WHAT GOOD ARE REPUBLICANS?

I'm a Democrat. Except for a couple months in 1972, I always have been. I persist. What alternative is there? Back in 1972, I was young and full of myself. I figured that I would change my party affiliation, so I could vote for Congressman Paul McCloskey in his primary run for president against Richard Nixon. What could possibly go wrong? There were Republicans in that far-off time who were "not so bad". Some of them were personable, affable even. The kind of people you could invite for a cup of coffee and hope and hope they might counter with an invite for whiskey. When standing before a television camera, their fangs did not drip saliva when they spoke.

As you may have guessed, I wasted that vote. Young people do that. Sometime during the Reagan administration Republicans became worse. They had, by that time become wedded to Dixiecrats and Dominionist Christians as well as the corporate class who abjure any kind of regulations they don't like. Regulating others is fine-just not for them. By the time Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives, the die had been cast. Lobbyists were required to hire Republican staffers before they could gain a meeting with his caucus. The takeover of the House of Representatives by the GOP was, rather grandly called, The Republican Revolution. Rush Limbaugh opened the 1993 House session with a speech, and things went downhill from there. Legislators from that side of the aisle began practicing the hostile tactics of oppression. They began using Democrat, rather than Democratic, ignoring the fact that that important suffix, ic, is the political goal most of us pursue, if somewhat awkwardly. It is a quest-not a title. We are Democrats-we follow the Democratic party. 

A disgusting little brute, named Grover Norquist taught Republicans at weekly breakfast meetings that, "bi-partisanship is the moral equivolent of date rape". A group called ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Coucil, went around the country inviting Republicans and Independents to attend "forums". At these forums, pre-produced legislation was introduced for them to take back to their legislatures. Should they be in a state controlled by Republicans, they were urged to pass these measures by acclimation; no discussion, no debate, no time for the opposition party to be heard. What could possibly go wrong? In the 2000 election, Al Gore won the popular vote against his opponent, George W. Bush, but lost the Electoral College. The locus of that election was in Florida, who's Governor was Jeb Bush, elder brother of the presidential candidate. Elder brother Jeb had appointed Kathryn Harris to Secretary of State. She, with her church-lady bouffant and heart as black as her Clairol hair color, scrubbed the voter rolls of any registrant whose name resembled a formerly incarcerated individual. There were no appeals available to these individuals with commonly seen surnames. We are to assume there was no collusion, either in the Bush family or the Republican party. In Miami and Dade counties a recount was legally mandated. Some time during the recount,  a group of "businessmen" broke up the recount, thus causing the question if its legality to be decided by the Supreme Court. Among the men who stopped the recount were judge, soon to be appointed Chief Justice, John Roberts and judge, later to be appointed Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavenaugh. Suspiciously, three of the five justices who voted in favor of Bush v Gore had spouses or family members that were to be awarded positions either in the RNC or the Bush administration. There does not appear to be collusion here, either. Or so we're told. It was about this time that the Heritage Foundation, and its legal clone, the Federalist Society, began to smell like last months filet of sole. Bush Jr. led us into a war in Iraq for nonexistant Weapons of Mass Destruction. He also led us into a recession, brought on by Reagaomics. But it wasn't their fault, or they would feel compelled to give up on their Freemarket economics. An economic policy, by the way, that did not help Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. Bush led to the Tea party, which ironically, was named for a Revolutionary War era protest over unfair taxation. You'll never guess how Republicans feel about unfair taxation. The Teaparty led to some of the stupidest Republican legislators in the history of stupid. One of them, Michelle Bachman, who's sole legislative achievement was the Lightbulb Choice Act, you know how Republicans feel about choice. This piece of bilious legislation allowed the  manufacture of old incandescent lightbulbs to continue. Bachmann is now being considered for a position in a future Trump administration, should we be stupid enough to elect him.