My readers I’ve probably noticed that I often use the term “quisling” to describe the GOP leadership in the Congress. The word harkens back to the Finnish leader whose name became a byword for collaboration with the Nazis in countries they occupied during WWII. I use the term partly in the hope that it will induce people unfamiliar with it to brush up on the history of the Nazi occupations. If they do, the information should help them to put the prideful self-righteousness of the GOP quislings in proper perspective. It reminds us that actual human events have served up villainous destroyers of their own people and country more insidious than the fantasy villains made up for the movies and TV.
Paul Ryan’s collaboration with the Democrats on the omnibus spending bill recently approved in the House of Representatives more than justifies my use of the term. It unfolded like a script, made-to-order as a dramatic illustration of the fact that the so-called two-party system is just a façade for elitist faction tyranny. The two so-called major parties are wings of the same faction. They are united in their service to the elitist faction money powers that fund their political and governmental empires. They are united in their determination to rip the moral, institutional, economic. and demographic guts out of our system of representative, Constitutional government of, by and for the people.
Reacting to the GOP’s latest betrayal of its core constituents, Rush Limbaugh said:
And now the Republicans have the largest number of seats they’ve had in Congress since the Civil War. And it hasn’t made any difference at all. It is as though Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is still running the House and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is still running the Senate. Betrayed is not even the word here. What has happened here is worse than betrayal. Betrayal is pretty bad, but it is worse than that. This is out and out in our face lying from the campaigns to individual statements made about the philosophical approach – Republicans had to do all this spending. There is no Republican Party. We don’t even need a Republican Party if they’re going to do all of this. Just elect Democrats. Disband the Republican Party, let the Democrats run it because that’s what’s happening anyway.
The slogan “Disband the Republican Party” sounds almost like a call to action, but even if it were, what could come of it? The same question hangs over Franklin Graham’s declaration that, on account of Ryan’s betrayal, he has left the GOP. Limbaugh’s words and Graham’s stated action express the disappointment, anger and frustration of people who have time and again vested their votes and resources in the GOP, with no dividend but in the currency of new deceits, used to cover and facilitate the ongoing destruction of our Constitution and liberty. But they offer no positive focus for the potential energy those passions generate, no framework for directing them toward a better outcome.
I am reminded of James Dobson’s vow to vote for no candidate who countenances the murder of even one of the innocent nascent offspring of humanity. But when the GOP offered no alternative but the pro-life apostate John McCain, he opted for the “lesser of evils.” This has been the mantra used to herd reluctant GOP voters to the polls for almost twenty years. And after every such deeply compromised election, whether the GOP won or lost, the shadow of evil has lengthened across our conscience, our liberty and our material well-being.
In his remarks about Ryan’s treachery, Limbaugh alluded to the Presidential election as to a sideshow, meant to distract people from the GOP’s surrender in Congress. But hasn’t that been the whole point of GOP politics pretty much since Ronald Reagan left office. At first the surrender was passive, as when the proudest result George Bush could boast after enjoying the highest presidential favorability rating in polling history from the American people (in the wake of the Persian Gulf war) was passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But it has become more and more open and active after each election. It didn’t matter whether the GOP’s quisling leaders were punished with failure as in 2006, or rewarded with undeserved victories. Elections didn’t matter to them. Their loyalty to the elitist faction continually prevailed.
The GOP’s authentically republican (note the small ‘r’) constituents are like people drinking water from a contaminated well. They’re sick of it: their trust is waning, along with their material strength. The very land of liberty they live in seems on the verge of repossession by political landlords that, as Americans, they thought never to have known. Yet to cater to their strong desire for something better all they hear is “Abandon the well! Stop drinking the water!” But every time someone suggests they find and dig down to tap the truer source of water from which the nation sprang, the very ones who claim to feel their pain rebuke them saying “These poisoned wells are all we have.”
Are the sympathetic words and actions meant to voice and represent the will to fight our nation’s political disease just part of the beguiling charade? Most of the critics of the GOP’s betrayals make as if they are still loyal to the U.S. Constitution and its principles of God-endowed right, including liberty. What if they came together, and instead of focusing on the failure of the elitist faction’s sham party system, they refocused their thought and action on the Constitution, and the electoral process it envisages. There is no mention made of parties in the Constitution. There is no focus on self-promoting demagogues, their images fabricated for every occasion.
For the highest office in the land, the Constitution envisages an electoral process in which the people focus on choosing representatives from amongst themselves — people known by their actions among them; people known to share their decent hearted goals for their families, their neighborhoods, and the communities and districts in which they live together. The Constitution envisages an electoral process built from the ground up by the people themselves, not some fabricated elitist sham staged according to the dictation of a self-worshipping, power-obsessed elitist clique, drunk (à la Donald Trump) on the heady lie that they made and can restore America’s greatness.
It is not enough to disband or abandon the GOP. We need to replace it. We need to engender and raise up a new growth of liberty to push it aside. People sickened by its continual betrayals need to turn back to the well-spring of our strength, refreshing the lifeblood of our liberty with a paradigm for politics sourced in the wise provisions of the Constitution itself. Instead of focusing on the elitist faction lie — obsessed with fear, with enmity and evil — we need to focus on the truth of God-endowed right and rights. It is a choice for truth the elitist faction clique will never sincerely offer us. We must make it for ourselves, from the ground up, or else meanly lose the hope of decent human liberty it is our duty as Americans to strengthen and preserve.