couple of points in this article......
so you mean to tell me 66 percent of out 4th graders aren't proficient in reading or math
AND half of the adults (statistically speaking) that I see in kroger, dont have a job?
you are so full of shit your eyes are probably brown
Reports like 2:50 pm, above are redundant! GETA JOB! We can read the tea leaves. Why not move to California (assuming you drive an electric powered automobile) and leave us alone.
Evidently Britan has a different definition of the word "blocked" -- at least based on this guy's use of the term.
HIS goal for some of these pieces of legislation was not passed by BOTH houses of our legislature (again, maybe his British understanding of how laws get passed in OUR country is getting in his way).
Both Houses of our legislature have passed pieces of legislation dealing with issues he lists here; the first one is most persuasive. The fact that HIS choice, the one passed by the House, was not accepted intoto by the Senate, he chooses to claim the bill was 'blocked'. Why not the fact that the House didn't pass the Senate's bill? Evidently that doesn't count as being "blocked" because our Brit friend (imported here largely due to Gov Phil) preferred the House version.
I don't need him to teach me about 'conservatism'; I've been a Mississippi conservative for more decades than he has been alive. I kinda like having our two houses of legislative process (we don't have a House of Lords kinda thing, we got rid of that concept back in the late 1700's) - where there is a process for both compromise and killing of bills. This past session there have been many occasions when I was glad that the Senate was there killing House proposals; and others when I was pissed at the Senate not dealing with House proposals; and vice versa.
Its predictable; the Senate has been quite effective at killing any kind of school choice proposal no matter how it is suggested and at the same time giving in to the Loome proposals en masse. And the House has been just as effective at insisting on many populist proposals - easy to identify when the votes used to pass them are championed by the black caucus/Democrats in the House - but the good voices on the floor of the Senate kick them to the curb.
Thanks, MCCP, for again reminding us that your claim to be the one source for defining 'conservative' is a narcacissist one and not one based on real reasoning; just as is your reference to the #1 narcissist, DJT.
Years ago, I was having a drink at a very well respected Jackson bar. There obviously were lobbyist in there buying some of our “distinguished” legislators drinks. One of those reps. Ordered a top of the line scotch drink. They tried to charge him and he went ballistic. A manager came over and comped his drink. I guess that tells you about my opinion of those elected to run this state. We are not ranked 50th in the nation without earning it.
Imagine a government funded network of 80 conservative journalists. Then imagine the state officials in California to fund that network and annually increase the state funding.
Of course, that would never happen.
Yet NPR has 80 journalists, purportedly all liberal, an assertion the NPR CEO did not deny. Mississippi with a Republican House, Senate, Governor, and Lt. Governor, annually increases it's funding to Public Broadcasting each year.
Mississippi Republicans, one and all, are the useful idiots for the Democratic party.
I agree with the comment from 7:07. Public Broadcasting in MS would not survive without state funding and needs to be dissolved. The return on the investment of tax dollars is only used to provide an almost 100% leftest viewpoint with no interest in providing programming of interest to those that don’t live in their leftist echo chamber. Pull the plug.
Zero seats.
There is no conservative movement in the US.
You're correct. What's left of the conservative Republicans is a mess of drooling, ass-kissing Trumpist , and there certainly seems to be no Venn Diagram at play there. The Democratic Party is still tired, exhausted mainline liberal (as is their flag-bearer) and Octavia whatever-her-name is, and they are as wacked-out as Marjorie Taylor G.
I won't vote for the blasphemous crybaby felon or Kamala Harris, both of them less than zero.
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