When James Madison drafted his idea of what parties should be like, he dreamed of a system where there would be two very large parties that would fall under an umbrella of numerous different political opinions. His hope was that these numerous different opinions – or factions – would battle against themselves, ensuring that no single faction would gain too much power and therefore, protect the country from limited ideas. In theory, it worked for quite a while. What’s worrisome, though, is this purity resolution that some right wing Republicans (I refuse to call them Conservatives) want to have passed this January at the G.O.P annual conference.
For those that haven’t heard of the purity resolution, it’s ten points that are the “core-principles” of the Republican Party that all party officials must follow. Adhering to any less than eight of these would mean that the Republican Party couldn’t support your election. To see the ten points, check out the Caucus Blog’s article about it. In other words, issues that are not in connection with where the nation is going are what these right wing Republicans want to have turned into the “mantra” of the Republican Party.
This is incredibly dangerous for the party for a few reasons.
First, it threatens a civil war amongst the Republican Party. The more moderate Republicans will not be able to be a part of the “New Republican Party” because they won’t follow the minimum eight required points of this agenda. This will cause the Republican Party to split down the center as what I like to call the Evangelical Right and the Conservative Right. The Evangelical Right will not be able to subscribe to the first point because they are interested in more government to get involved in moral issues such as gay marraige. So, the first point of small government is gone. The Conservative Right won’t be able to subscribe to the idea of the retention of the Defense of Marriage Act, the desire for victory in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the containment of Iran and North Korea because those are not Conservative beliefs of following the constitution to a T.
What the above demonstrates is that this creation of the purity resolution isn’t geared towards the Conservative opinions, but the Evangelical right or, for a more political correct idea, the right wing radical groups led by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Secondly, this limits the types of people that can be a member of the party and get support. A great example of this is happening down in Delaware. When President Obama picked Biden to be his Vice President, there was suddenly a vacant Senate seat. The Democrats are pushing for Biden’s son to go for it, but then there is Mike Castle, a previous governor and Congressman since 1993. He would be a great pick for the Republican Party, but if this resolution passed, he couldn’t be supported because he has taken stances on abortion, gun control, and energy which are three separate issues and, therefore, would make him ineligible for support.
Finally, this makes the party appear too factionalized for the common person. If the only people that the Republican Party are supporting are individuals that are very structured, only people that share the exact same beliefs will vote for them. This is going to further weaken the Republican Party and make it even less appealing to vote for them. The country is moving farther away from the idea issues such as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act.
The outcome of this will be a split down the middle of the Republican Party. There will be the one group, Conservatives, that lean increasingly towards a more Libertarian opinion. The other group will become the very right wing Republicans that are led by the supporters of Limbaugh and Beck. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the former is going to be the dominant. More people are becoming frustrated with the status quo and want to see change in Washington. They don’t want the type of change that Obama offered, but real change. Therefore, the Libertarian Party will gain considerable support if this happens.
If the Republican Party wants to become a party of small successes, this is the resolution to push forward. However, if the party wants to see continued power in Washington, this resolution is a horrible idea. For the sake of the party, the G.O.P would be unwise to vote for it.
About Jacob Cohen Donnelly
I NEVER call the obvious right-wing Repubs conservatives either. It’s just ridiculous to say they are one in the same. I’ve noticed that Fox “news” tends to use Republican and Conservative as a simile, with a positive connotation, but they constantly use the word “Liberal” with negative connotations, and rarely use the word Democrat when they can use the word “Liberal” as a substitute…but anyway…
I agree that applying prereqs like the ones proposed, especially to a political party that has been here since the country has been founded, would be an insult to our founding fathers as well as lead to the ultimate demise of the Republicans. Although other parties would definitely form in it’s place, most likely, this would lead to the formation of many small political parties. This would be good for those with varying opinions, but bad considering it would eventually allow the extremes to amass a party of their own.
Basically, this is saying that the Republican party is all of the sudden an exquisite, elite country club that only certain members, expressing certain “views,” can be *allowed in*.
Somehow I see these “prereqs” as an attempt to basically screen the organization a person belongs to, also as a way to control who is allowed to be a part of the Republican party. This would also allow the party to claim “Official” views and opinions, much like a religion…and similar in the way a small business would operate…take from this the conclusion that you will, but it sounds like an attempt to turn a political party into something more. Who knows… if there was a better approach, opposed to declaring morally questionable prereqs, it may have been a decent idea….
These guidelines really do not surprise me in the least to be honest. Within the past year, I’ve witnessed many, who I THOUGHT were level headed people, completely turn into Repubots who are only capable of repeating talking points expressed on Fox “news.”
Also, this past year, it seems these Repubots, much like O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, etc., are claiming the “majority” of people express similar views as theirs, and have been caught fudging the numbers for multiple Republican events. These people, including Beck, are so narcissistic it’s literally disgusting. They’re the kind of people who believe something so strongly that not even hard evidence, held in front of them, would open their minds a bit. People have many political beliefs that are just unalterable, similar to religious views, all obtained, and faithfully practiced, with no “real” evidence. Many people that are like this, are simply this way because of their upbringing, but others are that narcissistic, and it’s just wrong to give them tv shows after their actions and words.
Another thing I’d like to comment on too, is the attempt by a certain portion of the Republican party to try to claim the Tea Party movement and their party are one in the same, when they’re many times as different as a Democrat is from one. This is a horrible attempt by Repubs to basically take over and wipe out their competition, claiming their “land” in the process.
For some reason, I got the idea that many of the Tea Party members would be upset if they were to see the figures Fox “news” and other affiliations with the Repubs spent on endorsing “their” Tea Party movement. Hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of dollars on advertising, buses, even paraphernalia….
If you seriously stand for a Tea Party, I’m not sure how you could just allow the Republicans to claim that you are the same…to mislead voters that way.
But after thinking about all of this…I actually hope they decide to pass these guidelines as official…it’s not going to affect those of us who haven’t already turned our well being, rights, and freedom into petty political punditry.
Let them have their country club. We’ll take the country.
I completely agree with you, James. What we are going to see happen is the Republican Party reduce into a weaker party and a new, stronger, more Conservative Party emerge. However, I wonder how much the Republican Party will decrease…Thanks for your great comment.
I can say with complete honesty that I HOPE a newer, more “up to date,” yet CONSERVATIVE party does form from something like this. It would certainly make a lot of room for some of the more in-betweens out there, who hold the political values of a Republican yet the social values of a Democrat.
As of now, at least for the 18-35 crowd, I believe that social values trump political values, especially for the average American looking to benefit himself through voting, which is definitely causing many people that sit between parties to end up voting Democrat. If Repubs would catch up with the times and stop talking about how their lives were so much better when they were growing up (BTW, Jon Stewart did an AWESOME piece on this subject last night…), you know…when womens rights didn’t exist….blacks couldn’t vote, rape victims needed witnesses to prosecute, no DNA evidence…etc…etc…., they MAY end up growing to something quite impressive. But they’ve gotta ditch the political rhetoric.
I just don’t see this happening though, simply because a select few, powerful men basically control the entire party.
But the real problem with the modern conservative party (conservatives, to me, are the ones who actually believe what they are saying) is that they are stuck in a time that doesn’t make places for modern breakthroughs, be it technologically or socially.
I just don’t understand how Repubs can be SO anti-government growth, YET talk for days and days about how we need to start infringing on personal privacy with these body scanners, pat downs, racial profiling, and other methods. With every thing they say, they become more and more devoid of what makes them a Republican.
As soon as Republicans get all the facts in and realize these body scanners have trouble detecting low density items (liquids, plastics, etc…), they’ll be calling for full body cavity searches for all passengers….the fact is we can NOT prevent every terrorist attack that will ever happen, which is why, after military intelligence, we NEED to rely on civilian intelligence, as well as intervention. Of course this won’t happen until we spend millions on stuff that doesn’t work first….
Think, if we could start using Twitter, Facebook, all these social tools as a way to prevent terrorism attempts, we’d have another weapon in our arsenal against these things.
I respect an honest person who claims conservative, because I know that person will give me a true debate and actually claim the values he is expressing. I love it when the opposing side gives me a run for my money!
As it is now though, it seems a lot of “Republicans” out there just go through the motions for political agenda, many of them are obviously insincere in their beliefs and are purely expressing them selfishly.
I just wish my country could just end the pettiness, and stop trying to politicize terrorist attempts.
I’d LOVE to sit down with some of these politicians….
I apologize for my long-winded comments, but I hope they will get someone’s brain churning about some of these things.