From Irrelevance to Absurdity

I have written before lamenting the loss of the Republican Party I knew in my youth from my father. A political party with important historical names --- Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and examples in my lifetime that included Eisenhower, Dirksen, Goldwater, Baker, Lodge, Rockefeller and Reagan. A party broad enough to contain the “silk stocking” Republicans of the northeast alongside the conservative individualists of the southwest. A potent force in U.S. political history. Yet not one of those historical individuals would recognize the collective irresponsibility of that which now passes for today’s Republican Party. Witness the following examples of political pandering:

1) Representative Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who continually confounds rationality by:
- saying that Obama is seeking to set up “reeducation camps” to brainwash our children;
- introducing a bill to prohibit one world-wide currency, notwithstanding the U.S. dollar’s de facto role as just that for 60 years;
- inexplicitly announcing that “carbon dioxide occurs naturally in the world, so it does not cause global warming and so we don’t have to worry about it.” (I guess unlike black widow spiders, which also occur “naturally” in nature but which I will still choose to avoid!)

2) Norm Coleman, senator from Minnesota, who all electoral commissions have determined lost his reelection bid, but who refuses to take the classy statesman path and accept his defeat 6 months after the election, making the Gore/Bush debacle in Florida look like a textbook perfection.

3) Representative Spencer Bachus from Alabama, who announced that he personally knows of “17 socialists in Congress,” borrowing from Senator Joe McCarthy’s frighteningly injurious accusations of the 1950s, and who similarly thus far refuses to name any one of the 17. He further ignores that being a “socialist” is neither a U.S. political party nor an illegal status outlawed anywhere.

4) Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who announced that Texas may secede from the United States, raising eyebrows from those who were never fully convinced that Texas had ever truly joined the U.S. in the first place. A governor who chooses to ignore the history lesson of the War Between the States 140 years ago that denied the right of secession. (Texas was a loser in that war, by the way).

5) Continuing attempts by individual or several senators to block various Obama cabinet appointments, with flimsy or even no reason given, only to subsequently have them overwhelmingly approved in the end. What was achieved? As examples, Richard Burr of NC singularly opposed Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee Iraq War veteran universally praised by veteran groups, as Assistant Secretary of the VA; John Cornyn of Texas opposed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arlen Specter opposed Eric Holder as Attorney General. And most recently, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is holding up the nomination of Craig Fugate as head of FEMA because he doesn’t like FEMA’s answers to how it will proceed with high-risk flood zones that will affect rebuilding in Louisiana. How exactly does depriving an agency of its leadership help provide new leadership and answers?

6) Then there is Dick Cheney, the scariest-person-now-no-longer-in-government-who just-won’t-go-away, whose negative comments about everything that has happened since the January 20th inauguration, and whose ends-justify-the-means defense of Bush administration torture exceeds my capacity for thoughtful response.

7) And lastly, there is the Fox News (aka the Republican Party Communications Directorate) inspired Tea Bag Protest, in which a bunch of folks got together to protest a) taxes and b) income redistribution. Except that the total number of protestors nationwide was probably less that those filling Grant Park one night awhile back in Chicago to hear Obama’s victory speech. A great many of those protestors are likely already included in Obama’s tax cuts for 90% of the population. Virtually every one of them will no doubt be gladly accepting their social security retirement payments when the time comes, which is the biggest income redistribution program in the country. Oh, and in 1773 the original tea protest in Boston was against taxation without representation; our current taxes were passed with representation, even if one does not like their representative’s response.

Once again, at a time when serious dialog, creative ideas, and political courage are needed, the current group of political lightweights in today’s Republican Party is found lacking. The most recent poll I saw shows only 21% of voters declaring themselves as Republicans. These are not “minority party” numbers, these are 3rd-party numbers. George Corley Wallace in ’68 numbers, Ross Perot in ’92 numbers, just a step ahead of Ralph Nader Green Party numbers. It is a party at a loss for message, direction and spokespersons. And if it were not for the aforementioned Fox News and the party’s self-anointed spokesperson Rush Limbaugh, they would be getting just about the same 3rd-party level of press attention.

Tax cuts and medical insurance tax credits are meaningless to the unemployed. Sending military forces against the bad guys is a hollow threat when you already have two wars going on, a war-weary public, and only estranged allies. A balanced budget is a death knell to an economy reeling from a lack of consumer spending. Talk of free enterprise capitalism wins no fans when people are reeling from the excesses of irresponsible deregulation. Republicans have to come up with a new message instead of the old news, and that message cannot be one that panders to the hysterical conspiracies of a decreasing number of citizens. It is not a time for trying to extract revenge for losing the 2008 election using political and rhetorical tricks. It is a time for governing and leading.