By Eric Peters
Eric Peters Autos
October 16, 2026
I have always had an ambivalent relationship with "conservatives," because I could never divine their principles. They want to "conserve"... what, exactly ? Their congressional majority ? Why ? What for ? How does that benefit me ? Conservatives are cautious about change - the disease of tired/mentally ossified old people. Many of them mean well but are ready meat for the Left, which does have a principle - which is to win and hold onto power by any means necessary.
The GOP is worse than inept.
It is insufferable.
It is a chamber of commerce greedhead grift, defined by opportunism and petty meannesses, hiding behind a nauseating facade of Just Folks buncombe exemplified by Fred Thompson, who had the affect down pat. He also had the act down pat. He had an old truck waiting for him just outside the town where he was scheduled to show up for a rally. He got out of his limo and into the old truck to do the Just Folks schtick for the benefit of the rubes come to listen to him pretend to care about their concerns.
There was also Nixon, an unscrupulous lawyer of the Roy Cohn variety, who talked about his wife's cloth coat and their little dog, Checkers.
The GOP has the principles of a small-time check kiter or used car salesman looking to make a quick score off a gullible mark. Trump is apotheosis of what the Republican Party stands for. He is in it for the money, as much as he can grab and does it unapologetically. He sells the country out to the highest bidder, which is to say Israel and the Wall Street/Tech Bro class.
It can never win, much less accomplish anything meaningful (insofar as rolling back the tide of government) because that would be contrary to its interests, which lie in complaining about government while profiting from it, which includes getting the rubes to send in campaign donations so that the Republicans can win office in the next election and then do nothing to roll back the tide of government, while making fat stacks along the way. To expect the Republican Party to advance the cause of less government is something like expecting Dennis Hastert - the recently croaked Republican onetime speaker of the House - to stop diddling young boys. He could not help it and neither can the GOP.
That is why the increasingly desperate appeals of the GOP soliciting the support of the people it has (once again) betrayed appear to be falling - at last ! - upon deaf ears. The rubes are awakening. They finally understand that Voting Harder isn't going to make their lot better and is likely to make it worse - because there's not much that's worse than getting fooled and rolled (again). Trump has done an inadvertent service in this respect. He has managed - in the space of less than two years - to almost completely discredit the Republican Party by laying bare what it's really all about.
That is why the GOP is now a dead man walking, personified by the zig-zagging gait and leaning-forward penguin stance of the puffy-faced, swollen-ankled old man who is currently its podium-clutching, teeth-grinding front man. The blue waters are coming, like a Nepalese flood. You can hear the distant roaring heralding what's coming. All will be washed away, soon. It is a good thing, because it's easier to rebuild on ground that's been cleared of the debris of the past.
This rebuilding - if it is to happen - will require the one thing the GOP (and "conservatives") have never had. That thing being principles. Binary moral positions about what's right - and what's not. These can be defended with clarity; there is no hedging, no "mending" rather than ending.
Is the income tax morally abhorrent ? Yes - or no ? Is the property tax evil ? Yes - or no. Not we'll reduce income taxes (and lower property taxes). We will get rid of them, for exactly the same moral reason we'd arrest a common thief - because theft is theft.
What's yours is yours - and by the same token, what belongs to others does not belong to you. Leave him alone and he'll leave you alone.
It seems like a square deal, doesn't it?
Should the government have any say about what kind of car you're allowed to buy ? Should you or anyone else have any say about the kind of car your neighbor is allowed to buy?
About how many miles-per-gallon it gets - or doesn't get ? How many air bags it has - or even seat belts ? Why are such things anyone else's business besides the person who buys the car and the company that offers the car for sale?
Want to buy insurance ? Go right ahead. Because you have every right to buy it. But you haven't got any right to compel someone else to buy it. If a thing is a right, it imposes no harm on another. Taking someone else's money when they haven't harmed you or anyone else is a harm.
Here's a principle that could serve as the basis for an effective opposition to the seemingly inexorable advance of the tide of government: Leave everyone free to be responsible for themselves - but hold them responsible for themselves. You are free to work - and if you work, what you earn is entirely yours. But if you decide you'd rather not work, you have no claim on the earnings of those who chose to work. You are free to ride a motorcycle if you like - and without a helmet, if you like - but do not expect other people to pay your medical bills, if you incur them. Do as thou wilt - to crib a line from Aleister Crowly - with the proviso that you harm no one else in the process. If you do, then you'll be held accountable. But only if. And not before.
Otherwise, we'll leave you alone.
That could be a swell campaign slogan, eh?
It sure beats hell out of anything the Republicans have to offer.
This article was originally published on Eric Peters Autos.