The Washington Post ran a story today on the splintering and divided Republican Party that sums up what we here on the rational Left have seen coming for almost 20 years.
The Republican Party is a bastardization of Social Conservatives, War Hawk Neo-Cons, Anti-Communists, small government enthusiasts and the pro-corporate order elite who wish to unite the nation under the banner of capital with extensive privatized law and order. The Cold War or the War on Terror were the only things that held the fabric of the party together.
As the article describes, now that Social Conservatives are becoming increasingly irrelevant (abortion and gay rights are faltering as issues), now that Bush spent more money than anyone in history fighting an unprofitable war and nationalizing our country’s failing bank system, now that the whole “trickle-down†theory has been utterly disproved, the party is spinning out of control. Even the War on Terror seems irrelevant and far from people’s minds. With Bush scoring the highest disapproval rating of any President in the history of polling the Party has lost its direction.
The Party of Reagan is in shambles. All philosophies have been rebuked by the very same pundits who have lost their way, grasping for any sort of victory from day to day. There is no longer a long-term strategy. They controlled, as Reagan put it, “the whole enchiladaâ€, and what did they get done? Well, they fell asleep at the switch on a major terrorist attack, started two unsuccessful wars, put forward an ultra conservative deregulated economic agenda that has nearly bankrupted the country (and the world) and divided the American people along lines not seen since the sixties. In other words: They had their chance, and look where it got us!
It’s amazing that they held it together this long. The business conservatives are not very religious and the social conservatives are not very rich. The war hawks love defense contracts and the Libertarian wing hates government spending. Those who fear big brother often yell the loudest for increased government intervention in our lives. It was only a matter of time for each movement to wake up in bed the next morning and not realize who they were lying next to.
Also, the dirty tricks of division and fear, first exploited by Nixon, can only work for so long. Homosexuals are not out to spread their numbers and corrupt hard working, god fearing straight men into a life of gay pride flamboyancy. Every Middle-Eastern person is not a terrorist and every Russian is not a communist. Woman’s activists are not fighting for abortion, they’re fighting for that decision to be made between a woman and her doctor. It was only a matter of time for the fear to wear off. That left them using Karl Rove style politics that literally purge votes by the hundred thousands. Once Democrats like Obama saw what was happening, they developed appropriate strategies to combat both the fear mongering swift-boating and wide scale Republican election fraud. There is now no tactic left for the Right to retain power. The pendulum has already began to swing with mighty momentum in the other direction.
All political movements reach a point of intellectual exhaustion. The Democrats did in the sixties as the FDR movement finally hit a brick wall in the Vietnam War. Now it’s the Republican’s turn. Shattered by the Great Depression, the Republicans just played the minority role for 30 years until Regan came along and re-united the traditional Conservative planks into one ideology: government fear, xenophobia, fear of an internal corruption (in gays, liberals, commies, terrorists, etc.) and power, handed over to the elite moneyed class. It’s essentially plutocracy, kept in power using fear and overly-simplistic propaganda, which boarder-lines on the essence of Fascism.
It isn’t Joe the Plumber that benefits under Republican ideology, it is Joe Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest who does (despite being under investigation for fraud). Paul Krugman wrote a good piece on the real plumbers of Ohio that I also recommend.
Thankfully the American system has survived their political ambitions. The founding fathers did not foresee political parties, (which is why they dominate our political system), yet they did understand that power corrupts all who touch it. For that reason they established a series of checks and balances. Even the election system is designed to be staggered so a party cannot sweep into party unless the overwhelming majority of Americans want it so (which means the Elephant Party f’d up pretty freaking bad).
Now it is the Democrats who are poised to sweep into power again (knock on wood). They are firmly aligned behind a new coalition, largely resembling that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, motivated at all costs to destroy the house that Reagan built and reestablish a government that serves the people, not the wealthy elite. The Liberal philosophy is again reborn with new ideas and 21st Century understanding. With Obama at the reigns, we are entering a new era of the Democratic Party and our nation.
At long last, we can put to bed this nightmare of Republican domination. Only problem is, it may have taken America a little too long to wake up from it. As we teeter on the edge of the abyss, be sure to burn into the minds of everyone you can that it was the Republicans that brought us here today.
