Elisberg Industries
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like
Decent Quality Since 1847

The Party of a Lifetime

10/9/2018

0 Comments

 
I like and admire the Republican conservative analysts who have come forward and so harshly criticized today's Republican Party, especially those who have gone to the lengths of actually leaving the party, like Steve Schmidt and Max Boot, both of whose work I've liked for several years.  Just yesterday, Boot even wrote a scathing piece about how people should vote a straight-ticket Democrats in order to burn the Republican Party to the ground.  Also, George Will -- whose work I can't stand, even when he writes about baseball and his love of the Chicago Cubs, all of which I find pedantic and self-serving, including his criticism of today's GOP -- but I still admire and like that he left the party and is critical of it.

And I like and admire Jennifer Rubin and Nicole Wallace who haven't left the party and whose previous work I thought was not nearly as thoughtful as Schmidt and Boot, but who are so viscerally critical of the Trump administration and so much of the GOP.  There are even people whose politics I don't remotely like but who nonetheless have admirably been so outspokenly-critical of the Republican Party today, such as David Frum and BIll Kristol.

I admire them all for being so critical of their own party.  Some I admire more, others much less -- like the Wills, Kristols and Frums, of the world whose criticism strikes me more as a reaction to hurting their brand than for what's best for the country -- but still, their outspokenness is notable and beneficial.  It is not easy to be so bluntly and deeply critical of your own party that you've supported through your life, although Trump and today's Republicans do make it far-easier than it should ever be.  And especially those who have actually taken the huge step to leave the party, to be clear that this isn't who they are or what they stand for.

That said --

I think it's important to recognize that as much as a person says, "This is not my Republican Party" -- it is.  Though some of these people previously focused more on the better aspects of the GOP, none were especially critical of it.  None of them saw the hatred of immigrants and demeaning of women and racism and the eight years of birtherism and having Mitch McConnell say on the day of President Obama's inauguration that Job One was to ensure he not get reelected and the Republican Senate blocking Merrick Garland without even a vote for a year and the attacks on "activist judges" and criticism of the "Liberal Main Stream Media" and making the reversal of Roe v. Wade a foundational issue and fealty to the NRA and making the Religious Right of the "Family Values" litmus test to patriotism and more and far more and ever stood up and said, "This is not my Republican Party."  They may have thoughtfully pushed economic issues and foreign policy programs and domestic policies as why they were Republicans and conservatives.  And they may have avoided the most-base of the party base -- or uncomfortably accepted it as helpful in supporting election wins.  And they may even have been critical of a Republican action here and there.  But...it was their Republican Party.  And has been for the past decade, if not longer, dating back at the very least to today's party godfather Ronald Reagan doing his best to divide America with his ridicule of "The L Word," those damn liberals.  Actually, it goes back even longer, to Richard Nixon and the racist "Southern Strategy," though Reagan turned this division into an art form.

(Though at the very least the sainted Reagan called Russia the Evil Empire, rather than courted it with loving, open arms.)

This was their Republican Party, and it was the foundation that left the the door open and prepared the way to welcome a Trump.  And they never proclaimed how the party was moving in the wrong direction and appealing to the worst of us and that they abhorred the divisiveness and thought it was against the principals of the Constitution to rely on the Bible as the guiding document for America.  Nor do most, if any of them say in their criticism today that this was also the Republican Party of the past 10, or even 30 years, and that what we see now is not the changing of the party, but rather the result of that change.

This is not to say that there are not any Republican conservatives who have acknowledged the adjacent past.  But they are negligible.  However some, like Tom Nichols, an author and professor at the Naval War College, expressed this very point properly when he wrote yesterday -- "I think the problem is that the GOP, like any party, is a coalition, and people like Max and me didn't want to look too closely at some of the people sharing that tent. We wanted to believe their attraction to the GOP was rooted in the same ideals we believed in."

To be clear, as I said, over recent years I liked many of these people I've mentioned here.  And others.  And most, though not all, were not divisive and pandering to the worst of America.  A microscopically rare few, like David Gergen, have even long been open-eyed, even-handed and outspoken for decades.  And when I say "these people," I don't just mean public figures, but the multitudes of the party who never pandered to the baser instincts but just had different political views from others who weren't Republicans and conservatives.  And I really, truly do like and admire that they are now so vocal and outraged at what they finally have acknowledged the GOP has become, some to the degree of actually leaving it.

But this is their Republican Party.  And it has been for a long time.  And I look forward to them acknowledging that, too.

This is about the Republican Party.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Elisberg Industries gets a commission if you click here before shopping on Amazon.
    Picture
    Follow @relisberg

    Author

    Robert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 

    Elisberg is a two-time recipient of the Lucille Ball Award for comedy screenwriting. He's written for film, TV, the stage, and two best-selling novels, is a regular columnist for the Writers Guild of America and was for
    the Huffington Post.  Among his other writing, he has a long-time column on technology (which he sometimes understands), and co-wrote a book on world travel.  As a lyricist, he is a member of ASCAP, and has contributed to numerous publications.



    Picture
           Feedspot Badge of Honor

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Animals
    Audio
    Audio Land
    Books
    Busienss
    Business
    Chicago
    Consumer Product
    Education
    Email Interview
    Entertainment
    Environment
    Fine Art
    Food
    From The Management
    Health
    History
    Huffery
    Humor
    International
    Internet
    Journalism
    Law
    Los Angeles
    Media
    Morning News Round Up
    Movies
    Music
    Musical
    Personal
    Photograph
    Piano Puzzler
    Politics
    Popular Culture
    Profiles
    Quote Of The Day
    Radio
    Religion
    Restaurants
    Science
    Sports
    Technology
    Tech Tip
    Theater
    The Writers Workbench
    Tidbits
    Travel
    Tv
    Twitter
    Video
    Videology
    Well Worth Reading
    Words-o-wisdom
    Writing

    RSS Feed

© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2023
Contact Us    About EI    Chicago Cubs
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Products
    • Books
    • Movies
  • About Elisberg Industries
    • Our Corporate Board
    • Information Overstock
    • Elisberg Industries Entertainment Information
    • Elisberg Statistical Center of American Research
    • Consultancy Service
  • Contact
    • How to Find Us
  • Kudos
  • Good Things to Know
    • The BOB Page
    • Sites You Might Actually Like