One of my “virtual” friends recently posted the following to Facebook. It made me think–and it also made me sad.
I like universal health care not just for its moral reasons but because it encourages job mobility, entrepreneurship, takes the burden off our manufacturing industries, and leads to cheaper health care costs. I like to spend money on public education because it makes our workers competitive in the international market. I want cap and trade because reliable and knowledgeable humans who are super-awesome at economics tell me that the long-term costs of inevitable climate shift will be worse than doing nothing. I want solar power and other green alternatives in order to ease climate change and to make us energy independent so people in countries half a world away with thousand-year-old grudges will stop yanking us around. I favor separation of church and state because, like Thomas Jefferson, I don’t want people of faith to have other faiths shoved on them by the power of the government.
In other words, as “Lefty” as all of that makes me today, I’m pretty much a 1972 Republican.
How did we get to the point where these sensible positions made him–and so many others– unwelcome in the GOP?
For those of us who remember Harrison Ullman, Harrison was a Republican and then became a “lefty” as well.
So many of us just keep sitting around waiting for the republican split so we can join the fiscally conservative and socially liberal party that the great majority of us are desperate for.
I thought I was a conservative until 2006 when they went all bat-shit crazy when President Obama ran and WON.
Do note that a 1972 Democrat would have no use for universal health care, bloated school spending, environmentalism or separating God and the state.
It’s important to remember what a traditional Democrat was.
Remember the Scopes Monkey Trial, whom did Darrow put on the stand?
Did that person run for any offices? If so, under what party?
In what party was George Wallace a member?
In what party was Strom Thurmond a member until 1964?
Which President wanted to cut income taxes from a range of 20-91% to 14-65%?
We forget that the Democrats used to be a good, conservative, party.
Today’s Democrats are barely American, espousing the values of extreme leftist parties that are foreign to our shores and our ways.
American; 1972 was in the last century. Many Republicans were today’s Democrats at that time – I know because I worked for them in local government. Mayor Hudnut cleaned up city government and brought great improvements to this city. Please join us in the 21st Century; there have been failures in both parties but there have been vast improvements in the Democratic party while the Republicans remain with you, back in the last century.
American, could you give some examples of the values espoused by Democrats from the extreme leftist parties which are “foreign to our shores and our ways”? Not sure what you mean. I do know that what folks here call “socialist” is far from what they call socialist in Europe, and that the political parties in the U.S. have moved to the right of where they were 20 years ago. For that matter, the term “socialist” has become a scare term, and unless people are thinking about actual processes or political theory, it is not very helpful. After all, Medicare is a single-payer system very efficiently run by the government and which could be called “socialist” along with some other methods of managing services. And like they say, if you want to live the American dream, move to Denmark, where socialism isn’t all that evil or even more expensive than what we spend here. Tell me what those risky values are that you see Democrats adopting.
JoAnn, keep up. First citation of 1972 was not mine.
American; I am aware of Sheila’s reference to 1972. Reading your first and last comments in tandem translates to the fact that Republicans were barely American in 1972 as the parties seem to have switched platforms over the past 20 years. Having worked with and for them for 20 years, beginning in 1972, I am well aware of what they were at that time and what they are today. The local downhill slide for the Republican party in this city began with Goldsmith and ran in high gear, steered by Daniels, statewide. Big Daddy Cruz sounds like the type “minister” who would stage another monkey trial given the chance.
“Bloated school spending” = another right wing canard.