The Republican Party in the United States must undergo realism, revision and recovery. And, that will happen. This country has been for well over two hundred years a two party nation and is most likely to remain that way.
Just in weeks recently gone by, the demise of the Republican Party was exaggerated, especially by the twenty-four news media. While pundits like to pontificate and predict, it is always the electorate of this nation who make the final decisions in national, state and local elections.
Recently, in the new book, Bully Pulpit, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Era of Journalism, Doris Kerns Goodwin’s editors, on the inside cover note that, “the gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider…legislative stalemate paralyzes the country …corporations resist regulations…spectacular mergers produce giant companies…the influence of money in politics deepens…bombs explode in crowded streets…small wars proliferate far from our shore, and a dizzying array of inventions speeds up the pace of daily life” Although the book focuses on events unfolding in 1912, the diversity of these challenges, and similar issues, sounds much like the America of 2013. Perhaps, then as now, lies the way for revision, realism and recovery for the current Republican Party. New approaches, new proposals, new policies and new programs are needed. It will be up to the Republican Party to offer such changes, with a unified voice, after internal struggle and debate.
Having been led by a hard charging, reform minded former city and state official, Republicans revised their thinking, looked at the realism found in the nation and recovered their footing in the White House and in the Congress. The mood of the nation must be read and understood by those who lead, or seek to lead our nation. History has proven this fact time after time. However, due to internal strife in 1912, the split in Republican Party elected the liberal, philosophical Woodrow Wilson President
Today, the Republican Party, given many numerous opportunities by the current administration and Congress, Republicans can revise, ascertain the desires of our citizens and recover a leadership position in national politics. Hoverer, revision in policy thinking, reality in addressing issues and reaching out to wider components of the American electorate will be essential. The Republican Party must once again create a big tent.
Now that an interim nuclear arms treaty has been negotiated, another opportunity for Republicans has presented itself. This treaty, while an avowed interim one, leaves much doubt about the best policy to pursue in the Middle East, while determining the best course for American strategic interests in a volatile part of the world.
This new political challenge along with Obama care, immigration, the budget, managing the deficit and many other serious domestic issues provide the Republican Party with numerous policy opportunities to review, rethink, and develop creative solutions before the 2014 congressional elections and the 2016 presidential election. Opportunities to read the mood of the American people and offer solutions that are not simply ideological but which solve problems and help Americans feel optimistic and proud again.
Republicans need to understand the spirit of America needs a booster shot.
Stephan Sonn says
Editor,
A transfusion would be more like it but this is one of author’s better opinions. The problem is the Kochs, who prefer actual or threats of anarchy as a tool. The shutdown served them and happened at their whim via the Tea Party.
The Koch are not capitalists in the modern version that works as if humans actually mattered. Koch speculates in total exploitation of nature and human nature by social land earth engineering that guts the life out of the planet quite beyond,around and crashing through human survival mechanisms, by using science as they please.
So I wonder what there is the Republican party can do about The Koch. It is not going to get done by Socialist or Liberal platitudes. Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him. They just don’t make that model any more.
James Nick says
Editor,
In their book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” Thomas E. Mann of the left-of-center Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute succinctly described the present-day Republican party thusly…
“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. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”
This observation was made a year ago. Since then there has been no evidence that the Republican party has any intention of undergoing any sort of self-examination that would lead them to revise their extreme ideology or moderate their incessant obstructionism. To the contrary, they appear to have doubled-down on the demagoguery and fear mongering as personified by the Eugene McCarthy-like Ted Cruze.
There is no thought thought of and no action taken by the Republican party that is not intended to damage the President and/or the Democrats regardless of the broader impact on this country and the world’s economy.
To pick just one recent example, last week, 18 conservative Republicans urged Speaker of the House, John Boehner, to fund the government at a low sequester level when federal spending authority expires on January 15. In their letter, these lawmakers(?) stated that… “The Budget Control Act is the law of the land,” and that “Our (note the use of the intentional slur here) Democrat colleagues are now threatening to shut the government down in order to change that. We should not permit that to happen”. In other words, if the Democrats attempt to modify the Draconian, sledge-hammer budget cuts called for by the Sequester it will be their fault that a budget agreement cannot be reached thereby forcing yet another government shutdown.
What a hypocritical and transparent piece of legislative BS. How is it that Democrats cannot seek to simply moderate a “law of the land” through legislative compromise yet Republicans see no issue when they actually shut down the government in an attempt to nullify a law of the land through the back door by defunding the Affordable Care Act?
As Mr Hall notes a large number serious domestic and foreign policy issues are piling up that need to be addressed by Congress but the Do-Nothing Republicans continue to be obsessed with and laser-focused on dismantling Obamacare, filibustering or tabling any and all legislation initiated by Democrats, refusing to appoint judges, enacting voter disenfranchisement laws, and gerrymandering congressional districts to their advantage. These anti-democratic actions do not seem to suggest the Republican party is thinking of getting their “Big Tent” out of mothballs anytime soon.