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In reply to the discussion: A real quote from a real Republican Senator. You might want to sit down first..... [View all]TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)9. Read this in the Times last night...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/opinion/trump-impeachment-republicans.html
?quality=90&auto=webp
At the Peace Monument near the United States Capitol, Grief weeps on the shoulder of History.
CreditCreditDamon Winter/The New York Times
(More at link.)
The original Times article this is based on was in 1964-- The more things change, the more they stay the same...
?quality=90&auto=webp
At the Peace Monument near the United States Capitol, Grief weeps on the shoulder of History.
CreditCreditDamon Winter/The New York Times
In the summer of 1950, outraged by Joseph McCarthys anti-Communist inquisition, Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican senator from Maine, stood to warn her party that its own behavior was threatening the integrity of the American republic. I dont want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear, she said. I doubt if the Republican Party could simply because I dont believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely, we Republicans arent that desperate for victory.
Senator Smith surely knew her Declaration of Conscience would not carry the day. Her appeal to the better angels of her party was not made in the expectation of an immediate change; sometimes the point is just to get people to look up. In the end, four more years passed before the bulk of the Republican Party looked up and turned on Senator McCarthy four years of public show trials and thought policing that pushed the country so hard to the right that the effects lasted decades. The problem with politicians who abuse power isnt that they dont get results. Its that the results come at a high cost to the Republic and to the reputations of those who lack the courage or wisdom to resist.
The Republican Party is again confronting a crisis of conscience, one that has been gathering force ever since Donald Trump captured the partys nomination in 2016. Afraid of his political influence, and delighted with his largely conservative agenda, party leaders have compromised again and again, swallowing their criticisms and tacitly if not openly endorsing presidential behavior they would have excoriated in a Democrat. Compromise by compromise, Donald Trump has hammered away at what Republicans once saw as foundational virtues: decency, honesty, responsibility. He has asked them to substitute loyalty to him for their patriotism itself.
Senator Smith surely knew her Declaration of Conscience would not carry the day. Her appeal to the better angels of her party was not made in the expectation of an immediate change; sometimes the point is just to get people to look up. In the end, four more years passed before the bulk of the Republican Party looked up and turned on Senator McCarthy four years of public show trials and thought policing that pushed the country so hard to the right that the effects lasted decades. The problem with politicians who abuse power isnt that they dont get results. Its that the results come at a high cost to the Republic and to the reputations of those who lack the courage or wisdom to resist.
The Republican Party is again confronting a crisis of conscience, one that has been gathering force ever since Donald Trump captured the partys nomination in 2016. Afraid of his political influence, and delighted with his largely conservative agenda, party leaders have compromised again and again, swallowing their criticisms and tacitly if not openly endorsing presidential behavior they would have excoriated in a Democrat. Compromise by compromise, Donald Trump has hammered away at what Republicans once saw as foundational virtues: decency, honesty, responsibility. He has asked them to substitute loyalty to him for their patriotism itself.
(More at link.)
The original Times article this is based on was in 1964-- The more things change, the more they stay the same...
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A real quote from a real Republican Senator. You might want to sit down first..... [View all]
DFW
Oct 2019
OP
Sadly, this thought is largely dead, dormant, or otherwise mute. How far we have fallen back.
Evolve Dammit
Oct 2019
#2
Never thought anything like this was possible. But it has been unfolding since '16 and the fervor
Evolve Dammit
Oct 2019
#10
this is now the party of limbaugh and when democrats figure that out this bunch won't have
certainot
Oct 2019
#17