The Lost Tribe

One of the things which makes the current GOP a scary group is their willingness to crash the system itself, gleefully trying to crack the government they so eagerly represent.  Whether it's some sort of intentional, Ayn Rand inspired scheme to break the US Government, so they can rewrite the Constitution in their image, getting rid of freedoms like speech and voting rights, making it a Christian first country, and ensuring wealthy people never pay a tax again, or if it's just a bunch of dim bulb idiots who believe their own press about how great they are (I'm looking square at you Ted Cruz), it doesn't matter.  This demented effort to bring the government down is scary since it became clear they were actually serious.

The Republicans have adopted a new strategy since 1994.  They're no longer content on having a chance every four years as one of the two legitimate candidates for President, win or lose.  For them, campaigning is a 365 day a year experience.  If they win, they carry themselves as if they've won by 90% of the vote, insisting everything the Democrats suggest, or have ever done, needs to be talked down, like it's a mess made by a 4 year old.  If they lose, they adopt a scorched earth policy; the bitter ex-boyfriend who insists if he can't be President, no one can be President, intentionally hurting the country which rejected them.  Yes, I mean to imply the GOP has become the aggressor in an abusive relationship against the Untied States.  "The country will be sorry if they don't accept the Republican candidates and ideas completely, with no questions asked...REALLY sorry!"

There are about 100 GOP Representatives and 7 or so GOP Senators whose PUBLIC policy is to never work with the Democrats, EVER!  This means unless the Democrats accept their terms 100% of the time, with no deviations, they'll attempt to crash the system by not passing a budget to keep the government open and functioning, and will default on the debts we owe other countries.  They know this will make our government abruptly stop, make basic need services millions depend on everyday cease, will irreparably harm the day to day existence of the entire country and dramatically weaken our defenses.  They know defaulting on our debt will lead to loss of federal assets.  They know both of these will cost TRILLIONS of tax-payer dollars, and might lead us to lose some of our US territories.  They don't care.  They think its fair game.  It's the idiot who comes over to your house to play poker, and on the first hand, with a pair of sixes, they throw the keys to their house into the pot.  They're morons who think they're intelligent.

Where calmer minds have prevailed when it comes to the federal budget and debt ceiling, with establishment Republicans working with Democrats to keep the governmental doors open, and foreclosed signs off of Guam, the GOP has successfully stymied a functioning diplomatic core and judicial branch.  Vice President Walter Mondale wrote an nice opinion piece in the NY Times about how even no brainer approval of ambassadorships to our closest allies, like Norway, Sweden and Mexico, are being held up over petty politics and a desire to harm Obama's legacy.  The judicial branch is woefully behind in appointments to Federal benches, an attempt by the GOP to overrule election results, making it where only Republican judges are approved.  They don't care about the day to day functioning of these elements, only that these elements function how they want them to, regardless whom won the elections.

With this being the new Republican Party, and with Donald Trump being the front runner for the GOP nomination for 2016, I noticed a new sentiment from my conservative friends and family members this holiday season.  After years of trash talking and obscene allegations about President Obama, all of the sudden they didn't want to talk politics this year.  The same people, who at past get-togethers had screamed about Obama being a Nazi/Marxist/Muslim, were now insisting everyone else has crossed a line.  "Hey, this year, let's not talk about politics.  Let's just focus on positive things, okay?"  It's the same mentality you get from the Packers fan who always trash talks you when their team is winning, but when their team is having a down year, they can't understand why everyone only wants to talk about football.

These pleas to avoid talking politics is a road sign on the trail of the Lost Tribe.  Once they used to roam this country in the millions, a cornerstone of all political initiatives and legislation.  They were the standard bearers for the right, and gave this country some of its greatest politicians.  The Lost Tribe are the displaced moderate Republicans, and right now, unless they can get their feet back underneath them, their party, and this country, could be forever broken.

I'm not endorsing the moderate Republicans, but I do remember a time when I agreed with some of their policies.  Back in the 80's, before they became drunk on Reagan Kool-aid, they used to make some sense with their fiscal conservative/social liberal stances, but as a handful of political opportunists started to drive the Republican Party further and further to the right for personal gain, they were slowly driven out of the party, relegated to pasture where the extremists bank on their blind voting habits.

Jim Ramstad was one of the last remaining Republicans I could agree with, and he saw the writing on the wall when he walked away from his House seat in 2008, a seat he could have won for life.  He knew the Republican Party was readying a blood oath of hatred and spite he didn't want any part of.  He knew there was no place left in the GOP for a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republican, so he left, handing the MN-03 over to a far more conservative Erik Paulsen, who, in 2008, darkened Ashwin Madia's skin color on billboards and campaign literature to scare white people away from him.  THAT was where the GOP was heading.

What happened to the rest of the Moderate Republicans?  Since 1998, they've slowly left or been pushed out of the GOP, usually with screams of "RINO" in the background.  In Minnesota, many went to the Independence Party, a sort of recovery group for disenfranchised moderate Republicans, but when the IP had their convention overrun by far right extremists in 2014, they either went back to the GOP, or they just stayed home.

Moderate Republicans, I know this is hard for you.  The modern Republican Party really has nothing for you anymore, so why do you keep voting for whichever zealot has the 'R' next to their name?  They need YOU far more than you need them, but they need to learn this lesson the hard way.  In 2016, don't vote for them.  I know many of you are still hypnotized by Reagan's 11th Commandment, but if you blindly award them your vote, YOU are being the enabler.  The only way the GOP is ever going to return to normalcy is if the far right extremists realize they can't even muster 20% of the vote without the Lost Tribe's backing.  This will lead them to start welcoming back more moderate ideals, or it might make them break off and start a new party based on Fascism and pseudo-Libertarianism.  Regardless, they'll be gone and then you can start rebuilding the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower.

The sad thing, I know many of the Lost Tribe have become so accepting and numb at being lost, they won't hear this.  Instead, slumped over and beaten down, they'll meekly stumble into the voting booth in November and vote for whichever nut-bag the tea party has ordered them to vote for.