From an Invited Guest Author: Ron Williams…
Republican Party is disintegrating. In many ways this is unfortunate. I have read the Republican Party platform and I find that I can agree with many of their positions, such as immigration and fiscal policy. Also, their platform position on personal responsibility resonates with me.
However, the disintegration of the Party does not come from its stated platform, but from its politics. It amazes me how political the Republican establishment has become. The Party must be judged not on what it says but rather what it does. And what the Party does, is practice a set of politics which is self destructive and, in a very real sense, un-American. It is clear to me that the Republican Party is doing all it can to see that the country does not emerge from the current Recession in an orderly fashion.
It seems the Republican Party is hoping the country in fact does fail to recover, so that they can say, “I told you so.“ I find that position to be actually un-American and, in many respects, traitorous. The Obama administration has been in office less than two months, and the Treasury Secretary in place an even shorter time than that, Yet the Republicans are already “harping” about a failed administration and a failed Treasury Secretary.
We are in a war, an economic war. To actively work to cause the country to lose that war should be seen as an act of traitorous behavior. If the Democrats had worked as actively against President Bush in his pursuit of the Iraq war as the Republicans are actively working against President Obama in this economic war, the Republicans would have gone ballistic in their attacks. We should all go ballistic in our attacks against Republicans for their current behavior. They should be rewarded by losing even more seats in the next round of elections.
Some in the party have an inkling their problems are and are trying to address these problems by looking at their platform and by looking at new ways of selling this platform to middle America. However, this effort is going to be stymied by the far will right wing of the party which is dedicated to its right wing issues and will suffer no “dilution“ of their message.
At first blush, You would think there is a struggle for the heart and soul of the party, but that is not really the case. There is no question that right wing of the party will prevail. And the party will therefore remain a collection of Grumpy Old White Men (GOWMs), with a sprinkling of a few women and a minority here and there. Further, these GOWMs seem to really lament the changes that are occurring in this country. It is becoming younger. It is becoming a multi-cultural society, with no single group as a majority. It is becoming a society where women will play a leading role. It is becoming a country where the natural order is being turned on its head.
I would suggest that this change in the natural order is causing them tremendous heartburn. But what makes matters even worse is their current failure to have developed any serious solutions. In response to the every problem facing this country it was clear that their one and only solution is “tax cut.“ But not just tax cuts in general, tax cuts for the wealthy. Their mantra appears to be if you cut taxes for the wealthy it will free up money to allow the wealthy to buy equipment, buy materials and higher new employees. The problem with this mantra is that it has been tried for the last eight years, and it has helped to bring us the current fiscal disaster. All of the Republican actions have been shown to not work. And it appears the party is not prepared to change its positions. Therefore, I believe the Republican Party is in a disastrous state, but because of its mind set its actions would not change and the party will continue to disintegrate. That is too bad, because we do need at least two parties to keep things in balance. It just appears that the second party is not going to be called “Republican.”
Ronald Williams
rwilliams@sbcglobal.net
Social Mode 
Nice post. I’m not a Republican because I differ on their platform in a couple of areas. But I am still saddened by the current politics of the party. It is shameful and anti-American to hope for failure in times like these. It is irresponsbile to complain yet not propose alternatives. I think we need a division of the party to allow the ultra conservative wing to exist on their own.
Well said. While I don’t necessarily agree with your politics, you presented a pretty cogent analysis of the GOP’s sorry state. They’re in sort of a weird state, the opposite of the Democrats in 2001-2 but just as damaging. Rather than rolling over on their own commonly popular ideals like the Democrats did, the Republicans are digging their heels in on unpopular ideals. I just hope, because of my personal politics, that the Democrats don’t get as complacent and corrupt as the Republicans did and swing the pendulum back to the Republicans again.
The republican party has to dump Steele if they are to ever win again. the Republican party cannot out socialize the socialist in the democrat party. there is still a majority out here of Regan republicans/democrats and we just need someone to pick up his mantle and lead. steele is NOT that person.
[…] May 23, 2009 in Charlie Copeland, David Anderson, Mike Castle, Mike Protack, Republican Majority Leader, Republican National Committee, Republican intimidation, Republican soul, Republicans are Gay, The Colossus of Rhody, republican ineptitude Quite often these days I find someone expressing my observations better than I ever could… Coming across this one, I put away all intentions of coming up with an original post this day, and decided to guest another blog post in its entirety to kick off the Memorial Day weekend… Historically that is when we all become very patriotic and really understand the sacrifices made for us and our country…. Without further ado, I am now featuring txjhb from the blog Social Mode. […]
Very well written article on the subject indeed. I have been extremely saddened by the Republican Party for exactly the same reasons you have mentioned.
Don’t fall into the hype on republicans. They are the party that does what they say, and say what they do.
Then time corrupts, along with the outcry of democrats.
We are in the place where Obama boldly insulted John McCain for knowing nothing about politics…
John McCain was one of the brave and few that challenged the efforts to give easy loans which caused our recession. Democrats were for it. Our current recession is caused solely due to those loans that Carter Clinton, and every democrat in office caused.
What is wrong at the moment isn’t republicans, it’s how they get across just how horrible the democrats are. How do you say that without looking bad?
You may talk of republicans wanting the democrats to fail, it’s only true because they are being blamed for all failure, even the current which was indefinitely the democratic party’s fault.
Historically, if we compare presidents after JFK (who was a war monger as well) most our presidents have caused much less war, including Bush. Yet democrats have us believing we have caused more, and we are worse.
We have people believing that the economy collapsed from deregulation, so sad. I’ll give you 150 dollars if you can name one specific act that was deregulated.
Bush couldn’t undo Clinton’s train wreck of soft loans. When he tried, he was boo’d off stage, almost literally.
How do you tell public: We can’t give you a home loan, because you just can’t afford it??
The answer: You can’t. So as soon as Clinton put that crap in place, we were doomed. Insurance industries invested in the government approved loan plan, by investing in real estate. These companies need to invest in order to survive at all. I’m in the insurance I know. So what are we going to do, regulate what they can invest in, and leave that up to the government? Oh wait…We already did. They invested in what the government guaranteed in Clinton’s presidency wouldn’t fail. And it did fail. This caused banks to fail, insurance to fail, architects and engineers (the people I insure) couldn’t get work, directly due to a loan freeze, everything nearly collapsed.
Why? Democrats. Who was blamed? Republicans.
I am sickened at how much good the prior congress did, and how much they were blamed for.
Bush was a bold good man.
Obama is doing the same things, and is putting another label on it. Other than the fact that he just started those loans again. The dems should be ashamed, not the republicans.