Those of you who have read this blog for a while have heard me lament the fact that the Republican Party and conservatism in general have been taken over by the hate-filled right-wing theist fringe elements. There was a time when the conservative movement and the Republican Party had leaders like Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, William F. Buckley, John Anderson and others.
I seldom agreed with these men, but I consider them to be political giants in our country's history. They weren't fueled by hatred for minorities and those with a different sexual orientation. They didn't think women should be second-class citizens. They honored the Constitution and tried to do what they thought was in the best interests of the people of the United States.
They knew how to compromise when it was necessary for the good of all. They were a valuable counter-weight to liberals (and vice versa). But all of that is in the past. Now the Republican Party is fueled by hatred of anyone who doesn't agree with them, and they've even come up with "purity" tests to kick some out of their party. They've forgotten how to compromise. It's their way or the highway. And many would replace our Constitution with the Bible and happily usher in a theist dictatorship.
I'm not the only person who feels this way. I have Republican friends (yes, I really do!) who no longer feel at home in their own party. Their party has been taken over by the nuts and the haters, and they feel like their party has deserted them (because they have the same views they always had, but the party has veered off into a fringe netherworld).
A good example of this can be found in the article posted to FrumForum by life-long Republican Chris Currey. I urge you to go read the entire article, because I think it will be well worth your time. He has an excellent feel for what is happening to the Republican Party. Here is some of what he has to say:
"I am an old Republican. I am religious, yet not a fanatic. I am a free-marketer; yet, I believe in the role of the government as a fair evenhanded referee. I am socially conservative; yet, I believe that my lesbian niece and my gay grandchild should have the full protection of the law and live as free Americans enjoying every aspect of our society with no prejudices and/or restrictions."
"I witnessed the fight for equal civil rights in the 1960s. And as a proud American, I applauded the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, and we became a better country because of them. Those acts made America stronger. Those acts, at their core, represented and still represent all the values upon which the Republican Party was founded. Yet today, our GOP representatives and leaders are ashamed of them. When they talk about them, you feel their discomfort, their clumsiness, and sometimes their shame. That awkwardness is so strong that it crosses the television screen and hits you in the face in your living room. Why is that? What happened to this generation of Republicans? We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, and yet we act and behave as if we are the party of Nathan Bedford Forrest."
"I did not like Medicaid and Medicare when they were passed. I was opposed to them. Maybe I was too young, too strong, and too ideologically confined. Yet, over the years, I saw how Medicare helped millions of elderly Americans. I saw how Medicare helped my mom in her final years battling emphysema caused by years of smoking. You have to be blind to oppose those programs. You have to be blind to wish for the suffering of millions of Americans just because you believe in personal responsibility."
"Then something happened in the 1990s. The leaders of the GOP grew belligerent. They became too religious, almost zealots. They became intolerant. They began searching for purity in Republican thought and doctrine. Ideology blinded them. I continued to vote Republican, but with a certain unease. Deep down I knew that a schism happened between the modern Republican Party and the one I grew up with. During the fight over the impeachment of President Clinton, the ugly face of the Republican Party was brought to the surface. Empty rhetoric, ideological intolerance, vengeance, and religious zealotry became the common currency. Suddenly, if you are pro-choice, you could not be a Republican. If you are for smart and sensible taxes to balance out the budget, you could not be a Republican. If you are pro-civil rights, you could not be a Republican."
"When a political party shrinks its electoral based to below 30% and is composed by one demographic group, all that is left are a bunch of zealots. We shrank it by kicking out of the party those who believe that abortion should be legal but limited. We shrank it by kicking out those who believe that an $11 trillion economy, like ours, needs a strong government, not a government that can be drowned in a bathtub. We shrank it when we sanctified Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, and canonized Sarah Palin. These are the leaders of my party nowadays. How did we go from William F. Buckley to Glenn Beck? How did we go from Eisenhower and Nixon to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann? I do not know. What I do know, however, is that these leaders remind of me of the leaders of the Whig Party."
"Maybe I am too old and too cynical, but I think the Republican party is in the last stages of agony. If nothing happens, we might win an election or even two, but in the long run we will lose America."
(The picture above is how the 2008 election would have looked if decided only by 18 to 29 year olds. It doesn't auger a great future for the Republican Party if they continue on their present path.)
Did you see this poll?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like all that hopey changey stuff isn't playing as well among young people this year as it did back in 2008.
I saw the poll. All it says is that a slightly larger percentage of young Republicans are more energized to vote in 2010 than young Democrats. With the huge numerical advantage of young Democrats, they will probably still easily outvote the young Republicans. And the poll says nothing about the future prospects about the Republican Party as these youngsters grow older and vote more often.
ReplyDelete"And the poll says nothing about the future prospects about the Republican Party as these youngsters grow older and vote more often."
ReplyDeleteI defer to that famous quote often attributed to Winston Churchill:
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and
any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
I'm a case study in this phenomenon. I actually voted for Democrats in my first two presidential elections. As a 22-year-old, I voted for McGovern (18-year olds having gotten the vote when I was already 21). As a 26-year-old, I voted for Carter. The year I turned 30, Reagan was running for President. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I knew when I saw Obama Girl on the Huckabee show a few months ago that the days of youthful infatuation with Obama were numbered. The fact that he's not on the ballot this time doesn't help, either.
A lot can happen between now and November, but I think you may be engaging in a little hopeful optimism if you think the twenty-somethings are going to make a big difference in favor of the Democrats this fall.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Both parties need to go Curious Texan. They are both corrupt and bought out. If the tea party really wants to fix anything they won't vote for either, or they will vote the opposite of whoever is in, just to bring in somebody fresh. Personally the tea party just appears to be a place for racists/bigots to hang out because they are upset that they lost a vote. Why they are upset, I don't know, Obama is just giving our money away to corporations in a similar fashion to republicans.
ReplyDeleteOur two party system has been strangling us for a long time. We need more choices.
I'm pretty disgusted with both parties too, Chris.
ReplyDeleteI turned on Turner Classic Movies the other night and watched the beginning of the 1939 classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with James Stewart. Corrupt politicians controlled by special interests, media moguls that make or break those politicians - it could have been made today rather than 70 years ago. As far as I know, no one was identified by party in the movie. They didn't have to be; each politician could have been from either party.
But how to we break out of this mess? For better or worse, we're locked into a winner-take-all, non-parliamentary system in which smaller parties wield no power.
If we boycott the election, we default what little power we have to those who do vote. If we could vote out all the incumbents, or even a majority of them, they might get the message and clean up their act. But with a re-election rates in the neighborhood of 97% for senators and 93% for congressmen, what are the odds of that happening? Most people say, "Throw the bums out...but not my bum; he brings the pork home to our district!" When somebody like Jeff Flake (R-AZ) tries to clean up the system, the mayors in his district complain to the party leaders and he's stripped of any committee leadership positions.
Until our public servants are genuinely in fear of losing their jobs, nothing will change.
Any ideas how we do that?
I wish I knew CT. So many people on both sides appear to be content with it. At the very least there is no way they would vote in the opposite of how they would traditionally vote.
ReplyDeleteVoting third party is pretty much throwing away your vote, at least in large elections. Third parties need to start local, but hardly anybody seems to care about local elections.