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Via for WaPo
I did not leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left its senses. The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments. President Trump’s Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution.
America’s first Republican president reportedly said , “Nearly all men can stand adversity. But if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” The current Republican president and the party he controls were granted monopoly power over Washington in November and already find themselves spectacularly failing Abraham Lincoln’s character exam.
It would take far more than a single column to detail Trump’s failures in the months following his bleak inaugural address. But the Republican leaders who have subjugated themselves to the White House’s corrupting influence fell short of Lincoln’s standard long before their favorite reality-TV star brought his gaudy circus act to Washington.
When I left Congress in 2001, I praised my party’s successful efforts to balance the budget for the first time in a generation and keep many of the promises that led to our takeover in 1994. I concluded my last speech on the House floor by foolishly predicting that Republicans would balance budgets and champion a restrained foreign policy for as long as they held power.
I would be proved wrong immediately.
As the new century began, Republicans gained control of the federal government. George W. Bush and the GOP Congress responded by turning a $155 billion surplus into a $1 trillion deficit and doubling the national debt, passing a $7 trillion unfunded entitlement program and promoting a foreign policy so utopian it would have made Woodrow Wilson blush. Voters made Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House in 2006 and Barack Obama president in 2008.
After their well-deserved drubbing, Republicans swore that if voters ever entrusted them with running Washington again, they would prove themselves worthy. Trump’s party was given a second chance this year, but it has spent almost every day since then making the majority of Americans regret it.
The GOP president questioned America’s constitutional system of checks and balances. Republican leaders said nothing. He echoed Stalin and Mao by calling the free press “the enemy of the people.” Republican leaders were silent. And as the commander in chief insulted allies while embracing autocratic thugs, Republicans who spent a decade supporting wars of choice remained quiet. Meanwhile, their budget-busting proposals demonstrate a fiscal recklessness very much in line with the Bush years.
Last week’s Russia revelations show just how shamelessly Republican lawmakers will stand by a longtime Democrat who switched parties after the promotion of a racist theory about Barack Obama gave him standing in Lincoln’s once-proud party. Neither Lincoln, William Buckley nor Ronald Reagan would recognize this movement.
It is a dying party that I can no longer defend.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham has long predicted that the Republican and Democrats’ 150-year duopoly will end. The signs seem obvious enough. When my Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, it was the first time the GOP had won the House in a generation. The two parties have been in a state of turmoil ever since.
In 2004, Republican strategist Karl Rove anticipated a majority that would last a generation; two years later, Pelosi became the most liberal House speaker in history. Obama was swept into power by a supposedly unassailable Democratic coalition. In 2010, the tea party tide rolled in. Obama’s reelction returned the momentum to the Democrats, but Republicans won a historic state-level landslide in 2014. Then last fall, Trump demolished both the Republican and Democratic establishments.
Political historians will one day view Donald Trump as a historical anomaly. But the wreckage visited of this man will break the Republican Party into pieces – and lead to the election of independent thinkers no longer tethered to the tired dogmas of the polarized past. When that day mercifully arrives, the two-party duopoly that has strangled American politics for almost two centuries will finally come to an end. And Washington just may begin to work again.
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No Democrat has said it better.
Marty, right again!! really good job, Joe! And on this subject, here’s another piece done well (by Brian Beutler, New Republic) I sent emails to Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz (TX) telling them how I feel and I didn’t spare their feelings! We should all do our part to push them into action!
https://newrepublic.com/article/143886/republicans-morally-bankrupt-response-trumps-russia-scandal
– Murphy
First of all, the Republican party is not “The Party of Lincoln” anymore. It hasn’t been since Strom Thurman started the slow trickle which, by Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” became of flood of the racist, reactionary, right wing southern Democrats who were squeezed out by Lyndon Johnson and his “Great Society” which not only included medicare and medicaid but, most importantly, the civil rights and voting rights bills of the mid-sixties. These “Dixiecrats” turned Republicans have squeezed out the traditional true, pre-Buckley, pre-Goldwater conservative Republicans as well as the more moderate “Rockefeller” and “New England Lodge” Republicans.” Frankly, I think if Lincoln probably started twirling in his grave by the time Warren Harding became president.
I am a bit confused…..so please excuse my ignorance……but are you blaming the complete failure and idiocy of the Republicans on some Democrats?
– Murphy
Yes. But, those Democrats of 50, 60 and 70 years ago are about as relevant to today’s Democratic Party as Abraham Lincoln is relevant to the Republican Party of Trump, McConnell, Ryan and sub-groups of the party like the Klu Klux Klan and The Christian Coalition.
Essentially, each party starting about 100 years ago began slowly then quickly and then finally morphing into the becoming closer to what the other party originally was.
Thanks MILBANK, I got it but now wondering when and who and why this switcharoo happened? I highly doubt the trump base would ever have supported a Democrat candidate and I KNOW none of my Democrat people would ever vote for the likes of a trump – no matter what his badge says! So when, who and why??
– Murphy
While Joe may be a progressive Republican (if such an animal exists) his views and concerns are still what’s wrong with the Republican Party.
Joe, I suggest you focus your concerns on what your Party’s boy – Trump is doing to the nation, rather than your dysfunctional and moribund Republican Party.
Were both D and R Parties focused on the welfare of the nation – we would not be having this conversation after an election. Nor would we have Trump or Clinton in office.
Well, Dugger, again, I gotta say you are pretty much hitting the bullseye…… I think we know the condition of the R party and it did not start with Trump! But he is definitely pushing it off the proverbial cliff! The D’s did a decent job with Obama. I really like the guy and he has class and there were no scandals! I miss him. But like I said, you pretty much nailed it. Neither one of these two parties seem to have this country’s needs as their primary objective.
Scarborough has his focus on trump every morning, really hitting him hard with exposing what a doofus he is and how awful he is at this job. It’s so much fun to watch! ha! If you don’t follow his Morning Joe on MSNBC, tune in to it. He made it crystal clear the other night on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show what he thought about his ex-Republican party too!
The problem I see ahead is who will be the Democrat candidate 2018? I think Joe Biden would win if he ran and I think he would do a good job. I also like Kamala Harris but don’t know all that much about her. I like her attitude and she presents well but I suspect she would have a difficult campaign. The D’s don’t have a big selection of people as great candidates. If I chose one today, it would Joe Biden. I think his family is a good reflection of his character and he certainly understands the job. Yep, Joe’s got the good mojo!
– Murphy
correction, that date should be 2020!! oops! Murphy