The Demise of the Republican Party?

A question that has haunted many of us since neo-psychotics such as the young Dick Cheney and sidekick Donald Rumsfeld subtly took over for the ailing President Reagan is whether or not the honorable Republican party is terminally ill?  The party that freed African Americans from slavery, that helped President Nixon pass labor reform and Lyndon Johnson enact civil rights legislation seems to be close to extinction.  The party that had for so long advocated distrust for the dangers of Communism and reduced the Soviet threat to a reluctant ally, rallied briefly under the James Baker enlightened Bush 41.  After a brief resurrection of responsibility, however rancor and blatant greed seemed to grip the once proud party of Lincoln leading to the apparent dissolution of all morality during the Bush 43 administration.

By privatizing airport security and appointment of inexperienced friends of the administration, by politically compromising the integrity of the FBI and later the CIA, a “neoconservative” administration put profit before country, inviting economic and military devastation unrivaled since the Great Depression and Vietnam war respectively.  Needless torture (that is, for propaganda purposes as opposed to the gathering of information) deliberately sloppy strategies and unnecessary wars with hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on mercenaries and carpetbaggers friendly to the administration became the rule of the day.  For millions of dollars in political contributions and illicit profits the Republican rulers would spend trillions of dollars stolen from payroll taxes, from the contributions of hard working citizens who thought they were paying for Social Security and Medicare.  Meanwhile the same thieves lowered income tax in time of meaningless wars, creating an even greater burden on a failing economy.  With the help of naive and incompetent Democrats all too eager to furnish homes for unqualified buyers, with unregulated banks and Wall Street protected from prosecution, Republicans tried to block all avenues of recovery.

While a beleaguered American citizenry elected a well meaning, but inexperienced president, all the retooled Republican party saw was a chance to destroy the first black president.  All thought of saving the economy, of pulling the country out of a virtual depression became lost in a massive outpouring of hatred and venom.  Effete Democrats, including the new president were afraid and unaccustomed to accusing Republicans of purposely sabotaging the economy for the benefit of their own party.  In truth, it was something the party had never done before.  Even during the hated Clinton administration, Republican statesmen like Bob Dole and James Baker     prevailed and the welfare of the country was preserved leading to unprecedented prosperity.  Now, however, a new Republican party, led by pseudo Christians like Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Jim Demint and Glen Beck, to name a few, have perverted and violated almost every teaching of Jesus.  Not to be outdone, pseudo Jews like Eric Cantor have turned their backs on thousands of years of helping the poor, the oppressed and the common man and in so doing have managed to leave the entire world economy in shambles.

Rabid race- baiting extremists cheering at the idea of executing innocent men, applaud their governors ignoring exculpatory evidence for the sake of phony “law and order” political platforms.  Their governors and elected officials pass measure after measure interfering with citizens’ right to vote, while bribing Supreme Court “Justices” to call political payoffs “freedom of speech” or to forbid states to legally enforce mandatory election recounts.  Their officials repeatedly fix elections in states like Alabama, Ohio, and Wisconsin, while their prosecutors routinely suborn perjury, arrogantly bragging that they are beyond the law.  They are not beyond murdering their own I.T. expert to prevent him from testifying against them or assassinating an NFL star who dares to criticize their useless “for profit” war.  

In states like Michigan, the Republican governor takes over a poor minority town in order to steal its beachfront park and transfer it to a richer town willing to cede the land to private developers.  In state after Republican state, governors and legislators face huge deficits due to premature tax cuts for businesses while making up for the tax cuts by slashing education, police forces and fire departments.  After first having their pension funds mismanaged by the states themselves, pensioners find themselves the victims of wholesale firings, resulting in massive increases in unemployment.  What better way to destroy the opposing president than by further destroying the fragile economy and preventing people from voting for the naive bastard?  Actually there is another wonderful long range tactic to utterly destroy the dangerous “American Way of Life.”

By introducing the idea of vouchers, Republican right wing fanatics can keep women “barefoot and pregnant.”  They can convince private students that the world is 5700 years old, that there is no such thing as evolution, that the Constitution did not condone slavery, and that a black president cannot possibly be a U.S. citizen.  They can teach their young that Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Methodists, Unitarians, Quakers and other “heretical” Christian sects are not destined to see their Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.  Best of all, the government will pay for their private propaganda factories with something called “vouchers.”  With the demise of the public school system, with the inability of our poorly educated graduates to compete with civilized countries, when these creatures have hoarded all of our wealth and devastated our economy, don’t worry, right wing fanatics will revert to what they have done for thousands of years: they will “eat their own young!”

The real question is whether Republican extremists can win one more election before taking down our entire socioeconomic and moral system.  With the help of Eric Holder, long time Republican enabler, judicial pimp and his faithful concubines’ assistance, with a Supreme Court filled with sexual predators, with its right and left wing constitutional revisionists, it is entirely possible.  We are the only semi-civilized country in the world that forbids controls on campaign contributions, that permits unlimited bribery of public officials, that permits drug and gun lobbies to draft their own drug and gun laws.  Yes Eric Cantor, how much money do you think Mexican drug lords have contributed to Virginia Republicans to ensure an unending supply of automatic weapons from your state?  Ironically, a victory in 2012 could lead to a disaster of such magnitude that even The Grand Old Party may not be able to survive the consequences.

Allen Finkelstein   10/4/11