Republicans and Democrats

Believe it or not I was raised by my mommy to be a good Republican as well as a good Christian. Clearly, somewhere along the line that went all to hell didn’t it?

My earliest recollection of politics was in 1956 when Eisenhower was running for re-election against Adlai Stevenson. My grandfather was a member of the Republican club and in those days that meant access to lots of buttons, stickers, hats and all sorts of election paraphernalia. I don’t remember too much about the campaign, but I do remember the buttons. My favorite was about an inch and a half in diameter surrounded by a gold colored lattice showing President Eisenhower on an ivory background and displaying the motto “I like Ike.”

I also remember being surprised when my mother told me that my father wasn’t a Republican, “bah, what does he know” my mother would say, “He’s a Democrat.”

My mother would work on the election board and vote during the day. My dad would go vote at night after coming home from work and eating dinner. I put all the pieces together and concluded in my logical little mind that Republicans voted openly and proudly in the morning sun. Democrats on the other hand, had to sneak down to the polls at night so no one would see them. Clearly there was something unsavory and ungodly about voting Democrat.

My next recollection came in 1960. By then I was curious enough to check out the conventions on television and I remember watching the Democratic convention with all the delegates singing some song about going back to the White House that year. Needless to say, in my pre-adolescent wisdom, I thought they were completely out of their minds. There was no way the Republicans could lose. God would never let it happen.

Then I heard John Kennedy speak and the entire world turned upside down.

It’s been pretty much the left side of the aisle since despite considerable exasperation that some Democrats can’t seem to get it though their thick skulls that you cannot spend money that you don’t have. I believe that Barack Obama understands this point. I also believed that Robert Kennedy understood it.

To my mind one of the greatest tragedies of the 1960’s was the murder of Robert Kennedy. I was a big supporter of Bobby and I believe that he would have won the nomination and the Presidency in 1968. Eight years of Robert Kennedy as President of the United States would have changed the country and the world for the better.

After Kennedy’s death my support for Hubert Humphrey was subdued because of his pro-Vietnam War position. Still, he struck me as a better bet than Nixon. I remember sitting among a number of depressed college classmates in the cafeteria when word came that Nixon had won. The 1968 election marked the last Presidential campaign that I paid much attention to for a long time. Why? Because I graduated college in 1969 and entered the real world!

Through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s I was working my butt off and trying to raise a family. An exercise that I was only marginally successful at. Overall I found the candidates offered up by both parties less than overwhelming. Mondale and Dukakis in particular left me feeling the very definition of underwhelmed. Nor was I terribly impressed with slick Willy although he did manage to balance the budget.

I mean the whole Monica Lewinsky thing left me shaking my head. Sure, JFK cheated while in the White House, but he had the class to do it with Marilyn Monroe!

Anyway, after being partially asleep for 32 years we arrived at the year 2000. To be honest I had been raised in the tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee era where the differences between Republicans and Democrats were fairly marginal and mostly fiscal.

In those days Southern Democrats were to the right of Moderate Republicans. Men like Nelson Rockefeller, John Lindsay and even Dwight Eisenhower himself were Republicans with a conservative fiscal outlook but fairly liberal social views. To describe me as a Rockefeller Republican would not be too far from the mark. I probably would have voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 if the Watergate information hadn’t started to leak out.

There are very few, if any, of that breed left today. Consider the shock I felt when I realized that the Republican Party had become a far Right Wing enclave under the influence of people that not only have reactionary views but literally advocate the gutting of American principles like the Separation of Church and State and Equal Protection under the Law.

Yes I’m talking about the Religious Right.

Look, I don’t care what you believe. You’re entitled to your own beliefs and I’ll defend your right to hold them. However, you are not entitled to bring those beliefs out of the privacy of your church or home and attempt to codify them into laws which restrict the rights and actions of someone else, period, end of discussion.

You believe abortion is murder? Don’t have an abortion and feel free to do your best to convince others not to have one as well but don’t advocate legislation restricting abortion access or, even worse, a constitutional amendment restricting it. The decisions people make regarding their bodies and their health are none of your business.

You think the gay lifestyle is an abomination? Fine, don’t go to gay bars and don’t socialize with gay couples, but, considering that sexual orientation appears to not be a choice, what gives you the right to restrict the rights of gays? Why are gay couples not entitled to the same protections under the law as heterosexual couples?

You believe that evolution is ungodly and Genesis is the obvious truth? Be my guest to teach your children that in your home and church but don’t you dare try to get your religious myths into a science classroom and call it science.

You think the Ten Commandments are simply the most elegant set of moral directives ever devised? Then feel free to post them in every room of your house. Get them tattooed on your forehead if you want. Just don’t force them on those of us who aren’t terribly impressed with them by posting them in public buildings.

It’s real easy. You stay out of my yard and I’ll stay out of yours.

It’s safe to say that becoming familiar with the Religious Right has shifted me from a slightly left of center moderate into a left wing pinko card carrying member of the ACLU, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Center for Inquiry, the Brights (real stupid name that) and the Atheist Alliance.

At the risk of being accused of vilifying those who simply don’t agree with me, I’m going to articulate my impressions of the current Republican Party.

To my mind the current right wing base of the Republican Party is culturally and psychologically the descendents of those who have fought tooth and nail against every advance in civilization since man started to experiment with fire.

These are the same sort of folks that championed slavery, the same sort of folks that opposed women’s suffrage and the same sort of folks that defended segregation. They’ve just learned to avoid marching around in sheets. But a lot of the people and organizations that are the so called Republican base are making the ghosts of those who did parade around in sheets proud.

When Sarah Palin talks about states and people who are “pro-America” what do you think she means? You don’t suppose that’s code for white Christian America do you? Because if you’re not white or not Christian, and the right sort of Christian by the way, then you obviously can’t be a true American. Or at least that’s what Palin appears to be hinting with her fairly obvious euphemisms.

Hell, they might as well put on the sheets and pointy hats and burn crosses at the Republican rallies. At least then they would be honest about where they’re coming from.

Sinclair Lewis warned that when Fascism came to the United States it would be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. You will excuse me but that description sounds a lot like the so-called base of the current Republican Party.

Is this an extreme view that is unfair to many Republicans? Perhaps, but I think those that feel it’s unfair need to look around at who they’re crawling into bed with in order to win elections. If you’re willing to bed down with the devil in order to achieve some advantage, don’t be outraged when you get accused of being devilish yourself.

John McCain was all bent out of shape by John Lewis’ comments that he and Palin were “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.”

While I believe Lewis went too far when he brought up a comparison to George Wallace, basically he was right on. If you simply remove the middle paragraph from his statement, then I say he was 100% right on. McCain, and especially Palin, were appealing to the basest instincts of the Republican base.

But note this; those base instincts are there to appeal to aren’t they? Do we really want to elect people that not only accept such support but actually go out of their way to secure it?

Somewhere along the line I learned something very interesting. It seems that in fact my father rarely voted Democrat. He voted for the New York Liberal Party. Usually the Liberal Party endorsed the Democratic candidates so, at least in New York, it amounted to the same thing. But there were exceptions. Two major exceptions were the 1965 and 1969 mayoral contests. In 1965 John Lindsay was both the Republican and Liberal Party nominee while the Democrats nominated Abe Beame. In 1969 Lindsay won with only the Liberal Party nomination.

When I asked my dad why he bothered to vote Liberal rather than Democrat when it didn’t make any difference he said it was to remind the two major parties that, as much as they’d like to ignore the fact, there were other choices.

He was a smart man my dad.