What has happened to the Republican Party?

Dear Friends,

My wife is celebrating her 50th reunion from high school this weekend.  So we have been thinking about all that has happened in the last 50 years, all that we have lived through and all that is going on today.  The changes that have occurred in our lifetimes are incredible, wonderful, terrifying and disappointing.  While it may seem trivial in the overall scope of the world's problems, today I am going to focus on the changes in the Republican Party.

The Pope's visit to the Untied States and his message of community, love, inclusion and care for those on the margins and for the planet we all inhabit are inspiring but also make clear the terrible shape the  world is in and how little progress we have made in many respects in the last 50 years.  I really didn't notice much but even in Minnesota when I was growing up there was rampant racism and anti-semitism.  As a white male Christian born into an upper middle class family, I was and remain a person of privilege which today is so obvious to me, but growing up I was oblivious to it.

There are glimmers of hope.  The civil rights movement and subsequent civil rights laws were a big step forward in recognizing the institutional and individual racism that existed in our country.  Those same laws also lead to the development of the southern strategy by the Republican Party that lead to Presidents Nixon, Reagan and a couple of Bushes.  That strategy of fear and division is not only still present in the Republican Party it seems to have taken complete control.

One of the things that my wife found going through her old scrapbooks were thank you letters from Nelson Rockefeller.  She worked hard on his campaign for President even going to Miami to the Republican convention where he lost to Richard Nixon.  Nelson Rockefeller was a viable candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination despite the fact that he was socially quite liberal, truly wanted to bring people together and knew that there was an important role for government to play in solving our country's problems.  I suspect that if he were running today it would be for the Democratic nomination, and he would be slightly to the left of Hillary Clinton.  There is no way that he would be among the Republican candidates for President today.

History is replete with examples of one group attaining and maintaining power by demonizing another group.  The Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller may not have been perfect but by comparison to the Republican Party today, it was open, welcoming, inclusive and seeking to improve the lives of all people.  Unfortunately the Republican Party has become more and more dependent upon demonizing the "other" to maintain its power.  In my lifetime it started with the southern strategy to demonize blacks and demonizing jews and communists.  Today the Republican Party's "otherness" has grown to include Muslims, any other non-Christians, hispanics, gays, etc.  The Republican Party creates fear of "others" and then preys on those fears.

For years the Republican Party, funded by big business and ultra-wealthy donors who want to continue to consolidate wealth in the top 1%, has been able to convince the social conservatives that the Republican Party cares about their causes.  Unfortunately, all those social conservatives seem to have figured out that the Republican Party only cares about those causes to create and maintain fear of the "others".  The money behind the Republican Party seems to be unable to control the monster that it has created.  The Republican Party took up President Reagan's motto that the government is the problem to get the support of the right wing.  Then that constituency actually wanted to get rid of the government.  The money behind the Republican establishment needs government to act to help them in their quest for an ever larger share of the wealth in this country and protect them.  Government over the last 50 years has passed regulations that big business does not like, but it has also passed lots of laws that give huge breaks to business and keeps the billionaire class in power.

John Boehner was never very good at his job as Speaker of the House, but I am not sure that it would have made any difference if he were.  The Tea Party Republicans actually wanted the exclusion of others and the end of government that the Republican Party had promised them to get their support.  Speaker Boehner tried from time to time to govern and to use government to solve problems, but those times were few and far between and each of his attempts were blocked by his own caucus.  The big business establishment Republicans do not want a government shut down, they want the Import Export Bank, they want trade deals like NAFTA and TPP, they want to continue to fund the military industrial complex, they want to keep their tax loopholes, they want to keep cheap government oil leases, etc.  The big business establishment Republicans know that our country must talk to and negotiate with other governments even ones we do not like.  Wall Street is afraid of who will replace Speaker Boehner because it might well be someone who is or who is forced to be even more confrontational.

The Republican primary election base (the Tea Party, anti-government zealots and religious right) is supporting Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz.  Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are made to look like moderates (do not be fooled, they are not).  The big business establishment Republicans are funding these candidates (other than Trump) but seem less and less able to control them as they all tack further and further right.  We should have seen the writing on the wall when Eric Cantor got tossed out by a Tea Party candidate in his primary.

The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who believed in limited government but also believed in the important role that government should play in helping to improve the lives of all its citizens as well as control the excesses that result from unbridled capitalism.  The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who believed that those who benefited the most from our country should contribute the most to the country through taxes and public service.  The Republican Party today is a disgrace to the many wonderful Republicans of my youth who understood that factual, logical arguments should be used to win elections not fear and hatred of "others".  I hope that in my lifetime, I will see the return of a Republican Party that those wonderful Republicans of my youth can be proud of.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal