Republican Behaviors

April 2022

The 2016 and the 2020 elections, as bad as they were, were not a sudden break from the fundamental concepts of democracy. We have been going down those bad forks in the road for quite some time.

This essay begins with some writings by Republicans, about the Republican party, and about Republicans in general. Not every word will be exactly right, but please listen for the trends and concepts. Here are some quoted passages.

“Like the Germans after World War I, some Republicans seem to have persuaded themselves that they really did not lose at all. Others fully recognize the defeat but misinterpret its cause.”[1]

“Reality is to be shut out altogether as the GOP eschews the problematical and mentally taxing world of politics for the more glamorous exhilarating, free-floating world of entertainment.”[2]

Sounds a bit like Fox news.

“… party’s hope to usurp reality with the fading world of the class-B movie.”

In my words, the grade B or C television reality star.

“In short the Republican party is still in civil war, still cursed with the incubus of extremism and undermined by the incompetence of a timid headquarters.”[3]

“Many of the supposed moderate leaders,…, fail it still [ meaning the leaders continue to fail the party] and the right wing is eager for the party to perform yet another self-immolation.”[4] …

“We believe that major reform is urgent. We believe that the Republican party must be regained by the Republican majority from which it was seized during the last few years.”

“… But the evident strength of this minority is greatly inflated by the impotence of the moderate and progressive Republican majority.”

“At the grass roots in many areas moderate Republicans are even withdrawing from active Republican politics, and many of them seem likely to remain withdrawn until the party produces a new leadership with a program of party reform and an ideology responsive to the times and clearly distinguished from [the recent past].” …

“Since the right wing is completely incapable of such initiative, it is clear that the new leadership must come from the more progressive wing.”[5]

“But the party is in fact much weaker than that, because a substantial portion of its currently evident strength consists of parvenu (definition of parvenu: a person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity) Republicans on the extreme right who entered the party during the right-wing ascendancy and will not support it in any campaign which can appeal to a national majority; and it is much weaker because Republican statistical weakness is compounded by intellectual bankruptcy, by ideological banality, and by political illusion.”[6]

“It reflects the capture the Republican party organization by an unpopular and unrepresentative but militant and well-financed minority. … If it is not captured again by the arch-right, it seems certain to regain some of its lost strength, if not its lost time.”[7]

“This problem is the estrangement of the nation’s intellectuals, collectively the intelligentsia, identified by their appreciation and understanding of ideas and scholarship.”[8]

From the same page:

“This mutual antipathy is one of the most serious obstacles to a Republican revival. For it is intellectuals who must develop the new ideas and proposals on which a revival must ultimately depend.”

And a page later the author noted about the ascendency of the previous nominee prompted the concern that he: …”represented a reductio ad absurdum of the trend of anti-intellectualism in the Republican party.”[9]

In the next paragraph the author continues:

“It is difficult to say when the trend began.”

“The 1930s is suggested, but Seymour Lipset of the University of California suggested: “… that the Republican anti-intellectualism has it roots in the 1850s at the party’s very origins.” He points out that the party in its early years cooperated with the Know-Nothing Party in a few states…”

“The Know-Nothing Party flourished in the 1840s and 1850s, and were given their name for their practice of responding “I know nothing” …”

Moving to page 25: “The right President, a President acutely aware – as [the previous candidate] was not – of the need for a massive assault on the poverty, squalor, ugliness, and discrimination afflicting many American cities, might have done something about crime and black [substituted for negro] protests. But [the previous candidate] proposed no remedy beyond judicial stringency, …, and tear gas. In the end he became a joke among most intellectuals….”[10]

“He was attempting a direct appeal to the voters, circumventing all the more discriminating media of communications – the press and the intelligentsia – circumventing, as at times it seemed, even the gray matter of the people themselves. … always seemed to leave out the brain.”

“[His] demagoguery was devoid of the rationality of cause and effect.”[11]

“To say that intellectuals ultimately run the country seems preposterous to the average Republican, if not rather subversive and undemocratic.”[12]

“In the view of the typical right-wing politician this does not mean merely that the people believe in less centralized government. It means that, deep in their hearts, they are narrow-minded, selfish, xenophobic, and racially prejudiced.”

“… it is not important to appeal to the minds of the voters, only to their prejudices and appetites. … based on the assumption that intellectuals are dispensable and that the people are heart-feeling right wingers. They oppose foreign aid and immigration because they resent foreigners; they oppose civil rights because they fear [blacks]; they oppose welfare programs because they begrudge public charity for the poor…”

“Long indifferent to the nation’s intellectuals, the [Republican] party openly affronted them”[13]

“It is a myth that most intellectuals have been rejecting the Republican party because it is conservative and they are dogmatic liberals or Socialists. The reason that most intellectuals have rejected the Republicans is that the party has … failed, for the most part to present any coherent programs at all. It has been the Stupid Party…”[14]

Now we get close to ending these quotes from Republicans, about Republicans. Lets skip ahead to Chaper 14 of the book titled “Needed: An Ideology.”

“The progressive /Republicans …” and I add now essentially all Republicans, “individually and collectively – have failed to produce a distinctive political ideology the meet the needs …”[15]

Moving to page 260: “In presidential campaigns ever since 1940 Republicans have avoided ideology as if it were a criminal offense, punishable by four years of confinement in high political office, beset by national problems best left to the Democrats who believe in them. Republicans have sought unity not as new, distinctively Republican program, but in resort to non-ideological issues…”

We will end with this quote from near the end of the book: “… Republicans, between calls for “unity” are talking about starting a third party … if an unacceptable candidate is nominated.”

End of Quotes

As noted at the beginning of this essay, these are quotes by Republicans, about Republicans, and about the Republican party. The general concepts expressed by those authors remains valid to this day. Those words were selected carefully because:

Every quote just related was written and published in 1966. They were found in the book titled “The Party That Lost Its Head,” by George Gilder and Bruce K Chapman. That was fifty years before the 2016 election.

Back to the first quote: Like the Germans after WWI, the Republicans persuaded themselves that they really did not lose. And like the Germans, once they adopted that position, it was not possible to change their minds with the facts.

This is exactly what the Republicans have done about the 2020 election. Even before the election, Trump had already started the outright lies of election fraud. Just like he did before the 2016 election. He and his followers have yet to present any verifiable evidence of this big lie. Yet the majority of the Republican party have adopted that position. And like in 1966, and like Hitler in the 1930s, they will not re-consider that position.

The point is not that they lost, the point is their behavior after the loss. The hallmark of democracy is the peaceful acceptance of the loss of an election, and the peaceful transfer of authority, power. The Republicans are doing their best to pull that corner stone out from our edifice of democracy.

And like Germany of the 1930s, Trump and the Republicans have resorted to violence. They attempted to overthrow the election by violence on Jan 6, 2021. Luckily, they did not succeed. But they continue their efforts to remove Biden from office. To this day, many Trump supporters will not say the words that Biden was fairly elected. To this day we still hear occasional stories about election officials having their lives threatened. Here, …, in these United States.

Let’s consider ideology. One chapter in the Gilder book is titled: Needed: An Ideology. The entire chapter is based on that concept. And now, the leader of the Senate Republicans proclaims there will be no Republican legislative agenda until after they retake the majority in Congress.[16]

Yes, Google that yourself. The Senator Republican leader will not layout or provide an agenda until after they take the majority on Congress.

In closing let’s return to the theme of this third essay about our democracy. The first essay presented the case that we have taken a wrong fork in the path of history. The second essay presented the case the conservatives have hindered democracy and have resisted the advancement of humanity for centuries. This third essay presents the case that the Republican party is not for the advancement of the citizens of the United States. It is for the advancement of the elites of the party, a tool for them to obtain and keep power.

There will be much more to say about Trump, Senator McConnell, and the Republican party in general. But this essay concludes with the provided evidence that Trump is not an aberration. As bad as he is, which is extremely bad, he is not the core problem of the Republican party. He is the symptom.

As this is being written in early April of 2022, more information is being discovered and revealed about the depths of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and consequently overturn our democracy. Combine this with the depth of support to Trump and his minions by the “Republican Party.” Of the 74 million people that voted for Trump, how many have publicly revoked their support for him? The obvious answer is not nearly enough.

We must look at the Republican party in the scope of their behavior today, and in their behavior over time. Their goal is to gain power at any cost, and remain in power at any cost.

In simple words, they are out to destroy democracy.

References

The Party That Lost Its Head by George Gilder and Bruce K Chapman. Published in 1966. Footnoted as “Gilder”

Side note: Per this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilder Gilder repudiated this book. But then again, the two authors founded the Discovery Institute, an all-out creationism group. That said, the book was widely praised and even a casual a read reveals truths that are still evident today.

[16] https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-no-agenda-midterms-91c73112-0a2e-441b-b713-7e8aa2dad6bf.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-no-republican-legislative-agenda-before-2022-midterm-elections-2021-12 Headline: McConnell won't put forward a GOP legislative agenda ahead of 2022 midterm elections: report

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/mcconnell-wants-policy-free-midterm-campaign-others-gop-are-less-sure-rcna13981 Headline: McConnell wants a policy-free midterm campaign. Others in the GOP are less sure.

When former President Donald Trump ran for re-election in 2020, the party didn’t release a platform laying out Republican priorities; Trump was the platform.