R.I.P. the G.O.P.

[crabby_lioness]

Once upon a time, there was a respectable political party that intelligent people could feel comfortable belonging to called the Republicans. (No, really. If you've never heard the words "respectable", "intelligent", and "Republican" used together without irony, here's a history lesson: "Do You Remember the Republicans?" http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/?p=7629 ) Somewhere in the 1970s-1990s, the party leadership went nuts. People argue over exactly when and exactly why, but that it happened is undeniable. By 2010, the nutcases currently in charge are waging an all-out war to "purge" the G.O.P. of the sort of moderately conservative voters who used to form the core of the Republican Party. One of those folks is not going quietly. He's written an eloquent essay on how the party he joined as a young man has now become a mockery of itself called "How the GOP Purged Me". Here's the opening:


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. Nowadays, my political and socio-economic profile would make me a Marxist, not a Republican.



I grew up in an era where William F. Buckley fought the John Birch society and kicked them out of the Republican Party. I grew up with -– in fact voted for the first time for –- Eisenhower. In 1956, he ran a campaign of dignity. A campaign that acknowledged that there are certain projects better suited to be handled by the government. See, business thinks in the short term, as he said. That’s the imperative of the marketplace. I invest and I expect that in a few quarters, I garner the fruits of my investment. Government, on the other hand, has the luxury to wait a few years, maybe decades, for a return on a given investment. As a former businessman, I know that first hand. Am I a Marxist for thinking that?



The rest of the article can be read here: http://www.frumforum.com/how-the-gop-purged-me



No, sir, I wouldn't call you a Marxist. I'd call you sane.



Unfortunately, I'm in my forties, and I can't personally remember when the Republicans were not nutcases. Even more unfortunately, many of the people who vilify this man can't either, and that's the way they want their Republican Party to be. But those who want more from this country's conservative political party than bigotted lunacy are gathering here to see if they can come up with something sensible the Republicans can be for instead of against: http://republicansunited.us/2010/04/whats-the-game-plan/



As a lifelong diehard liberal, I wish them well. We've all seen the mess that results from electing conservative nutcases simply because they were the only conservatives on the ticket. Government works best when it's run by intelligent people willing to work together with other intelligent people even if they disagree with each other, not by demogogues who praise intolerance as a virtue.

Comments

[qara-isuke.livejournal.com]

Well said.

ETA: In further pondering and sitting down to read all the links, I think it really nails it. Just a casual glance at any comments on a news story, even ones with the vaguest of political connections, displays how extreme the Republican party has become.

Instead of the part of great men like Lincoln and Eisenhower, we have a party that embraces the worst among them. And it seems like the vitriol is getting worse, creating a political climate that intimidates the younger generation. Politics has become such a vicious game in the last decade, since I first became able to vote. My father has transformed into a men less and less recognizable by his own kin, so wrapped up in the kind of extreme attitudes that the modern GOP seems to embrace. Every day, when I try to read up on the news about what's going on in this country, I see comment after comment screaming Doom prophecy and decrying the SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM and FASCISM....when I don't think those words mean what they think they mean. The face of the modern GOP these days, and the people that follow it, seems to be one of catch-phrases parroted over and over again. And so much hate that it makes my head spin.

Such a complete unwillingness to put aside our differences for the sake of accomplishing important things. Such a complete unwillingness to compromise, discuss, or work together. And such a complete and utter lack of concrete solutions being offered, merely cries to STOP THE OBAMANATION and Repeal/Filibuster/VOTE THEM ALL OUT.

And to see what was once a genuinely great party fall as far is depressing, that we have become so divided that every aspect is slowly being poisoned by the hatred and the bipartisan name-calling.

For my generation, it feels terribly depressing. And makes me want to retreat further from politics, instead of trying to become more informed and more involved. That should never be how things are.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

It's really starting to resemble the nastier parts of the 19th Century, both before and after the Civil War.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - and given how increasingly reactionary the British right has become in the last generation or so, I have to wonder how worldwide a phenomenon it is. In fact large swathes of politics seem to have become increasingly reactionary and right - the British Conservative Party (right wing) of the seventies was to the left of the current British Labour Party (left wing - allegedly).

I've always found the Republican Party rather interesting. They were the real liberals of days gone by of course, taking the stance re: colour prejudice that the Democrats were later to champion. By the time I became aware of politics, it was the era of Reagan, so their liberal days had long gone, but I grew up watching Bob Hope making his endless streams of jokes at the expense of Democrats. It's Republicans who have been the joke for as long as I can remember, but there was clearly a time gone by when they weren't a joke. A time when they were as openly supported by Hollywood as the Democrats generally are now. They used to appeal to the famously conservative (John Wayne) as well as to the famously liberal (Dean Martin), and now they just seem to appeal to the famously bonkers.

Whenever I hear anything from the "GOP" now, it's usually some clown claiming that the British National Health Service indulges in euthanasia on a regular basis. Less "Grand", more "Sad". It really is a shame, because any strong political system needs strong opposition. You need sensible debate, and you need a sensible choice.

I really feel for the fellow in your post. It's getting increasingly hard for a lot of us to know who to vote for nowadays, and with an election looming here in the UK, I'm lost completely.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

In America, this trend was aided and abetted by the Civil Rights Movement. The Democrats swooped in and grabbed up all the newly liberated blacks and women. The GOP took in the leftovers, and that has proven to be a poison pill for them. Did the same thing happen in the UK?

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

No, nothing like that ever seemed to happen. When Margaret Thatcher took over the Conservative Party, she turned it strongly towards the right. It was almost a cult of personality, or that's how it seemed. The left have often been their own worst enemy, with in-fighting and the like, all splitting up into factions rather than combining forces - and we seemed to end up with an increasingly nutjob right, a splintered left, and a centre that couldn't make up its mind which way it was going.

Scooping up a newly liberated section of society implies organisation. The left haven't been organised since the sixties. They probably could have been unified under Michael Foot, but the Press and the right ridiculed him for his age, and Neil Kinnock was similarly turned into a figure of fun. Trying to be Prime Minister when you're both ginger and Welsh was probably a tad too optimistic, I don't know. It looked like warfare via the newspapers, and the newspapers got nasty.

I'm inclined to blame a mixture of Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch, but that might just be because they're awfully inviting figures of hate.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Scooping up a newly liberated section of society implies organisation.

Not necessarily. Did your side of the pond ever get a book by Susan Faludi called Backlash: the Undeclared War Against Women? Oh yes: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Backlash-Undeclared-War-Against-Women/dp/009922271X/ Faludi showed that massive socio-political movements could happen without organization. If a million bigots think that women should be punished for being "uppity", they don't need organizing. The combined weight of all the petty things they do (and more importantly, all the passive-agressive things they don't do) is enough to gum up the works all by itself. At that point organisation is just the icing on the cake.

Likewise, if a million newly liberated people think to themselves, "Conservatives have held me back, now that I have a choice I choose to go in the opposite direction" nothing will hold them back. You don't need to organize to recruit them. In fact, even if you organized to STOP them from joining your liberal organization you would probably fail. This is exactly what happened in the US with Paganism and Wicca during the 1990s. Millions of people decided Christianity wasn't for them and that they were going to be Wiccan/Pagan and they smashed through the organised Wiccan/Pagan community as it existed then like a tidal wave. Nobody organized to recruit them, as recruiting is anathema to Modern Pagans. People actually tried to stop them, or at least slow down the tide so they could control it better, but to no avail.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I hadn't looked at it from that angle. I suppose that leads us to the main difference between British and American politics, then, which is namely that it's less of a two-horse race here. Gay people, for instance, don't tend to vote Conservative, but they needn't move to Labour instead. They could turn to the Liberal Democrats, or to the Greens. Similarly, the scary types have their own smaller parties to turn to, so whilst the Conservatives have seemed to become more right wing, they haven't become as scary right wing as they could have done. They'd never elect a leader like Bush because he'd be off in one of the minority parties, like UKIP or the BNP.

It's a mixed blessing, because it does split the vote, but on the other hand it helps to keep the nutters segregated. The Republicans could certainly do with ejecting a few of theirs into a handy little fringe party. That way the sensible ones can get back to worrying about the economy, and let the scary ones mutter on the sidelines.

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

I think the Dems' acquisition of blacks & women was facilitated by the New Dealers' construction of a social safety net during the '30s & '40s & involvement in other social justice issues, whereas the GOP--not so much; minorities tend to have longer historical memories, & women to be pragmatists.