Frank Schaeffer takes on the Republican Party
Franky Schaeffer's father and mother were "founders" of the Religious Right in America, along with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, and James Dobson. Franky Schaeffer was right along side of them in the decades of the 70s -90s. As late as the 2000 presidential election he was still trying to get Republicans elected.
That was then. Now, he has completely turned his back on the Religious Right and the Republican Party. In 2007 he wrote a book called "Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, And Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back."
In the link below, Schaeffer, now a blogger for the Huffington Post, slams the Republican Party and more particularly Rush Limbaugh. He takes them all to task for creating the mess the nation is in both economically and militarily and then having the audacity to hope that the president "fails" in his attempts to lead our nation out of the crisis. He calls Rush Limbaugh the new "Hanoi Jane" in American society.
Good for him! It is encouraging to see more and more Americans (especially former Republicans) standing up to oppose the failed economic and military policies that the last 8 years brought us! And all the Republican leadership can do is say that they hope the president fails! Will the "real" patriotic Americans please stand up?
Strong stuff! Read the post for yourself here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html
posted by Glenn Jonas at 1:21 PM
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7 Comments:
I read this article when it first his Huffington Post. In general, Schaeffer seems to have been unable to rid himself of the evangelical tendency toward linear, cause-and-effect thinking making his argument much too simplistic in several cases, but I agree with his general premise that the GOP of today is not anything like what it used to be.
The Rush Limbaugh bit is especially ridiculous considering an August 2006 poll found that 51% of Democrats wanted President Bush to fail. Sauce for the goose, Mr. Schaeffer. Also, it should be noted that Bush's administration pushed for more regulation of lending, especially Freddie and Fannie, but was stopped by Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.
I think Schaeffer's most telling line is "Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about." Schaeffer's own positions on things like global warming, defense, and handling the current economic crisis would be foreign to the conservative icons he mentioned, but Schaeffer is absolutely right in that the neo-cons have created a party that true conservatives cannot conscionably support.
I'm reminded over and over of several things Goldwater has been quoted as saying: When you say "radical right" today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye. -July 1984
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] 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. --June 1994
2:53 PM
Therein lies my agreement with you jr. Behind much of my critique of Republicans is about 30 years worth of being scared to death of the Religious Right. Maybe this can be a point of intersection with your positions. I would not mind the old "country club" Republicans nearly as much as this neo-con, nuanced version of Republicanism that has existed at least since the Clinton years. Where did it start? Was it Gingrich? I dont' know. But, they frighten me.
Believe it or not, while I never voted for him, I never feared for the well-being of the country under George H.W. Bush. I always considered him to be a moderating influence of some of the extremism I saw with Reaganomics. However, I genuinely feared for the well-being of the nation under his son.
7:54 PM
Definitely. The religious element of the GOP is what turns me off the most about it.
I think the religious "wrong" found their strongest voice during Clinton's presidency because that's when the policies they so vehemently opposed really came into focus (since there had been a Republican president to veto stuff they didn't like twelve years prior to that). Many people galvanized around opposing Clinton in '94 and ended up giving control of Congress to the GOP. I think Newt was more the beneficiary of it than anything else. A lot of fundamentalist groups were much stronger then...Christian Coalition, Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, etc. They're still strong, but their influence, thankfully, has been tempered to some extent--as evidenced by last November's results.
Anyway, back to Clinton. One strike that Clinton had against him was that he won the presidency with such a small percentage of the popular vote (43% is memory serves correctly). Only two or three presidents have been elected with such low popular vote numbers. (Whether or not Perot actually turned the election, I don't know.) 57% of the voters didn't vote for Clinton in '92, so when he started in with his major changes, I think it was a case of too much too fast.
The GOP should have focused on economics and matters of state and cut off the religious right, but they decided to "dance with the one that brung them." Hopefully they'll do a better job choosing their dates in the future, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
11:29 PM
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