Stafford: Why I gave up on being a Republican

[cali]

Published: Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 12:01 AM
The Jersey Journal By The Jersey Journal

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By MICHAEL STAFFORD
CAGLE CARTOONS NEWSPAPER SYNDICATE

I'm a life-long Republican. My political affiliation has been woven intrinsically into the very fabric of my being.

<snip>

Today, however, I am a registered Republican no longer.

I came to the decision to leave the GOP not with a heavy heart, but with a broken one.

As a local GOP official after President Obama's election, I had a front-row seat as it became infected by a dangerous and virulent form of political rabies.

In the grip of this contagion, the Republican Party has come unhinged. Its fevered hallucinations involve threats from imaginary communists and socialists who, seemingly, lurk around every corner. Climate change- a reality recognized by every single significant scientific body and academy in the world- is a liberal conspiracy conjured up by Al Gore and other leftists who want to destroy America. Large numbers of Republicans- the notorious birthers- believe that the President was not born in the United States. Even worse, few figures in the GOP have the courage to confront them.

Republican economic policies are also indefensible. The GOP constantly claims its opponents are engaged in "class warfare," but this is an exercise in projection. In Republican proposals, the wealthy win, and the rest of us lose- one only has to look at Rep. Paul Ryan's budget to see that.

<snip>

http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index.ssf/2012/06/stafford_why_i_gave_up_on_bein.html

every argument against the current repub party concisely and eloquently put forth.

[tclambert]

1. How do we get more people to see the light?

What breaks through the partisan blinders and gets people to say, "Wait a minute. These policies I've been cheering for just aren't right."???

[ejpoeta]

2. usually only when it affects them personally.

[Chorophyll]

15. Yep. It usually takes losing their job and health insurance.

Republicans seem to lack the ability to walk in anyone else's shoes, ever. "But oh, when it happens to meeeeeeeeeeee... "

[ejpoeta]

22. somehow it's different though when it does happen to them.

they are deserving while everyone else is undeserving. Whatever gets you through the day I guess. That's what jesus said... i've got mine fu. That's right.

[drmeow]

27. Even beyond that

if it didn't happen to me, it isn't true or real!

I had an argument with a Republican about the marriage penalty built into the tax code (this was about 13 years ago). He said that no such thing existed because he had compared the numbers when he and his wife got married and it didn't cost them any money. Of course, the fact that his wife was in medical school at the time and had not income had NO bearing on his finding at all but the very real phenomenon "did not exist" because it hadn't affected him personally.

[dotymed]

13. IMO, an honest education

along with a media free of propaganda would convert a lot of republicans.

[raouldukelives]

35. You bet your life. I've switched the intake valves on a few friends

and family just forcing them to calmly discuss issues sometimes after much imbibing of spirits to instill a sufficient barrier to brain speed causing them to stumble when they try to regurgitate AM radio talking points.
A calm voice, months & sometimes years (and decades in one case) and facts will win the day. It ain't hard to do but it does require perseverance & lots of care.

[PatSeg]

23. I think there are a lot of people who have moved away

from the republican party, but they tend to keep quiet. Its possible they are too embarrassed to admit they are/were republicans or they don't really know who they are anymore. I remember the many stubborn Bush supporters who just couldn't openly admit they were wrong, so they just kept their mouths shut.

[corkhead]

3. wow, the comments from the cave dwellers responding to the article are scary.

Bill Moyers recently had social psychologist Jonathan Haidt on his program and they discussed the current state of discourse in American Politics. It fits right in with what was said in this original article and it's resulting comments.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-how-do-conservatives-and-liberals-see-the-world/

[DainBramaged]

18. And they prove the writer's point perfectly, don't they?

[Change has come]

36. Thank you for that.

I forgot Moyers was broadcasting again.

[barbtries]

4. the comments. wow

"average democrat has an IQ in the low 70s"
really?
i should know better by now than to read the comments. i never learn.

[Chemisse]

6. It must be a reflection of your low IQ - lol

Another example of projection of their own weaknesses onto the Democrats.

[barbtries]

19. i know...

lol

[GoCubsGo]

10. It's called "projection".

They do that a lot. I'm surprised that this guy admits it in his OpEd, at least as far as class warfare accusations go.

I know what you mean regarding the comments section. Wherever you go, there the sock puppets are.

[jimlup]

5. Except you have to ask - what was he doing in the party in the first place?

Especially considering G. W. Bush's tenure as President. While it is good to see that sometimes these folks see the light - I have a hard time considering them as "reliable" sources.

Yeah the repubs are batshit crazy. That isn't fresh news...

[JHB]

11. From what I've gathered from the Google machine...

...it looks like he probably walked into it because his family was (maybe they were Rockafeller Republican types?), and basically defaulted to that as "his" tribe. And apparently spent his entire life thinking one thing about Republicans while they were strapping on rocket boosters to go in a different direction.

[jimlup]

40. Yeah my mother's side of my family has this problem

My generation seems to be free of the burden but I don't think my mom's generation is. She eventually came around even as early as '72 since she voted for McGovern in that year after finally recognizing the Nixon republicans were doing nothing constructive in Vietnam.

[DAngelo136]

7. When you follow the link...

and you read the comments, you see exactly what he's talking about. Every point he makes is starkly illustrated by the words of the commenters. Take this for example:

"LOL, this guy Stafford is a "Republican" like I'm the Angel Gabrielle. Having a "R" or a "D" by your name means nothing if you don't believe in the fundamentals of the Party platform." Sieg heil, baby.
or this:

"I am no longer a Republican either. However, you are spouting every Dem talking point right on down the line like a HuffPo parrot. And a lawyer, too? Hmmmm.....sounds to me you are really comfy with the elites. Fine. Enjoy the Democrats who, not that you would understand, are very Socialist." He then ends it with: "I'll never vote for a (D) ever, and the (R) had better be Tea Party."

So in their mindset, you have to accept the party dogma without question,yet they accuse Democrats of being "communists" without a hint of irony. They are breathtakingly stupid.

[JHB]

8. Got news for you Mike: you've been wrong from the 4th grade until now

Last edited Wed Jun 13, 2012, 08:23 AM - Edit history (3)

The Republican Party that broke your heart has been on this path since Reagan was elected when you were in nursery school. It accelerated back when you were in high school and college, when you and your elders allowed the fanatical anti-tax goons to pillory GHW Bush for so much as glancing in the direction of fiscal responsibility. The Party locked in it's path to the current madness back in '94, when you were in college and your party rode to electoral victory under the flag of demagogues Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

Did you somehow miss the behavior of your party through the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency? Did you think the investigations and impeachment proceedings against him had anything to do with a blow job? Were you that naive? That innocent? Can you tell us what the unicorns had to say?


What did you do in 2000, when Dubya Bush glommed on his razor-thin apparent lead and did everything possible to prevent a full and fair recount (and did so successfully)? What about after 9/11, when your guys put out the conservatively-correct line that it was Bill Clinton's fault? When they started their campaign to invade Iraq? When they low-balled every reasonable estimate of the men and resources needed to attempt to do what they were claiming they were doing? When they demonized anyone who didn't agree that it had to be done, and done NOW NOW NOW or we'd face mushroom clouds?

What did you say about the Bush tax cuts? or the PATRIOT Act? or warrantless wiretapping? or torture?

If you've been supporting them all this time, then I have to ask just how much attention you've been paying?

Do you have any idea how much horseshit the Republicans have fed you for your entire life?

Here are the top highlights on Kindle from your book:

“Conservatives need to adopt a more proactive policy in helping people instead of just leaving them alone to the barren marketplace.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users

This does not mean abandoning the market-oriented policies of conservatism but instead suggests that we temper the private sector and the public sector with the civil society sector.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users

“Let me do what I want”- nothing better summarizes the myopic vision of the politics of the “Cult of Self.”20
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users

You know what people who advocate the first two are called? Liberals. Not the fantasy kind that inhabit the bizzaro imaginations of the rest of your party, but real-life Liberals in their native habitat. Be sure to do more than take pictures.

[freshwest]

34. +1,000

[AnnieK401]

9. Agreed, the comments make his point better than he ever could.

And when I read comments of other right wingers in other comment sections it is truly scary.

[MadHound]

12. And that's part of the problem,

These moderate 'Pugs, driven from their party, and now coming over and supporting the center, center-right Democratic party, and in the process dragging it even further to the right. Meanwhile, the left is being left behind.

[cali]

16. do you have any evidence whatsoever moderate pugs are

switching to the dem party in numbers large enough to impact anything at all?

please post that evidence.

[MadHound]

24. Why do you think that Obama won the last election?

Because the money people of the Republican party gave to, and voted for Obama.

What do you think that the DLC and triangulation was? A successful effort to snare more moderate 'Pugs.

Look around, the evidence is all around you.

[cali]

28. that's not evidence. that's an unfounded opinion. and no, I don't think that's why Obama was

elected. I think it's ridiculous to make such a sweeping claim with exactly nothing to back it up.

[Caretha]

31. So why do you think he was elected?

You think all those Republicans that were disgusted with GW voted independent?

I have several friends who never in their lives had pulled the lever for the Dem in a Presidential election - and by God they did in 2008!

They sure and hell didn't rush to the Independent candidate, nor did they vote green or stay at home.

They most certainly laughed and cried out loud over the GOP VP nominee, Sarah Palin, and swore they weren't that damn stupid to vote for her. In fact, I had some laughs poking fun at them with their VP choice - they also weren't into McCain either.

[progressoid]

20. +1

[Doctor_J]

25. There is certainly some backlash

which is why the Dems should move to the LEFT, not the right. Obama can move far to the left of where he is now, and still not be as far left as a middle-of-the-road Repuke is to the right. the dems should be using the Repukes' rabies to move away from them, not toward them

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist developed the current template more than Reagan.

Both Gingrich and Norquist have told the GOP never to negotiate with the democrats unless it means the latter completely capitulating to the GOP. That's the new established bipartison compromise in politics. Back in the day, representatives and senators across the aisle would be civil on the Floor and even socialize together, e.g., Teddy Kennedy and Orrin Hatch were pals. Now you have GOP rank and file members threatened with primaries if they vote against the Party's decided position. Even if members and Senators WANT TO engage in bipartisonship, they will be history.

And this by itself makes being an honest Republican, voting on behalf of one's constituency impossible.

Even if there were a mass exodus of moderate, sensible republicans, it's uncertain where they'd receive their financing as we know that corporations, groups, etc. would not likely donate like they do for the present incantation.

[JHB]

39. Reagan was the fertilizer that let Newt, Grover, and Rush grow

I agree it was Gingrich and Norquist (and Limbaugh) who set and locked in their current trajectory, but they'd never have been in a position to do so if their brand of politics hadn't been unleashed under the cover of Reagan's "genial Great Communicator" act. They would have stayed too far out of the Republican mainstream to take leadership, or else they would have advanced themselves via a less radical route.

[Aviation Pro]

17. Proves the point...

...that tigers eat their young. Or in this case fuckwits eating those that evolve from fuckwitedness.

[mick063]

21. GOP is dead

The Fox News party has taken it's place.

Only folks weened from Fox can be enlightened.

[The Wizard]

37. They are in fact

infoxicated

[Ichingcarpenter]

26. He's still fricking adamant conservative

whose politics don't work and whose history of politics don't work.

Look at his amazon book.

[Martin Eden]

30. I'm sure he voted for GW Bush twice, but ...

... it's significant when lifelong conservative Republicans leave the party because it's become so inhinged.

I don't see this thread as praising this guy as some kind of paragon of political wisdom; more like a signal and perhaps an opportunity to pry more voters away from their batguano candidates in November.

[Beartracks]

29. "exercise in projection"

You can always tell what the Republicans are up to, because they will accuse their opponents of it.

================

[patrice]

32. He left out: "Perfectly healthy mothers-to-be have healthy 3rd trimester babies killed, because

the mothers are evil Liberals."

[Cherchez la Femme]

33. All well and good, but

He was fine with the 8 long Bush years? Ugh

[Zax2me]

38. Wow. How was this guy ever a Repub? All his stances are progressive....

Environment, economic policies...
Repubs crippling the nation, wealthy only winners all other losers, anti-tea party -
If he was a repub it was only on paper.
Something doesn't fit here.
Welcome to reality but don't be offended if I'm slow to embrace you.
Wary.