McLean County Times

Almost everyone knows what a pendulum is. In its simplest form, a pendulum is a weight attached to a string. The string is anchored firmly at some point above the weight. When the weight is set in motion, it freely oscillates left and right under the influence of gravity. The pendulum is a good analogy for analyzing politics. Let’s look at a hypothetical political pendulum and see what we can learn from it.

The oscillation of a pendulum’s weight – swinging left and right – is synonymous with how our government alternates between political parties. This is nowhere more evident than in presidential elections and the control of both houses of Congress. The parties of the presidents and congressional control tend to swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.

The interplay of gravity and the weight moves a pendulum once set in motion. In our analogy, the pull of the political masses tends to bring the swing of the political pendulum back to the center when they have reached political extremes. This country’s voters are politically moderate. So, when government policies swing too far left or right, the voters return the county to the middle.

When the political pendulum swings to the left, the policies of the progressives are put into play, and we see the ethic of utilitarianism dominate. This ethic says we should seek the greatest good for the greatest number, maximize pleasure, and minimize pain. These seem like reasonable approaches, but the problem with these approaches is that they have no moral constraint! The Golden Rule under utilitarianism is, “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

When the political pendulum swings hard left, politics threatens the social order by attacking the foundations of traditional morality – belief in natural law and nature’s God. With the radical left in charge (progressives), rationalism, materialism, religious indifference, and denial of the spiritual dimension of human life attack and degrade the traditional belief systems upon which this nation was founded.

There are dire consequences when we believe, as do progressives, that we are here only for our own good. Life becomes optional, liberty becomes licentiousness, and the pursuit of happiness becomes the pursuit of material objects. The common good replaces personal accountability and responsibility. Society becomes responsible for helping individuals achieve their goals and gratification. With individuals seemingly unable to run their lives, government, and business run this country, influencing our education and determining our future.

Most recently, with Democrat Joe Biden being elected president in 2020 and Congress controlled by Democrats, the political pendulum of the USA swung far to the left. After nearly three years of institutionalized progressive policies, the Democrats’ progressive policies have begun to show adverse effects (e.g., increasing crime, rampant homelessness, out-of-control immigration, ballooning inflation, military unpreparedness, burgeoning taxation, etc.), indicating that the race for the bottom has begun – just like the president’s poll numbers. People have started to ask, “Am I better off now than I was three years ago when Joe Biden took office?” The answers are coming back and are not in the affirmative. The political pendulum is now moving to the right, as seen with the 2022 takeover of the House by Republicans, and Republicans will take more office in the 2024 elections.

This political realignment can be seen in other governments worldwide as well. For instance, in the past month alone, there have been the unexpected triumphs of anti-Peronist Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential election and the surprising victory of conservative reformist Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Daniel Noboa has recently assumed office in Ecuador following that country’s presidential election.

In June, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, representing Greece’s center-right New Democratic Party, became the prime minister, marking a turning point after years of grappling with a debt crisis and undergoing three international bailouts. Last October, Giorgia Meloni of the conservative Brothers of Italy Party took the helm as prime minister in Italy, addressing decades of economic and political turmoil. In Lithuania, Ingrida Simonyte, a center-right Homeland Union Party member, now serves as prime minister. Karl Nehammer of the conservative Austrian People’s Party has maintained the chancellorship of Austria since 2021. Additionally, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is the current president of Portugal and is running for prime minister as the candidate of the center-right Social Democratic Party.

The world’s citizens have become fed up with progressivism. Americans, like voters in other nations, are beginning to wake up to the consequences of the left’s political and social policies and their negative impact on public education, social welfare, women’s sports, illegal immigration, ever-increasing taxes, and so on.

In this country, Democrats, the once so-called party of the little person, have abandoned single mothers and their babies, women’s rights groups struggling with transgender men in women’s sports, and various victim groups who are no longer considered of importance. The Party of NO will never abandon the child-killing industry, the homosexual lobby, the educational and social media influences, the biased mainstream media, and government-sector employee unions because these are part and parcel of their financial base. In sum, the consequence of Democratic leadership is a decadent society subject to growing decay, debt, and death. 

What can we expect from the ascendency of the Republicans? If “true Republicans” are elected rather than Rinos (those who pay lip service to the Republican cause but frequently vote with Democrats) or Republicrats (Republicans who run on the principles of the Democrats), then nothing will change. If we elect traditional conservative Republicans dedicated to the fundamental principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we can expect a renewal of society.

A Republican administration operating on traditional Judeo-Christian principles will be markedly different from what we have experienced recently. In this ethic, true Republicans will rely on natural law and nature’s God to distinguish right from wrong – the same principles upon which our nation was founded. Under true Republicans, our society will operate under the virtues of charity, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, and personal accountability. Our Golden Rule will be, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Yes, fellow citizens, the political pendulum will soon swing right. This is because people have seen what terrible things have happened under progressive Democratic governance, have judged their actions to be unworthy of the good American people, and will be acting soon through the ballot box to hold them accountable. Now is the time for those who believe in limited government, solid personal and national defense, and patriotic American exceptionalism all these entail. Like the framers of our constitution, now is the time for liberty because only with it can our citizens pursue happiness. Now is the time for life, for without it, one cannot have liberty.