by Ned Ryun
People keep asking me how we get back to normal. How do we return to the days before vaccine mandates and closed schools to a fully functioning military, secure borders, and a time when inflation wasn’t through the roof? I’ll give you the short answer: pure, unadulterated political power.
You can only get back to normal when political power is in the hands of the right people making the right policies that actually advance the country in a positive, beneficial way. And then you beat the Left and others who have gotten us here into unconditional surrender.
But I’ll admit there is a real problem with this solution: most of the Right is not actually built to do this, nor are donors currently aligned to fund that ambitious and transformative machine even if it existed. We’re in this situation because for decades conservatives have invested so much money, time, and resources into projects and organizations that have nothing to do with creating real, lasting change.
We’ve poured billions of dollars into think tanks and groups that put on glitzy events, but white papers, slogans, and donor fluffing events don’t transfer into political power. In fact, one could argue those things are somewhat dangerous because they give people an illusion that something important is being done. And while people are under the illusion of the Right’s effectiveness, the Left continues marching on and the road to real political power becomes even harder to traverse.
None of this is rocket science. We sit around funding organizations that aren’t really interested in getting their hands dirty in the messy arena of realpolitik because they think it’s beneath them. What a horrifying thought! Realpolitik is “dirty.” But most of all, it’s hard. Why do hard work when one can put on events and write white papers, especially when donors don’t demand anything else? I feel like I’m stating the obvious here but with the billions of dollars the think tanks and other organizations have received in donations, they should be able to put everything we want into place. But they aren’t able to do that for two reasons: they can’t and they won’t.
With focused, concerted effort on the right things, like winning elections with the right people at the federal, state, and local levels—things like non-stop voter registration, aggressive opposition research, and well-targeted attacks on the Left to put them on their heels—we can reclaim political power. But then what?
Then we must use the power of the White House and the right leadership in Congress to destroy the legitimacy of the administrative state, which is responsible for so much of the misery in the country today. But this would also require a massive change on the part of many Republicans: Republicans must reject the premise that the administrative state is legitimate and constitutional because it absolutely is not. Republicans won’t accomplish anything if all they want to do is manage the swamp that currently exists. To succeed, they have to break it. This is the only way to secure a free American Republic.
We all know, however, that the sprawling and invasive state and its powerful unelected bureaucrats are not going to quietly go into that good night. With their hands on the true levers of power, they’re going to fight tooth and nail if there is any real plan to tear down the monstrosity of the administrative state.
If and when we achieve power in this country the war on the administrative state must begin in earnest. We must tackle the institutions that should have been dismantled long ago—starting with the FBI, the Justice Department and then move on to the rest of the bureaucracy.
President Trump had an opportunity to do just that during his four years in office, but he was so much of an outsider that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. As the head of the executive branch (i.e. most of the administrative state) he had incredible power to devolve, to fire, and to dismantle organizations that have grown far outside of their bounds.
The next America First President, whether it be Trump or someone else, bolstered by America First allies in the House and Senate, must declare a total and complete dismantling of the administrative state on day one. Remember that the demolition of the administrative state is the means, not the end. The goal is to restore consent of the governed by putting the true power back into the hands of the American people.
So to the movement and to the donors, the message must be loud and clear: If you care about this country, you should do everything you can in the next few election cycles to pursue real political power with the right leadership. To do anything else would be about as useful as taking your money into the middle of the street and setting it on fire. The path before us is quite clear. The only question is whether we have the courage to pursue it: Break the state, drain the swamp, and restore the republic.
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Ned Ryun is a former presidential writer for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority. He is a contributor to American Greatness. You can find him on Twitter @nedryun.
