Dear Republican Leaders: The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future. Check out the sermon I just delivered about the Republican Party on CNN when being interviewed by D.L. Hughley -- and/or read on.
You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.
I used to be one of you. As recently as 2000 I worked to get Senator McCain elected in that year's primary. (McCain and Gen. Tommy Franks wrote glowing endorsements regarding my book about military service, AWOL.). I have a file of handwritten thank you notes from Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush I and II. In the 1970s and early 80s I hung out with Jack Kemp and bought into his "supply side" myth and even wrote a book he endorsed pushing his ideas.) There's more, but take it from me; my parents (evangelical leaders Francis and Edith Schaeffer) and I were about as tight with -- and useful to -- the Republican Party as anyone. We played a big part creating the Religious Right.
In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God). They wanted America to fail in order to prove they were right about America's "moral decline." Soon after McCain lost in 2000 I re-registered as an independent in disgust with W. Bush. But I still respected many Republicans. Not today.
How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson's and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!
With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party -- you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today's fifth column sabotaging American renewal.
President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited. I say economic and military cataclysm because without the needless war in Iraq you all backed we would not be in the economic mess we're in today. If that money had been spent here at home on renovating our infrastructure, taking us toward a green economy, putting our health-care system in order we'd be a very different situation.
As the father of a Marine who served in George W. Bush's misbegotten wars let me say this: if President Obama's strategy to repair our economy, infrastructure and healthcare fails that will put our troops at far greater risk because the world will become a far more dangerous place. So for all you flag-waving Republicans who are trying to undermine the President at home -- if you succeed more of our troops will be killed abroad.
When your new leader Rush Limbaugh calls for President Obama to fail he's calling for more flag-draped coffins. Limbaugh is the new "Hanoi Jane."
For the party that created our crises of misbegotten war, mismanaged economy, the lack of regulation of our banking industry, handing our country to rich crooks... to obstruct the one person who is trying to repair the damage is obscene.
Just imagine where America would be today if the 14 to 20 million voters -- "the rube base" who slavishly follow the likes of Limbaugh -- had not voted as a block year after year thus empowering the Republican fiasco. We would have a regulated banking industry and would have avoided our current financial crisis; some 4000 of our killed military men and women would be alive; over to 35,000 wounded Americans would be whole; we would have been leaders in the environmental movement; we would be in the middle of a green technology boom fueling a huge expansion of our economy and stopping our dependence on foreign oil, and our health-care system would be reformed.
After Obama was elected, you Republican leaders had a unique last chance to send a patriotic message of unity to the world -- and to all Americans. You could have backed our president's economic recovery plan. Since we all know that half of our problem is one of lost confidence and perception, nothing would have done more to calm the markets and project resolve and confidence than if you had been big enough to take Obama's offered hand and had work with him -- even if you disagreed ideologically. You had the chance to put our country first. You utterly failed to rise to the occasion.
The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back Now in paperback.
(The "right thing" would have included immediate impeachment
of Bush et al, followed by criminal proceedings against same; immediate
withdrawal from Iraq; immediate and dramatic reduction of military
spending; immediate and dramatic increase of support for passenger
rail and other non-auto options; and dozens of other critical and
essential initiatives for national survival.) But they didn't. Therefore,
by rights I think it could be said that the Democrats are more responsible
for the current mess than the Republicans.
And -- oh by the way, Frankie -- you might recall that the Democrats
did nothing at all to stop or even slow the Constitution-shredding
outrages (Patriot Act I and II) associated with the Iraq war. You might
also recall that the banking deregulation proximally related to the
current crisis was initiated on Bubba's watch, and that there has been
NO concerted (or even any) Democratic objection to any of the
policies that culminated in the current debacle. You might also recall
scores of other treasonous, traitorous actions either taken by the
Democrats, or abetted by them, or at best simply (passively) allowed
by them, over the last decade. You might also note how Obama is
getting us embroiled in Afghanistan, with Iraq still very much underway
and unresolved, and how the military budget is going UP quite
substantially from it's already-astronomical and economically
ruinous level.
[continued on part IV]
Schaeffer:
"President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican
Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm
he inherited. I say economic and military cataclysm because without the
needless war in Iraq you all backed we would not be in the economic mess
we're in today."
Hey, Frankie, did you forget? The Democrats enthusiastically supported
the Iraq war, and if they hadn't, we would not be in (quite as bad of) the
economic mess we're in today. It could be argued -- and I would
be willing to argue it -- that the Democrats are more responsible than the
Republicans for the war, and for much else. Why? Because the Democrats
had at least some chance to do the right thing, whereas the Republicans
didn't. The Republicans had been completely taken over, years ago,
by various fanatics, creeps and idiots, and even before that (Nixon, Goldwater)
they had almost no value. So the Republicans were beyond hopeless
and could not reasonably be expected to do the right thing ever, under
any circumstance. The Democrats, however, were slightly different.
Up until the last few years, (since the 2006 elections, it seems to me),
there continued to be small -- very small, but perceptible -- indications
of surviving character and integrity in them. However advanced their
pathology, up until very recently they could still, I believe, have pulled
themselves together and done the right thing.
[continued
Dear Frank Schaeffer:
Regarding your "Open Letter to the Republican Traitors",
I have a few comments.
Frank Schaeffer wrote:
"Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home."
Pretty much, yep. Of course, the Democrats offered ZERO resistance to
same -- in recent years collapsing completely as an "opposition party".
More often than not they participated in the arson; sometimes even
enthusiastically.
Schaeffer:
"You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free
market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire
that has consumed America."
Yes, very much so. America's ruin has a number of causes, but those are
surely among the prominent ones.
Schaeffer:
"Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired --
President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes."
Check. The Republicans have NO right to criticize anyone for anything,
after the last 8 disastrous -- near-catastrophic -- years. Which is not at all
the same as saying that the Democrats ought not be criticized! Au contraire.
The Obama administration is shaping up to be the most criminal, destructive
and treasonous of all, bar none, unbelievable though that may sound. I would
not have believed it myself, even just 6 months ago. But developments since
the election are forcing me to that conclusion.
NOW if only you, Frank, would write a letter to the Democratic traitors!
[continued on part II]
I don't talk politics much but this article reinforces me when I do blame previous administrations both Republican and Democratic .
And if the republicans had offered any other candidate for presidency they'd probably be sitting on the throne right now blaming the senate and congress for the ills of our country.
We do need change and it needs to happen now. If these new programs do help solve our problems then I want every one who voted against them out of Government. Didn't someone say you are either for U.S. or against U.S.?
All citizens must become pro AMERICA and bickering and crossing your arms like an infant is'nt going to help.
http://overanopenflame.blogspot.com/
I fully agree. Excellent article, Frank.
And they can only keep power by appealing to their "rube base."
Therefore they cannot change their policies.
I listen to "EL RUSHBO" to know FIRST HAND dispicable things he says & whenever he is caught saying something awful...he says he was misquoted. In all of his pontificating about 'PRODUCERS' and 'NON-PRODUCERS' he sits in his multi-million dollar home on the beach in Palm Beach & is traitorous to this nation. He does great damage among those of lower to middle class means that put their trust in him as he capitalizes on their lack of real information. He strokes them while putting down their very existence. From his well financed ivory tower, he and others like him use the backs of the lower to lower middle class working man to fund their agendas while saying that they are simply trumpeting CONSERVATIVE VALUES!!! Limbaugh like "W" and Cheney and others, reels in his supporters by telling them that he is against abortion & taking their guns away while they do their financial plundering throughout this society & the world. It's time to recognize these people for whom they are & expose their not caring that you and your family suffer from not being able to afford health insurance, gas, food, & your mortgage. Where has the middle class gone? Into the bank accounts of these men that slap you on the back, puff their cigar & say, "PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR BOOT STRAPS" while they steal your boots.