Hold your fire. I know what you’re thinking. Launch another party? Won’t that split up the Democrats and make Republican dominance permanent?
But, no, I’m not crazy. I think it’s time for a new party, and here’s why. . ..
The Republican Party is in huge trouble. Bush has led it down a blind alley, and it’s easy to see why. He’s used it as a tool to destroy the middleclass and bog down the U.S. in problems that will take years to correct—if they can be. It increased the power of the oligarchs, his family and friends. He’s the son of an oligarch and his buddies are all in the clique. They’re more interested in money than in the good of the country.
Bush had the opportunity, through a blind spot in the psyche of the American people, to get in and exploit the wealth and power created by the hard work of honest people. He had the opportunity to line the pockets of his rich friends. He may think he’s doing us all a favor or he may not care. Maybe he thinks the system will take care of itself, so if everyone takes care of themselves, no harm done. He’d be wrong about that, but he wouldn’t be alone. In any case, the Republican Party was a ripe apple waiting to be eaten and now all that’s left is the core, rotting in the garbage bin.
"I cannot tell a lie," George said, "I ate the whole apple. And it was a plum!"
As a result, the Republicans, after all these years of doing it to others, have finally been sold down the river. That’s why we have to help them. Democrats are sworn to help the downtrodden. No one in this country is more trodden down at this point than the rank and file Republican. Well, that’s a fair exaggeration, isn’t it? But, they’ve been having a rough time, that’s clear. We need to help them out. It’s our duty as bleeding-heart liberals.
That’s why we have to help the Republican Party split in two.
Traditionally, the Republican Party was supposed to be about promoting business, keeping government small and mostly out of people’s lives, and preserving the established American way of life. The party, as used by Bush, has become about promoting the very rich, using government to run people’s lives, and destroying the economic underpinnings of traditional American life.
It just seems like the original constituency for the Republican Party must be completely disaffected. The political system needs to provide these masses of people with an alternative.
Of course, we could welcome them into the Democratic Party. That would be the hospitable thing to do. The problem is that they don’t quite fit. We have an alliance with labor, not management, and while we may want to keep government out of people’s private lives, just as many Republicans do, we can’t make changes for the better if we get mired in preserving ways of life that don’t work for some groups of people. [Which is, after all, what Republicans mean by traditional (blank) values. Traditional (blank) values mean treating white adult males like kings and treating women, children and people of any darker shade as serfs.] Their values and our values just don’t jive.
No, these alienated Republicans need their own party, one that we can compete with, one, in fact, that we can beat on a regular basis, especially when we get it right. So, let’s not put out the fine china and send them an engraved invitation to our party. We need a more workable solution.
But a solution we do need, because the Republican Party has fallen on bad times. Why did it suffer this fate? You know, it’s the neocon fix that’s what did them in. They set up these think tanks and funding mechanisms and channels and media organizations. They built a machine to save the Republican Party from demise. And the mechanism invented to save it is what’s killing it. It’s the Daleks and the Cybermen*. It’s the First Law of Robotics twisted until the only way to save humanity is to kill all humans and replace them with real simulated humans, ones without feelings, ones without souls, ones with metallic chests and laser cannons.
And, despite the fact that you’ve been warned the average Republican just let it happen to their party the way the average German let it happen to their republic. Oh, yeah, a few protested, and a few resisted. The problem is that when the problem is this large it requires that everyone protest and everyone resist. You know how that works, when you’re working with imperfect humans. Cats. They’re all cats. Before you know it, you’re a Dalek, and not a very good one, at that, soon exterminated.
What does it mean to suffer the fate of the Republican Party? What it means is that, in the blink of an eye (as history goes) you find that a very limited number of people control the fate of millions. The word fascism weakly describes this, but it is pale and inadequate compared to the real thing. It’s like calling the ocean a large puddle.
At first, you think that core Republican values have won out. "Business," you think, "has finally freed itself from government’s bureaucratic bonds and brought capitalist bliss." The market has reached 10,000, 11,000, 12,000. The sky’s the limit! Then you realize that "the market" consists of five hundred companies controlled by a dozen rich men and one woman. In the process, millions of businesses, the ones that actual Republicans actually ran for most of the twentieth century have been Amazoned out of existence.
But, at least the individual has finally been freed to go into the market and make his mark. "People," you think, "have finally freed themselves from government’s tentacles to rise to their highest levels." They no longer have to pay into union coffers and work the way the union wants. They are free to compete on their own terms. Then you realize that each person is competing not with other natural persons, but with corporate persons. What "empowering the individual" means when George Bush talks about a health plan is that you alone go up against the strongest and best funded corporations in America, the HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies, their lawyers, their bodyguards, and, if you get too far out of line, their henchmen. And then you die.
Still, at least American life will continue, and now it’s going to be exported all over the world. "Apple pie," you think, "is now available anywhere you go in China." The car, pollution and all, the TV set, with Frasier, and a panty-less Britney are right now being exported to little villages in Asia. Then you realize that this export is being funded by shutting down American life in the U.S. and raiding pension funds. The traditional American way of life, built with the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants and farmers and soldiers trudging through god-awful shit is being priced out of the market by cheap goods from the countries we rescued in World War II. And the apple pie you spied in China? That’s was at McDonald’s, but it wasn’t the McDonald’s in Tiananmen Square, which doesn’t fit in with the traditional Chinese way of life, and they’re serious about preserving that. And very soon it will cost you 25 yuan. Of course, as an American worker in the 21st century, you’ll be lucky to get a 7 fen a month handout from the government when you retire.
Disillusioned? Need a new party? Democrats are here to help you! We’ll help you start a new party!
What Republicans need is a party that reflects their values. Their party has been perverted by oligarchy. It’s been subverted by unbridled capitalism, which is what you would expect from unethical capitalism, the home of the bait and switch. Republicans have been baited with their cherished objectives and switched to a centrally controlled economy, not one controlled by the public through the transparent and ethical channels of good government, but rather by a shadowy cabal working the control rods of the globalized marionette. All their morality and good intentions have been sold for a farthing’s worth of shabby and shopworn goods.
Republicans! It would not surprise me if many long for a party worthy of their support.
So, let’s give it to them. Let’s found it and draft their politicians into it. Let’s get them moving again. Call it the [new]** American Republican Party, to distinguish it from the current Grand Old Oligarchic Party. Give them some planks: Restore small business! End excessive government military spending! Fireworks on Halloween (or whatever)! Keep the government out of our lives (bedrooms)!
It’s a plan!
What’s in it for us? Why should Democrats care what happens to the Republican Party? Why should we help them organize what, arguably, could be used against us in the future? Powerfully, too, because the ARP would have support that the GOOP is throwing away, as it takes money from the average Republican family and hands it over to the ultra-rich, in the process utterly destroying the livelihood and dreams of the middleclass. So, why should we kick-start this thing?
That’s a tough question. You aren’t going to buy it if I argue that we need to do what’s right for the country or to help out our fellow travelers. You’re going to want hard return on your investment, aren’t you? Capitalist! Republican!
I don’t think I can help you out, there. There isn’t any hard return that I can see. Oh, yeah, in the short run, splitting up the Republican Party would make it far easier to elect Democrats. True. But that won’t last very long. The ARP will quickly gain momentum, powered by real Republicans taking advantage of a surge in money coming to them from sensible policies that favor millions of small businesses.
But, still, I think there is a soft argument to be made for helping them out. The runaway machine devouring the Republican Party is also busy munching on the Democratic one. The same oligarchic forces and somnambulant tendency toward fascism and tyranny that mark the slide of the Republican Party into marginalization are at work in our own. Experimenting with a revised Republican Party is a cheap and relatively safe way of trying out the fixes we, ourselves, desperately need. If it works on them, we copy. If not, we can try something else without destroying the Democratic Party in the process.
So, please support my plan to start a new political party. The time is ripe. The country needs our leadership. The Republicans are drowning. They’re crying out for help. It’s up to us to throw them something.
* Viz. Doctor Who.
** Not to be confused with the former American Republican Party, now defunct.