Mission Matters

Any worthwhile political movement or campaign needs a compelling mission or animating purpose of some kind, and it has to go beyond getting elected. The mission does not have to explain the minutiae of ideology or policy implementation, rather it must encapsulate them. No matter how vague or platitude-laden this mission statement is, it has to resonate with people and it has to be a future-state. “I like how things were yesterday” has rarely been good enough in the battle of ideas.

For liberals in the United States, a mission statement is easily produced and promulgated. Formally, it is to promote equality and inclusion among Americans of all backgrounds. In practice, it is building a coalition of ethnic minorities and leftist Whites to outvote a former conservative White majority, but that is beside the point. Today, some debate exists over the implementation of the liberal mission in the United States, but not the principles of the mission itself. It is a debate over means, namely whether the vehicle of liberalism will be a corporate-supported, bureaucratic enforcement of social liberalism and ‘anti-racism’ via federal institutions, or a European-style social democracy promoting those same policies via left-wing populism, with which they can run through the minoritization of Anglo-Americans and the dispensing of more gibsmedats.

On the other hand, mainline conservatives have a much harder time articulating their mission. In general, the formal mission probably sounds like to support freedom and limited government. In practice, we see something much more confused and convoluted, and which relies on reaction rather than ambition. Freedom means anything and therefore nothing; seldom can tangible results on freedom be delivered by conservatives, with firearms ownership being the most notable exception. Limited government is a relative term and is just taken to mean that policy initiatives championed by liberals should be opposed long enough that conservatives can claim credit for opposing them. It is all a show, one in which conservatives are roped to the back of their own stolen car and taken for a ride down Cuckold Boulevard.