The Missing Three Principles Which Prove the Republican Party no Longer Exists

I reached the age of 21 in 1967. I was excited about the general election in 1968. I began my first year in high school in 1960, the year John Fitzgerald Kennedy became our 35^th president.

Like most young men and women my age, I was excited, and disappointed that I was unable to vote for him.

The man I admired was murdered on November 22, 1963. I had just begun my senior year. Like nearly everyone else in America, we mourned his loss for three days. I continue to believe that our government will never allow the people to know the truth about that fateful day in Dallas, Texas.

President Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, was a candidate for the presidency in 1968. This was important to me. I admired Bobby Kennedy, and although I could not vote for his brother, I would be voting for the first time and he would receive my vote.

Once again tragedy struck. In June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was murdered in Los Angeles. I was devastated, and my life would change in a small but important way.

I hadn’t given party affiliation much consideration prior to his death. I was less excited about my first opportunity to vote for a president, but began carefully vetting the available candidates. I realized that I had become an Independent voter. Years later, I came to the conclusion that belonging to a single political party is moronic. Neither major party offers a list of perfect candidates in a single election.

In 1968 my choices were Democrat Hubert Humphrey, and Republican Richard Nixon. I will not reveal which man received my vote because it doesn’t matter. What matters is I voted based on what I believed either man would accomplish for the American people.

In 1981 Reagan created a huge problem. He fooled me and many other voters in 1980, and his policies were destructive and disappointing. He placed himself and his party ahead of his responsibility to do the right thing regardless of his personal opinion.

It was Reagan who demanded unbridles loyalty, and forbade dissent. It was Reagan who began the right-wing’s wars on the working class, minorities, and women. It was Reagan who began the Republican Party’s support for the super-rich, And it was Reagan who aided Evangelicals in the creation of the Christian Religious Right.

I respected George H.W. Bush. However, he continued Reagan’s fiscal policy of “trickle-down economics,” driving our nation into even deeper debt.

Bill Clinton left office in 2001. He had erased the national debt and for the first time in modern history the national treasury had a surplus.

In 2000 I believed George W. Bush to be the worst candidate in my lifetime. History offers irrefutable facts that I was correct in my evaluation of your 43^rd president. I learned that the Republican Party I once respected was suffering from a terminal disease. It was morphing into something far from the once Grand Old Party.

On November 8, 2016, the biggest mistake in history confirmed that the once Grand Old Party had taken its last breath. With assistance from Vladimir Putin, James Comey, and the mainstream media, the least qualified old man in history, Donald Trump, was gifted the Electoral College.

With his illegitimate election came the end of three basic Republican principles.

My admiration for the one GOP began with its support for small business It was the cornerstone of their platform. When small businesses succeeded, the economy flourished. Corporations took care of themselves. Today’s fake Republicans place the profits of large corporations in priority number one. Their goal is to increase the wealth of the super-rich, not the welfare of the working class.

Real Republicans believed in smaller government and reductions in spending. They believed that many of the agencies created by Washington politicians were unnecessary and too expensive.

Today’s fake Republicans have created new agencies and policies designed to control how every dollar is spent. They reject programs for the majority and support laws which give additional tax cuts to the super-rich. They created the Department of Homeland Security with the passage of the unconstitutional Patriot Act. Although our Border Patrol was under-funded and under-staffed, Republicans decided to create the Gestapo-like ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are similar to the storm troopers of Nazi Germany and cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year. It is Republicans who continue to demand outrageous increases in the Pentagon’s yearly budget, although it is a fact that it wastes 50 cents of every dollar.

Under Republican’s failed leadership, the national debt has reached more than 36 trillion dollars. The continued use of “trickle-down economics” has nearly bankrupted our country twice. They have proven time and time again that they are incapable of governing 340 million people.

Finally, and of greatest importance to me. Real Republicans believed that the federal government must not be involved in the personal lives of our nation’s people. This is guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments.

The fascist beliefs of today’s “Republicans” is undeniable. Their support of the Christian Religious Right, an unconstitutional act in itself, forces them to attempt total control over every individual in America.

It began in earnest with the Republican demand for the passage of the Patriot Act. Our government is now allowed to know everything you read, watch on television, and believe thanks to social media. It is allowed to learn how you spend your own money by invading bank account records. Red sates are not only passing laws forbidding women the right to make choices about their own physical and mental health, they are passing laws intended to control the lives of the LGBTQ community. Republicans are censoring types of books on the shelves of their libraries and schools. Republicans are all fascists in the 21^st century. Prove me wrong.

With the demise of the Republican Party our system of government cannot exist. Without honest deliberation and compromise a Democratic Republic cannot function; it cannot exist. This is why Washington’s is the most corrupt and dysfunctional government in the world.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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