It’s been happening for some time in the Republican Party. But it has reached critical mass. Many Conservative but decent Republicans realize that the conversion of the base of the party is just about complete. It is time to panic. Here is why.
Mainstream Republicans are jumping ship and raising the alarm about the state of the Republican Party and the danger it represents to America.
Yesterday Bob Corker (R-TN), who announced that he was not running for reelection a few weeks ago, continued to scorch the president for debasing America. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced as well that he was not running for re-election, went on the Senate floor to admonish the president and the Republican Party, and then wrote a stinging op-ed in the Washington Post where he wrote the following.
Nine months of this administration is enough for us to stop pretending that this is somehow normal, and that we are on the verge of some sort of pivot to governing, to stability. Nine months is more than enough for us to say, loudly and clearly: Enough.
The outcome of this is in our hands. We can no longer remain silent, merely observing this train wreck, passively, as if waiting for someone else to do something. The longer we wait, the greater the damage, the harsher the judgment of history. …
To listen to the rhetoric of the extremes of both parties, one could be forgiven for believing that we are each other’s enemies, that we are at war with ourselves. …
As our political culture seems every day to plumb new depths of indecency, we must stand up and speak out. Especially those of us who hold elective office.
And it is not only national. One of the few Republican that has made Texas a less criminal state in the manner it treats its citizens has thrown in the towel which does not bode well for Texas absent a transformational election in 2018. The Texas Tribune reported the following.
House Speaker Joe Straus unleashed a political earthquake Wednesday when he announced he would not seek re-election next year. The policy aftershocks could be felt for years. “This is really an earth-shattering event for politics,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. “It’s tough to overstate the relevance of this for Texas politics. The political center of the state collapsed today.”
More than any other Texas Republican with real power, Straus was seen as a voice of moderation. On issue after issue, he and his team alone stood in the way of the kind of runaway populism that Donald Trump championed and major statewide Republicans endorsed.
When firebrand Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott rattled Fortune 500 companies with talk of a “bathroom bill” that put transgender Texans in the crosshairs, it was Straus who held their collective hands and ensured the measure wouldn’t become law.
When conservatives pushed to take away in-state college tuition rates from undocumented Texans, the speaker’s top lieutenant, Byron Cook — who lent his Austin home in 2009 to the rebellion that put the gavel in Straus’ hand — snuffed it out.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg of how Strauss has kept Texas from a complete derailment. This disaster is occurring all over the country in the Republican Party. Unless Progressive get their act together to mitigate this impending political disaster, Americans are about to embark on a path no different than that of countries like Iran. If anyone has any doubts, please understand what occurred in Kansas. Worse, however, is that Democrats did not make the case or do the work necessary to get Kansas citizens from voting the derelict politicians out of office. Are we all listening and watching?