I Was Once a Republican

Yes, I admit it. I was once a Republican.

I had good reasons, honest I did. And honorable ones, believe it or not.

That’s hard for even me to believe at this point in time. Reasons for being a Republican now? Not so many. Let me correct that, not ANY. Not anymore.

So, why was I once a Republican?

I was a Republican — and remained a Republican — first and foremost because I believed, and I still believe, that it is critically important to have at least two strong political parties. Democracies need strong, competing political parties as one way to provide critical checks and balances on the abuse of power. I still believe that. In fact, the existence of a second strong political party — the Democrats in this case, and the easy mobility of citizens from one party to another, may turn out to be the most effective check and balance on the increasingly dangerous power grabs of this Administration.

Second, I really believe that one of the great strengths of our nation is our pervasive, to the core, belief in the free market system, and in entrepreneurial prowess. I hear from my friends from other countries that the U.S. is still well known for unsurpassed innovation — in fact, way ahead of the curve compared with other industrialized nations. And, we are still known, internationally, for being a country that solves serious problems by rolling up our sleeves and attacking the problem.

Sure, the rest of the world laughs at us — and cries for us — as they watch the ineptitude and corruption of the present occupant of the White House. Our democratic allies fear for what the world is becoming as they watch a Putin-loving autocrat-wannabe march our once-proud democracy unabashedly toward becoming an authoritarian regime.

But I hear they still respect us. They respect our ability to rise to a challenge, to innovate ourselves out of a crisis. I have no doubt they respect those multiple Governors, mayors, medical research facilities and philanthropic groups for being able to hold down the carnage of a completely disastrous U.S. federal approach to the pandemic. Can you imagine where we’d be today if these heroic state and local leaders hadn’t stepped in to fill the hideous vacuum left by the Trump Administration. Yeah, we are a country of doers, and I love us for that.

I believe that the Republican Party was once the great supporter of the free market, and — yes, it doesn’t have to be a bad word — of capitalism. Not seeing as much of that in the Republican Party these days. Support for Wall Street, yes, definitely. Support for small business and the entrepreneurial spirit? No, not so much, especially not when it conflicts with the goals of Wall Street. And, certainly no targeting of support for entrepreneurship in the Black Community or in other communities of color.

My support for entrepreneurship, the free market and capitalism is support for a capitalism of inclusion. My life — as cliché as it may seem — has been heavily influenced by a great Frank Capra scene in It’s a Wonderful Life. No, not the scene on the day the markets crashed during the Great Depression where George (played by Jimmy Stewart) and Uncle Billy dance around The Old Building and Loan with two dollar bills in their hands and hope that, by placing the two dollars in the safe, they will breed overnight and produce a family of dollar bills. No, not that scene, although that was a truly great piece of filmmaking.

No, the lines from the movie that made the most impact on me was when George implored the Board of Directors to keep the Building and Loan alive despite the death of its Founder, his Dad. In begging the Board to keep the Building and Loan business alive, he said, along with several other great lines, that by building homes for others in town and helping to bring them out of poverty, “You’re all businessmen here. Doesn’t it make them better citizens? Doesn’t it make them better customers?”

That’s my view of the American approach to capitalism and entrepreneurship. Give opportunities to all; give everyone a real opportunity to build something for themselves. By bringing people out of poverty, and by providing important social safety nets to make sure that occurs, we all benefit.

I believe in patriotism, and I am a patriot, although that word is now — by Trump — being given a bad name. When I was in high school, I was a Boys State delegate from the proud state of Kansas, and was even voted — by my fellow eight hundred Boys State delegates — to serve as one of two Kansas representatives at Boys Nation, in Washington D.C. I also interned for Senator Dole. Yes, I was and am a patriot. Yes, I still get chills when they raise our flag and play our national anthem.

But here’s the difference between me and many of Trump’s cronies. I get chills not because of “nationalistic” pride at being an American. I have pride in being an American, yes, but it’s because of what our country stands for, not for some esoteric idea that people born in America are better than others. America stands for inclusion. America stands for giving everyone the right to participate in governing. America stands for opportunity for all.

Our Founding Fathers were brilliant. We were fortunate to have in one place at one time some of the greatest political thinkers to walk the face of this planet. Our Founding Fathers recognized that absolute power would corrupt. Yes, it absolutely does. The Founding Fathers were students of history, and they saw how many even otherwise benevolent leaders had ultimately been corrupted by power.

So, our Founding Fathers set out to create a new fledgling government, an experiment in something known as “democracy”. But to make this new “of the people, by the people and for the people” experiment into something that had a chance to withstand the test of time, the Founding Fathers knew that the system itself had to be designed in such a way that no one group of people would be able to have unchecked power.

Most of you who have taken the time to read this Editorial probably already know about the carefully crafted checks and balances we have in this fragile American experiment with democracy. You know about the many debates the Founding Fathers had over how to set up a government that wouldn’t fall prey to the natural inclination of most men (thankfully not so much for women, but that is a topic for another editorial) to grab power, at all costs.

Every one of these checks and balances, these “guardrails” of democracy, has been attacked by this President, and many of them have fallen by the wayside, abhorrent casualties of a war to take away the very soul of this country.

There are numerous problems with our political system that need addressing; ones that the Founding Fathers did not foresee. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and runaway corporate campaign spending and corporate and special interest lobbying, for one. The essentially unlimited ability for a party in power in a state to “gerrymander” the districts so that that party remains in place and incumbents (of both parties) can stay in power, is another. It is my belief that the Republicans have abused those processes, and have done so more than the Democrats, but that’s actually not the reason I implore you to abandon this Party.

So where has our party failed us in ways that require a political reckoning?

It’s in the exercise of power, that’s where. This may sound trite or pedestrian, but it isn’t. In many ways, we are beginning to be viewed by the world as a Banana Republic. You know full well that if a South American or Eastern European country had a leader that openly encouraged outside powers to interfere in his country’s elections, who used his own office to manufacture political dirt on an opponent, who received significant wealth during his term from his position in office, who incessantly spewed lies and mistruths about just about everything — including critical issues pertaining to a deadly 100-year pandemic, who cozied up to other authoritarian leaders while disparaging established democratic allies, who engaged in repeated political cover-ups of his own crimes and fired and ruined the careers of those in his Administration that had the courage to act as whistleblowers, who pressured foreign leaders by withholding Congressionally approved military aid if they wouldn’t manufacture dirt for him on his political opponents, who kept firing those serving as Attorney General until he found one that would do his bidding on every front — including conducting investigations of political opponents, who used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters, who deployed unmarked federal forces to round up peaceful protesters and hold them without cause, who destroyed legitimate voting mechanisms and threatened to deploy troops to polling locations in order to intimidate likely voters, who pardoned convicted criminals who helped him cover up his own crimes, who encouraged white supremacist groups to engage in violence — to “stand by” — as and when that leader was ready to call on them . . . Need I go on?

You know this is wrong. You know this isn’t what America is about. You know this, deep in your heart, in your soul. And you know I’m not making any of this up. Come on, you know this. Search deep down. You know I’m telling the truth. You may have justified these actions to yourself because your pocketbook is doing well right now, or because you believe your religious views on things like abortion will be advanced because of judicial appointments made by this President, or because you feel you’ve always been unfairly treated and that by supporting this thug you believe you’re paying everyone back. But you do know this is wrong.

The rails of our democracy are being destroyed by this President, and the Party I once (not so long ago) belonged to is now complicit in this process. And this is not a game. This is serious. Russia was once a democracy after the Communist Party fell from power. And now it’s an autocracy, an authoritarian regime that only gives lip-service to voting and democratic ideals. The same is true of Turkey, and several other former democracies. The shift from democracy to authoritarian rule just takes a willingness of those who are supposed to step up and push back against authoritarian power to remain silent, or worse yet, to support the power grab. That’s what’s happening here, and it’s the Republican party — my party until recently, and your party — that is enabling and even cheering this move to an authoritarian government.

We have a federal political system where the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch can check one another. The President can veto something he doesn’t agree with. But the legislative branch can override that veto when the President is wrong, or is acting unlawfully.

But that’s if the legislative branch is thinking and acting independently of the President. Here, the fealty to this President by elected Republicans in Washington is so absolute that there is no longer any semblance of independent thought. We have become a country where if one Party holds both the Presidency and the Senate, that Party can wield unchecked power. That’s never happened before, but that’s the depths to which this Republican Party — a party that used to be my Party — has sunk.

That’s one guard rail down.

Another check on the President is through the judicial system. When the President does something wrong, the judicial system, led by the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, is charged with investigating and cracking down on any abuses of power or corruption. But we’ve found out now that this check and balance can be stymied if the President is able to find someone to fill the position of Attorney General who will act solely for the benefit of the President. Well, Trump found that. Trump found his Barr.

But this situation with Barr and President Trump is actually much worse. We not only have an Attorney General who won’t push back against a corrupt President, we have an Attorney General who gives preferences in criminal proceedings to cronies of the President, refuses to uphold core constitutional issues like free and fair voting in elections, initiates federal — potentially criminal — investigations of political opponents and outspoken critics of the President, and is willing to fabricate wholly unsupported untruths about conspiracies and voting irregularities, and open up frivolous investigations to further those conspiracy theories. This Attorney General is, himself, propounding significant untruths about the security of the upcoming election, solely so that he and President Trump can use the unfounded accusations, and the chaos they hope to create, to try to invalidate the likely win by Joe Biden.

Could Barr get away with this if the Republican Party were willing to step up and call out these wrongdoings? The answer is “No,” Barr would be stopped dead in his tracks. In Watergate, the Republicans were willing to put checks and balances on President Nixon, and that is why Nixon’s attempts to wield unchecked power — also an attempted use of a corrupt Attorney General who Nixon had appointed — was thwarted. The Republicans who represent us at present in Washington D.C. have lost the decency that we saw during Watergate. The Republican Party’s failure to act as a check and balance is why the federal prosecutorial arm of the court system is running amuck. The Republicans in office have failed the rest of us.

That’s a second guard rail down, which is very dangerous.

I came to the decision that to remain a Republican, in these times which stress the very foundations of our democracy, is to — unwittingly perhaps for some — endorse and enable those in the Administration and the Republican Party who would tear down the very framework of what we now know is a fragile experiment in Democracy. I cannot be a part of that, even if only in name and Party affiliation. I had to exit the Party.

You know what I’m saying is true. You have heard it outside of the news and radio stations many of you may choose to watch or listen to, those that provide you with support and cover for supporting this regime. Those news outlets made up excuses for you. You know that’s what’s been happening, and you know this must stop. It has gone too far. If you don’t act, you are complicit in this authoritarian-like grab for power; something you would never have believed yourself capable of. And yet, you are an integral part of it. You are Mitch McConnell. You are Lindsey Graham. You are Ted Cruz. You, too, have enabled this grab for power. And it must stop.

If you won’t do it for your own conscience, do it for your kids and grandkids. They will want to know that you showed the courage to stand up to what is going on at this point in history. That will be important to them someday, I assure you.