Everywhere I look now, I see the Republican movement faltering and in full retreat. It was not long ago that conservatives like Mary Matalin, high off their victory in 2004, proclaimed Liberalism is dead. Now, no more than a year later, it seems to many such as Tucker Carlson (YES TUCKER CARLSON) that the real proclamation is “What went wrong with the Republican Party?”, as described in his Cato Newsletter entry “The Decline and Fall of the Republican Party.” Yes, it seems as if the era of far-right domination, ushered in under Reagan, carried forward during Clinton and the Republican congress and topped off with 6 miserable years under Bush, has finally run its course.
Of course many, such as your devoted muck racking writer, among many other more respected journalists have seen this coming for years. Hell, I’ve been predicting it for so long, many friends are angry at me for not seeing the prediction come to light. While it is still far too early to break out the champagne and celebrate, it is time to gather the dogs of war and encircle the weak and ailing wrong Right. The time to strike is now!
The changes in the political landscape are frequent and obvious. Freedom fries are off the menu and French fries are again served in the congressional restaurant. Cuban-Americans (once the most loyal of Republicans) are gradually leaving the Republicans behind. 2 darlings of the Christian Right, Passion of the Christ creator Mel Gibson and former whiz kid Christian Coalition member Ralph Reed are politically dead. One is labeled an alcoholic anti-Semite, the other is shady liar who takes money from Jack Abramoff. Yes everywhere things are changing, but the biggest changes of all are in the numbers.
Bush’s poll ratings are very low (hovering around Nixon-Carter territory), on every single issue, even foreign policy (which used to be his strong point). Congress polls even lower, and if the election were held today, the Democrats retake the House. Hell, the Democrats even have Tom Delay to run against. The Senate is a little bit improbable, but since so many Republican Candidates are self destructing, like Santorum and Kathrine Harris to name a few, if the stars align, the Dems CAN maybe retake the Senate. Either way the momentum is shifting against the Republicans, and a Democratic House and stronger Democratic presence in the Senate will be a disaster for Bush.
Further more, Lieberman, the most Republican Senator in the Democratic Party, will likely lose the nomination to Democratic challenger Ned Lamont because of his support of Bush and the war. 20,000 turned out to register as Democrats, in anticipation of the Lieberman re-election A Left of Center backlash is occurring everywhere you look.
The public is fed up with the corruption, even Tucker Carlson, in the aforementioned article, lists numerous reasons why the Republicans overplayed their hand in the 1994 so called “revolution”, and he mainly lists the fact that Americans dislike corruption as the chief reason. This is true. I remember the news stories in 93 and 94 about the congressional bank scandals and the failure to pass health care. These hurt the Dems more than anything. They looked as week and out of touch as the Republicans look now. The only real difference is that these modern Repubs make the Dems of 94 look like patriot saints of the Monastery of St. Washington. I mean, blatant scandals, corruption charges against chief Republican party leadership, war contracts connected to the Vice President, war-crimes claims against our troops, irregularities in defense spending, bloated budgets, golf trips to exotic lands for our congressman (paid in full by foreign countries), a Defense Secretary caught in a blatant lie. These charges make Tookie Williams look like a freedom fighter, and border, if not blatantly cross the line of treason. These men should be hung, not paid a good salary and praised as Christians! What the f**k is wrong with this country that they can’t see this?!
State politics indicates something much greater. n Oklahoma, a State Senator changed parties from Repub to Dem, claiming, the moderates have no voice in the Republican party any longer. In Idaho too, a long time GOP member has switched parties and run as a Democrat. While it is too early to predict a similar massive conversion like the one that occurred in the 1970’s, (when conservative, and to a large degree anti-civil rights Democrats like Strom Thurman, switched to the Republican party, believing that the Democrats no longer represented their values.), it is a sure sign of a Republican Party that has lost it’s roots with the center.
Libertarian organizations like the Cato institute have been very uneasy with Bush. They like his tax-cuts, and anti-welfare stance, but dislike the war in Iraq, dislike the Patriot Act and dislike the rampant spending and bloated government. Others like the pro-business Republicans are finding a more pro-new business environment in the Democratic party, and that old business like oil and aging blue-chips and other antiquated business models (such as Wal-Mart), are more for Republicans. The business wing is torn in two, and the other half is forced to contend with the base of the new Republican party, the far-right Christian theocracy wing.
” alt=”god hates fags” />
The Christians too are split. Many Christians believe in Christ’s message of love, not the shady scripture combination of Corinthians (another angry Paul letter) and Leviticus (where pork is forbidden and sex during a woman’s period is a banishable offense) used to conjure up hate of the homosexuals. Even the abortion issue is undergoing a realignment, some Christian Democrats see the Republican abuse of this issue. More on this another time, the point is that many Christians feel that Christianity is not an exclusively Republican religion. While the demonizing of Democrats as secular and evil has helped them politically, it is hurting Christianity, and the foundation of this political abuse of religion, are slowly coming undone.
The Iraq War is a disaster. Bush’s plan for Victory is in ruins. Rumsfeld the other day got cross-examined by GOP and Democrats alike. Hillary “Dismay the Course” Rodham Clinton even called Rumsfeld’s handling of Iraq “failed policy”, and the exchange was widely covered. Even the late night talk shows got the better of old Rummy.
It looks as if the Republicans f’d things up so bad, that in 2 years, all the fruits of their labor have been delivered to them in the shape of a spoiled basket of mush, tied up in a nice yellow ribbon bow and adorned with little red white and blue card inscribed, “For all your hard work.” This will no doubt turn to bitter grapes when they are crushed in the 2006 election (knock on wood).
War and a general decline in the American Dream is really hurting the Republicans. They claimed they would bring back morality and integrity, all they ended up bringing was corruption, scandal, war, handouts to the top 1% and a big black scar on the integrity and trust in what was once the great protector of democracy and even the shining city on the hill.
How do you turn a massive surplus into a huge deficit? How do you allow morality and community to slide into promiscuity and selfishness? How do you give your followers nothing and still convince them to believe in you? How do you lie about a war that has killed by the president’s own estimates 30,000 innocent civilians and not be impeached? How do you out CIA agents, take money from at least 3 (Ken Lay, Skilling [Enron] and Abramoff) convicted felons (who all have pics standing with the president) and run the foreign policy of this nation smack into the ground (i.e. Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, North Korea, The E.U., Mexico, Canada, Japan, China, Russia, Pakistan and all of Latin America) and still get part of the country to think you’re doing a good job on foreign policy?
How? Pure politics. Lie, deceive, cheat, steal. You can get away with it for only so long. After all, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and part of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Then you got the people on your ass!
Maybe some Americans are proud that the world sees us as a bunch of stupid redneck ignorant, fast-food eating, NASCAR watching (I love motor sports but for God sakes, they go in circles), hypocritical religious zealots who produce bad movies, corporations (like Wal-Mart) that destroy small business, communities, etc. while exploiting foreign labor and to top it off, so unintelligent, that we elected a president who is undignified, an open liar and/or deceive, not to mention so inept he got caught talkin smack on an open mic twice (once about sensitive foreign affairs of state!). Maybe some are not completely downright humiliated by this moron, but I am! Can this country get it’s shit together for once in the past decade and send these phony Christian hypocrites to the fate they truly deserve?