It was an unusually cold morning for Irvine and the grass was dewy. I woke up and walked outside to my patio and I looked at my college, UCI, in the distance. I wondered how many of my fellow students would actually vote that day. I was even more curious as to how many would vote for a Republican. When I walked back into the living room, my roommate, half-dazed, asked curiously, "Did you vote, Chris?" I replied, "Yeah. But, I do not think McCain has a chance..."
I use to be a registered Republican. I grew up in a conservative family, went to a conservative high school, and associated with conservative friends. The funny thing is I never really believed in the values. My mother would always tell me with a smile, "Chrissie, if you want to be the Republican president, you are going to have to stop watching Hardball. And you better throw away those liberal books. I don't think your Republican friends will love those Michael Moore DVDs either." I would always grin and respond that I was just trying to study the other side.
The fact of the matter is that a lot of individuals use to be Republicans. There use to be a time when Republicans could advocate for a limited government without insulting 47% of the country. However, like with all things, time brings change.
The Republican party has changed dramatically. It use to be a party that could govern. It use to be a party that acknowledged that the government could do great things - a catalyst for a healthy, robust, and strong country. President Eisenhower, a Republican, implemented one of the largest government programs that created the interstate highways of today. President Nixon created the government agency that helped pave the way for cleaner air and water. Nixon happened to have also dirtied the image of the presidency, but that was after the fact.
The party has now moved so far to the right that it is unrecognizable from the time of Eisenhower or Nixon. RINOs are aware of this phenomenon.
By the way, "RINO," means "Republican In Name Only," a smear tactic that is used by the purest of Republicans to hold the party line.
Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential candidate and Senate majority leader in the 1990's, lamented this much when he appeared on Fox News. He stated that the Republicans should put a sign on the door that says "closed for repairs." He wants Republicans to come up with a few positive ideas because neither Reagan or himself would feel comfortable in its membership today.
It is not only the Republicans of the past that are self-aware of its path to destruction. The College Republican National Committee came up with its own report, which found that people associate Republicans with "close-mindedness and racism." The report also undermined the core principles of the Republican leadership. The majority of young Republicans want higher taxes on the wealthy and more government spending on education. The report even summed up its economic findings with the sentence, "economic growth and opportunity cannot just be about tax cuts and spending cuts."
Everyone must be writing a report after the Republican party was handily defeated in the 2012 elections. The Republican National Committee came up with an "autopsy report" to help the party move forward onto the 2014 cycle. The subject matter of the self-funded study was that the RNC has to do a better job of reaching out to minorities and eliminating the poor messengers of its ideals. No one should have to hear about a Republican mocking the less fortunate or a Senator calling Hispanics "wetbacks."
Yet, with all of the studies, and with all of the introspection, we can expect more of the same from Republicans. They are the ones responsible for the stasis and dysfunction in Congress; and its okay, we should admit it.
Two widely-recognized independent political scientists have admitted it and they think its pertinent to a rational discussion on how we can get out of the rut. Ornstein and Mann wrote a book, which argued that: "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."
They also included a football analogy. "While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25,
the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal
post."
The week of June 3, 2013 represented the extreme attitudes of the Republican House of Representatives. The dysfunctional body failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 37th time and it voted to end the DREAM executive order, which allows young immigrants to apply for a deportation deferral. Neither of the House bills had a chance to become law, yet, they voted for it anyway.
One has to wonder whether our country can recover from this partisan divide, which has stopped all reform at every level. I remain cautiously optimistic that our generation can do something about it, but something needs be done now. As other Americans walk onto their patios and look into the horizon, they all ask the same question: what does our future hold and do we have a chance? I think that we do.
