The Republican Party of 2014, is there HOPE?

Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. Late in the day, on Wednesday of this week, I wrote an answer to a post of a very good friend on Facebook. Looking back, on this post, I realized that… either due to pain, or overwhelming need of sleep, I had managed to write a synopsis of a problem that has plagued our great Republic for more than a decade. Many times, over the past decade, I have tired and worked tirelessly to put to voice the root of this plague.

.

Either by chance or due to mental awareness unimpeded by restraint, I finally managed to put to voice something I had struggled with before. Below… I am sharing that posting. I do this… because not all of you, My Dear Readers, have me as a friend on Facebook and you might otherwise never see this synopsis of the plague of our great Republic.

.

Read and be informed. Read at your own risk;

.

The great divide, within the Republican party, will be huge fodder for; authors, historians, and writers of all stripes for generations. Let me explain their dynamic, in small words. Billionaires, with political axes to grind, took over the Republican party at the turn of the century. Talking heads, hired and supported by some of said billionaires, flooded airwaves with divisive hyperbolic rhetoric (focus group tested and created). The ‘Radical Right’ started running over moderates alienating any but the ‘converted’. With tens of millions of dollars invested in; redistricting scams, voter suppression and the creation of the ‘Tea Party’. (Yes, there is now proof the tea party was not created by grassroots movements as previously claimed), the Radical Right forced an extremist agenda on a once reasonable and ‘Grand’ party. With the help of the internet, Americans (mostly absent from politics for their entire lives) were drafted and given a ‘voice’. They went to web sites and printed out their ‘talking points’, flooding town meetings in ever state. Within a decade the Republican party was split in twain, when Steele was replaced with Rance Prebius the extreme became the center and American politics saw a huge shift right… In the process the center was lost. Considered debate lost to one-side hyperbolic rhetoric. Compromise became a four lettered word, lines were drawn… in blood. Most non-partisan political watchers… bloggers… writers agree. America is more divided than any time since the Civil Rights movement… or the Civil War. America has lost its ability to reach a consensus. Lost the Unity that was so instrumental to our greatness. The ‘War on Poverty’ and compassion were replaced with overt greed, avarice, and a ‘War ON the Poor’. Since the 20008 recovery 98% of all wealth generated has gone to the top 1-5%. The Middle Class has been more than decimated (to decimate is to reduce by 1/10, and often misused in media). I am one of few Americans with the courage to speak up about the horrible harm… done to our great Republic. WE are ALL guilty…. We LET this happen to the greatest Democracy in human history, handed down to US by the ‘Greatest Generation’. One day… Americans WILL weep at what was lost and what we left them. 2014 Will look and sound like all the past elections. And I will cry.

.

Two points, in this posting, are salient points. First, we cannot, sitting in time where we do today, know how authors and historians will judge today’s political environment.However, if you can take a step away from ourselves, our own political beliefs and agendas, we might catch a glimpse of what will be written… in time. We must learn from the political mistakes of the past (at least) several years.

.

For the very first time in the history of our nation our Congress is gripped with intransigence. I have looked at the records, I have scoured the numbers. The last three sessions of Congress our House of Representatives has been ‘the least productive in history’! There have been years, during the Civil War and during World War Two, there were single years where, either due to the lack of members or sue to too many Representatives serving their country, a single year saw fewer bills passed into law.

.

However, NEVER BEFORE in the history of this great Republic has a Congress, specifically the House of Representatives been so gripped by political ideology that intransigence was so pervasive. Resulting in several sessions in a row being ‘the Least Productive in History’ through no fault of war, or civil unrest. This cannot stand, least America’s democracy fails. Congressmen, elected to serve in the House of Representatives are elected as LAWMAKERS.

.

When these duly elected Representatives fail to be lawmakers and, through the pursuit of political purity, choose instead to be seen as “law repealers” (Spoken by Speaker of the House John Boehner – Face the Nation 2014) we, all Americans, are forced into a crossroads. Shall we allow elected Congressional Representatives to violate the Constitution and their ‘Oath Of Office’ and merely draw a check, and do no work?

.

How, then, will history judge us? Not only will history, time, judge these intransigent and lawless Congressional representatives harshly, will they not truthfully judge us, too, as complacent with their lawlessness? This does not bode well for the continuation of our Constitutional Democracy. If duly elected Congressional Representatives are allowed intransigence by voters, how can our democracy function? Will this not set a precedent, where when ever a group of lawmakers collectively decide to hold the lower House in the grip of political ideology resulting in a democracy plagued by intransigence, will it not fail?

.

We, as a nation, cannot go without the rule of law. Nor can we go for any prescribed period of time without the writing of law, and rewriting of law whose time has passed? Aye, there’s the rub! For even if you are of the mistaken ideal that ‘there are too many laws’ how, then, can you reconcile your inaction with the tides of change the tirelessly flow through our society? Laws expire as the need for them wanes. How, then, can we undo, rewrite or prescribe new, when laws come to a point where their existence does more harm to a society, than good… If there not sufficient lawmakers willing to work to; rewrite, undo, repeal or prescribe new?

.

You see, My Dear Readers, there is where there sophomoric ‘reasoning’ fails horribly, and our great Republic right behind. This is why I bring to bear great arms against this wooly logic proffered by the political ideologists. They may grouse at my methods, they may taunt and insult me (personally) for my “attacks” but it is THEY that are the root of the plague. Why not should I attack, like an antibiotic or an antiviral, the very disease that plagues our great Republic?

.

I leave you with this, I fight against intransigence because I have the foresight to see that it is an attack on our very democracy! I will not stand idly by and allow my nation’s democracy, and the Republic, be attacked without defending with all my will and powers. To all those that would attack America with intransigence and political purity? I give you fair warning; I will take no prisoners I will show no mercy… no quarter! Be yea fair warned.

.

Addendum: Since I first penned this article, I have been catching up on my reading. Seems that the Tea Party is perched to “leave the GOP” as soon as the 2014 elections (just six months away). In state after state, moderate GOP candidates are drawing sistinct lines between themselves and the “radical policies” of their (used to be) Tea Party brethren. In Kentucky sitting Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (minority leader in the Senate) has brought his huge ‘War Chest’ to bear against is Tea Party primary contender. Matching his rhetoric with his actions Senator McConnell has issued a threat to all those Tea Partiers that would ‘primary’ mainstream GOP candidatures. Saying:

.

“The goal is to deny them any Senate primary victories, cut into their fund-raising and diminish them as a future force in Republican politics. “I think we are going to crush them everywhere,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said in an interview, referring to the network of activist organizations working against him and two Republican incumbents in Kansas and Mississippi while engaging in a handful of other contests. “I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.”[1]

.

It is my (informed) opinion that IF (and that is a BIG ‘IF’) the GOP/Republican mainstream can surgically remove the Tea Party Cancer? It would be the single greatest achievement by Republicans (Mainstream Republicans and Moderate Republicans) in the past decade! Quite honestly the Tea Party is the reason that Republicans have yet to gain a majority in the Elder Congressional body, in contrast to holding the majority in the Lower House for three elections.

.

Further, IF the BOP can be successful in quashing all Tea Party primary entries, and replace Reince Priebus with… say, Michael Steel? That would signal the single greatest stabilization of the party, and a rebirth of the Grand Old Party. It is no secret that the Tea Party (lead and created by billionaires like the Koch brothers and other billionaire political amateurs) has cost the Republican party; TWO Presidential elections, the Majority in the Senate and THREE terms of the “Least Productive Congress in History”.

.

If the Tea Party were a single player, say, on a baseball team? They would have been cut from the team some time ago. Like this nutcase in Nevada, what’s his name… Cliven Bundy? You know, the nutcase that (until two days ago) Sean Hannity (at Fox) had crowned as the poster child for state’s rights, and “like the Founding Fathers”? Well, now Sean Hannity is doing just about anything (short of actually admitting the mistake he made, out of political expedience) to distance himself from Cliven Bundy, post racist remarks against African Americans.

.

SEE, right there that is the problem with the Tea Party and those (politically uninformed, or political rhetoric parrots) that make up the vocal part of the Tea Party. From “I’m not a witch” to this week’s “African Americans were better off as slaves” the kind of people that are self-described Tea Party members are generally unelectable. That is a fact that has cost the mainstream of the Republican Party dearly! I genuinely hope that the core of the Republican Party, the moderates that guided the party prior to the ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ that was the ‘Tea Party Movement’, can remove the cancer. I hope that the Grand Old Party can be brought back to its former glory, take a stand in the ‘Center-Right’ of the political debate and begin again making compromises so that government can work!

.

So long as the extremists, the ideologues of the Tea Party that have thrown a monkey wrench into the inner workings of Washington, and labeled intransigence a “political victory” have the Republican Party by the short hairs our nation is at risk. For any democracy that simply cannot get the work of governance done, is a democracy headed for extinction. I have long said that “intransigence must be replaced with compromise” and that as long as “Republicans allow Freshmen Congressmen and Senators contorl the debate, is like letting the teenager in the house4 control the budget!” That quote, of mine, is from ‘Face the Nation’ and Bob Schieffer asked it of Senator Mitch McConnel, ironic that now he is trying to stop the Tea Party from winning any Republican primaries.

.

My Dear Readers, any thinking person can clearly come to the understanding that intransigence is no replacement for compromise, and that parroted hyperbolic rhetoric s no replacement for informed debate. PERIOD! I am just glad that someone finally took my advice and are ready to jettison the dead weight of the Tea Party. Kudos to Senator Mitch McConnel!

.

As always I am deeply honored that you come here and read my work.

.

Adieu!

.

Thank YOU!

.

The Other Shoe’s Daniel Hanning 2/2014

 

[1] http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2014/03/10/mcconnell-tea-party-candidates-will-get-crushed-everywhere-in-gop-primaries-n1806523