The Republican Party Has Become Unrecognizable

Not to beat a dead horse, but I come form a family of (now former) Republicans.  I was once an activist in the Republican Party.  The party that existed in those days is dead and gone and what now parades under the name "Republican" has become something hideous and unrecognizable.  As I often said, when did the Party begin to morph into something horrible?  In my view, when the evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christian, perhaps a majority of whom are racists, hijacked the Party with the aid of establishment types who thought they could control the unwashed and insane.  With the election of Der Trumpenführer and now Roy Moore, the death of the GOP of old is complete. Religious extremism, hatred of anyone deemed "other" - which includes anyone who is not a white, heterosexual right wing "Christian" - and a desire to bring back a combination of the Gilded Age and the Jim Crow era are what now define the Republican Party. Compassion is gone, decency is gone, along with any shred of actually being guided by the Gospel message of the New Testament. The only true deference made to the Bible is through cherry picking Old Testament texts to demonize others and justify hatred of others. I am not the only one horrified by this transformation.  Joe Scarborough, a former conservative Congressman, laments the death of the GOP of old in a column in the Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

Who are you? I’ve got to say that I really don’t know anymore. It’s kind of a strange turn of events since we went to the same public schools across the Deep South, then attended the same state colleges, cheering wildly on Saturdays for our favorite SEC teams, and spent Sunday mornings together in the same Southern Baptist pews. We even went to Training Union on Sunday nights. Remember how our conversations always seemed to turn to politics? How we criticized Bill Clinton for playing so fast and loose with the truth? And how shamefully Democrats turned a blind eye to his fabrications and outright lies? Man, how could those Democrats sleep at night?

And what about how the guy we voted for, George W. Bush, running up the federal debt and launching ill-planned foreign adventures overseas? We swore that the next time Republicans got in power, we would pressure them to cut spending, attack the debt and put America’s foreign policy on a restrained and reasonable path.

We were united by the shared belief that politicians must put country above party, right? Right? What happened to you?

The guys I came up with in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and northwest Florida for more than 40 years would never boo a former American prisoner of war — especially one who refused to return home until the enemy released every one of his buddies in the prison camp. . . . why would you even think of booing a man, now fighting for his life, who showed that true grit in real life?

But boo Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) you did, at the behest of President Trump during a rally in Alabama last week.

Trump has been “physically mocking” the thumbs-down gesture McCain used to deliver the deciding vote against the Republican health-care bill in July. Did that mocking involve an imitation of McCain’s stiff arm movements? . . . .  McCain got the hell beaten out of him by the communists who held him in the Hanoi Hilton for more than five years.

At that same time, Trump was dodging the draft by claiming that bone spurs stopped him from serving his country in uniform. And yet this crippling condition didn’t stop the spoiled Ivy League student from playing football, tennis and golf. After four draft deferments, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 on the same day 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, McCain continued receiving the beatings that would forever leave him incapable of lifting his arms over his head. He kept enduring torture because he refused to leave his band of brothers behind.

Do you have that kind of character? If you booed McCain at last week’s rally, don’t bother answering. Someone has obviously failed you in your life . . . . And if you still go to church, you may also want to pray for all those around you who put tribal politics ahead of basic humanity.

Then maybe you should drive home and tell your children the story of John McCain’s sacrifice. If you can teach your children that lesson of heroism, there’s a chance they might grow up to have more character than the president you now praise.

 The challenge is to determine (i) how to try to change minds and (ii) in the interim, how to interact with people who seemingly are as morally challenged as the "good Germans" who through complacency and/or prejudice allowed Hitler and the Nazis to rise to power.  Going to church each week and feigning piety and religiosity is nothing more than hypocrisy writ large when one no longer cares about basic humanity or the lives of those in need. 

Veterans' Day - A True Hero

Living in the area of Virginia that I do, one becomes accustomed to having large numbers of military personnel always around in every social setting you encounter - yep, including in the gay clubs - and in time you find that some of these individuals are pretty amazing people. George Coker, one such individual, is written up in today's Virginian Pilot as part of its series on American POW's. We served on a neighborhood pool board together for an number of years including two during which he was the president and I was his VP of the community organization (I later served as president).

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Since I "came out" and moved to Norfolk from Virginia Beach, George and I haven't had much contact. Recently, however, at the funeral of a mutual friend's mother we had a chance to visit briefly and he and his wife were as cordial to me as ever - unlike some former neighbors and "friends" to whom I became invisible once they learned I was gay - and reconfirmed that he's a unique individual. There are things George and I disagree on, but I will always deem it an honor to have come to know him and work on endeavors with him. Here are a few story highlights (George was 23 when he was shot down):

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You have - deep inside - a reservoir of unimaginable strength. "If you're never tested, you don't know," says George Coker. Coker has been tested. Shot down over North Vietnam, he spent 6-1/2 years in captivity. Most of it was hard time - the kind they make movies about, the kind only a fanatical enemy can deliver.

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Aug. 27, 1966, was supposed to be a "milk run." Coker was on his 30th mission in the cockpit of an A-6A Intruder, zooming over jade-colored hills in the panhandle of North Vietnam. He and pilot Jack Fellowes were zeroing in on a bridge they were assigned to destroy. Without warning, the jet snapped crazily. A wing had been blown in half. Coker still isn't sure by what. "A lucky shot," he says.

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Not for the men in the jet. There was nothing to do but eject. Coker's arm and knee were torn up punching through the canopy. When he floated to the ground, "20 of them were waiting for me with open arms." He was stripped of his flight gear, arms tied behind his back. "I'd lost a lot of blood. I was pretty much in a state of shock." For the next few days, "I was roughed up, slapped around. They were trying to get some information. I could dodge most of it by pretending to be young and stupid.

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Ringleaders of POW resistance were banished to Alcatraz. Among those already there: Jeremiah Denton, who would later become an admiral and a U.S. senator, and James Stockdale, a future vice presidential candidate. "There were 11 of us. Four have since died. The rest of us remain extremely close. We had a very unique experience, even among the Vietnam group. It was the best of comradeship and the worst of living conditions."

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Each man was in solitary. Coker spent two years alone in a 9-foot-by-3-foot cell under a light bulb that burned 24 hours a day. Each night, a guard came in to lock him in irons.

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"You're capable of a great deal more than you realize, if you really set your mind to it. Look at me. I did it, and there's nothing special about me. I'm just another guy....

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I disagree. George is extraordinary.