The Republicans: On the Floor, Unable to Get Up

A few short years ago when the Republican Congress were working with Bush as Republican president, they were talking about how they would be in power for decades. But, look what happened; They got drunk on power, the room started spinning and they threw up all over their fancy clothes.

Now, after losing control of the executive and legislative branches, the room is spinning faster and faster. They’re on the floor and they can’t get their balance because their legs have turned to jelly. It’s a lack of stability that stems from a party persona that has been completely drained of substance. Their identity used to be well grounded; based in some basic, well defined principles and values. Not anymore.

They used to be the party of  fiscal conservatism, but they became the “borrow and spend” Republicans who blew our budget surplus and pushed our national debt to nearly $10 trillion. They used to talk about smaller government, but when they had a chance to act on that, they grew government at an astounding rate. Republicans used to get mileage out of the "family values" image they bathed themselves in, but a series of Republican scandals spoiled that. The title “Republican” used to be synonymous with conservatism in general, but during the Bush administrations they allowed their party to be hijacked by extremist neocons who were so far on the fringe, they weren’t even able to muster the foresight to recognize the potential ramifications of their overreaching intellectual strategies.

Now all they have left is a cheap device, the exploitation of public fear. Fear of whatever ...someone taking away their guns, someone making the country socialist, terrorists taking away our “freedoms,” gays getting married, secularism, or any other issue that they can get a shrinking base to buy into. They have been become a parody of themselves with their flag lapel pins, loud statements about their Christian faith, and simple propagandistic slogans designed to drive an inattentive public toward whatever policy they need support for.

At this point they're stuck, because now they not only have to establish new values, they have to demonstrate their adherence to, and worth of, those values. But they can take heart. Since the Democrats established a foothold on power with the 2006 elections, they have acted like Republican-Lite by: continuing the funding of a war they were supposedly given a mandate to end, keeping impeachment off the table, and failing to restore oversight of the executive branch. It probably won’t be long before they’ll be drunk on power as well, and we can repeat the cycle. Or maybe our newly elected president can help keep them on their feet, lucid and focused on what really needs to be done.