HOW THE GOP GOT TO WHERE THEY ARE TODAY

…The build-up to the 2016 elections is like a ride at the carnival

 

It doesn’t take the proverbial “Rocket Scientist” to understand why the GOP is where it is today.

 

For any opinion writer, having the ability and the opportunity to say “I told you so,” is a double-edged sword.

 

On one of those edges, the writer may have the personal satisfaction of being totally correct in what he or she may have offered the public.  But then, if they were correct in their statements about a negative issue, the writer will be in that unfortunate position of saying, “Damn it, I was right!”  And that’s where I have apparently been, regarding today’s Republican party.

 

I have been writing now for over seven years that I just couldn’t understand where the Republican party was headed as I continued to read about their continuing to shoot themselves in the foot.

 

It all started back in 2008 when the economy went into the dumpster, and at the same time the then GOP presidential nominee and his female VP candidate were both saying the nation’s economic foundations were in good shape.  One week later, the US economy imploded.

 

After the economic debacle became obvious, it was the Republican president that proposed and passed the most anti-conservative bill called the $700 Billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  This was a major bailout bill for the big Wall Street banks.  But even in that long and complicated legal process, no one from the big banks went to jail. 

 

Here was this nation, in the middle of two unnecessary mid-east wars, both costing thousands of lives and trillions of taxpayer dollars, while the economy was on the verge of another Great Depression. 

 

Since the circumstances around this political party have not improved over the past decade, is there any wonder why the party’s members are not looking to experienced, elected Republican politicians for their choice of a 2016 presidential nominee?

 

But we can’t stop back at that point for explaining why the Republicans are where they are today.

 

Obviously, having a Democratic president like Barack Obama didn’t help with instilling confidence in the nation’s political conservatives.

 

First, the GOP had their own president that spent the nation’s human resources of our military’s finest, plus all that wasted spending of US taxpayer revenues.  Not to mention, the Republican president’s support of an expensive Medicare prescription drug program.  There was enough over spending going on to give all those conservative Americans a case of the vapors.

 

Then they watched as a new Democratic president proceeded to bail-out the US Automotive industry and pass the first ever national health care program.

 

With all that happening, what then did the leadership of the Republican Party do for winning back the base of their party?

 

Well, instead of working with the new president to at least get some of what they wanted through the normal process of compromise and negotiation between the two parties in the US Congress, they decided to do a 180° turn.

 

From day one of the new president’s inauguration, the Republican leadership decided that whatever the new president proposed, they would say “no”, regardless of whether it was good for the American public.

 

They then started calling the new president a hidden Muslim and even said he wasn’t a legitimate president because they claimed he was born in Kenya.  They continued trying to sell this drivel, while most rational Americans knew that none of it was true.

 

But there were two outcomes from all this party activity.

 

First the extreme Tea Party conservatives became a reality.  Second, the anti-Democratic Party approach caused the extreme members of the GOP to piss-off the voting Americans in both parties (including the independents).  That occurred when the Republicans in Congress single-handedly shut-down the government.  Those couple of weeks cost us all billions of dollars, and for what?

 

It is very common that for most mid-term elections, the base of the Democratic party stays home, while the conservative base usually rallies to the polls.  That’s exactly what happened in the 2010 election. 

 

Republicans took the House and elected dozens of Tea Party candidates.  But these freshmen politicians were there for only one reason.  To say “no” to the moderate Republicans, the independents and of course, the Democrats.

 

This group’s leadership also kept promising things that they knew they could never achieve.  As an example, they proceeded to have over 50 failed congressional votes for repealing Obamacare.

 

Also during that period, they proceeded to tell their base that wonderful events would occur if the US defaulted on its national debt. 

Basically, the party regulars learned that the GOP leadership had sold them all a bogus bill-of-goods.

 

So now, after the Paris attacks, the downed Russian Airliner and Beirut attacks, the Republican candidates seem to think that American’s fear of terrorist could get them all back into the White House. They also think that the current Donald Trump band wagon will eventually fade.  But after the leadership’s poor performance over the past eight years, there’s a reason that Trump has been leading in the polls for all of Summer, Fall and now into Winter.  Let’s face it, the 2016 election is damn entertaining!

 

The party’s base will no longer buy those products that the GOP has been selling over these past eight years.  This is why Trump, Dr. Carson and Carley Fiorina are being seriously considered, and why zealots like Cruz and Rubio are starting to increase in the polls.  It’s also why Jeb Bush just hasn’t taken off.  Bush has both an issue with his last name, plus the party’s current "anti-experienced politician" issue.  And besides all of that, Jeb’s pretty boring to listen to.

 

Now, as the election gets closer, the traditional candidates like Ohio Governor John Kasich and maybe even Jeb, they may start to look better.  But whoever they are, they will need a large cash-stash to survive that long.  But there’s still no guarantee that the voters will actually change their anti-politician focus.

 

The current reality is that Trump does have a plurality of the Republican voters, but not a majority.  As the field gets smaller, will that be better for the traditional politicians, or will it just increase Trump and the good Doctor’s poll ratings.

 

I guess that’s what is making the 2016 election so interesting to watch and for us to continue to follow.

 

Stay tuned….I would suspect the best is yet to come!

 

Copyright G.Ater  2015