Sunday, July 16, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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What happened to my Republican Party?*
I know that isn’t the question on everyone’s lips these days. Although it should be on the minds of those loyal members of the GOP who have steadfastly maintained their membership and their memories of what used to be. You know, when Republicanism stood for something.
Remember Abraham Lincoln? The fellow who freed the slaves and saved the republic? I am only half-joking because I suspect that many people alive and voting today will recognize the name but not much else beyond that. And there’s the pity.
I thought about the question at the top while watching the House hearings with/against FBI Director Christopher Wray. Not that there shouldn’t be House hearings about many government functions — it’s part of the raison d’être of Congress — because there should and must be.
It was more the attitude of Republican members of the committee who seemed out to get him rather than out to get to the truth of whatever is going on in the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
It was in that committee that long-dispelled Fox News-driven conspiracy theories as well as lesser known right-wing rabble-rousing “in the public interest” were given light so the GOP faithful could bring the heat down on the folks responsible for law and order.
That’s the part that makes me think I have fallen through the keyhole and can’t find my way — along with most of the country — back to some degree of sanity.
And what I have concluded — and it ain’t much of a stretch at all— is that what used to make the Republican Party and its members stand tall has forced many into an intractable stoop accented by a very noticeable inability to speak.
The party of law and order has moved leftward, so to speak, because it has fallen to the Democrats (and I can’t believe I am actually writing this) to protect and defend the United States of America. Not all Democrats, to be sure, because some are loony and show that unmistakable trait on a daily basis. But there are enough of them to show the country that sanity prevails left of center while chaos and confusion rule the day throughout the right side of the political spectrum. And to the extent that there are a few sane voices on the right, they are muted, which means they are moot in this contest for the soul of America.
And if any of you need another real-time example of the defection of the GOP from the leadership of the “keep the United States of America and everyone in it secure, safe and free” caucus, just look at the humiliating debacle that is Tommy Tuberville, the senior senator from what used to be the great state and should now be the “most ashamed” state of Alabama.
At a time when the United States is being challenged— read that attacked in all manner of ways— and needs to be at full strength with all top command positions filled and active, it is Tuberville all by himself who is holding up the commander in chief’s choices to lead America’s armed services.
It really doesn’t matter why Tuberville is doing this — another theatrical performance courtesy of the poll-readers advising the Republicans, I suppose. What matters is that if Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or pick any country with the intent of pushing us around decides to act on that impulse, we are not ready for the fight.
That is not the GOP being responsible for the safety and security of the United States and all of its people. That is a GOP that has lost its way, lost its voice and lost any credibility when it tries to speak up for the pre-eminence of America’s military.
That is not only unfair and unsafe for Americans in general, it is breaking faith with every active-duty service member who is laying it all on the line for our country.
Every veteran who wore a uniform should understand the danger of breaking that bond of faith that must be strong between those who fight for us and those who are supposed to fight for them in Congress.
All this is happening to our country because the Republicans have lost their way. I can ask, again, what happened to the Republican Party but the answer sounds like a broken record.
That doesn’t make the answer any less wrong.
*I was a Republican for the first 40 years of my voting life.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun
