'Get the House in Order': Gosar Highlights Need for Conservative Reclamation of Capitol Hill
As the Trump campaign revived its stadium-size rally strategy over the past week in preparation for the 2020 general election, down-ballot conservatives jumped at the opportunity to cash in on the resulting energy.
President Donald Trump managed to turn out nearly 10,000 supporters between Oklahoma and Arizona, lending a substantial audience to guest speakers like Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona, while other conservative members of Congress, though they did not speak, received shout-outs from the president and thunderous applause from his supporters.
Gosar told The Western Journal before the president’s headline address at a Students for Trump event in Phoenix on Tuesday that this interplay between the Trump camp and congressional Republicans is all but essential to the success of a conservative agenda in the coming years.
“[Trump] is the fighter-in-chief. This is the guy fighting for all of us, fighting for our liberties and freedoms,” Gosar said. “That’s what we have got to get back to. The other side is outright just pushing Marxism, communism — and that’s not what we ever were going to be.”
“The president has a unique skill-set of getting people ramped up and rallied. We have a little over 130 days left before we vote on Nov. 3, and so it’s important to feel that vibration, feel that new movement of getting back this country, making it great again and continuing to make it even greater,” he said.
With progressive Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives following the 2018 midterm elections, and the Senate still under Republican leadership, success has been harder than usual to come by during the 116th Congress.
While one of the president’s restructured international trade agreements did manage to squeak out of the Capitol Building — without major concessions from conservatives — much of the Trump agenda was placed on the back burner this past fall amid the impeachment inquiry.
More recently, coronavirus-related economic relief packages were even stalled by Democratic demand within the legislature.
The ongoing ideological stalemate was one Gosar said would likely only be solved by Republicans taking back control of the House in November.
But all Republican victories are not created equal, the congressman said — and just any red wave would not guarantee legislative success.
With control of both chambers in the 115th Congress, establishment Republicans still managed to under-deliver in 2017 and 2018, squandering an opportunity to see Trump’s promised economic and border security policies enacted in favor of foot-dragging attempts at health care legislation and a tax reform plan that just managed to skate by in the Senate.
According to Gosar, a principled GOP reclamation effort driven by “good process” will be necessary this time around if conservative governance is going to be achieved.
“We’ve seen [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi] become more ruthless than ever before,” Gosar said. “I’ve been one of the people speaking out, not just on Nancy Pelosi but on previous Republican speakers. We’re making them too powerful. There’s a good process. When you put good process in, you get good policy, you get good politics.”
“The magic of the House is its members — not the speaker — its members and the various points of views they come by. We’ve got to reclaim this. Otherwise, what you’re going to see is you’re going to see this march on very fast to single-payer health care, to Medicare for All,” the congressman said. “We’re going to be victims. So, it’s so important to return the House to the Republicans. But we also have to hold the Republicans accountable, to get the House in order.”
“And that gets back to good process, good policy, good politics. Otherwise, you’re headed on a fast track to having a socialist, Marxist, communist agenda.”
In light of recent events, Gosar told The Western Journal that issues of immigration, blue-collar economics and criminal justice would likely top the legislative agenda should Republicans reclaim the House.
According to Gosar, the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, both on U.S. public health and the economy, exposed the potential risks of American dependence on the international economy — primarily raw materials and manufactured goods from the People’s Republic of China.
To this end, the congressman has already worked alongside Republican Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida to introduce legislation that would wean the U.S. off of international mineral supply chains, allowing for expanded stateside mining operations and promoting technological research in the field.
From lack of concern with southern border security to justification of violence amid ongoing social unrest stemming from the death of George Floyd, the general lawlessness emergent under national Democratic leadership was also highlighted by Gosar as a major point of concern for Republican candidates.
“We have to make sure that we’re rewarding people to do it the right way. Louis Brandeis, a former Supreme Court justice, made the comment: In a government of laws, the government will be imperiled if it doesn’t follow the law scrupulously,” the congressman paraphrased.
“If the government violates the law, it invites every man and woman to bring the law unto themselves. It invites anarchy,” he continued, adding, “Here we are.”
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