Republicans and the new GOP

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Three days after President Ronald Reagan was shot, Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill visited Reagan in his hospital bed. In fact, O’Neill was the first outsider to visit Reagan. O’Neill knelt by the president’s bed, tears in his eyes, took his hand and they recited the 23rd Psalm together.

Fast forward to now. That kind of friendship, that mutual respect between opposite parties does not exist. Does anyone really believe that John Boehner would rush to President Obama’s hospital room, kneel at the side of his bed and pray with him? I doubt that would happen. What I do believe is that if the opposite occurred, President Obama would go to Boehner’s hospital bed, because in the past almost 4 years, the president has tried, over and over and over again, to reach across that chasm-like-aisle, and each time, the new GOP has firmly slapped his hand away.

Quite a few Republicans have come out recently and slammed the new GOP for their divisiveness, their unwillingness to compromise and their far-right politics. Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, even went so far as to accept an invitation to the Democratic convention last week, and made a few telling comments. From WUSF news:

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t agree with President Obama about everything. But I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve worked with him, and the choice is crystal clear. When he took office, the economic crisis had already put my state of Florida on the edge of disaster. The foreclosure crisis was consuming homeowners, the tourists we depend on couldn’t afford to visit and our vital construction industry had come to a standstill. President Obama saw what I saw: a catastrophe in the making. And he took action.

And another portion of Crist’s speech, from the Huffington Post:

Half a century ago, Ronald Reagan, the man whose relentless optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didn’t leave the Democratic party; the party left him. I can certainly relate. I didn’t leave the Republican party; it left me. Then again, as my friend Jeb Bush recently noted, Reagan himself would have been too moderate and too reasonable for today’s GOP.

That’s just one man, a life-long Reagan republican, who endorsed John McCain in 2008. What a difference a few years can make.

In July of this year, conservative federal judge, Richard Posner, made the following statement about his beliefs regarding the new GOP:

Judge Richard Posner, a conservative on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, has long been one of the nation’s most respected and admired legal thinkers on the right. But in an interview with NPR, he expressed exasperation at the modern Republican Party, and confessed that he has become “less conservative” as a result.

Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, “there’s been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking.”

“I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy,” he said.

Goofy.

David Frum, former member of George W. Bush’s administration and staunch Republican, has spoken at length about the disturbing trends he sees becoming the norm for the new GOP. This is a portion of an article Frum wrote for New York Magazine in 2011:

America desperately needs a responsible and compassionate alternative to the Obama administration’s path of bigger government at higher cost. And yet: This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.

In May of 2012, Frum wrote an oped for CNN that agreed with an article published by two scientists, entitled, in part, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.” The two scientists state the following:

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

“When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”

And David Frum agrees. What does this mean for the new GOP? It means that their own people, powerful people, are seeing them for what they really are; far-right zealots who have no interest in dealing with any of America’s problems. Even former First Lady, Barbara Bush said in a recent speech at Southern Methodist University, “I hate the fact that people think ‘compromise’ is a dirty word.” Mrs. Bush has been campaigning for Mitt Romney, but her comment cannot be ignored.

So, what can we do? Well, it’s impossible to change someone whose ideals are based in faith, not logic. The issue for most of the sane folks in America is that even the faith the far-right espouses is wrong. They misinterpret the bible and the Constitution, and the Republicans who understand they are watching the demise of their own party are called “RINOs:” Republicans In Name Only.

What do you think? Can the Republican party save itself from the fringe and the zealots? Or is it too little, too late for people like Judge Posner and David Frum and Charlie Crist and the rest of the “old school Republicans” to try and shove some sanity back into their party?

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About Post Author

Erin Nanasi

Erin Nanasi is an avid underwater basket weaver, with a penchant for satire and the odd wombat reference.
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Karla Smith
11 years ago

What perfect timing….a FB friend just posted about people trying to shove their political views down others throats (by posting pics & quotes on their own pages!) and I got to use my first ever, probably not last, Erin Nanasi quote! I had the pleasure of sharing “Well, it’s impossible to change someone whose ideals are based in faith, not logic”. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Jess
11 years ago

I see them doubling down 2016 because Robme is not “pure” enough for them. It will be a sight to behold. Hell, Boehner didn’t go see Gabby Giffords when she was shot and he was already the Weeper of the House.Oh and this little ditty is well worth watching right here. Jimmy Fallon doing a PSA, even though it is a little off topic, it’s not really 🙂

hstrybuff
11 years ago

This batch of bandits are starting to eat their own young and when that happens the entire counterculture collapses. I don’t see that happening before the election unfortunately.

Erin Nanasi
11 years ago

Perfectly stated. I wonder what they will find when they finally end up back where they started.

11 years ago

How far right can you keep going? If the GOP continues going right on their political path they’ll wind up coming right back where they started from. Circular thinking and circular driving are quite alike. If you do that while lost in the woods you remain lost until someone comes to rescue you. More proof that you can’t solve the problem with a one-way attitude.

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