Dear Conservatives: Stop quoting the dead guys, be visionary

Although we should honor great leaders like Mrs. Reagan and her late husband, President Reagan, we’re living in 2016 — not the 1980s. It’s time to move on and grow as a Party.

If I took a drink every time I heard a Conservative reference Ronald Reagan, I’d be drunker than a box wine sorority girl before a college football game.

Yes, I just got back from CPAC.

Reagan swag was around every corner. There were buttons, lots of buttons. There were stickers. I hate stickers. And there were life-sized cardboard cutouts. Selfie anyone?

Sitting at a table in the lobby, I couldn’t help but watch a young woman — 20 years old at best — unroll a small poster of the stoic figure. Cue the trumpets.

Perfect. I’m right next to the lobby bar.

“Yes, I’ll take a glass and I’ll need to open a tab… for the entire weekend.”

Of course, this year’s CPAC tagline was “Our Time Is Now.” The quote comes from Ronald Reagan’s (drink) speech at the conference in 1981. It was his second month in office.

He was our movement’s last visionary. If he wasn’t, why do we keep quoting him?

We’re on the bench.

Where are today’s visionaries? Where are the Conservative visionary Boomers and Xers?

Where are the visionary Millennials? I’ll rephrase. “We are we, Millennials?

Seems to me we’re still leading from behind. We have been for a long time. At best, we’ve become mindless cattle being poked and prodded by a path of economic destruction.

Where’s the leadership, the solutions, and the unified front? Where’s the pursuit of individual excellence? Where’s the love for our fellow American’s despite our disagreements?

We need vision and a beautiful picture of America’s future. That’s the first step. Then we can chart the course. Then we can talk about policy. Then we can talk about 10 and 20-point plans.

But no one will step-up and be a visionary. No wonder we’re a mess. The capacity to touch the senses of every American and inspire them to greatness is harder than kicking and screaming on television and radio.

We’re on the bench — not even standing on the sidelines. That would require being proactive. We’re reactive. We’re peppering our side’s frontrunners with passive political bullets, while Hillary Clinton runs by in prism glasses and a coughing fit. We whine with gusto. We vomit talking points and sign countless “Conservatives Against XYZ” petitions.

An overly sensitive environment of political correctness and complacent brokenness has exploded, and we still quote dead guys pretending to cast vision. “Cheers to Reagan! Our time is now!”

As a movement, we’re nothing more than aspiring power brokers pursuing short-sighted victories that achieve little to “conserve” our nation’s future.

We wear tricorner hats and have tricorner minds.

Vision for the future.

I’m done with that, and so are you. It’s time for vision.

Vision is not a picture of the past. It’s about the future. It requires activated emotions, appeals to the senses, and futuristic paintbrushes full of words.

Vision doesn’t scream and whine. It stands with confidence. Vision doesn’t have to fight because it is already victorious. It doesn’t care about the enemy because vision is already the victor.

Vision doesn’t tear down. It inspires. Vision doesn’t break things. It restores things. It’s not about the power of select individuals. It’s a shared project of individuals working towards the best—that which kills the status quo. Vision is about excellence.

Vision looks like this: America’s best days are ahead. We won’t accept the status quo. We’ll demand different in 2016. Shrugging our shoulders won’t be the response to our country’s problems.

We’ll band together through the strength developed by our faith and brokenness. We’re getting off the bench to choose America’s greatest president, build America’s greatest economic revolution, put evil on it’s heels, on the run, and on the ash heap of history.

Our greatest strength is our brokenness. Our nation’s debt, problems, and division has prepared us to be a strong, united front of international greatness.

Past political heroes can’t do that from the grave. It’s our turn.

Every time we quote the past, instead of understanding our own generation’s vision, we become irrelevant — and beyond lazy.

We don’t need another Reagan. He’s gone and quoting him won’t resurrect him. His principles were powerful and should not be forgotten, but unless we take what he said, make it our own, and apply it today, we’re nothing more than walking quote banks — fashioned in the form of old, dusty libraries.

And sooner or later, we’ll be the Grand Ole Dead Party.