When I was a lowly Army private and complaining, usually while in the field on maneuvers, about everything and anything except my job (loved that), a seasoned sergeant once took me aside and gave me counsel that changed my life. He told me to “embrace the suck.” In effect, all my whining and kvetching was not going to make anything suck less. It was only going to make me feel worse. So, take the stuff that sucked and make it work for you, make it your friend, embrace it and the different perspective will make the whole situation better.

Okay granted, it’s a military version of “turn that frown upside down.” But it works. The sergeant had come by this wisdom during a vicious firefight in Vietnam. In the middle of it his M-16 jammed and his only cover was a rather thin tree. Those of us who have used that plastic zap gun, that unreliable piece of horse manure that will go south on you if you look at it wrong, understand his predicament. Try as he might with sanctioned procedures, the thing would not fire. Thus, he started to whimper, thinking it was the end of his time on this astral plane. Then it hit him. Why go out crying? So, comprehending the dark humor of the thing, he began to laugh and methodically, bullets buzzing around him, fully broke down the weapon and put it together again. And lo and behold, it worked.

Well, we in the Republican Party and conservatives need to make our party and our message work. But even though the present seems sometimes like a hideous period, we need to look at it from another perspective. We need to break the party down and put it back together again. In doing so, we need to embrace the current suck.

Yes, aside from the Supreme Court we’re out of power. Not by many numbers in Congress, but still out. But attacking in politics is always easier than defense because voters prefer to get angry more than anything else. So, advantage.

Though the Biden $3600 per child gambit could make this more difficult than usual, we should take back the House in 2022. From there we can stymie Biden and his Bolshevik hordes dead in their tracks. Advantage, us.

In social policy the Biden administration has let the hard left run amok. Their craziest fantasies are becoming federal policy. Thus, as this is currently a center left country, even moderate liberals will have problems with guys competing in female interscholastic sports programs and abortion on demand anytime anyplace. There will be a Newtonian Third Law reaction and Republicans can use it to our advantage.

Yes, there are some outstanding questions to deal with. Are we to be a populist or a main street party? What of the immediately former president? Are we to look to the past or to the future? Once we deal with those issues we will again be in fighting trim.

So laugh off the doomsayers and get to the barricades. Yeah, things could be better politically. But so what? Things have sucked before and they will suck again. Let’s just put the weapon back together and commence to shooting back.