Some might read
this blog post from conservative blogger John (not Juan) Cole with glee, but I don't. It makes me sad.
I still think of myself as a Republican- but I think the whole party has been hijacked by frauds and religionists and crooks and liars and corporate shills, and it frustrates me to no end to see my former friends enabling them, and I wonder 'Why can't they see what I see?" I don't think I am crazy, I don't think my beliefs have changed radically, and I don't think I have been (as suggested by others) brainwashed by my commentariat.
I hate getting up in the morning, surfing the news, and finding more and more evidence that my party is nothing but a bunch of frauds. I feel like I am betraying my friends in the party and the blogosphere when I attack them, even though I believe it is they who have betrayed what 'we' allegedly believe in. Bush has been a terrible President. The past Congresses have been horrible- spending excessively, engaging in widespread corruption, butting in to things they should have no say in (like end of life decisions), refusing to hold this administration accountable for ANYTHING, and using wedge issues to keep themselves in power at the expense of gays, etc. And I don't know why my friends on the right still keep fighting for these guys to stay in power. Why do they keep attacking decent people like Jim Webb- to keep this corrupt lot of fools in office? Why can't they just admit they were sold a bill of goods and start over? Why do they want to remain in power, but without any principles? Are tax cuts that important? What is gained by keeping troops in harms way with no clear plan for victory? With no desire to change course? With our guys dying every day in what looks to be for no real good reason? Why?
Lest I come off as condescending or patronizing, please understand that I left the Republican Party in 1992 for pretty much the same reasons, if in a different era. It was at the height of the Christian Coalition's rise to power. The deficit was a mess. The politics of Lee Atwater were dragging politics into the gutter -- a foreshadowing of the Reign of Rove. And really, as socially liberal as I am, I am still and always will be a strong supporter of fiscal responsibility and a healthy, robust entrepreneurial business climate. I was a Libertarian Republican in a party already moving toward its present authoritarian foundation.
I was a precinct captain for the Republican Party at the age of 16. I campaigned for Bush Sr. I door knocked, phone banked, stuffed envelopes -- whatever. I have a picture somewhere of me and Papa Bush, taken during one of his campaign swings through Illinois in 1988. I dug up an old comic book I had drawn together. In the dedication page, I dedicated it to the "Republican Party".
And despite all that work, all the emotional investment, all the fights I had gotten into because of my trust in the GOP, I had to come to a realization that it was all for naught. That what I thought and hoped the Republican Party was about really, at the end of the day, was nowhere near the reality. Coming just two years after I tore myself away from the Catholic Church, I felt like everything I had believed in for so long was a cruel lie.
I could be flip and say, "come on in, the water's fine on our side!" But first of all, it's not like our party doesn't have its own problems. And more importantly, partisan fealty (especially for us political junkies), like religion, goes much deeper than the intellect. It cuts to the very core of who we are, of how we define ourselves. That's why for many of the disillusioned, it's simply easier to tune out or become "independent" than it is to jump in bed with the other party.
Cole will obviously have to figure out for himself where he goes from here. He can decide to fight for his party and hopefully restore some sense of sanity in those quarters. He can join us. He speaks approvingly of Jim Webb. He can help us find more Jim Webbs (who has admitted, quite openly, that he would not exist as a candidate if it wasn't for the netroots). They are out there. He can tune out. Or become a dispassionate, "independent" observer of the political process.
But whatever decision he has ahead, he has already made one important one -- he'll refuse to be a conservative sycophant. That would've been his easiest option, and the one almost universally taken by his conservative colleagues. His next step, no matter which one he takes, will be much, much tougher.
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