The GOP: Then and Now

 

Please, someone kindly explain to me how we went from there:

 

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

 

To here:

 

Fair scare and starving yours again, our feather-brained farce upon incontinence, a neo notion, deceived in Librium, and desecrated to the prostitution that all mein were cremated awful.

 

What a long, strange trip it's been.

 

From Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump. Would someone please explain to me how this happened? When one takes into consideration what that party stood for at its founding in 1854, how could it self-destruct this completely? What strange historical fluke could conjure a scenario where a political party, founded as it was on the noble idea that human beings should not be subjugated to slavery, destroy itself over the sight of its nation's first African American chief-executive? It's impossible to believe it one-hundred and sixty-two years later, but the Republican party once stood for something honorable and beautiful.

 

What the hell happened?

 

"Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me further remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 

Barry Goldwater

Republican Convention, 1964

 

Extremism in the defense of Librium
`

I suppose the genesis of the present Tea Party craziness can be traced to Goldwater's acceptance speech at that long-ago convention in the summer of 1964 - which I clearly remember watching on TV with my dad. In the month before I turned six, I was not the incurable political junkie that I am today. The only thing I really knew about the American political situation in that moment was that our handsome and young president had been shot and killed sitting next to his wife the year before. I only happened to watch that speech as it was taking place because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was at that convention that the mob of true believers turned on the broadcast news media with such vehemence, for a few minutes NBC's Chet Huntley and David Brinkley feared for their lives. It was that kind of year.

The rancid legacy of the summer of 1964 is that, within less than a decade, most of the racist Dixiecrats who had controlled the Democratic party since before the Civil War would flee, like frightened mice, into the loving arms of the GOP. The "solid south" has been solidly Republican ever since.

I don't remember a thing about Lyndon Johnson's convention in Atlantic City the following month. That would have been the one to watch, particularly Bobby Kennedy's moving tribute to his slain brother that was preceded by an ovation that lasted nearly half an hour. It was such  an emotionally powerful moment, the news media barely took note of the sudden death that same evening of legendary comedienne, Gracie Allen (She had been watching the speech at home with her husband, George Burns, when she was stricken with a fatal heart attack).

In 1964, American conservatism found itself at a perilous crossroad. This was Goldwater's second attempt at the White House. He had gone for the GOP nomination four years earlier and gotten stomped badly by vice-President Richard Nixon. You see, in 1960, the American people weren't quite ready to swallow the right wing's poisoned tonic. By that time in history, the middle class in this country was thriving - and they wanted to continue to thrive. They were not-at-all sold on an ideology that only benefitted the super wealthy and corporations. No, the conservative movement in 1964 was stuck in he mud; it needed a little something more to capture the hearts and minds of the people. A month before the Republican convention, President Johnson signed into being the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A voting rights act was sure to follow. It was at that moment that a huge light bulb went off over the movement's head: Fear! They concocted an issue that had worked beautifully for Southern Democrats for well-over a century:

EQUAL RIGHTS FER NIGGERS??? NEXT THING YA KNOW, THEY'LL BE LUSTIN' AFTER OUR PRECIOUS, LILY-WHITE DAUGHTERS!!! NEVER, I TELLS YA!!! QUICK, ESTHER, HAND ME MAH SMELLIN' SALTS!

They couched their argument behind the mantra of "states' rights". It didn't work out too well for them. Although they managed to easily carry the old confederacy, the rest of the country, still stunned by the assassination of JFK, believed that a vote against Johnson would be a vote against their martyred president. It was the second largest landslide in American history up to that time.

In appealing to the racists and crazies in 1964, the Republicans were sowing the seeds of their own demise a half century later.

The Trickster
`

Four years later, the Nixon Gang were a tad more subtle. Instead of overtly appealing to the racism that was, sadly, inherent in too many Americans (then as now), Nixon's slogan was "law and order". In the wake of the murder of Martin Luther King in April of that year, American cities (almost exclusively in the North) exploded in violence. White America had been shocked to their core at the sight of hundreds-of-thousands of "angry negroes" taking it to the streets. In 1968 the American electorate took the bait and swallowed it whole. Most of them eagerly signed on with Nixon over the more-liberal Hubert Humphrey. It was an electoral choice the country would bitterly regret within six years - but that's another story for another day, boys and girls.

It was in the aftermath of the Nixon administration's implosion, the Republican Party being in such terrible moral and financial shape, that an obscure peanut farmer and former governor from Georgia was able to win the White House. Jimmy Carter found himself at the wrong historical place at the wrong historical time. Events not of his own making would soon overwhelm him. That made it easy for Ronald Reagan to seize the executive mansion in 1980.

For hopeless lefties such as I, it was mourning in America; although I didn't realize it until early the following day. You see, I voted for Reagan that year - much to my eternal shame and regret. My only defense is that I got pretty intoxicated on election night 1980. I learned a hard lesson that year: Don't drink and vote. I was stone-cold sober four years later. I've been so every Election Day since. I can just see myself getting hammered enough this November 8, and voting for the Donald just for laughs. No thank you. 

Cowboy

During the campaigns of 1980 and 1984, in addition to the subtle racism that had worked so well for them in the past, the Grand Old Party's new gimmick to campaign on was "moral values" (or "family values"). The Republicans, it would seem, had cornered the market on all that was good and pure in this grand and glorious land of ours - and a lot of Americans were silly enough to buy into the entire scam. With Reagan came the rise of the so-called "Religious Right". It's been steadily downhill ever since - into to sewer, in fact. The age of Trickle-Down, Supply-Side economics that the Gipper brought into being has only seen the decimation of a middle class that was, at one far-away time, the backbone of this doomed country. And still, most Americans revere the hideous old bastard. Go figure.

During the years of the "Reagan Revolution", it was my belief that Ronnie was as low as that party would ever sink. Forgive my naiveté, but whom among us - in their weirdest and darkest dreams - could have possibly foreseen the utter catastrophe of an administration headed by a moron named George W. Bush? "That's it", I remember saying out loud on the day Dubya was elected, "That's it, they've reached rock-bottom!" I've been forced  to eat those words yet again. Look where we've found ourselves sixteen years later. Bush is starting to look like the epitome of moderation by comparison. Pretty strange, huh? It kinda makes you wonder what they're gonna puke up in 2020.

There are voices from within the GOP, pleading for reform - but it's too late for that. "Reform" is something that should have been implemented fifty years ago. If the RNC apparatus succeeds in nominating a more centrist candidate four years from now, the crazies will form a third party, splitting the conservative vote for generations. They have been consumed by the weirder angels of their nature. That elephant has thoroughly imploded. Again, the question is screaming to be posed:

How did we get from there....to here?

I cannot assure you with any degree of certainty that Donald Trump will be the last Republican nominee; That disgusting party's death throes are almost guaranteed to be a long, drawn-out and amusing thing to behold. What I can say beyond very little doubt (and what I predicted in the very first piece I wrote on this site a decade ago) is that George W. Bush will be remembered, not only as the most corrupt and incompetent chief-executive in the annals of human mediocrity, but as the last Republican president. I don't believe there will ever be another one. The grand old party is over.

On January 20 of next year, for the first time since 1857, one Democratic administration will follow another Democratic administration into the White House on Inauguration Day. I'm bitterly disappointed that Hillary Clinton is their nominee in 2016, but at least I'm comforted in the knowledge that America will survive her....I think.

A long, strange trip indeed!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party
by Heather Cox Richardson

No, this book was not written by some snarky, left-wing blogger, drunk on wine obtained from the  schadenfreude vineyards, dancing gleefully over the GOP's funeral pyre (like myself, you may argue). This is a  thoughtful and thorough, scholarly study written by a gifted and qualified historian.   If you need to be reminded that that disgusting party once stood for something noble and proud, this book will do all the reminding you need. Here's a link to order it off of amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Make-Men-Free-History-Republican/dp/0465024319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471170615&sr=1-1&keywords=to+make+men+free+a+history+of+the+republican+party

A great read! Heather Cox Richardson is a first-rate historian.