Conservative Votes, Liberal Victories.” Why, even when conservatives win elections, does the nation continue to move inexorably leftward? As a friend from that era wrote me recently, other than our victory in the Cold War, what do we conservatives have to show for all of our political victories? In the half century since 1964, the GOP won the White House in seven of 12 elections. Since 1994, the GOP has won more off-year elections than it has lost, including the major wins in 2010 and 2014. Republican strength on Capitol Hill today rivals that of the 80th Congress of 1946, and the dominance the party enjoyed in the 1920s. Yet, from past disappointments, current hopes and expectations are not high. What is it that pushes the nation leftward even when conservatives win at the ballot box? The permanent powers and the deep state. While there are conservative enclaves within the major media, they are few. Our mammoth bureaucracy — 22 million municipal, county, state and federal employees — has a vital interest in the preservation and growth of government. Add up the beneficiaries of all social programs, and the number now approaches 100 million. They don’t tend to stay committed to folks who will take away what they have come to depend upon. Higher education is dominated by tenured leftists and radicals. The Ivy League is “No Conservative Need Apply” country. Our popular culture, from movies to music to TV, is dominated by the left. Conservatives in Hollywood meet in catacombs. There are conservative judges and justices on the courts, but few counter-revolutionaries. The decisions that come down either advance or confirm decisions handed down half a century ago by the Warren Court. Yet, as Herb Stein observed, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” From Illinois to Puerto Rico to France, Italy and Greece, debt-ridden Western social welfare states seem to be coming to the end of the line. Like the shepherd boy in Aesop’s fable, the right has often cried, “Wolf!” This time, the kid may be right. ]]>