It’s a strange mix of past and present. I’m referring of course to the Republican Party. Closer to the truth: The Trump Party; The Nationalist Party; The White Party; The Racist Party; The Mafia State Party; The Aliens; The Faux America Party; The Flat Earth Party; The Cult.
It’s hard work trying to think up labels that more accurately reflect what was, in the not too distant past—by outward appearances at least—a legitimate political party in American politics. We did get a foreshadowing of this metamorphosis when Sarah Palin was selected as John McCaine’s running mate in 2008. She was and still is a dingbat. Woefully uninformed about the world: geo-politics, economics, National Security or any and all things related to running a country. She did however understand that there were a lot of Americans who didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. Not about education. Not about knowledge or academics. Not about professionalism or experience. Hell those elites aren’t real Americans anyway.
I don’t think McCaine liked or respected her, but he was stuck with her. Now to the point of all this—Palin was the first to touch Trump’s cult. She energized and thrilled the Trump base with her hatred of Muslims, her stunning ignorance and lack of understanding of the world. She may have been the first national Republican politician to speak the language of bigotry in a way that gave many white non-college educated men a boner. That titillated the women. Spoke to their prejudices, their racist views, their mistrust of anyone getting a bigger piece of the pie that was rightfully theirs; or acted and sounded like they were smarter than them.
Too bad she was a woman. She would have owned forty plus percent of this country if she had been a man. Which leads to Trump—the seller of bullshit. The man who was already squandering the obscene wealth granted to him by his nasty, soulless, racist father. A guy born on third base. A guy with no talent. No skills. No wits except those of a gutter rat. A man with an unlimited capacity for bullshit. A man who could sell the earlier Palin crowd on the fact he was just like them when in fact he was nothing like them: He a lazy, pampered rich guy; a gold-plated phony who more than anything wanted to be accepted and respected by the elites his base hated. Where they had to work hard, he had it handed to him. Where they had arguable complaints about their status in a rapidly changing world, he had none. He lived a life of excess and debauchery, flaunting his supposed wealth and taking whatever he wanted—especially from women.
So when you ask who are they—Republicans who once stood for something, you might also ask yourself how long have they been like this? How long was it simmering in the background, underground, hidden behind haughty declarations of being the true patriots, hardliners on national security, fiscal conservatives who demanded a balanced budget. Who paraded around with their American flag lapel pins claiming moral superiority. The party of family values. The party of white supremacy.
Did they just become this party of defending statues of Confederate traitors? The party of white supremacy? The party that is willing to tear apart immigrant families of color coming to our country seeking a better life? The party of deporting the offspring of illegal immigrants born in America, who have lived in America their entire lives and were promised a path to citizenship? The party that whines incessantly about their Second Amendment rights as they drool at the prospect of punishing people who are exercising their First Amendment rights. The party that acts like Moscow west? That thinks Vladimir Putin, a trained Russian KGB agent with delusions of Russian global domination, is a great role model and trustworthy partner? The party that thinks our longstanding allies should be trashed because we pay more than them to keep the peace?
The party that no longer believes democracy is valid if casting votes means people of color have a say; or that results can’t be trusted if the racist doesn’t win? The party willing to stab America in the heart, pit states against each other and erase the United in United States? The party that thinks climate change is a hoax? The party that no longer believes in the law, that supports corruption and defiance of the law as Trump demonstrated and preached while ushering in a completely new set of American values: lie, cheat and steal until they stop you; never admit defeat; never say you made a mistake; stack the courts with incompetent partisan judges, some of whom have never tried a case in court, who will always rule in your favor; nothing is sacred in America if you can make money off of it?
No. I submit they didn’t just become this party. In their heart of hearts they have always been this party. This is who they are. This is who they have always been. And they are damn proud of it: Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler, Mike Pence, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Tom Cotton, Rand Paul, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Lamar Alexander, John Cornyn, the incomparable Ted Cruz, Moscow Ron Johnson, Louis Gohmert, Steve King, and Devin Nunes just to name a few.