Step #4 of the GOP grieving process: depression

The Republicans have officially entered the depression stage of the grieving process and are feeling the dark loneliness that often accopmanies depression. According to a recent pole, 25% of Republicans don’t even like their own party. This admission, coupled with the rumblings of possible change to a more “modern” political ideology, as well as a few early admissions of outdated views by the party from some of it’s more liberal members, and it is clear that a cloud of despair hangs grimly over GOP members, when thinking about their future.

 

Recently, the GOP tried to tell us they are fundamentally conservative, but they should also consider other viewpoints in order to stay intact. This is exactly the kind of backpedalling that is signaling a huge identity crisis within the party. Older party leaders who still view this country with an eye towards the past vs the younger party members who look to the future. This could be the perfect time to realign the GOP platform’s ideology with the rest of America. I know it’s sometimes difficult to admit when you’re wrong, but if you really listen to an argument, if it makes more sense than your own, it could be time to consider changing your position on the subject, not just agree to disagree.

 

One example of the GOP being wrong is on it’s attitude towards Gays and their actively advocating second-class status for a group of Americans because they don’t agree with their lifestyle. It’s okay not to want to be gay, but it’s not okay to treat people with less respect and offer them less in regards to human rights, than currently offered to the heterosexual citizens they do agree with.

 

Bringing this same view to immigration, as the GOP continue to postpone progress towards new legislation that will give our de facto citizens real legitimacy and therefore access to basic human rights, they will keep these workers and neighbors under protected, under represented and over exposed to abuse. If  these same GOP members were to view this type of behavior in another nation, they would call it discrimination. If they didn’t like that nation, they may even call it oppression. They might even call for it’s immediate end, and possibly call for sanctions to be imposed until it did.

 

Our country has been evolving into a much more democratic society for over two hundred years now. Our progress on human rights has been a slow, gradual process, and the Republicans, by no means, have been the only ones at fault. We have enjoyed fits and spurts of human rights progress, coupled with major setbacks, such as: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and it’s subsequent Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943; the Braceros program in 1949, and it’s subsequent “operation wetback in 1954.” We have been working towards achieving the high standards of human rights we set before ourselves, and push for our earthly neighbors to achieve, for a long time now. Surely we understand the difficulty in surmounting the many obstacles that have kept us from reaching our own lofty ideals thus far.

Standing in the middle of the road and shouting down progress will not give much life to anyone’s political future.  This is what happens when you do the majority of the talking and relatively little listening. This is sometimes called: drinking too much of your own Kool-Aid. Every once in a while, even the most successful politicians need to sit at someone else’s table and see what they are drinking.

 

As my mother used to tell me, “Try it, you just may like it.”

 

And if, for some reason, you do find that the opposing views make more sense than your own, changing sides does not have to mean failure. It could just mean that you are now on the side of the winning. It’s hard to be depressed when you’re winning.

Republican Party Defeat stage #3 Bargaining

Continuing with the 5 stages of grief the Republicans will go through, we find ourselves right in the middle of stage 3– Bargaining.

The old Republican guard has been negotiating their way back to power through the Fiscal Cliff issue. Refusal to cooperate was their only card, and they plaid it for all it’s worth, waiting until the last minute to get the smallest deal they could in order to save face and make it look like they are still the people in power in Washington.

Is it me, or does John Boehner look like he’s trying to be co-president?

Ever since McConnel’s remark about making sure Obama was a one-term president, he’s been acting like he lives in the White House. (or wants to)

Unfortunately, with all the hubris the Republican party has been showing this past two years: acting like spoiled children; refusing to play nice with anyone (even themselves); insisting on keeping tax breaks for the richest Americans at all costs; telling women that getting pregnant after being raped is a decision they have control over. (i’m not sure how that one works)  I think their arrogance will cost them more than they know. The America they long for, two cars in every garage, Jobs for life, white majority neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. . . This may have been a Norman Rockwell snapshot of  “the good ol’ days” but times, they are a changin’ and we need to keep up with them, or we risk holding ourselves back and watching emerging countries become the king of the heap while our way of life gets more backward every year.

We don’t want politicians who care more for their party and financial supporters than they do the people who put them there and rely in them to take care of our countries business for the sake of the people.

If the people are not the #1 job they wake up to each and every day, then I think we can surely find better.

Let’s hope the freshman that were elected this November remember why they are there. It’s obvious many of the senior members of the House and Senate have forgotten.

It will be too much to ask freshman coming into a new job, in an unfamiliar environment to break out and lead those whose guidance they are surely now seeking.  But let’s hope that their Bulls#!t radar is functioning properly so they can at least distinguish between those who work for the good of the country and those who work for the good of each other.

Republican Party Defeat Stage 2- Anger

Conservative Republicans have reached the anger stage in their grief process over their defeat after the November elections. That much power lost would make anyone crazy. Thinking that having that power was theirs to begin with was the first step in the long journey they have been taking.

The fiscal cliff is the latest salvo between the Boehner led conservative Republican party, and Obama, most Democrats, some Republicans, women, immigrants, immigrant students. . . Okay, everyone else.

According to CNN,

Conservative Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, promised the newly re-elected Obama “one hell of a fight” next year if the president forces through his plan for high-income earners to pay more taxes without agreeing to substantive steps to reduce the nation’s chronic federal deficits and debt.

This, I’m afraid, is symbolic of the attitude the conservative Republican party has taken on just about every issue that’s been floating through congress. It’s always a fight. Im all for sticking up for what you truly believe in, and occasionally having to resort to fighting to save someone from harm, when you go about your daily work routine fighting with someone, you have to ask yourself (or at least you should) am I right on all of these issues? Am I right about EVERYTHING?

There is a saying, “if you drive down the street and you see someone driving like an idiot, you saw an idiot. Later, if you see another one, okay, you saw two idiots. If, yet again,  you see someone else driving like an idiot, then it’s definite; you are the idiot.”

Ultra-conservative Republicans- it’s time to face the fact that it is YOU who are the problem, not the president, nor the democrats, nor gays, nor women, nor immigrants, nor any number of other people. Defeat is often humbling, but only for those who really need it.

Come on. Admit it. You aren’t fooling very many people–they already know it.

Republican party defeat- Stage 1: Denial

After the shattering defeat of the Republican party, the process of grieving has begun. The press is hounding party leaders for their reaction to what they believed was a slam-dunk presidential and congressional race, based on strict, conservative ideals, epitomized by the Tea Party activists.

The reaction from around the country shows a dazed Republican party trying to understand what happened. The few who already see the writing on the wall, are expressing a need to reinvent themselves as more moderate in their vision of what’s best for America, or face similar defeats in the future.

While everyone else in the nation is witnessing a more moderate America exerting it’s influence on their elected officials, the extremely conservative Republicans are wallowing in denial.

The five stages of grief have begun.

The GOP strategist, Lenny McCallister, began his political double-speak by stating that the the way conservatives want to handle the economy, education and immigration, they have a lot to offer Latino’s and African Americans.

According to CNN today, House Speaker John Boehner, the leader of the still Republican dominated House of Representatives, states it more clearly,

“It’s clear that as a political party we’ve got some work to do,” Boehner told reporters, adding that “the principles of our party are sound” but the question is “how we talk about who we are as a party.”

So basically what he’s saying is that their extremist principals are okay, it’s just the way they talk about them that needs changing.

I guess we can expect more political double-speak as the Republicans struggle for a way to talk to America without offending them, while clinging to the ideals that handed them the defeats in the first place.

The Republicans who still have jobs, or still want them in the future, are placing the blame on everything except their beliefs, such as: Superstorm Sandy; “the moderate Mitt Romney”; failure to place abortion more predominantly on the party’s platform; a couple of poor comments by Mourdock and Akin; and ignoring the positions of more minorities. If they can find anything else to blame but themselves, we’re sure to hear about it soon.

Listening to all the positioning and blaming going on, it’s obvious to the outsider that the Republican party is going through the first of five states of grief—denial.

I wonder what the next stage, anger, will look like?