GOP Must Purge the Kooky and the Credulous

In spite of John McCain’s and the Republican National Committee’s best efforts, Election Day will likely result in their party losing the White House and sinking deeper into a minority status in Congress. I believe political extremism will ultimately be cited as one of the major culprits. Therefore, it’s high time the GOP made a return to common sense conservatism in order to have any chance of making a comeback in 2010 and beyond. Of course, this means it must purge from its ranks all the kooky and credulous people who have become attached to it over the years.

The neoconservative hijacking of the party has allowed these people in the front door and kicked real conservatives to curb. Let’s hope this trend soon begins to reverse itself. Of course, this kind of house cleaning won’t be pretty but it must be done before the GOP can return to the kind of conservatism of Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and George Will that first drew me to the Republican Party. It will allow the GOP to rescue its brand before it’s too late.

Venom-spewing blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter will need to be given their walking papers. Those who believe the Republican Party will somehow usher in the Kingdom of God on earth will also have to go. This also goes for the right-wing bloggers who regularly post those reader articles with breathless, multi-sentence titles on RealClearPolitics.com.  In addition, it should show the door to anyone who has habitually made alarmist and outrageous claims, used scare tactics, exaggerated the truth, or flat out lied in the name of the party.

Then we have those credulous people – pitiful really – who honestly believe absurd notions like Barack Obama is a Muslim, he’s a terrorist, he’s dangerous, or that he’s going to paint the White House black and change the national anthem if he’s elected president. It’s hard for me to imagine how someone could be so gullible. The Republican Party should aspire to a membership whose average IQ is above 80. These people are pulling it down and need to promptly hit the road.

Comments

[Anne Morgan]

Very thoughtful. An wonderful piece of writing. But I don't know that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter, or anybody needs to be given their walking papers. I just think that they cannot be "the brains" (I use the term brain as a strictly biological metaphor, -these people could not ever represent the intellect of the Right Wing) and they cannot continue to be the voices of the GOP. They need to be shown for what they are, which are promoters, they shouldn't be actually setting the agenda. Pundits and blowhards are to Conservativism, as mime is to marathon running. -Not the same thing.
People like Michele Bachman cannot be allowed to set the agenda or the tone. They may be ardent Republican supporters, but they are not Conservatives.
Another great piece I read, actually comes from a Liberal I work with, who posted this very long but very illuminating article here:
http://hamsandwich66.blogspot.com/2008/10/east-coast-liberal-angered-about-whats.html

I think his article represents a valuable conversation that has been impossible in America since Fox News became the judge of of all things Conservative or for that matter American.
-AM

[Jared A Chambers]

Geez, Terry. I find it hard to see how you're different than that which you eschew.

Sure, the right has it's own fringe element. All parties do. But your insistence that the party as a whole needs to look a lot more like, well, you, is no different than Limbaugh who thinks you can't be a conservative without being anti-abortion, even though that wasn't a part of the movement before Reagan.

Similarly, you and the other "moderates" go around wringing your hands because we're going to run off independents and democrats by admitting there is an anti-American movement within the political left. Is Obama a Muslim? Technically not. Is what Jeremiah Wright preached to him for 20 years Christian? I say not, and you need to look no further than his affinity for Louis Farrakan, who is a, you guessed it, Muslim.

There are a lot of things within the party to disagree with, and a lot of people. But Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter have done a better job of identifying the real problem: Republican wimps who want to steer the party towards "Democrat Lite," offering only slightly better stewardship of a bloated government. There are still a lot of us who believe in small government, strict construction of the Constitution (including the 2nd, 9th, and 10th Amendments), and American exceptionalism. That message can win, but only if we are willing to call out the left when they come out diametrically opposed to these principles (socialism, broad construction, one-world-ism). Sure, we have a few kooks, but the left has become owned by theirs. We need to be contrasting against the anti-American radicals who have hijacked the Democrat party, not seeking to minimize the differences.

Jared A. Chambers
myownterms.com