Where Have All the Republicans Gone?
March 5, 2012

 
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The Reagan LegacyI first noticed it right after the 2006 Mid-term election when Republicans lost control of both the House & The Senate after near unbroken control by the GOP since Newt Gingrich’s infamous “Republican Revolution” in 1994. Suddenly, no one (that I *personally* came in contact with) was willing to admit to being a “Republican”. It’s like they vanished from polite society overnight. Ever since then, if you “accused” a clearly partisan Conservative hack of being a “Republican”, they would (and still do) get very upset and DENY they are a “Republican”. They’re all “Independents” now (and with the rise of Ron Paul, the label “Libertarian” is now popular). But don’t dare call them a “Republican”! The only thing worse would be to call them a “Lib’rul”.

The reason I’m telling you all this is because I’ve just finished yet another week of “debates” on YouTube with two retarded Conservative “Bush-apologists”… a term I use deliberately to annoy them because: 1) they always deny being Republicans or liking Bush at all despite their fierce support of him, and 2) Because “it’s not an apology if you don’t think Bush did anything wrong”, and they don’t. In their world, Saddam had WMD’s (and we found them!), America was never attacked, Bush laid the groundwork (in 2002) that eventually got bin Laden NINE years later (when he said he “wasn’t concerned about him”? That was a ruse), and the economy didn’t fall apart until after a completely happy and satisfied electorate suddenly decided to up and change control of both houses of Congress on a whim in 2006. And, of course, both denied being “Bush-apologists” or “Republicans” at all.

In 2007, it didn’t take me long to figure out why obvious “Republicans” were suddenly unwilling to admit they were “Republicans”: George Bush. After Bush left office, I started receiving an an actual explanation from obvious Republicans why they didn’t like being called “Republicans”. The answer was always the same: “George Bush wasn’t a (true) Conservative!” (the “true” appears to be optional. The equivalency of “Conservative” with “Republican” appears to be not). And just “why” wasn’t Bush a “true Conservative”? Because he doubled the National Debt and “spent like a Democrat!” Of course, the last Democratic president balanced the Budget and left a surplus (to which they credit the Republican Congress… the same Republican Congress that “left Bush a Recession” and was in control the first six years of the Bush presidency.) Bush was a tax-cutting, deregulatin’ fool. That’s what “Republicans” do. The results might not of been what “Conservatives” think was supposed to happen when you do all that, but just because the economy imploded as a RESULT of Conservative policies, doesn’t mean “Bush wasn’t a Republican”.

Nor does it mean THEY are not “Republicans” either.

This past month of ridiculous Republican debates on the morality/necessity of Birth Control… a matter most Americans considered long settled… opened a lot of peoples eyes and had them asking: “THIS is what you think is the most pressing issue facing our country right now? You think you’re going to win the White House by railing against birth control???” Mitt Romney unwittingly opened this can of worms last January when he told Mike Huckabee that he would support a “Personhood Amendment” to the Constitution that says “life begins at conception”. But when people started pointing out to him that “hormonal birth control does not prevent fertilization/conception” and would therefore be made illegal if a “Personhood Amendment” were to pass, Romney clearly didn’t get it and insisted he was “not against birth control”. In his next debate, Romney was taken aback by the question: “Who’s talking about making birth control illegal?” he asked, incredulous. This was followed up by the Obama Administration mandating that ALL private corporations… even church owned private businesses with employees of varying faiths… must cover contraception (something 28 states already require). The debate grew to a climax (pardon the pun) last week when a clearly befuddled Rush Limbaugh called a college student a “slut” because she was “having so much sex, the cost of birth control was bankrupting her”… because in Rush’s World, “The Pill” is just like Viagra (something Rush is very familiar with). The more sex you have, the more pills you take, no? (yes, I’m being facetious.)

Today, I’m a Democrat. I’m a LIBERAL Democrat. I do NOT call myself “Progressive”. I hate the word. I think some Liberals call themselves “Progressive” because they’ve allowed Republicans to redefine the word “Liberal” to mean something bad. No. Sorry. It’s MY word and I’m not giving it up without a fight. “Liberal” is not a bad word. It means “generous” and “open-minded”, and I REFUSE to allow the other side turn it into something to be ashamed of. You see, I’m an adult. I can disagree with my Party and still call myself “a Democrat”. In Republican Land, if a person disagrees with their Party on anything, they think that makes them an “independent”. I’ve yet to meet an “independent” that wasn’t really just a disaffected/disappointed Republican. Republicans comes in two forms: the seriously misinformed (that never question what they are told because it confirms what they already believe or want to believe… like Obama is a secret Muslim with a fraudulent birth certificate), and the deliberate misinformers that know what they are saying is a lie, but say it anyway to advance their personal agenda.

I used to be a Republican. I was raised in a Republican home. My father listens to Rush Limbaugh every day and Fox for most of his news. And despite what Rick Santorum thinks, I called myself a “Republican” while in college too. I bought into the nonsense that “Democrat” was a dirty word and could not imagine why on Earth anyone would call themselves one. Yet, I was “uncomfortable” with Republican positions on most issues, and the first Presidential election I was old enough to vote in, I supported Al Gore. Not in 2000, but in 1988. Yet I still thought I was an open-minded “Republican”. Four years later, I was enthralled with “Independent” Ross Perot. I was a big Perot-zealot in 1992 the same way most Ron Paul supporters are today. I signed up for the petition drive to get Perot on the ballot in all 50 states, went to Perot-events and talked him up to all my friends (all these things were MUCH more difficult before the Internet, but we did it.) And while today I recognize the fact that a “President Perot” might have been a miserable failure (a fact Ron Paul fans will come to realize 20 years from now), I temper my foolish naivete’ with the knowledge that “Ross was absolutely right about NAFTA and that giant-sucking sound” we’d hear coming from Mexico as our jobs moved South (Paul fans will have no such rationalization to fall back on unless they evolve into anti-war Democrats.)

By 1996, Bill Clinton made me “a Democrat”. No longer calling myself a “Republican” or “Independent”, my “come-to-Jesus” moment was the ceaseless parade of investigations into Bill Clinton by the GOP for no discernible reason other than simply because he was a “Democrat”. He turned around the economy, gave us The Internet, and was doing a great job, yet they acted like he was the Devil himself, spending millions to dig into his private life. Every week it seemed like there was another “Gate”: “Mail-Gate”, “File-gate”, “Trooper-Gate”, “Whitewater-Gate”… I guess I have Newt Gingrich to thank for helping me realize I was really a Democrat, not a “moderate Republican”.
 

But it took George W. Bush to make a “Liberal”, and for that, I will always be grateful.

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March 5, 2012 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, General

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