Reaching A Breaking Point

The following is the letter of inquiry to the Arizona offices of the Modern Whig Party.


I  am, and have been, a Republican for most of my adult life. And increasingly I am disturbed by the trends within the GOP leadership.  More and more the party seems bound and determined to throw off anything looking like fiscal responsibility save as a code for tax cuts, as opposed to efficient spending and efficient taxation.  Likewise, the increasing voice of the Religious Right and intrusion into folks' private affairs and a discontent with the Constitution and its protections makes someone who actually likes the Constitution as it is even more apprehensive.


In the end, my calls to the GOP leadership for more ideas, and less ideology are falling on deaf ears, replaced by folks who seem to think that the highest form of protest against government waste is to throw away tea bags that they've purchased themselves onto public property to be cleaned up by municipal workers.  That the irony of such actions is lost upon these poor souls is even more disturbing.  While I can understand their frustration--and they have every right to be upset, given the increasingly dire economic straits we find ourselves in, two wars being waged, and promises that have been made and deferred--it is even more tragic that they are turning to voice their rage not against the folks who put the nation increasingly at risk, but to a faceless "Other" that is increasingly xenophobic and laden with an inchoate anger that is much more driven by rage and catch phrases.

I can sympathize with these folks, but I fear that they are more of a tool to keep the GOP from policies that are sustainable, and the disingenuousness of the campaign that is driving these folks further and further from policies that will actually benefit the nation is wearing me to a breaking point.  The party that I loved is turning from the principles that I hold dear, and turning inward in a race for who can Out Conservative one another, when it is becoming obvious that most haven't a clue what that actually means.  When Republicans make rumblings about secession you know that things are getting squirrelly.

If the Republicans would like to turn back to health of the republic, and the long term interests of said republic, I would not be writing this letter. I fear that my party, in lashing itself to the Religious Right and increasingly racist and virulently xenophobic interests, with little sense of how badly our foreign policy has skewed in a Get Tough projection that sees the world through lenses that make every issue as win or lose--as opposed to laden with nuance and gradations of influence--we have lost our way, and I am beginning to lose hope that the GOP can recover.

Increasingly, I have found myself longing for another alternative--voting in primaries to attempt to turn the tide has been thus less than satisfying, and the Democrats offer too little and with far too much baggage--and in poking around the Internet, I happened upon a reference to the Modern Whigs. I would like to learn more about your efforts here in Arizona.

The above is in response to the announcement that JD Hayworth is going to challenge John McCain for his Senate seat and is receiving no small support in his challenge.  I am getting close to the point where trying to salvage anything in the GOP is getting to be a dimmer and dimmer hope.

Originally posted on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 00:44:34 AM EST at The Motley Moose