Home of the brave
I still get confused about what it means to be a Republican. I’ve been looking for the Republican Party’s core beliefs, but they’re hard to find.
I tried the 60-page Republican Platform 2016 first, but it was unreadable. Vague platitudes and a string of contradictory positions followed, both physically and intellectually, by justifications.
I found this summary on a UK site, historylearningsite.co.uk, under Beliefs of the Republican Party:
The following is taken from the 1995 Republican Party’s history of the party as presented by the Republican Party’s National Committee.
Historically, the party has supported
The abolition of slavery
The right of free speech Support of women’s suffrage
The reduction of the power of Federal government
The reduction of Federal bureaucracy
The return of power to state governments
The support of the idea of the primacy of the individual
To fight for the right of individuals in opposition to large “bloated” government
So, I mean, damn! They led with abolition and women’s suffrage! That’s bold enough. And they wrote this in 1995! Pretty recently.
Hell, I like them already. And the ‘primacy of the individual’ bit? Poetic. Better still, it wasn’t just as an excuse for Jim Crow laws. They supported civil rights.
These are the Republicans who proposed the 14th Amendment. This is the party that passed the 1866 Civil Rights Act. This is the part that, in 1917, elected Jeannette Rankin to be the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives.
But that was a generation ago. 1995. I just checked the GOP website, which, interestingly, talked more about the 2012 party platform than the 2016 one, but they eventually put out links to the 2016 platform section. I couldn’t stand the idea of trying to read more huge, disjointed position papers, but the GOP site helpfully included the Republican core values in bullet points:
Damn. Buzzword bingo winners, starting with that vacuous ‘American exceptionalism’ phrase. I guess they start with it because it’s so easy? All you have to do is assert it, so I guess they’re already done?
Honor thy Constitution as you honor your… something. Luckily, ‘honor’ isn’t a principle, a goal, or a mechanism, so that’s easy. Another ‘No action required’ bullet.
They hate special interests. Good enough. Like… what? Goldman Sachs? Billionaires? Mega-cap corporations? Free markets? Hard to be sure. They can probably check off that one anyway.
“Government intrusion” and “traditional marriage”. Great. Dog-whistles in search of justification.
“Leaders should serve people, not…”.
“Health care decisions should be made by us and our doctors.” Not… who?
“Paychecks should not be wasted….”
“Poorly run government programs….”
“Children should never be left in failing schools.”
Victimization stuff. They all imply that life today is a disaster.
There were still bits about smaller government, but emphasize ‘efficient’. So today’s America world must be wasteful?
The rest follow that same theme of decay and disaster. “Veterans should have…”. “Social programs should help…”. “America should be…”. Clearly none of that stuff is happening now.
The Trump message is straight Republican ticket stuff, red-meat carnage. So America is exceptional, except for the parts that are a smoldering tire dump? I’m lost.
