Gerald Warner: American conservatives must fight on implacably to repeal Emperor Obama's healthcare coup

“This is not the end of the fight, it is the beginning of the fight.” Those defiant words of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are precisely what American conservatives need to hear in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s disgraceful manipulation of democracy to railroad through a sweeping socialist healthcare measure that the majority of his country rejects. The struggle is no longer simply to avert a corrosively socialist imposition, but to reclaim the American governmental system and democracy from an Emperor-President.

The Obama healthcare coup d’état is naked Bonapartism and, as such, must be overturned. There will now be many siren voices telling American patriots and conservatives: “It’s over,” “You win some, you lose some” and “Time to move on.” That is the one thing they must not do. It is a phenomenon of leftist politics that, in true Leninist style, radicals never give up.

For example, when Hugo Chavez lost a referendum in Venezuela on extending his term in office, he held another 14 months later and won. When any member state of the European Union gives a “wrong” answer in a referendum it is forced to vote again until it surrenders to the demands of the ruling élite in Brussels.

However, when a radical measure is passed by the left, the rules are the reverse. The leftward ratchet must never be broken. Conservatives have been trained in a mentality of quasi-Muslim fatalism: to change back to the status quo would be “retrograde”. Offering continuing resistance to the leftist juggernaut is termed “partisan”. Was there ever a more extravagantly partisan politician on the face of the earth than Barack Obama?

Americans need to have the resilience to say “The hell with that”. A commitment to repeal Obamacare must be mandatory for all Republican candidates in November. Of course the nay-sayers will pose as mature and sophisticated: they are nothing of the sort – just plain old surrender monkeys. Accepting legislation that had passed Congress as the settled will of the nation was fair enough in the days when legislation did not infringe citizens’ rights (eg by forcing them to buy insurance) and when the parties on Capitol Hill respected parliamentary norms.

Barack Obama has broken that constitutional consensus and must be resisted. A commitment to repeal will become a touchstone of authentic conservatism for Congressional candidates, just as support for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is in this country. The best route to repeal may well be the Supreme Court. That apart, there are many other options. Republican attorneys general are preparing to file lawsuits in some states; Republicans in Congress, by a simple majority, could use reconciliation to reverse the tax credits and Medicaid enlargement necessary to make cover financially credible; and so on.

The first requirement, however, is the spirit of indomitable resistance. Intransigence is a great political asset: it is too often missing on the right. The object should be for the Republicans to capture both Houses of Congress. If Americans query such advice coming from the other side of the Atlantic, the answer is this: take a look at Britain’s Third World health service and welfare dependency culture and learn from that grim example where state socialism takes a developed society.

If American conservatives are prepared for daily trench warfare, relentless endeavour and implacable resistance to Emperor Obama and everything he stands for, they can yet retrieve their great democracy. They should start by never referring to socialist healthcare as “reform”. Things may look depressing today; but my money is on the American people to win through.