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“Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas of their free-born ancestors.” Edward Gibbon, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
Under Richard Nixon’s guidance the Republican party executed the “Southern Strategy” and took know-nothing, racist-populist America to its bosom and began to win majorities sufficient to implement policies that have led that same voter base of know-nothing, racist-populist Americans to even greater degradation.
Now the Republicans are trapped in a nut house of their own creation.
Just as an exercise of political science fiction, try to imagine Dwight D. Eisenhower in the midst of these Republican primaries, try to imagine him on Fox news.
Impossible, right?
A century from now, the years between Eisenhower’s and today’s Republican party will seem a brief interlude and I’m sure that Chinese historians will puzzle over the swift deterioration of America and its institutions in that time frame.
I am neither Chinese nor a historian and I am puzzled as hell. I was a kid when Ike was president and I am an old man now… Blessed with an extremely good memory, I have trouble associating the America I was born into and the America that withers before my eyes today, as if it were being struck down by a wasting disease.
4 Comments
Aaahhh Mittens, Newt, Santorum. Republicans. It is all their fault.
President Oily-Bomber and Goldmann Sachs? They have done very well in the Democratic Primary. Even in Wisconsin where Aldous Tyler (a Wisconsin resident no less) and Darcy Richardson were not even allowed to be on the ballot for a primary challenge.
Yeah- it is all Mittens and the Republicans fault.
Well them and Ralph Nader.
And I really love it that Ike is the one who warned us about the MIC….coming out of the war and anticipating the future. How prescient was that? Esp for a guy who was often thought to be pretty out of it. The words still ring.
I thinking that Ike may not of had much choice at the time but to keep his mouth shut of the MIC until he was out of office. The cold war political environment at the time would have crucified anyone who would have uttered those words while in office.
Yep. All their fault. Better get to the polls this November and vote for Obama again.
I so hope people will vote for anyone else but Obama in 2012. I don’t care if Mitt is elected (the other two are just sideshow puppets; the PTB would make them drop out if it looked like they were going to actually win.).
Mitt won’t get away with all Obama has. Obama’s base won’t be swayed by Mitt, because Mitt can’t talk as purty.