One of the most frustrating things about being a Democrat is how Democrats fall in love with the 'high road' rhetoric. They do so with aplomb, using it as a way to criticize Republicans, but even more sharply directed at fellow Democrats at times. Screaming "I'm taking the high road" is stunningly naive in our current political environment. This isn't a high school debate where one team says "Your argument is stupid," as the other team tries to win by proudly bragging about "taking the high road." The modern political environment is much more akin to a zombie world where one side is trying to destroy you. You screaming "high road" while the zombies are munching down on your team is only about giving yourself a gold star for pathetically failing.
Taking the high road is NOT an issue for Republicans. While they lash out frenetically at Democrats, they rarely criticize themselves, even when it's a no-brainer mistake that should be condemned universally. This reluctance to speak out against even the most damaged Republicans has made the Republican Party more vulnerable than ever. The GOP is starting to crumble because behavior that should've NEVER been tolerated was allowed to become the Republican standard.
Republicans are hesitant to criticize themselves because of a self-induced mantra that they grip tightly, Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment: "Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican."
I always found Reagan's 11th Commandment an incredibly self-serving standard (a Commandment you say, like delivered from God himself???). Basically, he's saying to his party "Never hold any other Republican accountable" (in his case, spoiler alert!)! The 'commandment' originally came from his California Governor campaign in the 1960s but it really took off in the post-Nixon era. A lot of Republicans felt as if the problem with Nixon wasn't Nixon, but rather Republicans holding him accountable for his actions. Reagan seized on this frustration and pushed his Commandment as a way to give the public the impression "we're unified" while sending a far darker tone to his own party; "don't you dare disagree with us!"
The problem for Republicans was even under Reagan, this "commandment" was a credit card for abuse. Reagan started intense deficit spending, foolishly fired the air traffic controllers, pushed a racist drug policy, did nothing while AIDS ravaged the population, and who could forget Iran-Contra. He should've garnered FAR more scrutiny from Republicans than he did. He scared his own party into the position that it was better to ignore the scandals instead of being blacklisted for daring to hold someone in the party accountable.
As the Republicans started to turn more and more to the extremist right, from Newt Gingrich, to Whitewater, to embracing the far-right fringe to win in 2004, to organizing racist feelings about President Obama into a fervor, the people pushing the party further to the right would point to Reagan's 11th Commandment to silence any dissent. By 2010, most of the moderate Republicans had left the party. Considering they could no longer criticize Republicans no matter how extreme, the only options were to agree with them loudly, to agree with them quietly, or resign.
Trump pushed the party over the edge. There are so many things Trump did which would've been universally condemned 20 years ago but were allowed to become Republican standards under Trump. I'll just point to the lying. Never before has there been a President, Senator, Representative, or Judge who lied as openly, constantly, and consistently as Trump did. Many of his lies were laughable. Remember when he grabbed a Sharpie pen and drew on a National Weather map to make himself right? Trump lied (on average) 50 (!!!) times a day, many of them preposterous.
But did Republicans ever criticize him for the lies, even the ludicrous, ridiculous, and farcical ones? NOPE! You either defended his lying or kept quiet on the sidelines.
By not holding Trump to a standard of truth, the Republicans created a world where lying is an acceptable asset within the Republican Party. George Santos IS the Republican Party today, a man whose entire persona is a never-ending cascade of lies. He's the most outrageous Republican liar, but there have been at least four other Republicans caught in the last few months lying about their resumes as well. How about the near-constant lies over the last two years from Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, and many other Republicans. But no one from the GOP says a thing, outside of a handful of ostracized or retired Republicans who dare call out the dishonesty. Lying is now an admirable character trait for Republicans.
And it's getting worse!
January 6th, 2021. Trump and his supporters tried to overthrow the government of the United States. I guarantee you they'll try it again in 2024 because the Republican party's never really condemned that stunt. By not decrying that disgrace with the loudest and most forceful of tones, Republicans set a standard that attempting a coup is just being "in it to win it!"
Sex scandals. It feels like almost every day a Republican is caught in a sex scandal, many of them involving underage children. One person keeping track found well over 1000 Republicans accused or convicted of heinous sex acts over the last few years (The List of GOP'ers in sex scandals). Republicans, yoked by that 11th Commandment crap, only ever seem to condemn that behavior "in the silence of their own hearts" (their words not mine). Republicans seem to get far more angry at the people who bring the indiscretion to light, NOT the person who commits the crime. The message is clear, as long as the inappropriate behavior stays within the Republican ranks, no one from inside will call you out.
Fiscal policy. There was a time Republicans had standards when it came to government spending. Not anymore! I remember Republicans screaming "Why hasn't President Obama taken care of the budget deficit" up until January 2017. Then, after Trump took office, suddenly it was "spend like there was no tomorrow!" Any true fiscal conservative would've NEVER signed off on the Trump-era tax cuts, but very few Republicans called out the 'fiscal conservative' insanity. The results were a massive crater in the deficit, something which could be fixed by rescinding the Trump tax cuts, but Republicans LOVE government spending. That's a fact!
Now Reagan's 11th Commandment is being used as a weapon. Republicans through gerrymandering created an incredible amount of safe Republican seats, where a turnip could run with an 'R' next to its name and win handily. The voters in these safe districts gravitated towards more extremist candidates, dropping the moderate Republicans who could relate to Democrats, replacing them with self-serving near fascist harpies, demented and uneducated extremist fools who saw an opportunity by sprinting towards fanaticism, addicted to their own press releases, enamored with TV camera lights, and only in their positions for egregious self-promotion.
The radical Right exists because of the Republican party's fixation on never bad-mouthing a fellow party member, AND THE FANATICS KNOW IT! Republicans blindly go along with the nympholepts regardless of what they say or do, never calling out their rotten behavior. And the crazy part is the zealots DO NOT FOLLOW the 11th Commandment. As they demand loyalty from the entire party, extremists are quick to scream RINO (Republican In Name Only) at anyone in their party that doesn't praise them as the smartest person who ever lived (once again, a standard Trump created in the GOP).
This GOP-safe district craziness does not sell in more moderate or Democratic areas. The safe Republicans don't care. They know they'll win their seat as long as they run. Meanwhile, these howler monkeys are ruining any chance for Republicans to win overall majorities in toss-up districts. Moderate Republicans might try to soften their positions to appeal to Independents and moderate Democrats, but enter an extremist Republican to shriek racism, bigotry, anti-Democratic lunacy, and conspiracy theories which make even their biggest supporters go "What did you say?" Because the moderate Republicans dare not condemn the extremism, they go silent, hoping people don't think they agree with their fellow party members.
And there's the problem for the non-extremist members of the GOP, both politicians and voters! Unless you immediately change your tone and start calling out the far-right loon balls, you have no chance. This mess is on you! If someone is saying something so extreme it's damaging the party as a whole (Think of Dr. Scott Jenson of Kim Crockett from the 2022 MNGOP ticket) you HAVE TO start calling it out, or your party will eventually wither away. It's not like the 1850s where something very specific (in this case the Whigs demanding all party members be pro-slavery, driving the non-pro-slavery Whigs to start the Republican Party) will save you from your guilt by association. It's long past time to say enough is enough, and the only people that can stop this train wreck from happening are the Republicans themselves.
There is another clear reason non-extremist Republicans should want to take their party back. Do you know why a lot of people on the left call Republicans racists, bigots, and Nazis? It's because of your own silence when a Republican says something racist, bigoted, or Nazi-esque. You say nothing, and your silence is interpreted as an endorsement. You'd think you would want to very publicly distance yourselves from that stuff, but you don't. It's like this one protest sign read:
As hard as that sign is to read, if you stayed silent when these extremist elements permeated their way into the soul of the GOP, you're partially to blame for this mess your party is in. The sign is right because your silence in the face of extremism made it right.
That's on you. What are you going to do about it?
