There's No One Left

[DFW]

6. When I was very young, as in "looking forward to my teenage years"

My dad would sometimes take me with him to the Capitol to hang around the Senate Press Gallery. He was introducing me to Senator This and Senator That, and I had no idea who they all were, or what party they belonged to. I remember a few of them vaguely, as they would sometimes make the (then-) long trek out to out house in the (then-) wilderness of northern Virginia ("Falls Church?" Where the hell is THAT?). Idaho's Frank Church was a frequent visitor.

Because my dad's main paper was in upstate New York, he always knew the Governor, Senators and Reps. from there. Republicans like Jake Javits, Charlie Gooddell and Nelson Rockefeller were guys I knew as well as a 10 year old kid could know busy friends of his dad that had no time for a ten year old kid. Others were the always entertaining Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who loved to entertain (even me), but had a perpetual cigarette smoke stink about him, as he chainsmoked--something that eventually killed him. Even in my teen years, some of the more far-right Republicans my dad knew asked intelligent questions, and listened to the answers. One Republican congressman, upon hearing that I had lived in Spain, and returned on a regular basis, was worried about Socialist and Communist factions in the newly post-Franco Spain. This was in 1977. I explained to him that their "Socialists" were more "social" than "socialist," and had no interest in changing Spain's economy drastically, or Spain's foreign policy hardly at all. The Spanish Communist Party was no more than a fetish that would fade into near-total obscurity as long as we didn't point any fingers at them. He listened, and took it in. It all came to pass just as I told him--Republicans never raised a stink about the Communist party being now legal in Spain. The people of Spain had no use for what they were selling, and they did indeed fade into obscurity.

Republicans 40 years ago may have had screwy ideas, but they LISTENED to the opposition (as did Democrats). Republicans today don't have screwy ideas--they have no ideas at all. They swallow what Fox Noise and National Hate Radio feed them in the evening and regurgitate it the next morning in Congress. They follow what is left of Trump's political ghost because all they do is follow. There is no leader among them. Their leaders are shadowy influential people who pull strings in the background, leaving the mechanics to tacticians like Moscow Mitch, and the theatrics to useful clowns like Trump and Gaetz. The only difference between now and ten years ago is that they no longer need a tea party for an outlet for their more extreme elements. There is nothing left BUT extreme elements. What was dubbed "the party of NO" back then is now the party of "no way in hell," and "know nothing, and don't wanna know anything else."