Much to the delight of destitute liberals that have amassed under the Bush administration for 8 long years, America is witnessing the ruination of the Republican Party.
In addition to and in part due to the failed dirty politics of Rove, moderate Republicans are beginning to defect from their party. Yesterday, Gordon Smith of Oregon became the fourth Republican senator to condemn the McCain robocalls insinuating Obama's link to terrorism. Widespread distaste for the recent neoconservative turn of the Republican Party is opening debate and conflict amongst the Republican ranks.
Although the base of the Republican party may be small town voters, the new found tendency toward small town politicians like Sarah Palin is wearing on the party elites. Conservative pundit George Will is voicing his distaste for the choice of an "unqualified" vice presidential candidate. Accomplished conservative writer David Brooks has articulated not only his disgust with the current Republican stance, but is also giving high praise to Obama on a consistent basis in his columns. And perhaps the most significant party defection came with Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press last Sunday. He pointed to the radically ultra-conservative turn the Republican Party has taken, Sarah Palin's lack of qualification and the divisive negative nature of McCain's campaign that "goes too far" as reasons for siding with Obama.
Such a mass crossing of party lines by traditional party loyalists is more significant than many seem to believe. This election has become about more than simply who will become the next President (as if that weren't enough). The nature of this election and the effects of the Republican campaign are beginning to do serious damage to the Republican Party itself. Not only does McCain seem likely to lose the upcoming election, but he looks to be alienating some of his Party's most iconic leaders. The continued choice of unqualified candidates (George W. Bush, Sarah Palin) that cater to the religious right and ignore traditional republican ideals-like balanced budgets and small government-is eating away at the Republican Party.
Recent defections due to increasingly dirty tactics open the possibility that the gun-toting, bible-thumping, gay-hating, racist population that the McCain camp has connected with so intimately this fall is all that will be left of the Republican Party come winter.
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2 comments:
As a liberal or perhaps social democrat, I don't take any pleasure seeing the Republican Party implode. The fact is, the American political system works best when there is balance because Americans are by and large a centrist thinking people. When the GOP consisted of traditional conservatives, people who could debate without vilifying their opponents, they served as a reasonable counter wight to Democrats. There are very few traditional conservatives and this is reflected in the rancorous nature of our political debate.
In a very real sense, the GOP hasn't so much been taken over by small town conservatives and they are not who so called elites like George Will rail against. Small town thinking such as exemplified by Sarah Palin simply doesn't represent traditional conservatism and that is the point that George Will tries to make; it's the point made by WIlliam F. Buckley before he died and more recently, by his son. It is also the point John Dean and Philip Gold try to make on behalf of Goldwater Republicans. Anyone who honestly believes that conservative ideology can reasonably support a ban on gay marriage, trashing separate of church and state, or supporting the suppression of the woman's right to chose doesn't understand American conservatism. Anyone who believes that conservative ideology supports unending international conflict without a declaration of war and or wars of aggression in the name of preemption as promoted by Neoconservatives fails to understand conservatism as envisioned by its founders. Even free market theory carried to extreme by modern Republicans AND Democrats fails to comprehend the true meaning of conservatism.
The GOP has been hijacked by social conservatives and neoconservatives, and, by radical free market libertarians. I for one am hopeful that the GOP implodes but I am also hopeful that traditional conservatives can reform as a new party. I would not be at all surprised to see the three conservative subsets split from each other after this next election because they will each be pointing the finger of blame at each other for the 2008 debacle. My guess is that the level of anger will be extreme.
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. In response I first want to say that I do take some pleasure in watching this implosion take place, but not because I am a maniacal liberal.
This country's political system is all about balance as you said, and I think the Republican Party has gone off course and will be reigned in by the traditional fiscal conservatives and centrists(Powell, Brooks, etc).
The GOP has been hijacked, and beginning with the 2006 interim elections and most consequentially in this election they are paying the price. The Republican party will not be destroyed by this, but their platform will be fundamentally altered if they are to have any hope of winning back the moderate conservatives that they lost by way of Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
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