Take Back the Republican Party (Guest Voice)
Take Back the Republican Party
by Linda Gibson
It’s time for the grownups among us to quit indulging the tantrums of the political 2-year-olds in the Republican Party hollering “No!” unless they get their way.
One way to accomplish this would be for Democrats, Independents, Greens, Libertarians and moderates of all kinds to join the Republican Party. Take it back from the fanatics who denounce those even slightly left of center as extremists, Marxists or traitors.
Today’s Tea Party followers are political Puritans – strident, inflexible, judgmental, convinced of their moral superiority and suspicious of anyone who doesn’t see everything as either-or, black or white and right or wrong.
Like children and fundamentalists of all kinds, they’re full of irrational fears, seeing monsters where none exist and unable to see any merit in opposing views.
Elections often are swung by a handful of votes. This is why the Tea Party has succeeded in gaining influence despite its small size. It’s well organized and very active in getting out votes.
Politicians pay inordinate attention to such groups, knowing that they can provide a winning margin in a close race.
So it really wouldn’t take much to wrench the pendulum back towards middle ground. Here’s how.
Switch your party registration to Republican. Then find a moderate Republican office holder near you, identify yourself as a Republican voter and tell him or her you support them. Even better, do a little volunteer work on their campaign. In primary elections, vote for anyone who isn’t a hard-right extremist.
None of this will prevent you from voting for the candidates of your choice in general elections, whatever their party might be.
If we don’t help the Republican Party strengthen its moderates, we’ll all be dragged down by kicking, screaming naysayers.
Linda Gibson writes the blog Subversive Speech (http://subversivespeech.wordpress.com) for the website BadInfluence.org, a resource for inspiring, motivating and educating progressive activists. She has worked as a reporter, editor and freelance writer for print and digital media, and publishes two websites and three blogs of her own. A Chicago native, she lives in Gary, Ind.
11 Responses to “Take Back the Republican Party (Guest Voice)”
There are no moderate Republicans left in Missouri, so far as I can tell.
I can’t get a comment to register here.
I’ll try again.
Now a new comment’s considered spam?
I’d be happy to, Ms. Gibson, if I felt for one minute that any good would come out of it. Unfortunately, political parties ONLY learn lessons from long hard years – sometimes decades – of wandering in the wilderness after getting their butts kicked on election day.
And THAT is the only way the GOP will learn.
The only Republican I supported in the last election was my Congressman, who is indeed a moderate–although friendly with the Tea Party, he’s not one of their stalwarts. But then the Tea Party is different from state to state and even county to county.
Anyway good basic moderate with common sense. I’ll be voting for him again this year.
“It’s time for the grownups among us to quit indulging the tantrums of the political 2-year-olds in the Republican Party”
Unfortunately we are talking about grownups here, albeit badly informed ones with sociopathic tendencies. If they were the equivalent of children they could be dealt with more easily, we could just give them their sippy cup and a picture book – while the (real) grownups got some work done.
I would if I didn’t disagree with just about every word that ocmes out of every one of their candidates mouths– and if I didn’t see them purging their moderates to make way for the barn burners.
Case in point– many moderates seemed interested in Huntsman– only to see his campaign go up in flames for having the temerity to point out that its still patriotic to serve your country as an Ambassador, even if a Democrat happens to be leading it at the time of service.
[...] Herein lies the problem. The GOP nominee, whomever it is, is gonna need the TP, or whatever smoldering ruins are left of that movement. Elections are decided when the middle decides to lean to one side, and the base is motivated. Much like my liberal friends made the mistake of assuming the entire goddamned country took a huge ideological shift to the left when Obama got elected, the political right also incorrectly assumed the country had a huge case of buyer’s remorse, and were really actually somewhere the right of Jesse Helms, just waiting to unleash all kinds of hard-right whup-ass on Washington. Well, no, sorry.. you were wrong too. The far ideological left and right continue their flawed notion that the majority of Americans are on their side, for whatever reason. And let’s be honest.. what passes for the conservative “base” at this point.. well, it’s not exactly attracting lots of moderates. [...]
Should they and everyone else say “No” to something that’s wrong?
Sorry if that’s too difficult, real kids.
xyzyx:
To something that is wrong, one should say, “No.” To something that may be inconvenient to one’s political stance…?
This movement said no to paying the bills of the United States. AFAIK, that is the primary responsibility of congress–to decide which bills to accrue and to find ways to pay them. These people who like to use the term, “traitor” so often should look in their mirrors, that is where they will find the real traitors.