Twenty-two years ago, I was a Republican candidate for Congress. I was pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-free market economics, pro-civil liberties. When I lost, the commentators were unanimous in their judgments: I was simply “too conservative.”
Twenty-two years ago, I was a Republican candidate for Congress. I was pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-free market economics, pro-civil liberties. When I lost, the commentators were unanimous in their judgments: I was simply “too conservative.”
I haven’t changed those views, but now they are “liberal.”
Today, there are three factions in the Republican party: the theocrats, the plutocrats, and a few lonely leftovers like me.
The theocrats want the government to tell us how to pray and procreate. They want to replace classroom biology with creationism. They favor “states’ rights” when the states want to ban abortion, but not when citizens of those states vote to decriminalize medical marijuana. They would hand over to government the power to prescribe most private behaviors, so long as the prescription is theirs.
As powerful as the religious extremists have become, they still take a back seat to the plutocrats—the big businesses that spend millions lobbying for corporate welfare. The emerging Enron scandal is only one example of those who use campaign donations to buy special tax breaks and other protections against the marketplace. The Administration’s “economic stimulus” package is a case in point: neither economically sound nor likely to stimulate, it proposes a blatant payback to campaign contributors. Sixteen corporations slated to benefit from $7.4 billion in alternative minimum tax rebates donated $45.7 million to George W. Bush since 1991. Even the Wall Street Journal conceded that the bill “mainly padded corporate bottom lines.”
The cozy relationship between big business and politicians has become so matter-of-fact that when Bush named Marc Racicot to head the Republican party, Racicot originally intended to continue lobbying for the clients—including Enron—that his law firm represented.
Republican plutocrats worry publicly about “fostering dependency” when our tax dollars subsidize a poor mother with a couple of kids and no transportation, but seem not to see any similar danger in taxpayer subsidies for corporations that pay millions in executive salaries. Nor do they show much sympathy for the millions of small businesses that actually generate most job growth and must compete in the open market. And free trade? These days, Congressional protectionists are as likely to be Republican as Democrat.
If there is one public policy that party theocrats and plutocrats agree on, at least publicly, it is taxes. It is an article of faith that there can never be a justifiable tax, that government is by definition bloated and wasteful. The original “fiscally conservative” position—that we should get value for our tax dollars, that we should minimize debt and fully fund our obligations—has morphed into “no taxes ever.”
A lot has changed since 1980. The Republicans have moved far, far to the right, while the Democrats now occupy the middle ground the GOP abandoned. It has taken me a long time, but I have finally faced the facts. The party I joined thirty-five years ago, the party whose candidates I worked so hard for, no longer exists. And I do not belong in the Republican party that took its place.