Yes, Virginia, There are Liberal Republicans
Several weeks back, I was talking with a friend who is politically conservative. I praised a recent Obama bill for remarkably getting bi-partisan support, when he cut me off. "Oh, you mean those two women?" he interrupted, with ridicule dripping from his voice. "They're not Republicans. They're Democrats!"
(A quick digression out of fairness. "Those women" was not meant dismissively towards Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. My friend has a memory like a bad sieve. "Those two women" was the best he could do.)
Anyway, I was certain he was exaggerating - but he wasn't. "Oh, please," he kept scoffing, "they're Democrats."
It was clear that this was something he and his circle had previously settled among themselves. And I realized what the problem was, and it wasn't obstinance or gross stupidity.
Here's the thing, I told him. You've confused being conservative with being Republican. But there are conservative Democrats. And once there were moderate and even liberal Republicans, too. But you've pushed them all out, to the degree that you now can only recognize a Republican as someone who is conservative. And that's just not the case at all. There are moderate Republicans. And liberal ones.
To my friend's great credit, he stopped a moment, and then actually agreed. Mind you, I have little doubt that the next day this all was forgotten. Putting life into convenient boxes gives too much comforting order, no matter how false. His loss is that the reality would have been so much more rewarding.
You see, time was when the Grand Old Party did, indeed, have grandness to it. When it was a party of mixed views, and moderates and liberals could be seen as actual Republicans, alongside the conservative party elders.
The Republican Party, once upon a time - a time within the life of most people reading this - included among its members such moderates and even liberals as Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase Smith, Clifford Case, Mark Hatfield (who co-sponsored with George McGovern an amendment to end the Viet Nam War), Lowell Weicker, Richard Schweiker, Kenneth Keating and John Chafee. Remarkable people all of them, well-worth looking up. They may have been in the minority of their party, but they were trusted and admired voices, helping focus Republican direction.
And most of them now have been blocked out of the memory of today's Republicans, dismissed by a current generation that doesn't consider "those two women" in Maine even to be Republicans.
And so the Republican Party has hounded out officials who've dared not to be conservative. Jim Jeffords left the party. Lincoln Chafee left the party. Arlen Specter left the party. Americans have left the party. Today, only 21 percent of Americans consider themselves Republican. And so, today, there are zero Republicans in the House of Representatives from New England - where the country was founded, by the way. Gone.
And the Republican Party has started to lose the rest of the nation, as well. What has happened is that the Republican Party has become a party of the South. Less a party, in fact, and more a little-tent, religious revival meeting.
By contrast, the Democratic Party ranges from conservative senators like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Jim Webb - to Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer on the liberal wing. With moderates filling the chewy, nougat center. No one would confuse this group - which includes fiscally conservative "Blue Dog Democrats" - of being of a united mind. And the House is even far more mixed. While this often causes consternation within the party, it's also what ultimately gives it a wide exchange of ideas - and ideals.
The result for Republicans is a party so top heavy on the right that John McCain, who long-prided himself as being a self-proclaimed "Maverick," was only able to win the GOP nomination by claiming he always had been a conservative. The result is that "those women" - lifelong Republicans - aren't even viewed as Republicans.
The result is that it wipes out the history - and often impressive history - of the Republican Party.
Today, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt cultivates a divisive, empty demagogue like Sarah Palin, for no reason other than she's conservative, religious, and can see Russia from the beach. Today, the party of Dwight Eisenhower holds Tea Parties and Pizza Parties, dresses up in colonial garb, defends torture, and bows to a radio host.
Today, the Republican Party has forgotten what the Republican Party was founded on, and in doing so, has redefined itself into the ground, as it drives its moderate and liberal members away. The base can deny this all it wants, and wrap itself in its own True Values, but that only confirms the reality.
And if at some point all "those women" and "those men" end up driven away and actually become Democrats, it won't be because the far-right describing them were perceptive, but rather the party created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because when you push people out of the house, slam the door and lock it, they have nowhere else to go, but rely upon the kindness of the neighbors.
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I guess it's okay to say there ARE such animals as liberal Republicans in that two of the people on your list aren't dead YET, but are either still active in what we charitably call the "party"?
I agree that "conservative" and "Republican" are conflated (though I hold out no hope that "Republican" would remain viable after separation, assuming that they could be separated at all now); just as the remainder of those under the GOP banner have stitched together social and fiscal conservatives into a self-hating monster to rival Mary Shelley's.
If there were 10 of what pass for conservatives in a room, one would set about to convince eight that the 10th either wasn't conservative enough or wasn't really a conservative at all. The eight agree; the 10th is shunned. Then, one would set about to convince seven that the ninth...etc. You get the drift. Soon, the room contains only two "allies" circling each other warily and impugning each other's patriotism. And, as each round of ideological purification delivers the remainder into greater and greater political irrelevance, the satisfaction and righteousness increase at an inversely proportional rate.
There has always been only one potential outcome: fiscal conservatives let go of the Republican label and re-form themselves back into the natural minority they were content to be before Nixon showed them the way to majority. The social conservatives splinter into increasing effete, but still thoroughly annoying and ideologically-pure cults.
your friend is right. today repubs are supposed to be white and bigoted white men . and followers of limbaughs every command.
"the Republican Party has become a party of the South"
Kind of ironic considering it was the republicans who rightfully forced emancipation on the slaveholding south (who were democrats back then) back in 1863. How the mighty have fallen ...
GOOD MORNING!!! MY FELLOW HOMO SAPIENS WHICH MEANS THE SPECIES WHO IS WISE.
While Jimmy Carter was testifying at the Senate Energy Committee meeting yesterday I was reminded of how AIPAC attacked and slandered him who is one of America's greatest humanitarians because he showed sympathy and compassion for the plight of the people of Palestine.
AIPAC is a powerful, arrogant and negative influence on America's mideast foreign policies and has always been vicious, cruel and mean spirited to anyone who disagrees with its goals and one of those goals has been to steal as much land as possible from the people of Palestine and its history of supporting and justifying war crimes and crimes against humanity is well documented.
GOOD MORNING!!! MY FELLOW HOMO SAPIENS WHICH MEANS THE SPECIES WHO IS WISE.
It was a real treat yesterday to watch Jimmy Carter on C-SPAN testifying before the Senate Energy Committee.
Jimmy Carter spent a great deal of time, effort and energy during his Presidency warning the American people about the terrible costs to them and their security because of their addiction to oil.
Jimmy Carter managed to get a bill passed increasing gas mileage and then Reagan came along and trashed everything he had achieved toward getting us off our oil addiction.
Of course the corrupt corporate mass news media made fun of and trivialized all his attempts to create sane energy policies.
While watching Jimmy Carter and his wife Rozeland I was reminded of all the good these two wonderful humanitarians had achieved during their lives and how they represented Americans at their very best; intelligent, honest and compassionate.
Don't forget that in the middle of the 1800s, the Republican party WAS the liberal party. The principles it was 'founded' on were liberal ones at the time.
It was only at the turn of the 20th century that it started to go the other way, and Teddy Roosevelt broke with it. That and Woodrow Wilson becoming the Democratic president (hugely liberal in everything but civil rights) were the beginning of the switch, which only finally ended in the 1990s.
Brother Arlen didn't leave the RP because of some high minded noble principle.
The DP did not accept Arlen as part of its big tent principle.
The only factors involved were:
Keeping one's job..
Increasing the size of one's party.
Where I come from, those aren't "principles".
If they are conservatives, what have they conserved?
I appears to me, modern conservatives are only looking to conserve their self righteous world view! Why? Because they are afraid of everything!
Conservatives will tell you that the conserve
Our national security
Our national economy
Respect for the rule of law
The honor of our country
The pre-eminence of our Constitution
Can you name just one of the above that they've failed to conserve?
I can't because they've failed to conserve all of the above and it's hard to choose.
Conservatism really means "averse to change." They've found a nice comfortable rut and don't want to stray from it.
i always thought it was funny that you have one group who calls themselves "conservatives" and one group who calls themselves "progressives".
when you break that down it means:
conservative: afraid of change, doesn't want to change, wants to "conserve" the "status quo"
progressive: well, it has the word PROGRESS in it - so that tells you something.
Conservative values will always seem "old fashioned" and progressive values will always seem "modern", because that is how they are defined, literally!!!
I'd rather be with the party of progress, personally.
Nah, you're wrong Rob - the Republicans are Conservative Evangelical Christians and that's it - just look it up in one of Stephen Colbert's dictionaries!
That is why they're down to 20% party identity among eligible voters and with the increase in reason and the decrease in moral relativism otherwise known as religion, that figure will continue to decline.
Sayonara Repubs!
Unless of course
(a) the economy doesn't improve quickly enough for our ADD afflicted electorate
(b) there is another terrorist attack
Then they'll be back.
In any case our country has a long tradition of fear in politics, and if there is a demand for a product, the free market supplies it. That's the beauty of capitalism.
I think the saddest part is, it really isn't about 'conservative' or 'liberal' to the Republican party anymore. It's "Do you agree with us? If you don't, you're obviously a Democrat." They have gone out of their way to alienate anyone with a dissenting opinion - or in the case of many, just force them to compromise themselves and apologize embarrassingly for not following the talking points of the party.
My opinion on it though, is that big political parties are a relic of the past. They don't represent the people, nor do they serve to improve the political landscape. Loyalty to party has outweighed loyalty to the American people, loyalty to their own electorate, and even loyalty to the rule of law for far too long.
Republicans have become their own worst enemy. A conservative life style is smart for anyone, even liberals. The Conservative Political Platform, however has been lost, blurred, or displaced. Chemical farming, genetic modification of seeds, and even pollution are not conservative attributes. Nor is nation building, deficit spending, or foreign trade deficits. There is nothing conservative about Republicans, as a party, that I can see. Free trade is not a conservative point of view, for example. When Ronald Reagan sold out to the Japanese, the word conservative became neutered. Even Eisenhower who is credited with the interstate highway system, that free network of socialism in the country, cannot really be taken seriously as a conservative. They really have morphed into a confederate party, one that disdains the federal government. It seems rather evident, does it not. It is more than ironic when they refer to themselves as the party of Lincoln.
#1 - I've been trying to get our two senators to disavow the current Republican Party for years and they cling to a long-dead history and mindless nostalgia for "Republican values" that haven't existed for many, many years.
#2 - Who cares about the fate of the Republican Party? I mean, really, who cares--why is so much ink being spilled over the Republican demise when there are uncountable major issues for this country to address and deal with? I'm very tired of the 24/7 angst and endless bs spouted on talk tv and radio over these amoral, selfish, conscienceless losers who finally, after a full decade of extremism, have been repudiated by 80% of the country. Let the party die, already. It deserves it.
The fate of the Rs is a slow-motion train wreck. You can't help but write about every few feet of the engine's trek down the track toward it's undoubtedly fiery and entertaining plunge into the abyss.
As far as the tv/radio crap, I wouldn't know. I can't watch or listen to any of that crap. They're vehicles for advertisers and literally nothing more than that. Maybe that's why I don't mine seeing articles like this on HuffPo....
Thank you. Excellent post. Is there any doubt that Roosevelt would not be a Republican now? In fact, I think that Republicans should lose the right to claim him as he was the first to leave the party and start his own.
There's not even doubt that IKE would refuse to be a Republican today!! Nixon would probably have a hard time keeping the bile down!
religion has brought them down, it always does.
Ike was strangely publicly silent about Tail Gunner Joe.
Never underestimate the power of "going along" to stay employed.
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