The Grand Old Party Isn't Grand Anymore

My parents were Republican.  Politics was often discussed at home although as a child I found the subject boring and didn't listen.  They voted for Barry Goldwater and circulars from the John Birch Society used to come in the mail.  Politics was something they agreed on and when it was the subject of conversation the atmosphere was congenial.  Too often nothing was discussed in the family home and the atmosphere was charged with unspoken antipathies.  Therefore, in a strange sort of way, I associated being Republican with being family.

I remained Republican until I started to travel.  There was no epiphany, no great revelation when I switched from conservative thinking to a more liberal viewpoint.  It just happened over time.  Even so, I still have a fondness for the lumbering elephant that is the Republican icon.

Until now.  Well, that's not entirely true.  Republicans seemed to lose their way with Reagan and his political love affair with the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.  Republicans lost the ability to empathize.  If people were doing it tough, too bad.  The American Dream is that anyone, no matter their circumstances or background, can aspire to be President.  If you didn't raise yourself from the mire by your bootstraps then you weren't trying hard enough. 

I grew up a little and started paying attention to world affairs and the States part in them.  I saw that we put on our combat boots when American interests, usually oil interests, were threatened.  With a seemingly endless supply of money to convince the subject country to see things our way, we used the military, the CIA, sanctions, diplomatic pressure, assassinations and skullduggery to get what we wanted.  Americans, so proud and powerful, arrogant with power, didn't pay enough attention.  We were the honourable nation.  If we were doing this overseas, than we had to be in the right.  The USA could do no wrong.  But we did and we are.

We got away with it and it worsened until we had Guantanamo Bay; government sanctioned torture and the flaunting of the Geneva Convention.  And we weren't even ashamed enough to try and hide it.  Guantanamo Bay and all that it meant to our decaying morals was flaunted.  It was the first time I was ashamed to be an American.

And this is just world politics.  We also have the legalized corruption of the Super Pacs, Big Business and the thing which will kill us all, climate change, which Rubio, the baby-faced poster boy of 'moderation'  said is not man made because temperature change is normal

I used to envision the GOP as being made up of venerable white-haired old men, rather like my childish image of God (mom asked me once to draw what I thought God might look like.  I drew a white haired white man inside a big heart).  The Grand Old Party isn't grand any more.  It's not even Great.  It's Grubby and mean. 

Now there's a kind of morbid fascination watching it's death throes.  The dreadful thing is, it is taking the USA with it.  That that suntanned, fairy-flossed, middle-aged Ken doll has made it this far without being chucked out on his ear, illustrates how deep the rot goes. 

Poor Fellow, My Country.