The Divine Right of
Republicans
For
the past 30 years or so I have been really annoyed with the Republican
Party. I used to be one years ago. As a result, I received a survey from them
with about 100 questions on what I wanted to see happen in this country. At the time I was thrilled because I was
still pretty young and naïve about politics, and I thought they really wanted
to know. A couple of years later I read
that what they had done is compile all of the surveys returned (still the
snail-mail era), compiled the answers, and that was what Ronald Reagan used as
his talking points to win his election.
It was not what he believed, and as it turned out, what he believed had
nothing to do with the talking points of his campaign! I really felt betrayed. At about the same time I thought I would
attend the meetings of the local Republican Assembly (what they called their
local organizations), but was told I couldn’t unless I paid my dues ahead of
time. I felt that was, as they used to
say, buying a pig in a poke. That is,
putting down your money for something you hadn’t had a chance to look at. By this time Reagan had been in office long
enough for me to realize that we had been taken, even without the article about
the survey. Further, his first appointee
for Veteran’s Affairs was a local man who lasted only six months and was forced
to resign because he was using government funding for a limousine, redecorating
his offices in a very expensive manner, etc.
He came home to a standing ovation!
It was this that made me realize that a good many of the people in
Washington had close ties to people in our rather rural county, and if they
were running Washington the way they were running our county I knew as a
country we would be having a lot of problems.
Besides, the Democratic Club in my town had a lot more parties than the
Republicans, so I switched to being a Democrat.
Over
time the Republicans, led by Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich began a PR campaign
to label Democrats and other liberals as somehow not quite as American as they
were. “Liberal” became a dirty word, and
the dumb liberals gave it up and switched to “progressive”. But as time went by, the Republicans became
ever more emboldened, and ended up intimidating Congressional Democrats into
voting with them using every tactic possible to continue the intimidation for
fear of the NRA, being soft on defense, etc. even though it was a Democrat who
led the nation that won World War II.
The
last 10 – 15 years things have gotten even worse, and since 2008 have gone
completely bonkers. When the Republican
leadership in Congress met the day of the 2009 inauguration and determined that
they were going to see to it that President Obama was only a one term
President, their absolute belief has surfaced that they, and only they, have
the right to rule this country. From
that day, the Republicans in the Senate have filibustered, or stymied, every
bill that might have given the President any credit at all. What they have done since that meeting is
quite well documented. But they continue
on with their attitude that they have a divine right to govern!
The
states that have a Republican governor and legislature are making all efforts
to redraw Congressional lines to make it impossible, they think, for Democrats
to be elected either to state houses or the Federal Legislature or Senate. In California, the voters decreed that a
bi-partisan independent commission would redraw the congressional districts as
evenly as they could. NO
gerrymandering! When the lines were
approved and became law, the Republican Party in California sued the state on
the grounds that by having non-gerrymandered districts it gave the Democrats a
chance to win! And in California we have
two Democratic Senators, and Democrats in every elected state office because
every decision was based on votes counted.
No wonder the Republicans are trying to gerrymander their states.
But
I think the one thing that irritates me the most has been the Republican’s
constant ploy to insist that every time President Obama or any other Democrat
makes a statement that is contrary to what the Republicans want, the
Republicans start whining that the statement is divisive. Divisive?
Why? Because it isn’t what the
Republicans wanted to hear? What they
want from the President and every other Democrat in office is a strict
adherence to the Republican’s talking points.
President Obama’s Inauguration speech was what the people who voted for
him by a 5 million vote margin wanted to hear.
It was not divisive from the people’s perspective. The Republicans know
that if they can ruin the economy, keep the Democrats out of office by gerrymandering
Congressional districts, suppressing the vote, or any of the other shenanigans the
Republicans have come up with, then they can rule.
After
all, it is the Divine Right of Republicans to rule.
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