I want to tell you a story about a man I knew. I shall call him Jim, for that was his name.
Jim was many things. He was a husband, a father and grandfather. He was head of the largest employer in the small town he lived much of his life. He was a Republican for all of those years.
Jim died a year ago next Friday. He was my wife's father, my father-in-law.
I have, these last few years, heard a great deal about that most rare of endangered species, the old style conservative Republican. Folk who have more in common with Liberals, than they do with representatives of the so-called Tea Party. Men and women who may have mistrusted the New Deal, but came to embrace the benefits, and are now fiercely loyal to the concept of care and support for children and seniors. The three major planks of the social safety net so imperiled by the descendants of a once proud Party. The Party of Abraham Lincoln. Oh how he must be weeping.
Jim died at age sixty seven. It's no age at all but it does put him right up there with the Baby Boomer generation. At his age he never much benefited from Social Security, and never had a need for Medicaid, but Medicare and disability cover was very much on his mind during his latter years.
With the exception of a few years in California, Jim lived in the Southern Plains all his life, and raised three daughters. Life was comfortable, he had a very good job which included benefits and travel that few can afford. Although not a rich man, his family were never any kind of needy.
Socially, Jim held many of the attitudes so common to his generation. Let's face it, Jim's mother-in-law lived in that same small town when it was segregated. I don't think Jim ever regretted the end of segregation, although he never quite trusted integration either and believed that Brown v. Board of Education was the beginning of the end of Public Schools.
I find it difficult to criticize older folk for these attitudes. Reprehensible as they may be to a younger generation, they also represented a significant shift towards equality by the older folk. Not far enough? Sure. Not fast enough? Undoubtedly, but nevertheless, we also have to consider not just where our parents and grandparents currently are in their attitudes, we also have to consider how far they have come. Jim came a long, long way and that is to his credit.
It would be very easy to compare and contrast Jim with my own parents, lifelong Socialists both, and the same age. That would be unfair. My parents come from steel and mining communities in Yorkshire, England. My maternal grandfather was somewhere to the Left of Lenin. My grandfather would yell at the TV, before there even was a TV in his village, so my parents had a head start. Jim had no such advantage.
While we are on the subject of segregation ... and we are, I want to mention that the town is still not quite as integrated as we might like. Sure all the kids, black white and Hispanic attend the same High School. As is common in small town America, High School is important, but Church takes precedence. Most of my American family are Southern Baptists who are heavily involved in the local 1st Baptist Church. Jim's involvement stretched only as far as Sunday morning. The congregation in this Church is almost exclusively white. The local High School is thirty percent black. I am told that the black folk prefer their own church. I did see one black guy at the Southern Baptist Church. He was the Schools Superintendent, but they have since fired him so I don't suppose he attends any more.
Jim was brought up and lived in and around Tulsa nearly all his life. Tulsa, the home of Oral Roberts and his splendid seat of learning. Tulsa where you don't so much choose to be Republican, as have it bred into you. Tulsa, where Dan Boren is a Democrat! It's enough to make you weep.
Despite all of this, my father-in-law was deeply concerned with, and committed to people. Anyone and everyone counted with him, and especially the children. He may not have understood poverty and it's causes. He may have disapproved of those unwilling or unable to provide for themselves, but he would never, not in a million years, have denied those less fortunate than himself, a helping hand.
Jim believed in Nascar, the Sooners and the American Dream. Indeed he lived it. He carved out a happy and successful life in a time when that was rather easier than it seems to be at present. He also believed that if you worked hard then you would reap the rewards. He knew that business was the engine of the economy, and that Government should, as much as it could, step aside and allow companies to continue to make America great. These were, to him, simple truths, the very stuff that society was made of.
He was also a very fair-minded guy. When sacrifice was demanded, he would have volunteered. He would also have expected those best placed to help to be the first in line. He would not have recognised the current crop in Congress. I don't think he was ever as immersed in current affairs as many, indeed he was not only intelligent, but honest too, so had he chosen to follow political debate I have to assume he may have been deeply concerned about developments in the last ten years. We will never know because his failing health prevented much in the way of real debate.
I can't help but feel that there are millions of Jims in America, and they are not sick, they are not destined to die too young and they will not be happy that benefits they have spent a lifetime earning are now targeted as some kind of social evil that must be destroyed.
Those Republicans, those real Americans ... What do they think of the current leadership of their Party, the protectors of their legacy?
Jim and I could have talked politics. Indeed I fimly believe we could have argued our positions fervently, and parted each understanding the other, and remaining friends with mutual respect. There are Senators and Congressmen who I can not say that about. They are Jim's contemporaries and I despise them for their dishonesty.
Jim was a Republican all his life, and I respected and loved him dearly.