🚀 go-pugleaf

Solomon wrote:
> Washington Post / April 22, 2006
> How the GOP Lost Its Way
> By Craig Shirley
>
> The immigration reform debate has highlighted a long-standing fissure
> in the GOP between the elitist Rockefeller business wing and the
> party's conservative populist base. Whether the two groups can
> continue to coexist and preserve the Republican majority is
> increasingly doubtful as conservatives begin to consider -- and in
> some cases cheer -- the possibility that the GOP may lose control of
> Congress this fall.
>
> The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested
> in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration
> and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is
> concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and
> the real security threat posed by porous borders.
>
> There is nothing new about this division. It is a 40-year-old fight
> that has its roots in the cultural, economic, regional and ideological
> differences between the two camps. Still, most conservatives felt that
> after the victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of
> 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their
> place. They were wrong. The Rockefeller wing is now attempting to
> reassert its control over the party and is openly hostile toward the
> Reagan populists who created the Republican majority in the first
> place.
>
> Major Republicans have taken to attacking others within their own
> party as unsophisticated nativists. In a recent Wall Street Journal
> column, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie
> warned populists to cease and desist from promoting "border
> enforcement first" legislation. "Anti-immigration rhetoric is a
> political siren song, and Republicans must resist its lure," he said.
> And in a recent editorial, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol attacked
> populist Republicans for not recognizing the danger of "turning the
> GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party."
>
> Conservatives see this kind of rhetoric as inflammatory,
> anti-intellectual and offensive. Far from being driven by xenophobia
> and intolerance, conservative populists are motivated by a profound
> respect for the rule of law and by a patriotic regard for America's
> sovereignty and national security. Upholding the rule of law and
> protecting our country's borders is important to conservative
> populists and to most Americans.
>
> To make their argument, some establishment Republicans are invoking
> Ronald Reagan's name. In fact, Reagan argued that it was our
> government's duty to "humanely regain control of our borders and
> thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of
> our people: American citizenship." Reagan was pro-legal immigration,
> pro-patriotic assimilation and in step with other populist
> conservatives.
>
> The Republican Party is now unraveling. Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on
> terrorism stanched a lot of wounds inside the party, but resentment is
> growing over steel tariffs, prescription drug benefits, a League of
> Nations mentality, the growth of government and harebrained spending,
> the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the increasing regulation of
> political speech in the United States and endemic corruption. On top
> of all the scandals, it has just come to light that the RNC paid
> millions in legal bills to defend operative James Tobin, who was
> convicted with associates in an illegal phone-jamming scheme aimed at
> preventing New Hampshire Democrats from voting. In doing so, the GOP
> appears to sanction and institutionalize corruption within the party.
>
> The elites in the GOP have never understood conservatives or Reagan;
> they've found both to be a bit tacky. They have always found the
> populists' commitment to values unsettling. To them, adherence to
> conservative principles was always less important than wealth and
> power.
>
> Unfortunately, the GOP has lost its motivating ideals. The revolution
> of 1994 has been killed not by zeal but by a loss of faith in its own
> principles. The tragedy is not that we are faced with another fight
> for the soul of the Republican Party but that we have missed an
> opportunity to bring a new generation of Americans over to our point
> of view.
>
> All agree that the Democrats are feckless and without a plan or
> agenda. But most Americans are now presented with a choice between two
> parties that are both addicted to power -- the Democrats to government
> power and Republicans to corporate and governmental power. Who speaks
> for Main Street Reaganism?
>
> It was the populists under Reagan, and later under Newt Gingrich, who
> energized the party, gave voice to a maturing conservative ideology
> and swept Republicans into power. We would be imprudent and forgetful
> to disregard this. But it may be too late, because conservatives don't
> want to be part of the looming train wreck. They know that this is no
> longer Ronald Reagan's party.
>
> ---------
> Craig Shirley, of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, is the author of
> "Reagan's Revolution," a book about the 1976 campaign, and is now
> writing "Rendezvous With Destiny" about the successful 1980 campaign.

The soft-bellied swine now running the GOP have reduced it to a farce
under the asslicking fool Bush. No more voting for the lesser of two
evils. Evil is evil, better open confrontation than the fungus
springing from a creep like Bush. A third-party movement will teach
both parties a lesson. (Might end their ass-kissing contest)
Fight or die.

John