The strange evolution of the Republican Party and the American electorate

The Republicans proudly will remind you that President Lincoln was a Republican. That Republican party is long gone, replaced by a party of opposite beliefs.

I was born a Roosevelt Democrat. My parents were Democrats, as was my entire family.

Later, I became a Reagan Republican because I didn’t like Mondale for telling us the truth that he would raise taxes. Also, in those days, I subscribed to the myth that the Republicans were “good for business and the economy.”

I now lean Democrat, not because I love the Democrats, but because I believe their hearts are in the right place and they are the viable alternative to Trumpism.

Voting for a 3rd party Presidential candidate is futile in itself — it’s like knowing the future and still booking the Titanic — but depending on the 3rd party, your vote, combined with others, can force the major parties to adopt some of the things you want.

I never would vote for a Libertarian candidate, however, because they believe in austerity — the death knell for any economy — rather than just limited federal taxing. I never understood how reduced government spending could grow GDP when GDP is a spending measure.

The GOP now lives solidly in the age of Trump, though even before Trump, they provided America with one bunch of extremist nuts after another. It’s just become worse. The right wing has turned full-on demented. 

If it wasn’t the John Birchers, it was Tea Party. Or the white supremacists. Or the Nazis, Or the MAGAs. Or the fascists, Or QAnon. Or the anti-vaxxers. Or the election deniers. Or the global-warming deniers, Or the book-burning, history deniers. Or the gun-nuts, OathKeepers, Boogaloo Boys, Three Percenters, Wolverine Watchmen, Base, skinheads, alt-right, Pepe the Frog, Alex Jones, and every kind of screw-loose, forest-dwelling militia you can imagine.

And conspiracy theories — is there a conspiracy theory to which the Republicans have not subscribed? 

They want to tax the poor, give tax breaks to the rich, cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, eliminate Obamacare, deport the Dreamers, and cut all poverty aids.

They are the ultimate hate mongers, directing bile against Muslims, Mexicans, blacks, browns, yellows, reds, Jews, gays, immigrants, the poor, and women.

They are Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Sarah Palin, Rick Scott, Lauren Boebert, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Louie Gohmert, Herschel Walker, et al.

They are Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Nader, and George Papadopoulos — all Trump associates and all convicted felons.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention such notables as John Eastman, Sydney Powell, Lin Wood, and  Rudy Giuliani, who could join Trump’s pals in jail.

Given all this, the GOP doesn’t merely look away. It actively defends. 

Conservatives are supposed to conserve, that is, to hold the line against radical change. They are supposed to be the solid, reliable bedrock upon which American democracy is built.

But instead, they devote their lives to coming up with new crazinesses.

They wave the American flag (along with a Trump flag), but they are the least patriotic Americans on the planet.

There was a time when the Republican party stood for something solid, reliable, and good. Today, it is the party of the rich trailing obediently behind the most dishonest, psychopathic, incompetent President in U.S. history.

Fortunately, most Americans have discovered the rot and rejected it, though the GOP has yet to acknowledge the depths to which it has sunk.

And yet . . . and yet . . .

All the blame cannot be laid at the Republican’s feet. They are politicians. As politicians, their first rule is: Get elected. It’s what politicians do. It’s the only thing the Republicans do well.

In the last Presidential election, Trump received more than 74 million votes. That’s 74 million Americans who gave their precious votes to Donald Trump. What can one say about people like that?

In the 1930s, Germans supported the apparent maniac, Adolf Hitler. The plausible excuse was that Germany was in the midst of a terrible depression/hyperinflation. People were starving. Families were rent asunder. Their world had caved in. The Germans were desperate.

What was our excuse? Obama was President from 2009 to 2017. He immediately got us out of Republican George W. Bush’s “Great Recession,” the economy grew, inflation was low, and most Americans saw their lives improve.

Then, in 2017 came Donald Trump, whose mishandling of COVID and the Presidency, in general, led to the 2020 recession and inflation. And still, 74 million Americans gave him their votes, and recently millions gave the Republicans the House of Representatives.

Really? Do they want more of the crazy? Do they want more criminality, more nepotism, more lying, more attempted coups, more inflation, and more recession? 

Do they really want more voting restrictions, more politicizing the Justice Department, more pardoning of Trump’s criminal pals, more profiting from the Presidency, more attempts to blackmail Ukraine, more firing of whistleblowers, more reneging on international pacts, more of a President supported by Putin?

Today, we have six Republican Supreme Court Justices who have proven to be political hacks giving precedence to right-wing politics of hatred and to Catholicism above all other religions.

It has become so notorious that SCOTUS even includes one Justice whose wife backs the coup attempt while he refuses to recuse from related cases.

As the GOP has gone crazy, much of  America has gone stupid.

That combination of crazy and stupid has put America on its most perilous path since the Civil War.

Fortunately, President Biden was able to leverage the narrowest of Congressional margins to accomplish more in two years than the GOP has even attempted to achieve in the past two decades. 

You may not agree with all or even most of these, but they represent an attempt to help Americans who need help, not just the rich.

The GOP doesn’t try or even pretend to. There is no warmth, love or compassion in them. They are all anger, hatred, and resentment. 

This is not the America I recognize.

But Biden is 80 years old, and American democracy, such as it is, trembles.

American voters created the deranged GOP, and only American voters can change it.

Otherwise, it will continue to slide further down, down, down the rabbit hole, from the idiotic party of Donald Trump to the truly maniacal party of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

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