Gerold Firl: Smack Down the Right Wing to Get Our Country Working Again

The Republican Party has been very naughty. Very, very naughty. The GOP needs a timeout. Better yet, it needs a good spanking.

The Republican Party has become such a menace to the health and welfare of our nation that it’s now the patriotic duty of every voter to take ’em to the woodshed in 2012 and teach them a lesson: American politics can no longer afford their ignorance, incompetence and hypocrisy.

The selection of presidential candidates on offer underlines the political bankruptcy of the Republican Party. Of them all, only Ron Paul brings any kind of original ideas or intellectual honesty, and as a result has been ruled out by conservative ultras. The rest of the field propose an astonishing array of dysfunctional fantasies in lieu of policy. Herman Cain and his unworkable 9-9-9 plan captured the imagination of many conservatives, since it raised taxes on the poor and middle class, cut taxes for the rich, and would leave the government with even more massive deficits. What a disaster that would be.

Of course, everybody makes mistakes, but lately the Republican blunders have been of epic proportions. Think Iraq invasion: Honest mistakes can be forgiven, but that disaster wasn’t honest. 

Republican policy also led directly to the Great Recession of 2008. Their fervent rush to unleash the magic of the marketplace produced huge short-term profits for financial speculators, at tremendous cost to the U.S. and the world.

And that is the essence of the Republican ethos: Grab everything you can and hold on tight, with utter disregard for the collateral damage. It’s an indiscriminate elephant trampling everything in sight to snatch a lousy buck. Not a pretty sight.

The incompetence of Republican policy puts our future in peril, but it’s the dishonesty and duplicity of their tactics that truly reveal the moral bankruptcy of the American Right.

Ever since the election of President Barack Obama, Republican policy has been one of complete negativity. They’ve proven themselves willing to pull down the entire nation, if it gives them the White House in 2012. And while some believe Republican hatred for the president is simple racism, just think of the disgraceful Clinton impeachment fiasco.

It’s almost funny how Republicans pretend to revere the Constitution. They pretend it’s Holy Scripture, but it’s clear they don’t mean it. Have you heard their latest proposal to cripple the judicial branch? Newt Gingrich has suggested abolishing the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; and if that pesky Constitution gets in the way, he wants Congress to turn off their electricity and fire their law clerks. Conservatives pretend to worship the Constitution, but really, they just want what they want, and they’ll do anything to get it. And what they mostly want is power.

Of course, not all Republicans are right-wing lunatics. Many otherwise sensible Americans have a bad habit of voting Republican because they want minimal taxes and minimum government. Most Americans feel that way—I certainly do. But the Republican Party has now metastasized into a ravenous tumor on the body politic, and it must be cauterized. Obviously the right-wing lunatic fringe is beyond hope, but they are essentially irrelevant to any serious political discussion. They aren’t amenable to reason. But we don’t need them. All we need is for sensible and intelligent Republicans to boycott the party until it trims the fringe. Once they do, the loonies will fade into the shadows of their own obsolescence.

Political leadership requires both bold progressivism and principled conservatism, to find the best elements of what we can become while also retaining the best aspects of what we have been. President Obama has done an excellent job under the circumstances, but the Republicans have done everything possible to make the president and the United States fail. They must not be rewarded for their behavior.