How Would You Feel if You Were a Republican?
The other day, I noted here that when trying to talk Democrats down from the ledge, nervous about the election, I ask how they'd feel if they were a Republican?
In truth, the question speaks louder in the wider, full view.
How would you feel if you were a Republican?
Period.
How would you feel if this is the Republican Party that represented who you were as a human being? Your goals, your values.
This isn't a question about what party you want to win the election. Or what party or individual you don't. This is about who you are.
At its core, the Republican Party has stood for two issues:
The first is small government. Yet under George Bush and six years of Republican rule in Congress, the government has exploded in size. The national debt has doubled. Increasing $5 trillion.
The second issue is fiscal responsibility. Yet under George Bush and that Republican Congress - indeed beginning with Ronald Reagan - removing oversight has brought the most devastating economic collapse since the Great Depression. Banks have in part been nationalized. A bailout of $700 billion. The budget surplus turned into a $400 billion deficit.
Is this the Republican Party of small government and fiscal responsibility that represents the soul of lifelong Republicans?
Indeed, it's hard to imagine serious, mainstream Republicans looking at their long-honored party today and seeing themselves proudly reflected in its actions.
It's not a question of just the Iraq War, which even The American Conservative magazine acknowledged the Bush Administration lied America into. Where 4,187 Americans have died, 30,182 Americans have been wounded, and $594 billion spent.
It's not even about torture. That the word has even been introduced into public discourse is ghastly. This is America, home of the brave, land of the free. We aren't supposed to torture. We lied our way into a war in Iraq to remove a dictator who tortured.
It's not just about spying on Americans, reading our emails, listening to the private sex talk between married couples.
It's also not about politicizing the Justice Department, where "liberty and justice for all" turned into firing U.S. Attorneys who wouldn't push a political agenda.
Nor is it about outing an undercover government agent or about ignoring a hurricane.
It's not about all this and more. It's not about a mere list of abuses. It's about an inner-culture that has hijacked the Republican Party and made it insular, hooked on feeding its voracious base, ignoring the full party it is supposed to represent, neglecting the nation it is sworn to protect.
What does the Republican Party stand for today? I'm not asking about the words one sees on a flyer, but the actions that support those words?
The actions of the Republican Party today don't support small government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedom, protecting the Constitution.
How would you feel if you were a Republican?
This isn't about defending the Republican Party because you're Republican. Or about how much you don't like the Democratic Party. We can talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Democrats another time. Right now, the only question on the table is -
How do you feel about the Republican Party, today, representing what you stand for?
Do you stand for adding $5 trillion to the national debt? Lying a nation into war? Do you stand for torture? Is spying on American privacy who you are about? Is turning "justice is blind" into a political agenda what you are at your core? Ignoring science?
This isn't about Republicans. Through its history, there have been remarkable Republican leaders who Americans of all beliefs have admired. Within only the past 50 years, it's an impressive honor roll that includes Jacob Javits, Margaret Chase Smith, Nelson Rockefeller, Charles Percy, Edward Brooke, John Chafee, Lincoln Chafee, Mark Hatfield, Richard Schweiker Lowell Weicker, Pete McCloskey, Gerald Ford.
That class is long gone. Many drummed out of the party, the rest finding little place for them.
The Republican Party has become a house of cards, built on a house of sand. It lost Congress two years ago because of this, and is going to worse defeat today. Because the Republican Party has abandoned who it was. And it started with the day Ronald Reagan demonized an entire philosophy - both Democratic and Republican - as "The 'L' Word." The far-right Republican base saw a wedge, successfully threw in smoke and mirrors, but eventually ended up gutting itself.
American government works best when there are two political parties vibrantly confronting each other over what is best for the nation. But the Republican Party, in its effort to solely win votes, rather than lead the nation, forgot the words of its first leader, Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time."
The greatest indictment of the Republican Party today is the question being asked seriously whether it will be lead in 2012 by Sarah Palin. It won't be - the reasons are far too long to address here - but that question is all one needs to understand the empty fissure that the Grand Old Party has excavated for itself.
That a small-minded demagogue who 21 months ago was in a job initially elected by 616 people, whose foreign affairs experience encompasses being able to see Russia, who has attended a convention for seceding from the union, had a priest lay hands on her while he prayed against witches, who is ignorant of the responsibilities of the vice president, who can name just one Supreme Court decision and that only because she's virulently opposed to it, whose main claim is that because world oil prices boomed she was authorized to sign a rebate, - who -
- who when she finally got to make one policy speech, she ridiculed scientific research that has actually brought discoveries that could help children with autism. That she has a child herself with Down Syndrome did not make her haughty smear any more despicable and ignorant. It was fully despicable and ignorant on its own merits.
- That Sarah Palin, who 60% Americans think is unqualified to be president, is even mentioned as a possible leader of the Republican Party shows the shell that the Republican Party has become. A Republican Party that seemingly only has a base of far-right wing evangelicals, the rest be damned. Literally.
The Republican Party today has become less a political party than a ministry.
Is all this how a lifelong Republican wants his or her life to be represented?
Forget the election. Forget other political parties. Forget other candidates.
How would you feel - right now - if you were a Republican?
Republicans, please come back. We need you.
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Tough question to answer as what you see in campaign is not true representation of the Republicans.
Perhaps a good house cleaning and reorganize it...
If I were a Repub, I'd be ashamed. I'd also be infuriated that the party eats its own when they dissent instead of listening to them. There's a reason why the smartest Republicans are jumping ship, but the party would rather label them as "elitists" or view them as people with big egos.
The only way to feel as a Republican who values small government and fiscal conservatism is .... stupid.
It's been almost a quarter century that Republicans haven't stood for any of that (since Reagan).
"Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you."
Where've these people been?
If I were a Republican, I imagine that I would feel like one. I would feel like blaming the mess on somebody else.
This is a GREAT ARTICLE. I am not a republican but a libertarian and I supported Ron Paul. I felt long before things got to this point that the Republican Party and Conservatives had the party and philosophy HIJACKED by what I call the "NEO-CONS" they are the Karl Rove's, Rumsfelds,Cheney's, Bremer's and Wolfowitz's. They took over the republican party and left those conservatives that believe in the original tenants and philosophy of Conservatism cringing in a corner.
I remember the times when you could count on the Republicans to be for less government, fiscally responsible and now they do not exist. Even the pundits like Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Savage, Beck are all sicafants, followers, prostitutes to the new Neo-Con order.
I hope and pray that the true republicans and conservatives take back there party and respectibility so Americans can feel good about the 2 party system again. Those people at McCain=Palin Rallys are the underbelly of the trash heap of people within the republican party. The uncle or relative that you can count on to embarass you and the family with their uneducated hillbilly mindset. Think how they attempted to dumb down the Republican party with "You betcha" and "Gosh Darn It' that was never a republican. Republicans were polished, intelligent, not about demogagury, on point, respectful but disagreeable.
TRUE REPUBLICANS, AMERICA NEEDS YOU TO STAND UP AND TAKE BACK YOUR PARTY, TAKE BACK THE INTEGRITY, CHARACTER THAT WAS LOST WHEN YOU LET THE NEO-CONS LEAD.
we are. its a tough battle though. but, when you examine the facts more intensely you will see we are up against more than re-forming a party, but rather dismantling a duopoly. why don't you join like-minded conservatives, anti-war liberals and civil liberty loving independents?
www.campaignforliberty.com
I was a Republican until shortly after the 2004 election and I can tell you, I'm not alone. While the majority of my "former" Republican friends would two the party line straight through the gates of hell, there is about 1/3 of us who have gone (I) or (D) for this election. It has become so ugly, but if I were still a Republican I would be nearly as embarrassed over the uglyness as I would be over the parties candidate and the candidates reckless, pathetic, dangerous, self-serving choice for a running mate.
Not to mention the utterly dysfunctional fiasco that McCain refers to as his campaign. I will leave it at that before I say anything rude or offensive.
Chico Brisbane
http://chicobrisbane.blogspot.com
If I were a Republican, I'd be embarassed and would have been embarassed for the last 8 years for electing a wannabe cowboy who thinks it's uncool to learn how to speak English properly.
I'd also be frustrated that my party had been overrun by religious zealots and neo cons and that the rational fiscal conservatives have disappeared.
If I were a Republican, I'd be switching my registration to an Independant this year and voting for Obama.
I ask my in-laws that question regularly. They Hispanic and Catholic and they're sticking with their party. I ask why does the abortion issue mean so much to you, when it means so little to the right. I ask them have the Repubs done anything to have this abolished in 30 yrs? Have the Repubs done anything for Hispanics? They can't answer and so they just change the subject.
I keep hoping that maybe this election will be the impetus for the creation of some new political parties. I would welcome a conservative party that placed its primary focus on smaller government and fiscal responsibility. It would do wonders for our country and encourage the growth of other political parties.
Herber Walker Bush and M. Dukakis secretely met to discuss their presidential debate agenda: what was to be said, what wasn't, who was to be included, who wasn't. When they sent their agenda to the traditional organizer, The League of Women Voters, they replied: "this would constitute a fraud to the American public" and declined. "Poof", the Presidential Commission on Debates was formed. Run by? Former chairs of the DNC and GOP. Third party voice further eliminated.
We live in a plutocracy. When folks realize that, maybe the real liberals and real conservatives can rise and put real representatives of THEIR views in office. Now? New World Order international bankers are putting forth puppet presidents. W. prepped the constitution for the NWO. Obama will sell it to us.
I'm glad you're speaking up. Republican leaders today apparently see power as an opportunity to live it up for as long as they can get away with it.
Abraham Lincoln saw power as a burden and a great responsibility to use for the good of the country (we can draw a comparison to him and George Washington in some ways).
Now that's the kind of Republican that even the most die hard liberal Democrat will love and follow.
I imagine I'd feel like David Brooks, David Frum, Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, George Will, Kathleen Parker, Colin Powell, Charles Krauthammer, Matthew Dowd, Chuck Hagel, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens.
How would I feel if I were a republican? I would feel guilty for ruining the greatest nation in the world... next question ?
How would you feel if you were a Republican?
If I were a dedicated fiscal conservative, a true believer in small gov't, I'd be wondering why I didn't speak up these past 8 years. I'd be wondering why my fellow travelers and me weren't out protesting in the streets and making some noise. I'd be wondering why we were all so complacent and just sat back while our own party was being hijacked and dicatated to by a bunch of power-hungry n-u-t-s and robber barons.
I'd be asking myself if the voters we're stuck courting to are worth corrupting the party for.
I'm a Democrat through and through, but I'm a fiscal conservative----like most Americans. Not for "small" gov't necessarily, but----like most Americans----I'm for effective, responsible, common sense gov't.
Hey, you make good points. But, we have no voice...illustrated by the crooks ignoring a 9,000 to 1 voice against the bailout. What is our recourse?
REVOLT
www.campaignforliberty.com
I'm a raging liberal atheist lefty who misses the OLD GOP. What does that tell you?
That despite any political differences we may have, that you are of sound mind. ;-)
I'm a raging libertarian, conservative atheist who misses our constitution, sound money, and civil liberties.
peace
its the NWO, brought to you by the plutocracy.
You mean Civil War era GOP?
From observing this dying breed for years, it seems to me that the only emotion Republicans are capable of feeling is FEAR. All who are left in the GOP are 1) the top 1% who fear they will soon be forced to pay their share of the freight and 2) the intentionally and systematically dumbed-down lemmings who have been brainwashed to fear "the other".
No, unfortunately, they are also capable of resentment and hate.
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