My father was a Republican for the first 78 years of his life. For the last twenty, he's been a Democrat (he just celebrated his 98th.) What happened? "They lost me," he says.
They're losing even more Americans now, as the four remaining GOP candidates seek to outdo one another in their race for the votes of the loony right that's taken over the Grand Old Party.
But the rest of us have reason to worry.
A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America.
Yet even if they lose the presidency on Election Day they're still likely to be in charge of at least one house of Congress as well as several state legislators and governorships. That's a problem for the nation.
The GOP's drift toward loopyness started in 1993 when Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in the White House in a dozen years -- and promptly allowed gays in the military, pushed through the Brady handgun act, had the audacity to staff his administration with strong women and African-Americans, and gave Hillary the task of crafting a national health bill. Bill and Hillary were secular boomers with Ivy League credentials who thought government had a positive role to play in peoples' lives.
This was enough to stir right-wing evangelicals in the South, social conservatives in the Midwest and on the Great Plains, and stop-at-nothing extremists in Washington and the media who hounded Bill Clinton for eight years, then stole the 2000 election from Al Gore, and Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004.
They were not pleased to have a Democrat back in the White House in 2008, let alone a black one. They rose up in the 2010 election cycle as "tea partiers" and have by now pushed the GOP further right than it has been in more than eighty years. Even formerly sensible senators like Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar are moving to the extreme right in order to keep their seats.
At this rate the GOP will end up on the dust heap of history. Young Americans are more tolerant, cosmopolitan, better educated, and more socially liberal than their parents. And relative to the typical middle-aged America, they are also more Hispanic and more shades of brown. Today's Republican Party is as relevant to what America is becoming as an ice pick in New Orleans.
In the meantime, though, we are in trouble. America is a winner-take-all election system in which a party needs only 51 percent (or, in a three-way race, a plurality) in order to gain control.
In parliamentary systems of government, small groups representing loony fringes can be absorbed relatively harmlessly into adult governing coalitions.
But here, as we're seeing, a loony fringe can take over an entire party -- and that party will inevitably take over some part of our federal, state, and local governments.
As such, the loony right is a clear and present danger.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
Rev. Ruth Hawley-Lowry: An Open Letter To Rick Santorum From A Michigan Pastor (And Voter)
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
What they want to forget is that life will not continue as it was for them, with pensions, vacation homes, and a nice retirement package for the under 60 crowd. The excesses after WWII are ending like it or not.
The younger conservatives are playing games with the over 60 generation and doing their best to try and fool the younger ones into thinking they can be like their WWII era relatives.
Yesterday is not today and will never be tomorrow.
seperates us as a nation and decent human beings !?
Like most people, Paul is all in favor of 'civil liberties' as long as it's the liberty to do the things he agrees with.
What's left out of this scenario is that for the last few decades the Regressivist Right has increasingly been willing to spin bigger and ever more clever lies in their pursuit of what I call the "One Issue Voter", and there is as big a percentage of Young Americans voting in this category as there is in any generation. It's harder than ever for a young person to grow up with realistic views, living as we all do in a unrelenting hail of spinning propaganda, ever spewing forth from ubiquitous "birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers".
As far as being the party of "birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers [who] cannot govern America," I'd say you're partially correct. We have all kinds; so do the Democrats. I've discussed issues many times with moderate Democrats and those who admit to desiring socialism. There are those who care about the welfare of people, those who are religious, those who are very much against religion, those who put animals ahead of people and those who put the planet ahead of people. So what?
The bottom line seems to be that most of us want the same basic things for our country. The difference is that we tend to have vastly different ideas on how to get there.
I'd save the "clear and present danger" for something that really is.
THESE are the ones who are now in control. You can see it in the primaries clearly. Yes, there ARE extremists on both sides, but the Republicans have brought their extremists into their mainstream and they ARE dangerous. Isn't it interesting that Republicans always "say" they are the party of smaller government, yet they ALWAYS try to control us regarding social matters. Yes, they want government out of business, but they compensate by drawing government into the bedroom, into womans wombs, into the relationships that THEY deem acceptable and every other social issue.
Yes, we MUST be aware of what they are trying to do and make others aware of where they want to take us. The big difference I see with Republicans and Democrats is that Dems want us to make decisions for ourselves - Republicans want to make those decisions FOR us.
Your last statement is interesting in that I see it exactly the opposite. I see no choices in the healthcare or contraceptive debates and laws being enacted to take our freedoms and regulate people (the 1st and 4th Amendments come to mind). When it comes to the abortion issue, I'm very much against it (while wanting to keep it legal for certain instances). Women can and should have control over their own bodies, but not over the separate body of a baby, who also has no choice - especially when it's preventable. Again, many of these "rights" that the Democrats want to "give" have to do with funding along with large "safety nets" for those who choose the more unconventional lifestyle. That, it turn, takes away our freedoms to spend our own earned money.
Another gem from one of the smartest people in America. Thanks, Bob!
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
You must love half truths and deceivers.
Are they not the smart ones among us? And if the smart people are not buying what your selling, what does that say?