Reagan: In politics, the pursuit of purism is for losers

It’s usually good to be a purist, but not in politics.

Purism in politics is not feasible.

The Republicans in the House proved that for the millionth time this week when they tried to pass the Save Act by attaching it to a CR — a continuing resolution is a bill that extends the funding of the federal government and prevents a government shutdown.

CRs are what have to happen almost every year when Congress fails to pass its annual budget to fund the government — something that it’s constitutionally required to do by October 1.

In other words, if Congress doesn’t pay its bills when they are due, it has to whip up a temporary spending bill to keep the federal trillions flowing in their fat pipelines.

But Congress misses its budget deadline so religiously, it’s become an annual bad joke. In fact, in the last 47 years, it’s met its deadline a whopping three times.

The Save Act, by itself, was a perfectly good idea.

Backed energetically by Donald Trump, it was a federal law that would require that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote.

But attaching the Save Act to a spending bill as a way to force Democrats to pass it was always doomed.

To no one’s surprise, on Wednesday the bill was defeated in the House 202-220, so now it’s back to Square One.

Congress has less than two weeks to pass a bipartisan plan to stave off a government shutdown that would, of course, be blamed on Republicans and/or Trump by the media.

Messing around with the Save Act to make Trump and a few purists happy was always a bad idea.

Now is certainly not the time for Republicans to be purists. It’s not the time for conservative principle-signaling, either. It’s time to be pragmatic and focus on winning.

Republicans — and the entire country and the world — can’t afford to lose the House, the Senate and White House to socialist nutjobs like Harris and the progressive Democrats.

It’s impossible to exaggerate what a disaster it would be to our country, our economy and our besieged Constitution if the Harris-Walz gang takes control of all three centers of federal power.

That’s why Republicans have to focus on what’s most important — winning in the fall and taking back control of Washington – and forget the pursuit of purism.

Purism only works when you control both halves of Congress and the White House.

If you don’t have full control, you have to be pragmatic – which is another word for being realistic.

Republican leaders in the House added a voting bill they knew Democrats and the moderates in their own party were never going to support.

They knew the Save Act wouldn’t pass, but they did it anyway because they wanted to make Trump happy. OK, that’s what Trump wanted.

But you don’t always get what you want — especially in politics.

Would I have liked to see the Save Act pass? Yeah, absolutely.

But not if it would have meant shutting down the government and not electing Trump or a GOP majority in the House or Senate.

Then Republicans would be completely out of luck. So would be the whole country.

It is just eight weeks before a huge election and Republicans were willing to play around with shutting down the government just to make the purists happy? How stupid was that?

Threatening a shutdown was not the way to victory. Now it’s time for Republicans in Congress to get real — and get pragmatic.

The Democrats are focused on getting elected and controlling both parts of Congress and the White House. Republicans better get in that same mode.

After Republicans get control of the House, the Senate and the White House, then talk to me about the pursuit of purism.

Meanwhile, if you want to know how well purism works in politics, ask your favorite libertarian presidential candidate.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.