The Republican Cavalry may be coming from an unexpected direction.

An American Thinker (AT) article, posted on July 5, 2012, entitled "If the GOP Cavalry Doesn't Come," stated that, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ObamaCare decision, conservatives awaited the arrival of the GOP Cavalry after a Republican victory in November 2012. 

The author asked, “What if that cavalry doesn't come? Or, what if it arrives poorly armed, on lame horses, with dull leadership?”  

It continues,

“As the autopsy on the SCOTUS decision continues, pundits focus on deciphering the reasoning behind Chief Justice John Roberts' support for ObamaCare…The once-hoped for Roberts' Cavalry Troop never saddled up.  They mumbled something about rescue not being their job…

“Conservatives now await a troop of newly elected Republican congressional legislators who will ride into D.C. hell-bent-to-leather, determined to turn back the progressives who control the Democratic Party and the national agenda…

“So suppose the Republican Cavalry either doesn't come – because it can't win enough elections – or comes unprepared to attack the serious problems that face the nation…In other words, a GOP that underperforms to conservative expectations. How would that be received?”

That was four months before the 2012 General Election.

Fifteen months later, on October 15, 2013, an AT post entitled “No Cavalry Is Coming” stated that

“Fiscal conservatives wait in vain for the GOP Cavalry to rescue America from further growth in the federal debt, for there is no Cavalry coming…Today, a speleologist Republican leadership is prone to cave in confrontations with Democrats. Consequently, at the end of this season's debt ceiling puppet show, the ceiling will go up, yet again.”

The October 2013 post, coming one year before the 2014 midterm elections, suggested that,

“Despite the President's surrealistic claim that a higher debt level doesn't mean more debt, the federal debt will go up, too, as politicians in both parties bemoan, for the umpteenth time, a debt destined to fall hard on future generations. ‘Unsustainable’ will sustain its central linguistic role in American political doublespeak.”

It concluded, “The dust cloud over the horizon is not the Cavalry. Today, there is no Cavalry.”

But it appeared to some, until early 2015, that the GOP Cavalry may yet be on the horizon.

In 2012, the Republican Party asked for more troopers. Republicans voters sent more.  They captured the House of Representatives.

In 2014, they asked for more horses. Republican voters sent more, and the GOP controlled both the House and the Senate.  

Then, as the 2016 General Election approached, the GOP said, “Now, give us a new Commanding Officer and we’ll come to your rescue, in full force, in the nick of time, to save the day. We promise.” They said.

But by then they had suffered the irreparable fate of the clock that struck thirteen, not to be believed again.

Looking back, the first clue to their failure to arrive might have been spoken in mid-December 2008 when then President George W. Bush said, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system.”  He meant to offer it as a rationale for TARP.  But, instead, he unwittingly broke the champagne bottle against the bow of the U.S. Tea Party and christened a movement.

On its face, his statement made about as much sense as a spouse explaining, “I just had to have a torrid affair in order to save my marriage.”  Or a physician, on trial for malpractice, testifying that, “I had to end the patient’s life in order to save him from death.” 

It took a too-tortured-by-half logic to straighten out the bent reasoning in Bush’s statement.

Those who couldn’t make the computation work started a grassroots movement that adopted the symbol of the Boston Tea Party.

It began as a protest against a central government grown indifferent to the U.S. Constitution, addicted to deficit spending, and in hot pursuit of widening intrusions into the lives of American citizens, led by a political class whose public service was increasingly seen as a collective exercise in self-aggrandizement.  

Tea Party street demonstrations didn’t yield substantial change.  So the movement put down their protest signs and began planting political campaign signs in their yards supporting local and state candidates who pledged to support the movement’s advocacy of sane fiscal policy, smaller government, and fidelity to the Constitution. 

The election successes of the Tea Party movement were met with negative pressure from the ruling political classes, in both major parties.

Feeling threatened, the GOP professional apparatchiks demonized the Tea Party.  They realized it lived outside their range of control. The GOP chose not to embrace the movement. Bad decision.

They found eager anti-Tea Party allies among the media and Democrat Party spokespersons – often one-in-the-same.

Meanwhile, none of this went unnoticed by the wagon train of citizens circled in an ever more threatening wilderness, under attack by a declining economy, spreading lawlessness both on the border and in the inner cities, all exacerbated by the federal government’s insatiable canine appetite for deficit spending, with no end in sight.

And so here we are. Our wagons in a circle.  Still no sign of the GOP Cavalry.

At least not one coming on horseback. 

But then travel by horseback is old school politics. Almost as old as a Democrat Party Cavalry riding donkeys led by Comrade Bernie and Hillary the Felon.   

A long-awaited GOP Cavalry may be coming from an unexpected and surprising direction: an airborne Boeing 757, with horsepower on a whole new level.