Pity the poor moderate Republican (NOT)

Make no mistake--30 years ago, I might've been a Republican. No, not a Republican of the Tom Delay/Rick Santorum/Bob Ney variety, but rather, a Rockefeller Republican. A Millicent Fenwick-type Republican. (For those of you who don't know about this remarkable lady, she was a Congresswoman from New Jersey who was the real-life inspiration for Doonesbury's Lacey Davenport.) I can agree with the socially liberal, fiscally conservative types. Fiscal conservaatism, at least, is not a bad thing. Fiscal conservatism, as I understand it, means that you're cautious and you don't spend money you don't have. Fiscal conservatism is all but dead in today's GOP. Bush and his cast of idiots are like a bunch of spoiled Daddy's girls running amuck in Bloomingdale's waving credit cards. They are best described as "borrow and spend conservatives."

Moderate Republicans are slowly dying out. Lincoln Chafee, a decent guy who was out of place in the GOP, lost his re-election bid and has spoken of leaving for years. (Dude, just do a Jeffords. It won't kill you.) The few that remain are figureheads in the GOP. Yeah, yeah, I know Rudy is a player in the GOP primaries. People? He's a socially liberal Northeasterner who's been married three times and divorced twice. The theofascists wouldn't have him--and the theofascists are still influential in the GOP. One mention of "pro-choice/pro-gay rights," and they'll throw a snit fit.

I feel for the moderates. I really do. But that said, it would've been nice if they'd stood up to the loonies much, much sooner. People complain about the Democrats. In my opinion, there are moderates and principled, intelligent conservatives in the GOP who also failed to act as a bulwark against Bushco. Someone like Dick Lugar or John Warner can't be considered a party-before-country Repub. So how do you explain their faltering?

Two years ago, Driftglass was wondering this same thing:

Sorry bucko, this is the New Normal: while you were busy explaining to family and friends (me, for example) that the fringe Right was on a nice, tight leash and would never bust out of it's [sic] Petri dish and go pneumonic...they were busy putting all the joint property in their names. So congratulations: While you were cleverly “playing” them, you became the “fringe” and they became The Party.

In other words, while you were busy congratulating you sly self, you forgot to read the Fine Print and, brother, you gone and done joined the Klan!

So you can either get comfortable with wearing sheets and marching in formation, or run, do not walk, the Fuck Out of their Abattoir, but what you can’t do is continue this ruinous and infantile pretense that it’s not happening, or that it’s not bad, or that it’s not you fault.

It is happening.
It is that bad.
And it is ENTIRELY your fault.

So, for what seems like the umpteen millionth time, let’s take a good hard look at your new ”friends”, and then you explain to the rest of the country – and to the rest of the planet – why you persist in letting these feces-based life forms own and operate your party and act in your name.


That said, one of my favorite GOP blogs out there is Neomugwump, authored by a gay, African-American, moderate Republican minister. I know, I know. He has to have the patience of a saint to put up with all those assholes. And he is also somewhat disheartened by the outbreak of McCain's disease in the GOP ranks.

Neomugwump notwithstanding, sometimes I think there should be a bake sale--maybe we'd raise enough money so those Republic Party members who aren't foaming-at-the-mouth fruitcakes could buy a clue.

Bad things happen when good people do nothing. Dig?

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