The Decline and Fall of the GOP

The Decline and Fall of the GOP

Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan). Well of course times are a-changin’, nothing in this universe is ever static and the fact that the affairs of mice and men are still a-changin’ in our time is just as inevitable as death, taxes and Oprah giving advice to the eager. Listening to Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom Ridge, John McCain and others mix it up over the future of the Republican Party (GOP) is about as boring as watching paint peel and listening to rusty wheels squeak, but as often is the case, the boring stuff can be the most important stuff in the grand scheme of things. Squeaking wheels and peeling paint aside, the mutterings of the aforementioned could well be the death rattle of the Grand Old Party and the possible demise of this very important force in American Body Politic should be the cause for serious introspection by the body citizenry. Let us not forget that the Republican Party grew into a National political force from the ashes of the Whigs when the Whigs as a national political party could not agree to support or oppose slavery, and as a result, fractured into obscurity as a national political force. Notable people, such as Abraham Lincoln, switched to the Republican Party from the Whigs because the Republican Party opposed slavery while the Whigs that supported slavery switched to the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the southern political contingent. Rank and file Whigs that opposed slavery switched to the Republican Party and became aligned with the northern political contingent. And so the stage for the great Civil war was set, rather boring stuff, huh? For the life of me, I can never understand the bloc support by the Black Community for the Democratic Party when it was the Republican Party, and not the Democratic Party, that supported the abolition of slavery, and indeed, as late as 1964, it was the Republicans that provided the support needed to pass the Civil Rights act when the Dixiecrats (southern Democrats) as well as other Democrats opposed the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But I digress. When discussing the decline and fall of important social entities, like the GOP, people often return to the seminal work of Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776) to make sense of it all. I too returned to that work and found what I was looking for and I will quote the passage of interest: “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principal of decay;” This quote about ancient Rome suffering from the effects of “Immoderate Greatness” could certainly apply to the GOP and indeed the USA as our power and influence on the world stage has been without peer and our immoderate greatness propelled a prosperity that was the envy of all. But alas, “Prosperity ripened the principal of decay”, describes the great engine of social change because decay always follows closely on the heels of unbridled success. Few could argue that decay has not set in where prosperity once ruled the day, not only for the GOP, but for the USA as well. Lets look at the GOP and the total success it enjoyed when it inherited a balanced budget and surpluses “as far as the eye can see” from President Bill Clinton in the year 2000. Not only did the GOP inherit a sound economy (for the moment), the GOP gained a massive political advantage granted by an electorate that had grown weary of silly peccadilloes and the secret dealings of a cult Government. What did the GOP do with its “Immoderate Greatness”? It totally focused on the maintenance of personal as well as party political power and spent the country into ruin while propelling us deeper into a bigger and bigger socialist style Government of entitlements and rights. The prosperity that can ruin a country can also decay a Political Party into obscurity as quickly as it can ruin an individual indulging in excess. The sound economy for the moment that the GOP inherited from President Bill Clinton was in reality a ticking time-bomb because the GOP as well as the Dems had a hand in passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) act in 1999 that repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall act. The passage of the GLB act set the stage for the financial disaster that has befallen us today by, in general, virtually eliminating regulation of lending and banking and that lack of prudent regulation allowed greed to take flight and ruin citizen and countries alike. Another insight can be gained about the effect of the GLB act on our current financial disaster from the historians Arnold Toynbee and James Burke. Toynbee and Burke argue that ancient Rome was doomed from the start because its economy was basically a “Raubwirtschaft” or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. When GLB was passed, it accelerated our decent into a consuming economy fueled by making money off of money. Making money off of money is the new and improved modern way of managing a plunder economy that simply loots existing resources gained from things of real value and multiplies (substitute the modern financial term of leveraging here) the real value into an inflated value that cannot sustain a real economy. In short, our modern 70% consumer economy is based on plunder looted from existing resources and was enabled by passage of the GLB act that the GOP and Dems can both take credit for. But again, I digress. I believe the GOP is doomed and I say, good riddance. All in all, what a dumb and stupid end for the Grand Old Party that rose into prominence by championing the abolishment of the scourge of slavery. I hope one day soon to say that the Democratic Party is also doomed and we all can say, good riddance. With each passing day, more and more citizens are finally waking up to the fact that a periodic revolution at the ballot box is no longer possible with the corrupt entrenched two-party system that we now have. Realizing this situation is accelerating the identification of being an Independent rather than Republican or Democrat and we can only hope our enlightened youth will step into the void with some new leadership some day soon.