By FRITZ PETTYJOHN
Fellow conservatives, our decades of patience and hard work are finally being rewarded.
For 60 years we’ve been waiting for the courts to recognize “affirmative action” for what it is: state sanctioned racial discrimination. Finally, at long last, the Supreme Court has ruled that benign intentions cannot justify discriminating against any racial group.
For 50 years we waited for the great, and thoroughly unconstitutional exercise of eugenics and birth control known as Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and it finally happened.
For 40 years we’ve waited for the sprawling, invasive administrative state to be brought under control, and with the overturning of “Chevron deference” it’s finally happening.
And now, all of a sudden and in one debate, all the lies from the media about Joe Biden have been exposed, and his sordid political career is coming to its humiliating conclusion. The media has disgraced itself covering for Biden, and its reputation has been destroyed, perhaps permanently. We can hope.
With big Republican victories across the country only four months way, it’s going to get even better. In Alaska this wave election might even be big enough to overturn Prop 2, the elaborate scheme designed to assure the reelection of Lisa Murkowski to the Senate. It should certainly result in a more conservative legislature, and the end of the embarrassment of Peltola’s service in Congress.
All of us should be energized and motivated to do everything we can to make the November election a watershed, an historic turn in politics equivalent to 1932, the election that changed everything. For almost 100 years now the federal government and the deep state have been accumulating power. Even the great Ronald Reagan, despite his best efforts, could not turn the tide. The year 2024 is our great opportunity to begin a reversal, and start returning power to the states, and the people.
The Framers of the Constitution gave the states, and the people, a mechanism to make such a reversal permanent. Article V allows the states, working in concert, the ability to amend the Constitution, and exercise control over the federal government which they created when they ratified the Constitution. This provision has never been used. Once the states exercise this power, the restoration of federalism which would result is the best hope of reconciling our deep political divisions.
One election, even one as significant and promising as 2024, won’t solve all our problems. We will remain a deeply divided country. There have always been deep divisions in a country as vast and diverse as the United States. Federalism allows such a nation to function successfully. Federalism means, in practice, live and let live. It means tolerance and diversity. It means let California be California, and let Alaska be Alaska. It’s how our government was originally designed to work.
The political alignment of 2024 is the most promising I’ve seen in my lifetime. We can’t let this opportunity go to waste.
Fritz Pettyjohn’s first venture in politics was working for Goldwater for President in 1964. He served in the Alaska Legislature in the 1980s and writes the blog ReaganProject.com.
