The Silencing of the Lambs
By Michael Boyajian
With the abrupt termination of conservative David Frum from his employment at the American Enterprise Institute the Republicans have stepped up their efforts to kill off their own dissidents signifying an inglorious end to what was the illusion of the party’s Open Tent platform from the 1990s.
The fratricide within the GOP is a bald attempt by leaders frightened by hard right extremist within the party to shutter any and all moderate opposition from inside the party. It plots their course to November and beyond relegating Republicans to the status of a narrow minded regional party of little or no consequence.
The party’s political xenophobia is reminiscent of the secretive nation of North Korea where it is felt it is best to starve one’s people than open up to themselves and to the world. David Frum opposed the Republican plan to undermine President Obama’s healthcare bill vowing to make it his Waterloo. David Frum believed that such actions would instead make it a Republican Waterloo. It appears that this belief resulted in his discharge. Quite a shame considering that he is being validated by polls that are now trending toward approval of the plan. So David Frum was silenced so that others with different views in the party would remain silent. It was meant to send a message to moderate and liberal Republicans, if any still remain in the party.
The party is captured by fringe elements who were originally empowered by President George W. Bush as he lifted fundamentalist Christians to prominence in the party. These extremist now control the party and this is evident from GOP members of Congress cheering them on as they disrupted proceedings in the Congressional gallery. GOP talk of secession and Confederate history month divides the nation. It makes you wonder if Republican giants like Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant would find themselves purged from the party if they lived today.
So called Teabaggers during the healthcare debate hurled racial and anti-gay slurs at members of Congress with some actually spitting on our elected officials. The Republican leadership responded by waving a Revolutionary War flag that Teabaggers have unfortunately claimed as their own. Leaders did not denounce the actions of this fringe. Then, after the healthcare vote, Democratic members of the House received threatening calls with one member having his gas line severed and Democratic offices having their windows smashed. Only then did party officials offer a tepid renouncement of the violence.
So the extremist are in full control of the Republican Party. Where does this all lead? Perhaps to a return to a one party political system as the GOP begins to be marginalized. This was the system that was in place in the early years of the republic where all were one in discord and unity as is the case now with Democrats who range from conservative to moderate to liberal therefore representing the full ideological spectrum. Is this a bad thing? No, under our first president, George Washington, the nation found itself in the bliss of peace and prosperity at home and abroad under such a system. And that can’t be all bad.
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