Dear Friends: "Let's get things back into perspective here!"
I was asked the question 'Were the accusations against Hillary Clinton politically motivated' this week and we found this reply:
By Scott D. Feldstein:
They all are. There is no other explanation starting with Whitewater which didn’t even involve the government but resulted in Bill being impeached.
The twenty-five year smear campaign has come to define what the Republican party is. The problem is they lost control of it. The tail has come to wag the dog.
What happened that a once honorable political party lost its honor and become a source of hate and negativity?
How did the Republican Party become the modern propagator of The Big Lie?
How is it an entire community of people have come to believe Hillary is a black hearted witch? Stop Parroting GOP Lies That Hillary Clinton Is Dishonest
How is it a con man like Trump became the head of this once respectable institution?
These are important question because, hard as it is to believe, an entire national organization has built its identity on lies, fabrications, innuendo, and empty rhetoric.
And gotten away with it!
It began with Jerry Falwell’s takeover of the party beginning in the 60’s and coming to fruition with New Gingrich and his Contract With America. At that point the Republican Party was one misstep from losing itself. Was it going to go high or was it going to go low? It might have been inevitable that it took the dark road of hate and delusion. Twenty years later it is a shell of its former self. It looks like the old party but is a scarecrow with no heart.
The Republicans once had a vision for the country. William F. Buckley’s, for instance, was a positive one. Any vision of growth and stability has been swamped by the negativity they took on attempting to, instead of leading the nation, defeat the Democratic party. It’s no longer about ideas, it’s about destroying the “enemy”.
Republicans have become the party of against rather than for. Gridlock has become a political tool instead of an unfortunate consequence of disagreement. Impeachment has become an apparatus for dealing with political leaders who oppose your agenda. Investigations have become a means of destroying opponents instead of exposing and uprooting corruption.
The politics of personal destruction has become de facto campaign strategy.
The Big Lie has become truth.
The party lost its way and has forgotten what it is about. It no longer stands for anything positive. There are few remnants of the old party left. The responsible leadership is largely pushed out and replaced with Right-Wing fanatics who seem to lack frontal lobes. Radical Christians now control the agenda and do not brook opposition to their message.
There is no one left to reason with.
The Founding Fathers looked to Europe for its example of what happens when a government allies itself with a religion and built the separation of Church and State into the constitution. The modern Republican party stands as an example of the wisdom of having a secular government.
Jerry Falwell, a charismatic Fire and Brimstone, preacher, who made a name preaching against sin, particularly homosexuality, decided Christians needed their own political party and found the Republicans to be the best fit. Ignoring Jesus’ message of love and tolerance he led his flock into the unambivalence of judgment, condemnation, and hate.
There will be no compromising the word of God he thundered. That is the way of Satan.
A few others piled on board such as Newt Gingrich.
Thus the beginning of the end of a rational Republican Party was begun.
Fifty years later we are reaping Falwell’s legacy.
Barry Goldwater saw all this coming and warned us with words that are now eerily prophetic.
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
"I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
--Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
--Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006)
"Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have."
"Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.”
Said to Dole:
"We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?"
Defaming a candidate of the opposition party is one thing, if it is based on policy proposals or a character flaw borne out of past actions that predict dangerous tendencies. However, to demean a candidate’s character as dishonest and untrustworthy based on innuendo and dishonest proclamations, especially a candidate of the same party is despicable and a typically Republican ploy. It is why the perpetual claims from too many on the “Left” that Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy are beyond reprehensible.
Here is the thing; a fair number of people on the left are unaware of; the lion’s share of what they “think” they know about Hillary Clinton’s reputation “is the result of a quarter century of visceral GOP hatred.” As no small number of pundits and political observers have noted, if a liberal thinks Hillary Clinton is corrupt and dishonest, they are paying Republicans huge dividends for their quarter century of manufactured anti-Clinton talking points; not reality. Stop Parroting GOP Lies That Hillary Clinton Is Dishonest
In my opinion there is no longer any hope for the Republican party. There is nothing left to salvage. The only solution I see is a complete rebuild from top to bottom. The old guard must be removed and replaced with new faces.
Then, and only then, can we turn our attention to the Democrats.
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