If your vision for America is privatizing the commons, corporate welfare and perpetual war, you’re likely to also support slashing federal assistance programs, eroding organized labor, subscribing to trickle-down economics and believe the government is tyrannical. Welcome to the modern republican party, an appalling contradiction of hypocrisy that veils itself in traditional ideals.
There was a time however, when republicans embraced moderation and pragmatic legislation. When they stood for what was right and waged war on poverty not on poor people. A time when republicans defended science, funded public education, protected the environment and cured diseases. Our fathers republican party advocated to expand assistance to millions of handicapped, minority and migratory workers. They promoted the unemployment insurance program, extended federal minimum wage laws, fought to protect workers’ rights and warned against the corporatocracy. They were men who believed in market solutions and sound banking practices and understood the environment, the poor and the elderly are not line items on a profit and loss statement. These men aspired to intelligence and didn’t fear progress or facts. They championed causes like equitable taxation, national health care and reasonable gun measures. Republicans who understood the importance of holding corporations accountable. They were political leaders who restrained the corrosive influence of religious fundamentalists and scriptural literalism. They never felt the need to count flag pins or how many times you went to church, they were informed and consequently, they acted like men.
This new dress code is a mockery of traditional republican values robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous. Beyond a meld of rigid dogmas smothered in balloons and ribbons, today’s republican voters clad themselves in simplistic world views, conspiracy theories and contradictory ideologies. The consequences of a paranoid sub-culture who remains clueless on just about everything the republican party once stood for.