I hear a lot about a "uni-party," or the belief that the Republican and Democrat parties are one and the same. While it's not entirely true, it's not necessarily wrong either. While there are definitely Republicans who would be more suited with a "D" next to their name, the Republican Party does have a number of people in it who actually understood their assignment.
(READ: There's Only One Real Choice to Replace Mitch McConnell As Senate Leader)
The reason the "uni-party" label works so well is because the Republican Party might have different goals but ultimately, they think the way to achieve them is to do what Democrats do to achieve their goals, and that's to grow the government.
I probably don't need to go too far into showing you instances of Republicans abusing our taxpayer dollars or utilizing government to achieve goals that ultimately help the Democrats. Any omnibus bill is a perfect example of this. Only a few Republicans truly spoke out and tried to resist the latest spending monstrosity.
If Republicans truly wanted to distance themselves from Democrats, then the solution is actually simple. They need to remember what their core purpose is. It's not to make laws, it's to unmake laws. At some point, Republicans largely lost their appetite for shrinking government and chose instead to grow it for their own purposes.
For instance, as I covered Monday, former President Donald Trump took the stance on abortion that it should be left up to the states as to whether or not it should be legal and what stipulations come with that legality. This, in my opinion, is the correct course for various reasons, including making it too hard for pro-abortion groups to fund the abortion cause. However, Lindsey Graham wanted to utilize the federal government to put more restrictions on abortion:
Firstly, what the government taketh away, the government can also giveth. Putting anything back on a federal level starts a clock that eventually runs down. The issue will be back on the table sooner than later when power shifts hands.
The goal is to get power out of the federal government's hands, and not just on this subject. Any decision-making power we can take from Washington, we should. The Republican party's goal is ultimately to decentralize the power in America, not make the federal government bend to its will, which has always been a temporary thing and a losing battle in the long run.
The core issue with utilizing the federal government to accomplish your own ends is that any enacted measure is ultimately temporary. Laws can be shifted, expire, or be creatively made inert with a wave of a president's executive order-infused hand.
If Republicans truly want to stop the Democrats from exerting and abusing as much power as they do, the solution is to take that power out of their hands and give it to the people. As our government is constantly in a tug-of-war between two parties, it doesn't make sense to grow the federal government's power, which will only serve to make the abuse of power worse as time goes on.
Republicans should endeavor to shrink the power of the federal government whenever they're in office and the only laws they should write are laws that close the doors on the federal government's power for good.
Republicans claim they believe in limited government, lower taxes, and liberty, but fail to show it. If they truly want to give the message that they're not the Democrat Party but with different spelling, they need to start slamming doors shut and locking them. If they did that, it would actually start to show the populace that the Republican Party is the party of the people.
In fact, that's exactly how they should sell that.
"We're taking the power from the government and giving it to the people."
Doing that will stop all the uni-party talk, but until then, Republicans are only largely proving these people right.
