It's a new party, and it isn't grand.
Heads up to Republicans who voted for Mitt Romney, John McCain, or either Bush. Your party left you. It's been replaced.
My earliest memory of what it meant to be a Republican was my hearing about Richard Nixon's "Checkers speech." While a Vice Presidential candidate in 1952, Nixon had been accused of getting campaign gifts he used for personal expenditures. I heard about the speech in 1960, at age 10, when Nixon was running against JFK. He said he took pains not to profit from his office in any way, such as by employing his wife in his Senate office. He could have done so; it was legal and customary, he said, but he thought it would be self-serving, so he didn't. The hook of the speech was that Nixon admitted that he kept one single gift, a small dog named Checkers because his young daughters loved it. The words that I best remembered from the speech were these:
"I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she'd look good in anything."
Respectable cloth coat. Those were the words that stuck.
The sentence imbedded multiple themes of Republican virtues; Modesty; sacrifice; prudence; a husband's conspicuous affirmation of devotion to his wife. Republicans, as I understood it, were good, normal people with normal jobs living in normal families with two parents and a sensible number of well-loved children. Republicans might be smarmy about it and less than perfect, but they hid it because they knew they were supposed to be good and virtuous. They were respectable. They expected respectability of themselves and of other Republicans.
In that context, the impeachment and forced resignation of Nixon in 1974 made all the sense in the world to me. Nixon broke the rules of respectability. He cursed in the Oval Office! He covered up a crime by his campaign by committing one of his own when he obstructed justice by telling the FBI not to investigate a burglary, saying it was a CIA operation. He broke the rules. Good Republicans wouldn't stand for it. Nixon knew he did wrong and was ashamed.
That was then.
The Atlantic published excerpts from McKay Coppins' new biography of Mitt Romney. Romney told his biographer that the GOP has become a dangerous, undemocratic cult. Coppins wrote
In less than a decade, he’d gone from Republican standard-bearer and presidential nominee to party pariah.
Romney is an example of the respectable Republican of old. The policy decisions that supposedly define a political party -- tax rates, spending, foreign affairs, gun rights, immigration, abortion, public benefits, trade -- aren't what differentiate the new GOP. Romney says the new GOP is defined less by policy than its cynicism, nihilism, lawlessness, and shamelessness. Trump breaks the law and Republicans tolerate it. Key U.S. Senators who could tell the truth choose to endorse lies because it serves their careers rather than our country and oaths of offices. Romney identifies Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in particular as shameless cynics. They know better, he said, but spread lies. U.S. Senators should be shaping opinion, but aren't. Romney says he quotes Mitch McConnell saying:
"You're lucky. You can say the things that we all think. You're in a position to say things about him that we all agree with but can't say."
Romney said that many GOP senators say the same thing as did McConnell, in private. Most of his colleagues realize full well that Trump has none of the virtues that make a good president and all of the ones that make him dangerous, Romney said. But their public silence affirms Trump's message.
Following the January 6 riot Romney spoke on the floor of the Senate.
What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth!
The name "Republican" still exists, but it is an entirely new political party. The brand has inertia but the substance is all new. GOP senators let Trump and conservative media feed Republican voter a diet of Trump, and have become what they have eaten. Party leaders don't lead those voters. They are afraid of them.
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12 comments:
To be a party committed to democracy, you have to do three very simple things. Number one, you have to accept election losses, win or lose. Number two, you have to not use violence to gain or to hold onto power. And then, number three, most critically, in some sense, for mainstream political parties is, you have to be explicit and open about condemning anybody who's an ally of your party that commits any of those first two types of acts.
The Republican Party no long fits that description. This is how democracies die.
“From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law.” — Leon Jaworski
Hopefully, in four years that will still be true. But I am skeptical...
It is a sad situation. My deceased Republican family members were decent and respectable people. They were not kooks.
Romney is just the latest to attempt redemption after standing by for years while the Republican party became more extremist.
If Trump had been re-elected none of this would be happening. Pence, Barr, Christie and now Romney are are scrambling to scrub their resumes. Some time ago I predicted that we'd be hearing, "I never liked the guy", from all the enablers and if Trump somehow returns to power, make no mistake, they all will climb all over each other to get right back on board.
It's BS. Don't fall for it.
As were mine, except for one Uncles brief foray into the John Birch Society. All dead now, but I like to think they would have nothing to do with what the Former GOP has become.
Poor "respectable" Romney was assailed not only as a heartless corporate raider but as a racist, a sexist, and even as an animal abuser....while he represented a threat to Barack Obama and the Democrats. The cycle before, the Beltway media transformed the heretofore respected, bipartisan "Maverick" John McCain into an arch-racist, far-right conservative who was having an affair with a lobbyist.
After their respective defeats both men went Stockholm syndrome in a way, spending the rest of their careers courting the good opinion of the same Beltway media which had hung them out to dry when it mattered. Surprise--their reputations among the cognoscenti have since been restored just as they resumed bucking their own party establishment. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
(No accident either that even Trump despite himself seems most solicitous of the opinion of Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.)
Comment addressed to Low Dudgeon:
Possibly there is a song written for you: "A well respected man about town doing the best things so conservatively." Your comments reflect a tone of conservative moral scolding so I am picturing Mrs. Grundy. What would she think?
You bring a second song to mind:
"It's illegal, it's immoral or it makes you fat
Oh, it really doesn't matter what you're aiming at."
I enjoy your comments because you aren't piling onto an existing dispute, but I must express my growing question. What do you LIKE?
Reflecting on your comments over past years from memory, you are irritated with Democrats, with Republicans, with business and cultural elites, with the establishment media, with conservative media, with Democratic campaigns, with Republican campaigns, with Obama, Biden, Romney, McCain, Trump, the self-styled cognoscenti. My dear old friend who eagerly chose self-medicated death three months ago toward the end sounded a bit like your comments. Humans were no damned good, he said. I did not dare talk with him about his charitable bequests toward the end because whenever he put his attention onto a charity, he knew he did not like it for some reason. Jefferson Public Radio's selection of classical music was bad. So was the Southern Oregon Symphony. SOU's Athletic program was a waste. Nothing for Democrats. For God's sake nothing ever for Republicans. Nothing for religion. He kept his faith in animals and death. He was a curmudgeon. Disapproval made him happy, as did his final drink of medicated end-of-life apple juice.
So let me ask, and perhaps sometimes you will include it in a comment: What do you LIKE?
Darn, Peter, now I'll have to continue reading Dudgeons remarks, just to see if he replies. Thanks for asking the Question!
So-called conservatives accuse liberals of accusing them of being racist so much that they fling the term around a hell of a lot more than we do.
The McCain campaign was criticized because Palin accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” Romney was criticized for appealing to birthers. To say they were portrayed as “arch-racist” is disingenuous hyperbole of the worst kind.
Nor does that begin to compare with the truly racist accusations against Obama on the White-wing media – that he’s a Kenyan Muslim, a Mau Mau, etc. My favorite was when they called him “anti-colonialist” (unlike our Founding Fathers).
Blushes! Well, starting with the song, I do like The Kinks. I also like pickleball, and a good Reuben with bread that isn’t too wet.
LD: Agreed. The bread has to be crispy or don’t bother. And don’t skimp on the meat...
Just think, if the GOPee elected Romney they'd have the same policies as Trump without the crazy.
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