I am among the missing.
I took a break from politics for the evening.
I didn't watch the Republican convention or see Trump's speech. Lifelong Republican leaders missed the convention, too.
Former President George W. Bush is alive and well. He wasn't there. He would have gotten booed. People who voted for him, donated money to him, and knocked on doors for him now consider him persona non grata.Former Vice President Richard Cheney is around and healthy-enough to give speeches. He hasn't changed his politics. He, too, is unwelcome among Republicans.
Trump's own Vice President Mike Pence was not there. At the crucial moment he refused to discard duly-elected electors in favor of ones signed fraudulently. Pence realized it would have been flagrantly dishonest and unconstitutional. He wasn't welcome at the convention.
Dan Quayle, a Republican Vice President for four years under George H.W. Bush, wasn't there. He advised Mike Pence that what Trump was urging him to do was flat out illegal and unconstitutional. He wasn't welcome.
Liz Cheney, the former number three Republican in the House, wasn't there. She is a good Republican in every way but one. She said it was immoral and unconstitutional for Trump to overthrow an election. She was unwelcome.
Mitt Romney, the former presidential candidate for Republicans wasn't there. He is the straightest of straight-arrows, a conservative Republican to his core. He said it was immoral and unconstitutional for Trump to plot to overthrow an election. He wasn't welcome.
Paul Ryan, the former Speaker of the House, the former running mate of Mitt Romney, and at one point understood to be the future for the GOP, was not there either. He said Trump was unfit and dangerous.
Former cabinet officials and chiefs of staff are alive, well, and fully able to speak. They served under Trump and say he is unfit and dangerous. They weren't at the convention. These include his former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, his former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his former Chief of Staff John Kelly, and his former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They weren't at the convention.
If you were a Republican in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and even 2016, your party has left you. To be a Republican in good standing one can be out of step with GOP policy on Ukraine, you can support unions, you can even support a woman's right to an abortion. The one thing one cannot be "wrong" on if one is a Republican in the public eye and one is challenged, is support for Trump.
If you still have respect for George Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, why are you still a Republican?
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11 comments:
Why, indeed.
What you are chronicling is the demise of a failed political ideology popularly called Conservatism. Nature abhors a vacuum and in its place with noxious whoosh entered a golem that had been lurking in the background. It has many forms, chief among them the long unaddressed racism that had been festering in the backwaters of America since its founding.
Make America Great Again. Whatever that means one thing for certain is that whenever in America's past this was, no African American would would ever say it was great for them.
Anyway, you didn't miss a thing. I checked out after about 20 minutes and ran an errand, thinking to return to the pundit recap and when I got back HE WAS STILL TALKING, so I went and did a chore outside, and when I finished HE WAS STILL TALKING, so I went to bed and when I got up this morning...
Good grief. Even Bush and Cheney, who lied us into invading Iraq, aren’t evil enough for today’s Republicans? That should give pause to anybody sane. Too bad half the country isn’t.
That's quite a roll call, Peter.
But let's make no mistake: the former GOPee was also dangerous for Americans.
If you still have respect for George Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, why are you still a Republican?
Speaking as a former Democrat whose party drifted left towards the extremes of racial identity politics and wokeism, and left me politically homeless, I sympathize with the Republicans Peter listed.
We seem to be in one of those rare periods in American history where the two-party system dissolves and reconfigures itself. It looks like we are going to have a populist party and an intellectual/cultural elite party. Or maybe things will dissolve even more and we will end up with multiple parties.
It seems like this transition has been in the works since Regan. Didn’t he go to a symbolic location in Mississippi early on to signal to the racist people I’m your man? It’s been obvious, but under the cover who the Republicans have been for quite awhile. Bush and the black man from Massachusetts, Willie Horton was his name? Trump just uncovered who they have really been. David Duke, the KKK guy had a celebratory parade after Trump was elected. Former Facebook friends claimed to not be racist and resented the implication, but ignored this parade as not who they were. But if your friends are blatantly racist doesn’t that mean or association with them means you are too? The best predictor of what inmates reoffends is who their friends are. If they are very criminal, then they are too.
Frederick Douglass himself was conflicted or ambivalent where American greatness was concerned; MLK Jr. rather less so a century later; and Booker T. Washington not conflicted at all, chronologically in between the first two. The himself-great Thomas Sowell best explicates America's comparative greatness, including for black Americans.
Lifelong Republican here, who did not vote for Trump in 2016, 2020. Nor will I in 2024. He was manifestly unqualified for the office, and remains so. More so. But Bush Jr. and Cheney will not be changing party affiliation. Neither will I. (Did they consciously, contemporaneously deceive on Iraq and WMDs? Did Colin Powell? I doubt it. Unproven).
Romney dined with Trump in November '16, and cravenly praised him, angling for a Secretary of State nod. McCain warrants great respect for his war service, but less so for his political service, in which Beltway praise for the useful "maverick" was ever his top priority, even after he was grossly defamed by the establishment media versus Obama.
The GOP will outgrow Trump, via either his defeat this November or, dangerously, by way of a chaotically self-referential--and self-reverential--return to office. Conservatives believe America and the West are historically the best of a bad lot, and that centralized government is best when it controls least. That ethos will survive.
I think a moderate Democrat would give Trump trouble. Have you checked out Project 25? A lot of crazy stuff in there. Trump would definitely implement as many as possible, perhaps all of it. I think Galvin is out, as well as all the women. This is not the time for radicalism. (Yes, a woman president would be radical. This is not the time, yet.) A normal intelligent white governor from maybe Illinois, or North Carolina, or somewhere in the Midwest would look a lot better than Trump. The Convention is next month. That's the perfect time to let the delegates figure it out. They need a caucus in the rostrum!
In either, or any party or ideology, one can look to the extreme aspects and say, "I don't belong there." The duty of a good leader is to effectively show that we have more in common that what divides us. Unfortunately, we don't see that leadership these days; the idea of "the commons" has all but disappeared. I pray it will return somehow.
The Democratic Party has drifted so far left that it's embraced the inclusion of diverse cultures. “Wokeism” is sensitivity to racial and social injustice. Those who find that offensive would obviously feel more comfortable with the racial identity politics of Trump’s White Nationalist Party.
LD:
Did Bush and Cheney consciously deceive about Iraq and WMDs? Valerie Plame could tell you - a lot.
For those who missed it, the RNC showed a video clip Wednesday evening in praise of anti-“woke” college students, featuring a clip of a White fraternity member making monkey gestures at a Black woman while the announcer comments that these students are “giving us some hope there that not all college students have gone woke.” I am not making this up.
Bigots used to serve up their racism with dog whistles and then play the “I’m not a racist” card. Under Trump, however, it's come back into vogue and they're abandoning the pretense.
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