What’s Happened to the Republican Party?

I was born and raised in a strong Democrat family. No, not like today’s Democrats, far from it. A strong Southern Democrat family back when there actually was conservatives in the Democrat Party.

We know today that the Democrats have moved far to the left and if there are any conservatives left, they hide in the shadows.

It was the acts of Jimmy Carter that convinced me to become a Republican in 1977, seeing the Republicans were embracing conservative values, especially seen once Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in 1980.

It wasn’t until 2010 that I decided I’d be better off as an Independent, due to several acts by Republicans taken against a good conservative candidate to deny him a nomination to Congress in favor of a less qualified person.

But by and large, I still supported conservative Republicans while leaving my options open if ever a conservative Democrat ran again.

However, it is becoming more and more difficult to lend support to Republicans as I see fewer and fewer actual conservatives today.

Oh there are plenty telling you they are conservative, but from how I grew up and have practiced for so many years, they are not conservative but some strange blend of fringe Libertarian with a hint of anarchy, some say fascism, declaring that they are the “true conservatives.”

They will often quote Ronald Reagan from a 1975 interview saying,

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

But they always leave out the rest,

“Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves.”

Over the years since Reagan left office we have seen a steady infiltration of the Republican Party by these people along with the more opportunistic GOP members latching onto their coattails for power or personal gain.

That in a nutshell is what we see and hear from these infiltrators, begging the question, how is seizing control and power over everybody “leaving them alone?”

And what lengths would they take to ensure they retained such power in a society of free people?

This brings me to the conduct of many witnessed at the recent Republican convention in Cleveland, particularly the speech given by Texas Senator Ted Cruz who was booed, jeered and degraded throughout and after for his words spoken, his wife Heidi needing to be escorted out by security due to those same jeers towards her on the floor of the convention.

Donald Trump, the next morning, seemed to be upset because Cruz added sentence to his speech that Trump did not see when he saw the full speech hours before it was given.

The sentence that set off Trump and his supporters? “I want to see the principles that our party stands for prevail in November.”

Do Trump and his supporters no longer stand for conservative Republican principles?

Have they replaced them with some as of yet unknown set of principles?

Other excerpts that gained jeers and boos for Cruz were;

“Did we live up to our values? Did we do all we could?” 

“We’re fighting, not for one particular candidate or one campaign, but because each of us wants to be able to tell our kids and grandkids, our own Carolines, that we did our best for their future, and for our country.” 

“There is a better vision for our future: A return to freedom.
On education, your freedom to choose your child’s education, even if you aren’t as rich as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
On healthcare, your freedom to choose your own doctor, without Obamacare.
On taxes, your freedom to provide for your family without the IRS beating down your door.” 

“Freedom means free speech, not politically correct safe spaces.
Freedom means religious freedom, whether you are Christian or Jew, Muslim or atheist. Gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.
Freedom means the right to keep and bear arms, and protect your family.
Freedom means Supreme Court Justices who don’t dictate policy, but instead follow the Constitution.” 

“We deserve leaders who stand for principle. Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect, from everybody.”

And what seemed to anger Trump’s peoples the most,

“And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

When did any of that cease to represent conservative Republican values and principle?

And don’t tell me it still does because if it did, Trump and his supporters would have applauded such a speech, not booed and jeered all of the way through it.

Equally distressing now that Donald Trump is the official nominee for president from these new Republican’s is the tactics of supporters in demeaning, ridiculing, arguing and even threatening physical violence against people not jumping in to join their support of Trump.

Not to mention the fearmongering of “you only have two choices, Trump or Hillary and if you don’t vote Trump, then you support Hillary”

Balderdash!

In that I am reminded of the words of Alexander Hamilton,

“If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”

I saw much the same nonsense during the past two elections coming out of the Ron Paul camps and apparently was erroneous in my belief it was him causing such splits.

It appears to me now that it was his supporters that want to seize control of the country to impose their will with the rest of us serving them, far from that “leave everybody alone” nonsense many of them spew.

And to do that they needed to take control of the Republican Party as they have been trying for a decade now.

This post barely scratches the surface of my concerns with this group and Donald Trump and more may be said in a future post.

But suffice it to say for now, You Wanted Trump, You’ve Got Him. How you get him elected is your problem.

I only pray that we will one day again before my time is up on this earth, we will see a true conservative Republican party rise up out of the ashes of this mess.

To lift a quote from Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 Vice Presidential debate with Dan Quayle, “I knew conservative Republicans and y’all ain’t it!”