By Edwin Cooney
It’s
all so sad! I was once proud to be a
Republican. The party of Abraham Lincoln
that sought the benefits of national unity and free enterprise with minimal
government seemed to me to be the ticket for limitless prosperity and harmony
as far into the future as one might see.
Suddenly, in August of 1976, it all began to change when the Republican Party
shifted from the political to the personal in its evaluation of palatable political
allies and enemies.
GOP
conservatives had two ambitions in the summer of 1976. One, which was perfectly legitimate although
not so pleasant for President Gerald Ford, was the nomination of former
California Governor Ronald Reagan in Ford’s stead. The second was the humiliation of Nelson
Rockefeller even though the vice president had taken himself out of the running
for nomination in late October 1975.
According
to Richard Norton Smith’s comprehensive biography of Nelson Rockefeller
entitled “On His Own Terms,” Rockefeller’s breaking point occurred during the
convention that nominated Gerald Ford and Robert Dole for president and vice
president. Like President Ford, Nelson
Rockefeller had suffered numerous instances of hostility from the GOP right. That, to a degree, was all part of
politics. Rocky knew and understood the
resentment felt by conservatives since his nonsupport of the Goldwater/Miller
ticket back in 1964. Hence, he had
graciously left the field and was no threat beyond his support of the President
to Governor Reagan’s hopes. Besides, the
struggle was over. However, a final
needless indignity was about to be visited on Rockefeller. After all, he was a
divorced northeastern liberal pretender to power.
The
date was Thursday, August 19th, 1976.
Rocky, as requested, had gone up to the podium to nominate Kansas
Senator Robert Dole to succeed him as vice president. As he began his speech, he noticed that the
sound was turned down. He asked the
engineer nearby to turn the sound up. “I
can’t,” replied the engineer. So Rocky,
doing the best he could, concluded his speech.
Seconding speeches were next and the vice president turned to Peggy Pinder,
a blind woman, who was scheduled after him.
He told her that she’d have to speak right up as something was wrong
with the volume -- except that absolutely nothing was wrong with the
volume. Ms. Pinder’s speech was clear as
a bell. The sound had been deliberately
turned down on Vice President Rockefeller’s address. Rockefeller blamed Dick Cheney, then Ford’s Chief
of Staff, for that insult. Never again
would he sit down with President Ford’s rightwing-oriented staff which included
such men as Donald Rumsfeld, William Simon and Dick Cheney. Rocky, whose money
and influence had been a staple of the party’s goals and fortune since the 1940s, would have
little or nothing to do with the party throughout the two years and six days
remaining in his life.
Ronald
Reagan’s 1980 victory was the dawning of a new day for conservatives. Most of their formidable opponents within the
party were gone. Their affable and
articulate leader’s capacity for eloquence was that of a persuader not a
dictator. Hence, it fell to professional
conservative ideologists to keep the public ever mindful of all enemies, foreign
and domestic, and their need for protection against dangerous forces from
abroad as well as from the demands of the unworthy poor here at home. Freed from the need to compromise in the
crafting of legislation to realize their foreign and domestic agendas, they
began representing their proposals for foreign and domestic tranquility as
moral issues rather than matters of practicality. As time has passed, those who dare to
challenge them for public favor aren’t opponents; they are now “gangsters” (the
Clintons), “thugs” and “rapists” (Hispanic refuges) or foreign-born “Socialist
Muslims” (President Obama).
For
the past few campaign seasons, they were content to argue with one another as
to who was most like President Reagan.
This year however they face a new challenge.
Now,
Donald Trump (who mostly represents himself), wants the GOP presidential nomination. He represents more than mere conservatism. He represents the anger their anti-consensus
and anti-government pronouncements have stirred up during recent years
especially against President Obama.
Writing in the New York Times, Timothy Egan asserted that Donald Trump
is “the poison Republicans themselves have concocted.” Trump’s attack on John McCain might be beyond
the pale except that Jeb Bush’s brother, President George W. Bush, benefited
considerably in 2004 from GOP attacks on John Kerry’s patriotism and loyalty
even though the U.S. marines made him a Medal of Honor winner for heroism in
Vietnam. Their continuous lack of
respect for Barack Obama, despite his high office, is legendary. James Wilson
of South Carolina shouted “You lie!” from the floor of the House of
Representatives during President Obama’s healthcare address and it reverberates
endlessly through the national awareness.
Nor did Republicans complain when Trump continually used the “birther
issue” against President Obama. Now,
even though he’s been a money source for GOP candidates in past campaigns, Trump’s
slur against John McCain is their latest excuse to be the angry men many of
them really are.
Political
parties as instruments of political conquest are by their nature prone to take
advantage of our normal sensitivities.
Nor does the Republican Party have a monopoly on political
vengeance. The late Chicago Mayor
Richard J. Daley’s response to Jesse Jackson’s objection to the mayor’s call
for a unanimous vote on a resolution Jackson once opposed comes to mind. “Well, then,” said Mayor Daley, “we’ll just
make this vote unanimous without you.”
Then there was the treatment Senator Tom Eagleton received during the
1972 presidential campaign when it was revealed that he’d had shock treatment
for depression. These episodes of
personal degradation are part of political life. The problem is when personal degradation
becomes a habit.
At
this point, the GOP appears to be a party of resentment and little else. Its leadership, even as they struggle for
individual supremacy, appears to offer little reassurance or tranquility in our
immediate future. They say they love
freedom, but they appear to be much more in love with their own freedom than with
your freedom even if your convictions are within the laws and mores of American
tradition.
Just
as liberals began to do in the late sixties and early seventies, conservatives
appear ready, willing and eager to start cannibalizing each other. Remember Ronald Reagan’s old admonition: Thou
shall never speak ill of another Republican? Forget it; the fat’s in the fire!
Ah! Those conservative chickens are coming
home to roost — Yum, yum!
RESPECTFULLY
SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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