5 Things That Should Make Moderate Republicans Sh*t Their Pants


The GOP has undergone a radical makeover in the last few years. Republicans proudly proclaim to be a Constitution-upholding party of personal freedom and personal responsibility, with many members who call themselves “libertarians.” Their rhetoric states that they want to limit government, especially on a federal level, and to let citizens sort out their own well-being.

And while the Ayn Rand-loving, personal responsibility, small government belief is fine as an ideological starting point, it presents some major challenges in practice. The modern GOP has given up all but the most lip service attention to these ideals anyway, and is leaving moderates in both parties completely baffled. Now, as the Republicans slide farther and farther to the terrifying, fascist right, folks who have considered themselves moderate Republicans have no political home base.

Image by DonkeyHotey, available under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
Image by DonkeyHotey, available under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.

1. The Donald Trump Factor

It started out as a late night talk show punchline, but Donald Trump’s presidential run has shown just how divided the modern GOP is. Trump has made American politics an international laughingstock, yet his supporters can’t see his hypocrisy.

The Trump Effect goes farther than The Donald himself, of course. As the other GOP hopefuls (without a centrist candidate in the bunch) saw Trump’s success with the “Uneducated Bigoted Racist” faction of the Republican voter base, they started following suit. Discourse devolved: facts became irrelevant. If you could make people believe what you were saying, truth and proof were unneccessary. Egyptian pyramids were grain storage facilities, and torture and war became the most effective way of dealing with our “enemies.”

2. GOP Senate Says ‘Constitution Schmonstitution’

The GOP-controlled Senate and House have been blocking Obama throughout his entire presidency. They have repeatedly tried to repeal Obamacare, even though SCOTUS ruled it constitutional. They have vowed to fight the Obergefell ruling. Those are definitely a-hole moves, but they allow ideological room for folks to maintain support for the GOP, because they are based on at least the pretense of thoughtful discussion.

But now, with justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden death, the Senate are trying to block an Obama SCOTUS nominee because Obama. This is pure partisanship, and it goes directly against the Constitution. For them, it is easy to uphold a Constitution when it comes to denying rights to women and minorities under the guise of “states’ rights.” But it is a bitter pill to swallow when it comes to supporting the democratically elected president in doing his duties in appointing a Supreme Court justice.

Ya can’t win ’em all, folks. If you are counting on a literal interpretation of a centuries-old document to justify your bigotry, you can’t turn around and complain when said document states unequivocally that you must put aside partisanship and act with integrity. And if you don’t act according to the values that you have claimed to have, then you’re a big fat hypocrite and a liar-liar-pants-on-fire.

There are people who genuinely believe in a literal interpretation of the Constitution. Those folks will almost always support the GOP. But now that, for modern Republicans, the Constitution is just a weapon in a war across the aisle, it can be discarded at whim. The real Constitution-lovers can’t love the GOP anymore.

Speaking of which…

3. Hatred Of Obama

As the song goes, why can’t we be friends? 

Hard-core GOPers call themselves “patriots,” although openly criticizing and blocking the presidents efforts used to be called “treason.” They were happy to use that term against folks who criticized George W. Bush. But now that a Dem is in office, openly defying the president is now called “patriotism?” What is patriotic about that?

Moderate Republicans love their country, and are trying to do what’s best. But they can’t love a party that is creating such division.

4. Torture! And More Torture!

GOP candidates seem positively gleeful about the prospect of heading to war, and appear to be trying to outdo each other with gruesome machinations.

Add to that the way they criticized Obama’s diplomatic dismantling of Iran’s nuclear crisis. They seem to be pretty kill-happy. This is not a party that reasonable people can support.

Now Trump has said that he is a big fan of Gitmo-type torture, and that he thinks it is the best way to solve pretty much every problem he is expecting to encounter. He is super-sure that it works always, not really, but most of the time, hopefully:

“I have no doubt that it does work in terms of information and other things. And maybe not always, but nothing works always. But I have no doubt that it works.”

This should be a huge problem for critical thinkers. All the objective evidence we have gotten so far is that: a) “enhanced interrogation techniques” don’t yield accurate info, and b) if you think torture is a great idea, you are a horrible person. And if you are kinda sorta sure that torture works sometimes, that should not be enough of a rationale for a first world country to use it.

5. The GOP Will (Almost For Sure) Lose The Presidency, And Maybe The House Too

The goonishness of the modern GOP is overwhelming. No one has been able to create any credible ideas, and they all sound like they are being advised by Ayn Rand and PeeWee Herman’s love child. None of them has shown any international statesmanship, and those with real government experience are not well regarded for it. And right now, they are all too busy trying out-crazy each other and “out-Trump The Donald” to do anything even vaguely reasonable.

The Republican National Committee is Dr. Frankenstein, and this current batch of candidates is the monster it has created by supporting the idiotic nonsense of the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus. Now the GOP is so far right that it seems almost impossible to swing it back toward the center. And the only candidates willing to prostitute themselves for this neo-fascist dream are the ridiculous and crazy candidates. Compared to these 2016 goons, Mitt Romney looks like a genius with seriously reasonable policies. Those were the good ol’ days…