From " Restoring the American Dream - Rebuilding the Economy and Creating Jobs" 2nd paragraph. Go to www.gop.com/platform to read it and more about the Republican Party's 2016 platform.
DISCLOSURE
Let me say from the onset of this post, that I am a Democrat and will be voting for Hillary Clinton, but I must also add that from the beginning of this election cycle I was impressed with Martin O'Malley who I would have voted for had he remained in the race and stayed on my state's ballot. He may be one of the Democratic Party's rising stars. He strikes me as a very astute and wise politician. I voted for Bernie Sanders during the primary because much of his progressive agenda resonated with me. What didn't resonate with me was his talk of a "political revolution." While I understand what he meant, any talk of revolution is dangerous.
It is not that I was or am against Hillary Clinton. I genuinely admire, like, and trust her. She is very qualified to be our next president, and she needs to be, given the choice our nation faces. Contrary to her opposition, she strikes me as one of the most honest politicians we have ever encountered in a presidential election.
My original reluctance with Hillary was that she has been unfairly turned into a polarizing target by the Republican Party. My concern over another four to eight years of partisan politics made me weary of putting our nation through what we've experienced the past eight years in having to deal with the obstructionist Republican dominated congress to any initiative to better the welfare of our citizens. After reading their platform, I can see where that is not going to change, regardless who the Democrats would have chosen as their nominee.
As it turned out, the Republican Party's (the established Republican base) worst nightmare became their nominee and are having to deal with an increasingly radicalized electorate. Hillary is the antidote to that nightmare and they know it. Some Republican leaders are bold enough to endorse her for the good of the country, while others cower in the darkening shadow of their own making.
INFORMED DEMOCRACY
I believe that democracy works best when people are well-informed. In order to be informed, one has to listen to or read both sides of an issue. My wife and I have listened to every televised debate and we read articles every day related to the election. There are generally things I can agree with and disagree with in any political platform. For instance, I can agree with the Republican platform that there should be an audit of Pentagon to ensure that its funds are directed toward national defense and that Puerto Rico should become the fifty-first state.
NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Reliance on the news media to dig into platform issues has been largely bypassed as they have spent an undue amount of time on issues that attract viewers by discussing scandals to improve their ratings. It has been obvious that the news media have always had their favorites who would put on a political boxing match that they so wanted to facilitate.
Both the Democrat and Republican nominees have benefitted from the news media's overt attention to them. The Republican nominee, in particular, has little to complain about over the negative attention he currently has fostered and then complains about when played back to him and the public. After all, he enjoyed unprecedented news coverage, free of charge, during his primary campaign which hoisted him to be the Republican Party's nominee. He trusted the polls then but now that he is slipping in most, he complains of a rigged election. His inability to own the statements he makes in the news and social media is unfathomable. This and his unwillingness to commit to a final outcome of the election lends speculation to his having a severe personality disorder that should give voters pause.
Even with all of the halabaloo in the media and my own nerved-up gut feeling about this election, I believe in studying the platforms of each candidate and party to avoid the pitfall of jumping to an uninformed judgment by turning off the TV, avoiding the editorials for a moment and going directly to the source, to see their positions in writing.
PREPARATION
I began by visiting the websites of the two major party's nominees. I was somewhat disappointed by the Republican Party's nominee's website in that it presented a minimal platform that touched only on his main speaking points which were under the heading of "Pay For The Wall" and "Healthcare Reform." "Pay For the Wall" expanded to a broader view of talking points on national defense and growing the military. "Healthcare Reform" expanded to explaining the need to repeal the Affordable Care Act and what the nominee proposes to replace it with. Both lacked a substantive explanation as to how either position would be accomplished, which has been the modus operandi of the Republican nominee throughout this campaign.
The lack of research data and explanation, which is abundant in the extensive Democratic Nominee's and the Democratic Party's 2016 Platform (go to https://www.hillaryclinton.com/ and read her and the Democratic Party's platform), made me go to the Republican Party's website to see what their platform offered since their nominee's "Positions" site was lacking detail. As I was reading through their platform and came to the section on "Restoring the American Dream" I came upon the paragraph that I quoted at the start of this post.
The first sentence in its second paragraph stopped me. I reread it several times to make sure I actually reading what I was seeing. It unnerved me, to be truthful. Was I reading Nietzsche or Karl Marx? Were the Republican's advocating views that Marx and Nietzsche would have felt comfortable with?
The United States Government is premised on government by the people and for the people. If government is presented in a blanket statement as unable to create prosperity and only able to"limit or destroy" prosperity, what hope is their for the citizens of this nation? Why elect any Republican to office who would subscribe to such a negative view of government?
Some might respond and say that what is meant by that statement is that government has become too big and intrusive. If that is what is meant, then say it clearly, but I suspect that what was said has become a tenant of the Republican Party and its aim is to deconstruct our constitutional government in order to reconstruct it in terms that favors their political ambitions to seize power.
DECONSTRUCTIONISM
There is a sinister side to the Republican Platform that implies our constitutional government has slid off the tracks and needs to be restored, rebirthed, reformed, and resurgent as in its headings: "Restoring the American Dream," "A Rebirth of Constitutional Government," "Government Reform," and "America Resurgent." What the platform does not do is back up their assertions with data. It is an idealistic platform at best that depends on people believing it without its being substantiated by factual data. It is designed to appeal to those who don't want to be bothered by details or facts. It is basically made of soundbites that has been the hallmark of the Republican Party's appeal to its base for the past several decades .
The platform provides some numbers to back their case without giving the source for such numbers and it lacks provision on the effects their backtracking on what they define as government excess would have on the economy and the nation's security. Some of what they tout as problems are shared concerns on the Democratic side, such as Crony Capitalism and Corporate Welfare where they describe and cite balanced solutions offered by the Democrats as economic stagnation. Corporate welfare, in relation to healthcare has been, for the most part, an unfortunate compromise with healthcare providers, insurance, and pharmaceutical companies and the Obama Administration, but the reader must remember that these entities all have lobbied heavily with Republican lawmakers to stem any governmental intrusion into their ability to raise rates or, as insurance companies are now doing, drop plans they consider unprofitable. If anything cries out for a single pay plan, this does. Competition in the market place, a hallmark of the Republican's antiquated view of a self-correcting capitalism, has only a limited, short term effects on controlling rates in the modern market.
SLEIGHT OF HAND
There is also a sleight of hand process that has been going on for some time in the political arena of the United States - Pointing fingers at those who they would have the electorate blame while they go about doing the deed themselves. What I found interesting in the Republican Platform is that there was little mention of the Republican controlled congress in their platform.
There is reason for that.
They haven't done much other than put up political blockades to progress most citizens want by casting them as un-American which is evident throughout their platform.
The congress has never been so unpopular as in recent years. Yet, in spite of its being the recipient of overwhelming unpopularity, it has largely slipped under the radar of the news and social media in light of this presidential election. The Republican Senate Majority leader, the one who said their current nominee would never be their nominee, has opted for silence in the face of ongoing concern about the party's presidential nominee. He's endorsed him in the hope that he will maintain his majority position, in spite of the fact that it was clear from his earlier certitude that their nominee would not be at the top of their party's ticket because he did not consider him to be presidential material.
In my last post, I mentioned that in a democracy there is need for grist for the wheels of the political process by which a republic such as ours moves forward. It has been clear for some time that reliable grist by which to move our nation forward is hard find for the Republican Party. Instead of presenting a positive outlook based on its own initiatives to ensure the welfare of our nation, the Republican Platform seeks to invent grist by denigrating the federal government, as a strategy to control it it.
FUNDAMENTALISM AS ORIGINALISM
Republican elected leaders are increasingly acting as if the only way to address the problems this nation faces is to start from scratch, from an idealistic point of origin. Their concept of constitutional originalism is nothing more than a political form of fundamentalism. As is true with all forms of fundamentalism, the claim of seeking to maintain original intent and meaning is bogus, wrought with falsehoods, and leads to misinterpretations.
What in essence their originalist idealism consists of is an untenable assertion that there exists a concrete version of what the American Dream consists of and that the Constitution can only be interpreted as it was written in the time it was written. They depict the constitutional workings of the government today as a failure, that has made us weak in the eyes of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth, unless one chooses to believe our nation's detractors; the likes of terrorists and the sabre rattling shades of the former Soviet Union that control Russia and longs for a return to its past.
The platform quotes our farsighted founding fathers, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adam whose wisdom continues to instruct us in our own pursuit to be farsighted - who were indeed wise enough to know they could not provide answers to all the questions this nations would face.
Their platform asserts, "We affirm that all legislation, regulation, and official actions must conform to the Constitution’s original meaning as understood at the time the language was adopted." [Section 3 - "We The People" paragraph 4]
The framers of our constitution did not intend it to remain stuck in the contextual amber of the time it was written. Literalism is not originalism. It is fundamentalist nonsense.
One only has to examine the sparsity of the constitution's language to know that context of time and place is needed to interpret it against the backdrop of its preamble's mandate. After all, it possesses the function of amendment as the times and situations warrant. While sincere politicians of both parties understand this, there are those who in their frustration to change government wish to amend it at every change in the social current as means to appease their voting base and secure their place in the spotlight of the day. Amendments were never meant to come easily and the one that did (prohibition) was also repealed as quickly as it was made. Morality cannot be legislated without causing harm, creating chaos, and ethical dilemmas. Their appeals to the largely mythical moral majority is nothing more than an adolescent's pinky promise.
In order to find grist to keep the Republican Party operative, it has taken to depicting government as failing its constitutional mandates. Once again we see sleight of hand at play as they blame Democrats for not upholding the constitution while the Republican dominated senate refuses to hold hearing on President Obama's supreme court nominee, until after the election.
Perhaps the most ominous factor facing our future is that after several decades of blaming "Big Government" and "Washington" as the problem, there has emerged a generation of politicians including some Democrats who, being raised with that mindset, actually believe it, and believe that the only way to get around it is to change the government. This is tantamount to toying with anarchy as we hear some in their radicalized base threatening "to use the Second Amendment."
The Republican Platform states their desire to return to the Constitution, but the fact is the Constitution is working and what they see as dysfunction in the way our constitutional government works is their own inability to seek balance and embrace the concept of compromise by which congress functions best. Some in congress have adopted an all or nothing approach to governance. If they do not get their way, they work to deprive the other side of a way forward. This has led to an imbalance of power between the branches of government and has led to congressional stagnation.
How many times has the this country been threatened with a shut down because the fractured Republican led House was unable to compromise with its own factions. Increasingly the power of the presidency and judiciary has grown because of the congress's inability to function for the good of the nation. Too often congressional delegations have opted for what's best for their bottom line rather than what is good for the nation. Saying this is almost cliché, but it is an obvious fact. Instead of telling constituents honest facts, many offer what they think their constituents want to hear, and what many constituents want to hear is what radical news media pundits present as truth.
Congress under the Republican party has increasingly set as its goal obstructing the efforts of the Democrats and in particular the nation's current Democratic President. The question is whether it knows how to do anything else.
There is no small amount of infighting between traditional Republicans and the ultra-right Tea Party. Congressional Republicans have pinned their hopes on attaining the White House and on their success at having forced the current the president to take executive actions in order to keep the government running and then accuse him of overreach and promising their constituents to undo what he has accomplished. This is the dark underbelly of their political machinations.
Instead of working with the White House and their Democratic colleagues in congress to forward their own agenda, they have opted to block anything to do with the president - As in the current Senate Majority leader's famously threatened to do and infamously has done. As a result they have decreased the congress's influence in the public's eye. Their do nothing as something approach to governing has set the stage for demagoguery by demonstrating the branch of government they control's inability to function effectively.
If they think that they can control the demagogue that awaits the nation in their nominee, they are sorely mistaken. He has made it clear that he despises congress to the glee of his willing minions. He goes so far as to denigrate the party he is the nominal leader of.
A UTOPIAN VISION OF THE PAST
There is an ominous longing for a past that does not exist, but which is being longed for and evident in the Republican Platform. Their nostalgic appeal to protecting the Second Amendment in spite of the mass killings by those who can legally purchase military grade firearms and their ammunition. Their refusal to regulate the manufacture and sale of such weapons is unconscionable and, in my opinion, a dereliction of duty under the U.S Constitution as stated in its Preamble. Since I have addressed this at length in another post, I will avoid doing so here. What I will say is that I do not advocate any change to the Second Amendment. To see my opinion regarding how to preserve it click here.
The Republican Platform is passively evoking a time that existed before civil rights, where the woman's place was in the kitchen and there existed a WASP ( White Anglo Saxon Protestant) sense of knowing one's place, which did not include people of color, Roman Catholics, Jews, or other ethnic or religious groups. While their platform claims to protect minorities and women's rights; they make notable exceptions to protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals and instead opt to talk about the government's discrimination against religion; namely, Christian fundamentalists who discriminate against LGBTQ individuals.
Their stance on religious freedom is bogus. They tend towards estsblishmentarianism. They see the United States as primarily a Protestant Christian nation and are passively trying make it so by passing laws to encourage discrimination against LGBTQ individual under the guise of religious freedom. Their claim of protecting the rights of all religious practices is belied by their specific and plentiful references to churches and the Bible. They would overturn the Supreme Court's ruling permitting same-sex marriages. In my opinion, the Supreme Court's majority ruling preserved the institution of marriage. To further explore my opinion on the matter, click here.
Their views towards migrants of every type, while based on legitimate concerns, has not resulted in substantive solutions beyond building walls. We have never been a nation of walls. That we would succumb to such mindset in the twenty-first century is anachronistic as it would do nothing more than provide a visible target and challenge to our enemies.
BIBLE STUDIES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Their appeal to encourage state legislatures to allow public high schools to offer elective courses on the Bible as a literature class on the premise that "a good understanding of the Bible being indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry..." ["Great American Families, Education, Healthcare, and Criminal Justice - 3rd paragraph under "Education: A chance for Every Child"] is, in my opinion, a bogus attempt to bypass the First Amendment's prohibition against the federal government establishing a religion by advocating state legislatures do so.
The fact is this would require most states to change their constitutions. Passive permission for states to do so would be challenged in the courts as the religions they're promoting are primarily based on Abrahmic monotheism (apart from the Koran which is not mentioned). Personally, if such a class were being offered, I would like to teach it. After all I have a degree in religious studies. No doubt I wouldn't remain long since my approach would be in the tradition of literary and biblical criticism. I don't think that's what they have in mind, but the idea of thumping the Bible in public High Schools appeals to the Republican Party's believing base.
CHERRY-PICKING THE BILL OF RIGHTS
The Republican Party's view of constitutional originalism has not prevented them from cherry picking their way around the Bill of Rights. The conservative judges appointed to the Supreme Court, like the late justice Scalia are good at choosing to focus in on a phrase within the Constitution at the expense of looking at the entire context, both historical and contemporary, in which such phrases or clauses are presented under the pretense of originalism.
Justices have the ability to do so and I'm not arguing against their ability to do so. It makes for good debate, if not questionable rulings. The idea that any party can assure its base of appointing judges that will carry that party's political banner into the court is anything but assured once a nominee has been approved. Scalia and Thomas are notable exceptions, but Roberts and Kennedy have demonstrated an ability to present non-partisan, measured rulings.
The frustration expressed by the Republican Part to get a handle on the Judiciary and the White House has led them to the extreme measure of seeking amendments to change the Constitution or to side-step the Bill of Rights by invoking a state's power to enact laws that would undoubtedly be forced into litigation on the hopes that a judiciary composed of conservative judges would uphold such a state's constitutional overreach. All I can say to them is be careful what you wish for. Political winds change and state governments are also prone to change.
THE FIFTH AMENDMENT
Whose right to be free from being held unless charged with a capital or infamous crime would be protected, the mother's or the unborn child? Is this an attempt to criminalize abortion as a capital or otherwise infamous crime? Was the Republican Presidential nominee correct when he said that women who have an abortion should be punished? This is pure political insanity.
The only connection I can make to a connection that they are attempting to make is that they are cherry-picking an original clause in this amendment, "nor shall any person be subject to the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb" to read "no person shall be put in jeopardy of life and limb" an extreme cherry-picked version of the original.
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
Their tinkering with undermining the basic presumption of born citizens is wrought with problems too many to enumerate here. For example, there could arise a whole new birther issue that would revolve around the point of conception as to where one's parents were when they conceived? While this wouldn't be a problem for parents who are United States citizens, it could be in the case of parents from a foreign country who could prove their child was conceived in the United States. Would there be a right of unborn child to claim U. S. citizenship if that child's foreign parents could provide proof that their child was conceived while they were visiting the United States. After all there is a time element involved in pregnancies that can be verified.
It boggles the imagination where such folly would lead.
TAKING A DEEP BREATH AND A STEPPING BACK
I could say more, but I think I've said enough to demonstrate the nihilistic utopianism of the 2016 Republican Platform. I, like many other citizens of this great but as yet imperfect union, are concerned by the radicalizing rhetoric that has been unleashed by the Republican Party's presidential nominee and their radical political platform.
The vitriolic anger being expressed by some followers of the Republican Party's nominee about this country, about its government is, in my opinion, both dangerous and hard to explain. It seems to be a largely drummed up anger that has no realistic basis. This is not to say that there doesn't exist serious issues and concerns about national security, the economy, racism, immigration, and violence. These are real concerns that require serious attempts at finding solutions within the framework of our government. A return to an idealized past will not accomplish that nor will a fundamentalist, cherry-picked application of the United States Constitution do so. We must face and address the present for what it is in order to secure the future with the tools that have served us well since our nation's inception.
I would invite those who are angry and fear-filled about our nation and world; in particular, those who have bought the Republican agenda, to step out their backdoor and into their own back yards. I suspect that many of them actually have a home with a backyard from what I can gather by looking at the crowd attending the Republican party's nominee rallies.
We all need to take a deep breath and consider these questions, "Are we really as bad off as we have been led to believe? Do we really believe that this nation does not care about us?" We are Americans, citizens of the United States. This is a great nation and great nations face great problems. It is cowardly and faithless, in my opinion, to chase after an idealized past and to threaten our "domestic tranquility, the common defense and general welfare" (from the Preamble of the Constitution) with a vigilante application of the Second Amendment.
When I go into my small back yard, look at my garden, mow my lawn, and rake my leaves, I find I have very little to be angry about this country and much to be thankful for. Could things be better? Of course, but things could be far worse than they are and are led to believe. I believe that our constitutional government functions well, but it requires patience and trust. It's not perfect, but rather a work in progress towards perfection.
I have hope that we can fix and solve our problems. In fact, I'm sure we can, if we stop the radical divisiveness that is taking place. I have many Republican friends and family members. I know them to be hardworking, good people, who, like me, wish only the best the best for this country and all of its citizens, who love this country, as much as I do.
I am not naïve to think that Democrats have no faults. There is plenty of fault to be found and go around.
Anyone working to do good in a political system runs the risk of screwing up and getting things wrong. Seeking to place blame is proving to be a waste of time in solving our nation's problems, which pale in comparison to that of other nations; many of whom who look to us for leadership in an ever-changing world. The pendulum of democracy has been stalled or whipped into wild erratic patterns for some time now. It's time to get back to making it swing in a rhythmic pattern of give and take.
When I look at the Republican Party's current platform, what comes to mind is the cliché of beating a dead horse. It's time to move on and return to presenting a civil, reasoned voice of conservatism.
For example, I cannot help but mention the contrast between the two parties' platforms. When visiting Hillary Clinton's website I encountered an extensive well-written agenda and briefs which was notable for its lack of finger-pointing at the Republican Party or Republican led Congress. It provides a positive outlook when addressing many issues that the Republican Party Platform does but without the rancor of partisanship abundantly evident in the Republican Party's Platform. That, in itself, is very telling. Both platforms provide a clear choice as to how government works and whether one chooses to believe that our government has the means to create prosperity or "can only limit and destroy it."
The Republican Party's platform and it nominee's doubling down on an deconstructionist and obstructionist agenda that has repeatedly failed, in order to maintain a voting base that will shrink if not radicalized, fits Einstein's definition of insanity and is a prescription for political implosion. We need a sane government that shuns fear of itself, and we need a sane Republican Party that does the same.
Until next, stay faithful.
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