How the Republican Party Is Broken
Cruelty, hypocrisy, vengeance, and retaliation have replaced governance.
Photo Credit: The New York Times
Issue #382 OpEd Monday, September 18, 2023
Most of us know by now that the current Republican Party, in the age of Trump and MAGA, has morphed into something unrecognizable by "real Republicans" such as John McCain, Dwight Eisenhower, Robert Dole, Liz Chaney, Abraham Lincoln, George Romney, and most recently, George's son, Mitt Romney.
Also, a quick historical reminder: in the 1800s, the "Party of Lincoln" was actually started by Abraham Lincoln, and was the party that was for civil rights, slave liberation, equal treatment for Black men (pretty much), progressive ideals, and working for the good of society as a whole, and for individual rights.
In the 19th century, it was the Democrats who defended slavery, who were for small government and isolationist policies, were against social programs of any kind, and with only a few exceptions were against civil rights and integration. It was also the Southern Democrats who voted to secede from the Union after the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln.
President Theodore Roosevelt, who was president from 1901-1919, was a Republican and a progressive. His fifth cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt, who was president from 1933 - 1945, was a Democrat who was very progressive, as was his successor, President Harry Truman. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin's wife, was a niece of Theodore Roosevelt.
By the 1940s and 1950s, the Southern Democrats were so upset with the transition of the Democrats towards more progressive policies that they first changed to become the "Dixiecrats." Then, in the 1960s, they steadily moved to the Republican party, especially after President Lyndon Johnson, himself a Southern Democrat, worked to pass civil rights and voting rights laws, plus his "Great Society" programs that included Medicare. That move to the Republican Party was essentially completed with Ronald Reagan, who was originally a Democrat himself but then switched parties, keeping many of the Southern policies of the old Democratic and Dixiecrat Parties.
Starting in the 1970s, the evangelicals began gaining strongholds in the Republican party, pushing it farther and farther to the right, although there was still bipartisan support for the renewals of the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Acts.
Both Presidents Bush were still somewhat moderate, although George W. Bush was linked closely with the evangelicals.
Then, in 2008, America elected its first Black president, and radical and racist whites lost their minds. The "Tea Party" Republicans began talking about dismantling parts of the government and laws they didn't like.
Although President Barack Obama easily won re-election over the moderate Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the farther right wing politicos and pundits started believing that even though they were in the minority politically and demographically, only they should be in control of the government.
In 2010, with the help of the Supreme Court, they started destroying civil rights and voting rights piece by piece.
They did everything to discredit Hillary Clinton, who easily won the popular vote in 2016, but lost the electoral college to Donald Trump.
White supremacists became more and more visible and vocal, greatly helped by Trump. Domestic terrorists brazenly murder Black and brown people in stores such as the supermarket in Buffalo, New York; the Walmart in El Paso, Texas; and the Dollar General in Jacksonville Florida. They could care less about the people they killed and those left behind.
School shootings are also getting more frequent, yet Republicans still refuse to do anything substantial about gun regulations. They do not care about children being slaughtered in schools or the devastated families.
After the Supreme Court struck down women's reproductive rights last year, red states have enacted more and more restrictions on abortion access, not caring about the women who miscarry or otherwise have problem pregnancies. Clinics are closing in these states and ob-gyn doctors are also leaving those states. Some states are even threatening to jail women who travel to another state for reproductive care and the doctors who provide that care.
Republicans now believe that only they should win elections, and if Democrats win, the elections must have been rigged and the duly elected Democrats must be removed unilaterally or by impeachment, including Democratic state Supreme Court justices who haven't even yet ruled on a single case.
Republicans also believe that they do nothing wrong, and if they are brought to account, the charges must be dropped and/or the accused otherwise found innocent. The U.S. Senate twice acquitted Donald Trump, and the Texas Senate recently acquitted the attorney general of several charges in his impeachment.
Moral failings of Republicans, going back to Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich, and now including Jim Jordan and Lauren Bobert, are excused and minimized. Meanwhile, the Republicans exacerbate the former drug problems of Hunter Biden and demonize his father for still loving and supporting his surviving son. Reporters attack the president by yelling out questions even while he is at the cemetery where his family members are buried.
The House Republicans are threatening to shut down the government soon unless they get the severe budget cuts they want for programs that assist the most vulnerable. They don't care about the negative ramifications for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people if the government is shut down.
Today's Republican party wants to destroy our democracy as well as destroy anyone they disapprove of or think isn't a "real" American.
Either they don't see or they refuse to acknowledge their own cruelty and hypocrisy, as long as they obtain or maintain power over the majority of Americans.
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