In s must-read article in The Daily Beast, conservative Mark McKinnon says:
What I want for Christmas is a new Republican Party. Or I’ll take the old Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or George W. Bush. What I don’t want is the Republican Party we have today. As former George W. Bush and John McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace said, “I’m just tired of the Republican Party being the Stupid Party.”
So what is the big problem with the Republican Party?
But here’s the deeper point and the bigger problem for the GOP. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the party is against everything and for nothing.
Nothing on taxes. Nothing on gun control. Nothing on climate change. Nothing on gay marriage. Nothing on immigration reform (or an incremental, piece-by-piece approach, which will result in nothing). It’s a very odd situation when the losing party is the party refusing to negotiate. It may be how you disrupt, but it is not how you govern, or how you ever hope to regain a majority.
And so, we have a Republican Party today willing to eliminate any prospect for a decent future for anyone, including itself, if it cannot be a future that is 100 percent in accordance with its core beliefs and principles. That’s not governing. That’s just lobbing hand grenades. If you’re only standing on principle to appear taller, then you appear smaller. And the GOP is shrinking daily before our eyes.
Ronald Reagan was long thought to be the most conservative of Republicans. And by any standard today he is the most popular Republican in modern history. Yet he raised taxes 11 times, supported a ban on assault rifles and the Brady Bill, which mandated background checks, and established amnesty for 3 million undocumented workers.
McKinnon has thrown down the challenge. Now what we need is a New Year’s resolution from the GOP to stop believing their own propaganda and get to work. Real work. As the mother of John Yoo (the lawyer who formulated Dubya’s justification for torture) said about the Republican party:
To protect the ego, you have a defense mechanism: denial and projection. You deny your problem, saying it’s your fault and not mine. Instead of projection, blaming other people, we have to think of a positive solution. But I didn’t hear that yet. They are still grieving. I hope not for more than six months. The grieving process should only be six months. If it goes on for more than six months, it could go into a major depression.
3 Comments
I respect Mark McKinnon but he often seems naive. He took an awful long time to realize his party had gone insane and even now he doesn’t understand. Even though Reagan did incredible damage and set precedents that shackle us still, I could almost understand “Or I’ll take the old Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush” until he added “, or George W. Bush.” Come on! If you think the Republican Party didn’t run off the rails until after W then you’re as crazy as they are. McKinnon is a Republican moderate zombie. His party died years ago and he doesn’t even know it.
Merry Christmas PI nation! Its a good post but this will be the only political post I’ll read on this day. Peace to all, including the party of stupidity.
And a very Merry Christmas to you and to all.