Daddy's GOP

Yesterday I was searching the inter net for a long forgotten quote that went something like this: when honest people abandon politics and government the dishonest people rule. I am still a bit frustrated because I could not find what I thought was a famous quote. But a new topic sprang to mind when my search turned up this quotation of President Eisenhower:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” wikiquote

Oh sweet reason and light! I cannot say that both of my parents were Republicans but they sure liked Ike, and with good reason. As David Oshinsky wrote:

“Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal... Leadership, he explained, meant patienceand conciliation, not "hitting people over the head." – David M. Oshinsky, in A Conspiracy So Immense : The World of Joe McCarthy‎, (2005), p. 259

It is really tempting to compare what passes for leadership in the Republican Party today with the leadership provided by President Eisenhower, and to despair over how far into the paranoid – right wing – obyss that once great party has fallen.

Hark! I hear a huckster spouting campaign rhetoric that sounds like it was written by someone in the WWE, and he is the leading aspirant seeking to become the GOP's Presidential candidate. Also vying for the Republican nomination is candidate Huckabee who wants to discard Marbury v. Madison, two hundred years of judicial review, and the part of our constitution that provides for the separation of church and state. For those of you who prefer more traditional corporate lackeys we have candidate Jeb Bush. Jeb wants to re-institute the failed policies of his brother, George, who gave us at least one ill-advised war, crashed our economy, and ignored Eisenhower's warning by trying to destroy social security! But, as the pitchmen would say, wait! That's not all! There are sixteen people seeking the Republican nomination. And none of them have the courage to stand up to the mindless and vicious Republican reactionaries who now control congress. Those congressional reactionaries are constantly attacking unemployment insurance, labor laws, farm programs, the graduated income tax, and every other piece of progressive legislation passed during and since the Great Depression. They have gone so far as to threaten to make us default on our debts and have shut down the government in an effort to extort a repeal of the sort of progressive programs the people of this nation favor. Having failed in those efforts has not deterred them. They are threatening once more to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood, which is an organization so many people depend on for health care.

The problem with trying to compare Eisenhower Republicans with the Republicans of today is the dichotomy that existed in the Republican Party during the Eisenhower years. From 1952 to 1954 Senator McCarthy was so influential that even Eisenhower was afraid to oppose McCarthy's rein of terror. It was the Army - McCarthy hearings of 1954 that finally changed that! After the fall of McCarthy liking Ike and voting for Republicans became a reasonable thing to do. As I said in a March 4, 2009 post entitled “Obama v. The Dixiecans,” President Eisenhower saved the Republican Party by pulling it, kicking and screaming, to the political center. The problem is that this victory over the lunatic right was not complete. Like the Herpes Zoster virus that causes chicken pox and shingles, right wing paranoia and stupidity can never be purged from the body politic. And there are always Republican demagogues who are eager to stir up the fear and loathing that allows those right wing lunatics to re-emerge. This was true even during Eisenhower's time and in spite of his best efforts to arrest the influence of those demagogues!

Trying to rest control of the Republican Party from the lunatic right is not going to be an easy thing to do. The first thing it is going to take is for the American voters to wake up and kick the Republicans so hard they will be wearing their butt cheeks as ear muffs. Hopefully, it will not take another great depression to motivate the voters to deliver such a kick and to keep kicking during off year elections as well as during Presidential elections. If that happens the brighter Republicans will look for a leader who is capable of convincing the mentally challenged that the reason they cannot get anywhere is because they cannot walk with their butt cheeks hugging their ears and that the ass kicking causing that will not stop until they become reasonable.

I hope that happens soon. 2016 would be a good time to deliver the first kick. I am really looking forward to pointing a champagne cork at the unenlightened dullards as I celebrate a major Party's return to sanity! It would be so nice to have a functioning government that can get some meaningful legislation passed and reasonable agreements and treaties approved? Those are things we used to be able to take for granted!