Republican Party has left earlier principles
What does it mean to be a Republican?
Bill Kristol, the neoconservative political analyst, said that “[t]oday’s Republican Party has combined rabblerousing populist demagoguery with sleazy oligarchic self-dealing in a way that’s not merely reprehensible, but that poses a real and perhaps historic threat to the future of democratic capitalism.”
But what has the Republican Party stood for over time? The platforms under which Richard Nixon ran tell the story.
In 1960, when Nixon first ran for president, the GOP platform held an array of progressive positions, including a commitment that the leadership of the United States be responsible and mature with promises that are rational and practical. It supported a change in the Electoral College system to give every voter a fair voice in presidential elections, a condemnation of bigotry and unfair tactics in political campaigns, safeguards against diverting non-political funds to partisan political purposes and the expansion of coverage and liberalization of Social Security benefits.
In 1968, when Nixon was first elected, the Republicans advocated a nationwide and uniform voting period for presidential elections, representation in Congress for the District of Columbia, support for the efforts of the Puerto Rican people to achieve statehood, and the enactment of an Election Reform Act that restrained political spending and fundraising.
And, in the midst of an array of conflict within our nation, the 1972 party platform supported an educational bill of rights for Spanish-speaking people, ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and noted that “[t]he cultural diversity of America’s heritage groups has always been a source of strength for our society and our Party.”
The platforms are long documents aimed at unifying us as a people and I noted just a few excerpts. The platforms were what today would be called “mainstream.”
Donald Trump has, indeed, turned the party into a rabble-rousing populist demagoguery, as Kristol said. Worse, some of those elected to statewide office are afraid of Trump and kowtow to his deplorable antics.
I admire Republican mainstream patriots who served our nation and were captured and tortured after being shot from the air, such as John McCain, or faced the threat of a death, such as the first President Bush. They, and others of the party, did not develop a convenient case of bone spurs to spuriously avoid serving our nation. The Republican Party needs to return to mainstream leadership to draw us together as a people. If it does not, it will be an anathema in our Nation’s history.
I firmly believe in the party of Lincoln, but the party of Trump is its antithesis and has repudiated its original principles and values. It has become, because of Trump, a party of malice toward many and malice toward the party’s prior platforms which outlined a design to make us “a more perfect Union.”