Over and over I hear the refrain.
"I miss the old days of the Republican party, when they were people we could work with!"
Really? Considering that Nixon's Southern Strategy, which was the watershed event that turned the South Republican and turned the Republicans into the party of violent racists, was in 1972, I'd bet most of you reading this don't remember the old days at all. I certainly don't- I was born in 1982, and I'd bet nobody born after about 1960 or so has any substantive memory of them...
And before that, were the Republicans ever not the party of the wealthy? Starting in the era of the New Deal, the Republicans have consistently positioned themselves as the party of class warfare against the poor. They have reveled in their position as the party of bullies- cheering on the strong as they brutalise the weak, holding forth on how the brutalised party is morally inferior and claiming that it's the right of the strong to take from the weak.
Now, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps at some point the Republicans didn't stand for the worst excesses of vicious, unfettered corporate capitalism. Perhaps the Republicans, at some point, weren't the party of the Rich, cheering them on as they cheated, stole from, and brutally repressed the poor and those who tried to help them.
Or maybe we all, in our desire to feel tolerant and openminded, are ascribing a level of basic human decency and goodwill to individuals who had none, who laughed at the idea and tried to shape the law to eliminate it.
Am I wrong? Prove it. Give me some examples of how I'm wrong. Give me some proof. What Republicans are you guys missing? What examples of Republican virtue am I unfairly smearing? Who is it that you're eulogising?