Will Real Republicans Take Their Party Back?

[dtotire]

Will Real Republicans Take Their Party Back?

Frank Harris III

April 1, 2010




Unless there is another side they are keeping to themselves, none of the Republicans I know are like the ones the nation is seeing on display during and following the passage of the health care bill: The ones whose incendiary sky-is-falling rhetoric and extremism-in-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice call to arms is reminiscent of the resistance put forth by segregationists who taunted schoolchildren trying to enroll in Little Rock in the late 1950s, murderers who bombed a church in Birmingham in the early 1960s, and vandals who set fire to buses in Boston in the 1970s.

Or going back further — those confederates following the era of Reconstruction who, angry at the changes following the South's loss in the Civil War, engaged in a campaign of terror and intimidation.

That is what we are seeing displayed and encouraged by the Republican Party and similar-thinking groups such as the Tea Party and militia groups, those who want to roll back what was politically achieved through the democratic process of the vote.

Such comparisons will upset many Republicans who don't feel this way. To you I wish I could say, "Take back your party from the false patriots and angry bigots masquerading as 'real Americans.'" However, as long as I can remember, the Republican Party has been the party with the higher tolerance level for false patriots and angry bigots.

Add to that now, sore losers.

Spare me your anger — please. Direct it to those in your own party who are leading you down a path you may not wish to go. A path that is shameful and embarrassing.

It was only in recent years that the party was seemingly trying to change its image and open arms of inclusion for all groups and ideas. Remember President George W. Bush's slogan of "compassionate conservatism" during the 2000 presidential campaign? Gone. Just a sandcastle memory kicked aside by the boots of today's snarling, in-your-face Republicans who have also given the swift kick to any true notion of "country first," once Sen. John McCain's campaign slogan.

Country is not first to the current regime of the Republican Party. It is party first, and the party says no. It is the party of no-ness. The party of resistance. The party of anger. The party that is creating a welcome climate for hate and what usually accompanies hate: violence.

Over what?

A health care bill meant to provide good coverage and care for all Americans.

Will the real Republicans please stand up?

Those who once stood for family now stand against family when it comes to the health care bill. Exactly who would health care help if not families?

Will the real Republicans please stand up?

Stand up to the false patriots in your party who claim America as their own private country with their own rules, who reject what was voted for 17 months ago and respect only presidents for whom they voted, while disrespecting presidents for whom they did not vote.

Will the real Republicans please stand up?

Stand up to those who espouse and rationalize hate, those who wink at it as somehow leading to positive change, those who shout racial epithets, homophobic slurs. Hate, pure and simple, can't be toyed with or strategized about. It can't be reasoned with or ignored.

Will the real Republicans stand up?

Standing by itself is not enough. Silence in the face of hate is support of hate. Make your voices heard. Lead your party out of this ugliness. Pull your party out of the hate, the no-ness, the resistance mentality.

And if the real Republicans are standing, if what we see now displayed is what it really is, then some hard decisions need to be made by those Republicans who are put off by the doings of their fellow members of this Grand Ole Party.

Either fight harder to exorcise the ugliness in the party that is apparent for the world to see, or leave the party, thereby reducing its false patriots, angry bigots and sore losers by the sum of one.

By one.

By one.

By one ...

• Frank Harris III is chairman of the journalism department at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. He can be reached at [e-mail].



http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-harris-republicans-extremist.artapr01,0,7564475.column

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Those are the real republicans.

[ingac70]

2. "Real" Republicans have been out of the party.....

since Reagan's election.

Pretty bad when you long for Republicans to be more like Nixon.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. And they have been voting for the "D" --

and joining up with the Party. :puke: Which accounts for the Party's rightward tilt over the past 20+ years.

[louis-t]

3. They can't stand up.

The teabaggers would turn on them and they would end up targets along with Dems.

[The Genealogist]

4. I'm not even sure what a "real" republican is anymore

I know they used to stand for something other than obstructionism, hate and bigotry, and kkkorpratocracy. But who do we define as a "real" republican? Olympia Snowe? The Late Sen Jacob Javits of NY? Abe Lincoln? Teddy Roosevelt? Eisenhower? Nelson Rockefeller? Nixon? The swell ones who voted in for the overhaul of racial law at the national level in the face of "Southern Manifesto" Dems and Dixiecrat types? I do think the Repukes would be a lot less puke-y if at least some of them looked to their party's roots (whatever those are exactly) and removed themselves from the far right.

[katty]

5. back from crazytown? that is not likely anytime soon

[lxlxlxl]

6. no

they wont. they are gunning for cultural revolution (see PRC)

[Demeter]

7. Why Would They Want To Take Back Contaminated Brand?

No, they will reconstitute in the Libertarian Party, and never take that Reagan Compromise with religious whackos again.

[applegrove]

8. I heard David Frum being interviewed by As It Happens tonight on Canadian Radio. Friends of

David Frum have denounced him. It isn't looking good for the old time Repukes.

[mulsh]

9. do you mean the "real" republicans who in 1966 refused to

register my parents and grandfather as Democrats when we moved to then, heavily republican Piedmont,CA? Do you mean the majority of neighbors who refused to let their kids play with my brothers and me because of my parent's political affiliation? Are you perhaps referring to my aunt's next door neighbor down in LA who angrily told her that if she "knew she was a Democrat she would never have let her take care of her dog." when we met her at the supermarket. It was ironic that one of the few republican neighbors at that time who was nice to my folks were none other than Edwin Meese and family.

I'm confused because those are just a couple of my older memories of "real" republican. Oh here's another fond back in the 60's , one of our most conservative republican neighbors sported a bumper sticker I liked,, "Reagan -he was a B actor, he'll be a D governor".

The rancor is not exactly a new phenomenon.