This column is one in a series of columns where I am making the case that we don’t need the GOP. Now, I’m not talking about the GOP that Donald Trump wants to put together to help him recapture the White House in 2024. I’m talking about the GOP which is trying very hard to regain some degree of respectability after having allowed itself to become the Trump toady machine over the last four or five years.
Yea, yea, I know about all those decent Republicans like the Lincoln Project bunch (the golf cap they sent me after I sent them some money is sitting on top of my locker at my golf club), the ABT bunch led by Bill Kristol who brought us Sarah Palin – remember her? And let’s not forget Liz Cheney who can always be counted on for a 30-second soundbite on the national news.
But what I find interesting about the current goings-on in D.C. is that for the first time in five years the Congress is moving towards the passage of a major piece of legislation and in the process, is actually engaged in a serious and honest political debate
Which is what Congress is supposed to do – debate laws with input from all the members of both caucuses who represent different regions of the country, different populations and cultures, and different ideas on how to get things done.
But you know what? I haven’t heard a peep out of any member of the GOP caucus in either the Senate or the House during the current debate over a trillion-dollar spending bill which Joe claims will determine the future success or failure of his Presidency, so it needs to get done.
And why is the bill dragging along and a final version not yet in place? Because the two sides are doing the usual Congressional thing of getting rid of this, adding that, coming up with numbers that will or won’t work for when they all go back home.
Except, in this case, the two sides happen to both be from within the Democratic caucus – a progressive group led by ‘radicals’ like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose district must contain at least ten thousand college students who shouldn’t have to pay off their loans, versus the so-called moderate wing led by Joe Manchin who never met a tax cut for coal-fed utilities that he didn’t like.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against either Ms. Ocasio-Cortez or Joe Manchin. They represent very different parts of the country, and both deserve to be heard. My point is that precisely because the Democratic Party has split into two wings, one more to the left, the other more to the center, why do we need the GOP at all?
If there are all these so-called ‘moderate’ Republicans out there who want to bring their party back into the 21st Century and accept the fact that issues like climate change and a realistic minimum wage aren’t going to disappear just because the Koch Brothers would like these issues to disappear, then as Bill Clinton would say, do the math.
Ans if you do the math, guess what? Both the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party would be larger than the idiots who told a ‘Daily Show’ reporter, Jordan Klepper, that they liked everything that Trump said and didn’t care whether it was true or not. And by he way, at this Iowa rally, there were plenty of Confederate flags floating about.
Many of my liberal friends keep telling me that they are upset and worried about how ‘divisive’ the country has become. Wouldn’t it be better, they say to me, if we could all sit down together and find common ground?
This morning some guy drove past me in his truck which had a Trump -2024 flag flapping in the breeze. I’m not going to waste one friggin’ second of my time trying to find any common ground with this schmuck. He wants to let everyone know that he’s still supporting the dumbest and most racist President we ever had? Good for him – no good for me.
Remember what I keep saying – Vote Early, Vote Often!
I think we’d all be better off if we stole enough GOP votes to make every November election a contest between two candidates from the same side.