So here is where we are. We have a sitting president pretending that he won an election he resoundingly lost, and nearly 90 percent of the GOP members in Congress refusing to challenge the assertion.
Top officials in 18 states and more than half of House Republicans supported a bonkers lawsuit trying to reverse the result of the election–even though a number of them owe their own seats to that same election.
Meanwhile, Proud Boys (a White Supremacist gang) prowl the streets of Washington and were actually invited into the White House by a deranged and dangerous almost-ex President.
To say that this is all insane behavior is to belabor the obvious. Even Trump ally Chris Christie has called the Texas lawsuit “absurd.”
Prior to the Presidential campaign, former GOP strategists and conservatives–including Rick Wilson, George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen, Jennifer Horn, John Weaver, Ron Steslow, and Mike Madrid formed the Lincoln Project, “accountable to those who would violate their oaths to the Constitution and would put others before Americans.” Wilson, Conway and Schmidt have been particularly vocal in repudiating the Trumpism that has radicalized and infantilized what remains of the GOP. There have been other groups of disaffected Republicans, like Republican Voters Against Trump, and large numbers of former Republican officeholders ( especially DOJ lawyers and military personnel) who have issued letters and statements pointing out that various Trump actions and statements weren’t simply wrong, but in violation of American values and the rule of law.
Ex-Republicans, including conservative “names” like Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol, established the Bulwark, “a project of Defending Democracy Together Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization.” They are joined philosophically by media figures like Joe Scarborough, who was once a Republican Congressman.
These dissidents from Trumpism are largely drawn from what we might call the brains of the former GOP–strategists, political philosophers (and to be fair, a number of self-regarding blowhards. But still…)
Thoughtful people understand that America needs two responsible, adult political parties. That need is especially significant in a country that has only two major parties. When the political system works properly, both of those parties will be bigger “tents” than today’s GOP, but one will be generally more conservative and one generally more liberal.
People of good will who are focused on the common good will disagree about many things. They will bring different perspectives and life experiences to the nation’s problems. And in what should be an inevitable process of negotiation and compromise, broadly acceptable public policies will be hammered out.
That process is impossible when one party is a fundamentalist cult.
When one of only two political parties is dominated by people who believe that God is not only on their side, but has directed them not to negotiate, compromise or accept any reality other than their preferred one, government cannot function. And that is the alternative reality in which members of today’s GOP live.
As Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times,
The postmodern blood libel of QAnon will have adherents in Congress. Kyle Rittenhouse, a young man charged with killing Black Lives Matter protesters, is a right-wing folk hero. The Republican Party has become more hostile to democracy than ever. Both the Trump and Bush presidencies concluded with America a smoking ruin. Only Trump has ensured that nearly half the country doesn’t see it.
As Paul Krugman observed in that same issue, the GOP has become hostile to the very idea that there’s an objective reality that might conflict with its political goals.
There are certainly similarly ideological, intransigent people among the Democrats–but they don’t control it, and they do not come close to being a majority of that party’s base.
Today, what remains of the GOP is a seething, angry mob. Scholars can research the roots of this devolution; psychiatrists and political psychologists can investigate the personality quirks that predict attraction to whatever it is that being a Republican these days represents. But what is abundantly clear–not just to Democrats and Independents, but to anti-Trump Republicans–is that the current iteration of the Grand Old Party is incapable of participating in governance.
Tantrums are not policy positions.
In my opinion (not that anyone is likely to ask for my opinion), if the United States is to return to a semblance of sanity, or to any adult version of governance, the principled conservatives who have exited the GOP need to form a new center-right party, and leave the current Republican Party to the howling, racist remnants that currently dominate it.
I agree with your sentiments, but not your conclusions that a new party has to be formed. Only if we change statutes in regard to the “two major” political parties should anyone try to form a new party. In Indiana the “two major” political parties are written into statute. An effort to form a competitive party against them will require years of petitions – signatures on which always will be tossed as illegible, if for no other reason – as election boards, comprised of representatives from the “two major” political parties will vote in support of each other. Tea baggers jacked the GOP in 2005-2010. It has to be taken over again. That requires far less effort than formation of a new party. I mean hell, that’s why I joined the GOP, to try to get progressives to see that it has to be taken back to its progressive roots.
My concern is that if we divide the SANE vote among two SANE parties,
the remainder of the Republican crazy party could come out ahead.
Three parties COULD be a very bad thing.
If you think the Democratic Party where some of you former Republicans rest are “sane,” you’ve latched on to a sinking vessel as well.
Just saying…
I agree with mark small that a new party is not the answer to the problem; if 2 employees in a business were found to be misappropriating funds, would you shut down the business or get rid of the 2 employees. We should begin by ousting, by voting out or impeachment for sedition, the known Republican Congressional members who are supporting Trump’s insanity.
Much of the problem regarding Trump and HIS Republican minions can be based in the inundation of accusations of “FAKE NEWS”. A lie told often enough is too often believed as truth by those who don’t want to face the reality of near treason perpetrated by the current Trump administration. “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” fits here; but we must add cover up of many near treasonous activities by Trump himself and upheld by McConnell and HIS personal Senate body.
As Justice Hugo Black stated after the SCOTUS hearing on publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971; “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” Trump has restrained the press and accused them of “Fake News” continuously. We are now learning of what amounts to “Deep State” cyber crimes by the Russians which has been denied and ignored by Trump and his administration.
My long-time Russian friend quoted a Russian adage which can be applied to Trump’s continued presidential campaigning on three levels; “Do not stir shit with stick, it will cause stink.” Putin handed him that stick; who will take it away from him to end this stink he continues to stir?
I would like to see sanity restored to the Republican Party, and a Progressive wing emerge from the current crop of cacophonous crazies. I think it would be good to isolate the nutballs, let them rage on in their own bubble of denial and right-wing echo chambers until they turn on each other and eventually fade from relevance.
To Todd, your implication that the democrats aren’t sane is straight from the current GOP/fascist playbook. I don’t always like what the democrats do but they are the party that is both sane and that puts concerns about the citizens and a better, brighter, future into policy. I left the GOP in 2016, after being a registered republican for 40 + years, when NH repubs embarrassed the state and debased themselves by voting to nominate trump. I joined the democrats this year. The dems aren’t perfect but niether are the “socialist”, Communist” ( or a host of other words the right uses to describe them that the people on the right don’t know the meaning of but that sound scary, and yes, I do know the meaning of fascist and it certainly applies to the trumpist GOP) . As Krugman stated we need sane center right and center left parties for government to function properly. Right now we have only the center right and in reality that party, on a world wide scale, is slightly right of the political center.
Gosh, if the Republican party collapses, who will corporate/banking America bribe? Who in politics will do their bidding if there aren’t enough corrupt slugs to pay off?
The Republican party has rarely tried to govern. They have traditionally been about power and money. The power gives them control over money. The so-called small government/fiscal responsibility memes they’ve trotted out for so long are pure bullshit. The Republican party is merely a vessel for transporting taxpayer money – one way or another – to the rich.
So, Todd, how many Democrats can you name who fall into that category? Evidence, please.
I left the Republican party, the year that Mitt Romney, a man with little knowledge of the life of an ordinary Hoosier, became the presidential candidate.
But it wasn’t just Mitt that concerned me, but the attitudes of down ticket Republicans who often lived in their own world, oblivious to the concerns of an elementary educator and her small business husband.
I was particularly concerned about how today’s Republicans, who boasted about their pro-life niceties, offered any thing different from Democrats when it came to the lives of actual living people.
Imagine my shock at seeing our Hoosier legislators voting to take money from taxpayers to fund private and charter schools, schools who are not readily accessible for our most needy children.
Additionally, I was amazed to see US Congressional reps, many of whom I had voted for in previous years, refuse to make it a priority to develop an affordable Healthcare to replace the one available to those less fortunate families in my district.
You see my dilemma?
Raised in the Catholic church, by a conservative mom, I was taught how all lives were precious to God, not just the unborn.
Even more confusing to this former card carrying R, was how my party of pro-life candidates turned their collective backs on the precious children in cages at the border. Whether that debacle happened under a Democrat or Republican, it would have been an opportunity for my pro-life party to have stepped up- and they didn’t.
They spouted Bible verses and ‘laws’ over the babies they claimed to protect.
Sadly, the people I supported all those years ago have also turned into cowards, fearful of a tweety White House occupant and his millions of maga voters.
While all politicians can be guilty of disingenuous behavior, it was important to me not to support the ones who blatantly pretend they aren’t participating in it.
As my mom would say, make good choices because those choices speak volumes about you.
The Republican Party has come to the inevitable conclusion of their 50 years of policies and practices that pampered the rich, while demanding that those with no shoes pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They have selected bogeymen to stir up angst among their mostly white base to ensure their own election (the blacks, the gays, Muslim terrorists, immigrants).
Then along came the orange menace and suddenly all of these “thinkers” are having doubts? Will they disavow trickle down economics? Will they disavow White Evangelicals? Will they disavow the use of fear to win elections? Will they admit that the 2nd Amendment has two phrases and the first gives rationale for and limit to the second? In short, will they admit their policies don’t work? Just how center will they be as opposed to just how right?
Thanks for your blog today Sheila, it brings up the issues that caused me to start CommonGoodGoverning. The two parties are here to stay; check the success of 3rd parties in the last many years. In our current politics, all such parties do is to allow the crazies to get in – check the impact of the 3rd party vote on the 2016 election.
So, what to do? The idealized concept of a party is not the problem. What is wrong with like-minded folks with a set of political principles for public service having a structure? The problem is that, for the most part, such structures attract people who want to use that structure for their (and their “handlers”) power, influence and fortune.
What if the party attracted those who want to put country ahead of party, ideology and personal (or supporters) gain? This is the premise of CommonGoodGoverning and groups that its House members belong to: Problem Solvers Caucus, New Democrats.
It ain’t the parties – its the people in them and running on their banners.
Peggy,
Great points and questions. Let’s hope we’ve gotten to an inflection point sufficient to educate so-called conservatives, that being “conservative” really means conserving the spirit of the founders to actually live up to their ideals. That is irrespective of those who whine about those guys being all rich, white men back in the 18th century. They were the only patriots available at the time…and they knew how to read and write.
The flip side of honor is represented by the toady, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He must be the poster boy for incompetence, corruption and seditious behavior. He’s a Republican, of course. Maybe Wisconsonians will wake up and vote him out in 2022.
Beth Kallimeni, you are so spot on. I was raised in a Catholic home, Catholic schools, and one parent Republican, one parent Democratic. The Republican party from those days of my parent are long gone. Both parents always taught us to think about and care for other people. Dad was a factory worker, Mom was an office worker, distinctly middle class. Two kids who were able to go to college. We learned to accept everyone’s differences with respect. That word, respect, is what I think is long gone with most of what we see coming from Washington Republicans. It really needs to change.
If there is a true genuine center left, the pendulum swings only as far as center right. As human holobionts of social economic political truisms, the more energy to push to one side of the pendulum gives energy to the opposite. McConnel’s “don’t feed the beast” admonition yesterday is a remarkable version of Putin’s stick analogy to avoid unnecessary stink. If we open our eyes and ears for a reset button, are we in fact witnessing a significant shift to moderation in the pendulum’s swing?
Vernon,
On fire today I see, lol!
Bravo ?
Not much I can add to your comments so I suppose I won’t bother as you’ve covered what I would have said anyway.
Lester,
I think everyone should investigate your project, it’s a worthwhile project along with some of the others concerning local news broadcasting and enhancement.
JoAnn,
My ex brother-in-law Eric is russian, his parents came here and were absolutely members of the Russian mob that whole group were the craziest individuals I’ve ever met in my entire life! I will have to say, they did expect loyalty, and they do stick together! Comparing them to my Italian bloodline family, they out crazy’d them 100 to 1, lol!
And last but not least, Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s ex campaign manager I believe, this guy is a rockstar! His knowledge and intellect must be off the charts. If Biden were smart, he’d try to find a spot for him somewhere that he would accept!
John,
The sequel to “Meadows and Minefields”, “A Hero’s Journey” got sent to the printer today. Stay tuned.
The fact is with all the lies, corruption, brutality and gross incompetence – The Trump-Pastor Pence team received 11.3 million more votes in 2020 than they received in 2016.
The Blue Wave that was expected in some quarters in 2020 after the 2018 election never materialized in fact the Democrats lost seats in the House.
Why would the GOP change from Trumpism?? Here in Indiana Woody Myers received 267,000 less votes running for governor in 2020 than John Gregg received running for governor in 2016. Democratic state wide candidates were crushed in 2020.
The GOP was happy as long as Trumpism could get out the vote. The GOP has grabbed a wolf by the ears and dare not let go (Trump being the Wolf).
The GOP never Trumper’s are an insignificant force. Who would be their hero – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio??
From The Guardian:
Cardinal George Pell has praised Donald Trump’s “splendid” supreme court appointments, but questioned his effort to sow doubt in the integrity of the US presidential election.
Pell muses on his court case and current events in the Catholic church and around the world, and at one point says Trump is unfortunately “a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways, he is our [Christian] barbarian”.
During the virtual press conference, Pell said Christians had an obligation to bring their values to the public sphere and said Trump had made a “positive contribution” particularly with his three supreme court picks, two of whom are Catholic.
====================
He is our “barbarian” says it all.
I agree with Sheila’s characterization of the Never Trump crowd. A ton of intellectual firepower, and a few blowhards. But overall, very small in numbers. The Trump Republicans are large in numbers but have virtually no intellectuals behind it. The people who have the brains and know better, have decided to sell out. To them it’s all about opportunism, not ideas.
I often struggle to figure out what Mark Small is saying, but I suppose he is saying that there are provisions in the law which make it hard to challenge the two major parties. Hard, but not impossible. The key obstacle is ballot access. Third parties need to get – I believe – at least 5% in the Secretary of State’s race to have automatic ballot positioning. But there are also races where wannabe candidates have to get signatures, regardless of battle access, races like U.S. Senate, President, Governor. And the two major parties work together on petition signature requirements to make certain that enough voter signatures are thrown out so third party or independent candidates (or non-endorsed major party candidates) can’t get on the ballot. Marion County Board of Voter Registration is particularly notoriously bad about that. I’ve seen disfavored candidates show up with 4 times the signatures necessary only to see enough thrown out so they don’t qualify for the ballot.
The trouble with Trumpism remaining the dominant force in the GOP is that Trumpism is based on nothing but a personality cult. There is no political philosophy associated with Trumpism. It is not about ideas. It’s about personality worship. If the personality is gone, then the cult won’t continue. But I’m skeptical the party can snap back. It is at its core so damaged.
Major parties dying out to be replaced by another one is the norm in American politics. That it has not happened recently doesn’t mean that still can’t happen.
Across the planet and at the most fundamental level, discussions around “party” have focused on how the wealth of a nation should be distributed. Today’s Democrats continue to take the European view that all the citizens of a nation should share that wealth as equitably as possible. Republicans traditionally held that wealth should be distributed strictly on Darwinian principles – it belongs to those who can grab it most forcefully. A strange view, but nonetheless the basis of their argument since the founding of their party.
Today, Democrats stick to their long running view (does that make them conservatives?), while many Republicans have abandoned their wealth distribution argument in lieu of a new philosophy that holds that parties (or at least their party) exist to arrogate power unto themselves (note that this does not in any important way conflict with their former view). So now the definitional diversity on what a party is renders meaningless any discussion about what a party should do. Further, it leaves no room for compromise and results in the feckless kind of Congress we’ve had since 2010.
By abandoning their values and beliefs and all they once held sacrosanct, Republicans have created the need for a new reality to accommodate their new belief system. Their owner and intellectual leader, Donald Trump, has shown them the way by using massive numbers of lies to construct that new reality. He has been effective because he, perhaps alone, realized that there were tens of millions of would-be cult members anxious to share in a new vision of how the world works. He exercised the art of the deal to endow them with the officially approved racism they have longed for since the nation’s founding. In return, he demanded and got worshipfulness and unlimited approval for his ultimate power grab from little people and party leaders alike. That clearly marks them as anti-democratic, but they have shown no remorse.
As to whether to work from within or from outside the Republican party to build a sane alternative to the Democrats’ view, the question is probably moot. Unless one believes that the current GOP insanity is of the temporary variety and therefore curable, there is no discussion to be had because the fundamental assumptions of the two groups are so disparate. McConnell carries the banner for the racists, as he announced to Obama, and all of us, in 2009.
Let’s use the Lincoln Project as the cornerstone of a new party we are bound to disagree with, but which will likely not drool at the mouth and howl at the moon as a form of argumentation.
Scholars certainly will “research the roots of this devolution” but I’m more than willing to take a stab at it right here and now:
I contend that it began with Nixon’s Southern Strategy and was more than enthusiastically followed up with the Red State Strategy by which Republican candidates began choosing their voters rather than the other way round.
Those two plans worked in tandem to make the party virtually invincible in a majority of states. After that, all they had to do was keep lurching to the right to keep their most extreme base happily marching determinedly to the polls.
So give them abortion and guns and, other than that, they can safely be ignored while the “leaders” go about the business of making certain that their big donors get ever increasing percentages of any pie being doled out.
Now the brains of the party are hunting for a new home.
The brains.
The people who gave us W. Bush and tried to foist Sarah Palin off on us. The ones who would have happily backed Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Chris Christie had one of them prevailed in 2016.
The brains.
Are they going to go to the bother of creating a new center right party? Seriously? I contend that they will do no such thing — not when there’s a perfectly good party complete with full hierarchy, the baked -in ability to get themselves on the ballots with a minimum of fuss, the vote-getting apparatus, donors, etc. sitting right under their noses. A party which, btw, has been acquiescently moving rightward as the Republican Party has left if’s left flank unguarded. So it won’t be that much of a stretch to let the Nicole Wallace’s [W.] and the Steve Schmidt’s [Palin] take over.
And where does that leave the rest of us? Out in the cold with the fringe leftists — and no party to call our own.
A country made up of only the conservative party [complete with the two strategies they’ve been honing since the 1970’s] and the conservative cult party is not country I want to live in.
One of the things that we humans love to do is to classify and separate reality in order to have pieces of a size for people to specialize in learning and studying and applying that knowledge. That’s a good thing if we also keep in mind that they are our arbitrary divisions, not realities of which there is exactly one. Everything is connected and integrated.
I say that here because this discussion is focused on a political problem and solutions but really needs to be considered in a much bigger context including our (7 – 11B of us) culture (learned from observing as a child how others we deem to be like us behave in different situations) as a product of our times (unsustainable resource to waste production and consumption) and how they are a’changing (much faster than ever before). What we need to do is to continue to adapt to a changing reality.
Republican culture, being authoritarian/conservative by nature and attractive to people of that type, is completely unable and unwilling to adapt to what’s unique about these times. They no longer are useful to society in these times and they don’t like that at all. They blame the reality of these times on liberal/progressives who don’t cause the times but happen to be more aligned with them. The sad truth that they face is that as new generations grow up they will notice people like them behaving more appropriately for the changing times and adapt themselves.
Our problem is that we collectively change our reality much faster than culture can adapt. The process has been and will be chaotic. Will it ever stabilize? I don’t claim to know that.
Vernon,
Awesome!
Much wisdom above.
I’m for firing the seditious, cultist, boobs, and trying to reclaim a party that values Democracy and inclusion. I’m for getting big money out of politics, if possible, while kicking the Hooverites out on their collective behinds.
I do not have much faith in the viability of a third party, and we MUST get the Fairness Doctrine reestablished.
Sheila,
Thank you. Why do we need to stay in the “old two party” political system. Opinions and political stances are more diverse today then are able to be continued within two parties. This idea can be so limiting.
I was denied access to volunteering at the Marion County vote counting due to the fact that I would not declare and go thru one of the two accepted party systems. This is not only denying my freedom of choice, it also is denying extra hands to do a necessary job. Such a limitation in our increasingly complex world.
Other countries, many with political systems which seem to work as well as (perhaps better than) ours have coalition policy making bodies. Why not US/us?
Well we do have three parties. We have the Republican party that has yet to but may appropriately change its name to The New American Fascist Farty, the Democrats, and the Lincoln party. I agree with Patmcc. If the Lincoln project really does become a party, it could only be a good thing if there were a mass exodus of Republicans from the fascist party to the new Republican Party aka the Lincoln Party.
I have been predicting the demise of the Republican Party for years, suggesting that it is headed back to the oblivion of the Whig Party from which it arose in 1854 (some say 1856 depending on when one dates the rupture). My prediction was based on that party’s policy positions and its predilection to favor the rich over the rest of us, and to date it hasn’t happened, though with the gathering revolution going on within that party these days and with population dynamics I think we are finally going to see that party join its predecessor in history.
So now the question is what will its successor (if any) look like. Those who would form a new party on the remnants of the old have not only a problem in whether and how much to add Trumpian elements to the older Republican view of things; they also have a problem in coming up with views not already owned in whole or in part by a Big Tent Democratic Party. Such a new party (if their warring elements can come up with one) will clearly have to abandon their racism and favoritism toward the rich (or at least cover them up better) if they are to have any chance for electoral success, especially with a younger set who are coming of age and are more liberal than ever and unafraid of such words as “socialism” and other such cards Republicans formerly used as a last ditch call to arms. (See Kelly in Georgia.) That party will have to adopt a platform and take substantive stands on real issues, which will be difficult given their internal wars, and as a result of this and other dynamics, I foresee Democratic electoral success for perhaps twenty years down the road (as in the FDR-Truman era).
Starting any new political party that has a chance at electoral success is hard, especially when composed on the ruins of the deposed party, but strange as it may seem to readers of this note, I do hope we maintain a two-party system, since (to be honest) we have had a bi-partisan history of failure in providing good government to the people we claim to represent. We will do a better job with competition.
John; my Russian friend, Anya, was approximately three years old when her father, who was an officer in the Russian military, was arrested as a political prisoner. His wife, Anya and her grandfather were also imprisoned until the Germans invaded Russia and hauled all political prisoners and their families in boxcars to concentration camps. They lived there until she was 7 years old; vividly remembering the trips to the showers never knowing if they would be showered or gassed. At age 7 the war ended and her family was moved to a Displaced Persons camp in Austria; at age 13 the family came to the United States where they became American citizens. Her father taught Advanced Russian Literature at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. He wrote a published a book about a well known military academy in Russia and often went on speaking tours; his wife was qualified and licensed to take over his teaching duties during those times. Anya became an addictions counselor in Indianapolis for several years then moved to Bloomington with her children to continue her career aid her elderly parents.
The only craziness I witnessed from her was during a lively argument between counselors at the methadone clinic when someone laughingly said that Russians argued about everything. She pulled off her shoe, pounded it on her desk and yelled “That’s a lie.” which ended the discussion as we all laughed. I doubt there is anyone on this blog who is too young to know who she was mimicking.
JoAnn …. you are right. In 1968, I was a YMCA World Service Worker assigned to the YMCA of Ethiopia. I was empowered by Ethiopian leadership to initiate a few new ideas.
My proposal to engage high school student leaders in a Model U.N. was approved by members of His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet on the condition the issue chosen for debate was one previously concluded by the U.N. Security Council for which Ethiopia voted in favor.
We chose the ‘Congo Crisis’ , a very toothy African dilemma that Ethiopia favored. The event was approved to take place at the iconic Africa Hall at the center of the city of Addis Ababa.
The elite team from St. Joseph H.S. chose to represent the Soviet Union. The delegation arrived in smart suits with red ties and socks. They were the sons of ministers of high office including the Ministry of Defense. They had protexia to get away with it and their entrance to take their seats was met with sounds of gasps from the crowd of high school students seated in the Assembly Hall from all high schools in the capitol city.
This event took place amidst student rebellion among college students around the nation (1968).
Yes. This was the debate that Khruschev removed a shoe during his testimony to argue his point. Most uncharacteristic for predicted polished behavior of an Ethiopian diplomat in a public setting, as the script of the record approved by His Majesty’s Cabinet dictated, the St Joseph’s delegate removed his shoe to channel Khruschev’s famous moment to the applause and laughter of the assembly. I was not admonished or fired. The stern faced retired Ethiopian general who managed Africa Hall was not entirely happy to witness such behavior inside the ornate Africa Hall, everyone else was estatic with the event’s outcome.
The student rioting around the nation continued with many fatalities. Six months following the Model U.N. event, Abdul Mohammed, the student leader from St. Joseph who was elected Genetal Secretary of the Model U.N., led a group of students into the central YMCA compound as I was leaving for the post office. Abdul summoned me with an edict signed by the Emperor naming the YMCA neutral ground for students to meet from around the nation to discuss their grievances and propose a resolution to members of His Imperial Majesty’s Cabinet.
Longer story shorter, students converged on the YMCA to standing room only to openly debate grievances without fear of arrest from the CID. Negotiated resolutions were concluded and a small delegation met with the Emperor led by Abdul Mohammed. With further negotiation, an agreement was reached and the nation wide student rebellion was ended and student prisoners released without further harm.
The shoe and the red socks should have been enshrined.
So the question is, do the former Republicans do to the Republican Party what the Republicans did to the Whigs, as Sheila suggests, or to they pull a “tea party” and take over the GOP and restore it to a state of sanity as Mark suggests. I don’t know which will work better. I know that we need two sane parties, but being left of center left, I think I will leave the ex-Republicans to determine their future.
twocrows – excellent delineation of how the Republicans got to where they are. They made deals with the devil to keep winning and now the devil wants his due (control of the GOP) – that is metaphorical – I would only compare Trump to the devil if I wanted to stoke his ego.
Barb – back in the day, when I studied political science, I took a comparative political systems class. It was clear that only in countries (like the UK and the US) where two parties could compete and take turns in ruling would the countries thrive. Multi-party countries suffered from gridlock. Think of the third party as a big Moscow Mitch, standing in the way of anything getting done unless they get some outrageous wish that is bad for everybody but themselves.
Terry – taking over a party doesn’t take a mass of soldiers in a military conflict – many years ago, a man took me under his wing and explained how it was done – he was right – it mostly takes patience and perseverance – you keep showing up and slowly as the others get bored in the dull times (non-election years), you are the last people standing – in control.
Monotonous – there was a Blue Wave – it was real – it led to some gains and some holds of vulnerable seats – the Michigan Supreme Court was flipped to the Democrats – there are other small victories – what we didn’t expect was a smaller, but still large Red Wave – possibly people who hadn’t voted in the past, but watched Fox news, or listened to Rush – the Red Wave saved many Republican incumbents and helped retake some seats in districts that perhaps may have always been “red”.
A thought provoking column today, Sheila – thank you.
The paradigm has swung so far to the right that the current Democratic Party is now the conservative center right. We need to get to back to the FDR and LBJ progressive left wing of our party. AOC, Tlaib, Ilhan and Pressley……..The Squad, are the true progressives of our party and we need more just like them!!!