Republicans

When I was old enough to vote I was in the US Navy. My first vote in a presidential election was in1964. Voted for Johnson thinking that he was less likely to escalate the Vietnam war than Goldwater. Boy was I wrong. I had registered as a Republican and stayed so until George W. Bush invaded Iraq.                                                                                                                                                 For years Republicans were for balanced budgets, government solutions as a last resort, staunch defenders of the Constitution, free markets and free trade, capitalism with some guide-rails, and a commitment to our allies. Most importantly, they considered Russia an enemy. They were not without plenty of faults-McCarthyism and the Nixon scandal are examples. But when the national interest was on the line they faced up to their responsibilities and made the right decisions, in spite of the political consequences.                                                                                                                           So what happened? A powerful media phenomenon that combined our evolving short attention span with a growing sense of mistrust. The hijacking of truth was easy after that and the substitution of it with a plethora of baseless stories and conspiracies theories filled the void. Enter the Tea Party, the NRA, the hypocritical evangelicals and the hyper ersatz conservative media personalities. Then, a perfect storm—-ravaging demagoguery in the shape of a obese, lying, malignant narcissist. What does this tribe do after Trump?

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