As a boy I watched those old Tarzan movies in which jungle drums thumping away in the distance always foretold some frightening war to come. Then there were the Cowboy and Indian movies which sometimes featured war drums or smoke signals sending shivers of fear through the little band of settlers and their wagon trains.
And while those images were carefully created by Hollywood with at best some scant resemblance to anecdotal legends, they serve today as adequate examples, for illustration purposes only, of the current atmosphere of American politics.
In an article recently posted in The Nation, William Greider argues that unless the Republican Party can cast out its TEA party zealots, its overt racists and the likes of Donald Trump, that it will soon cease to exist.
Well, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but he might have a point.
British safari groups sometimes did come upon the carnage of a slaughter, and more than one burned-out wagon train surrounded by scalped victims was portrayed in the movies. War drums do sometimes mean bad things, and that’s what Greider seems to be forecasting for the Republican Party.
Greider traces the successes of the GOP (having held the White House 28 of the last 47 years) to Nixon’s southern strategy for gaining votes from the old segregationist Dixiecrats, then once safely in office, finding a way govern so as to actually benefit the east coast country club republican desires that republicans help the wealthy get wealthier. Greider says that in the process the party left the angry racists and hard core bible-clinging gun-owners dissatisfied.
Decades of this dissatisfaction found the election of Barack Obama to be the catalyst which created the explosive energy of the TEA party and is providing the fuel for the propulsion of Donald Trump, Greider opines. And Trump knows it.
What ‘regular guys’ say
Talking with some “regular guys” recently I asked what they thought of Trump. Almost in unison they agreed that Trump is saying “what everybody is thinking.” Of course I didn’t need an unscientific poll to conclude that Donald Trump is a populist, but in light of those comments I found something very interesting in Greider’s take on things.
I too have been concerned about the future of the Republican Party for several years now. I have seen once venerated elder statesmen of my party cursed as traitors. I have watched as fiscal conservatism turn into a form of insanity through frustrated militancy. I have seen the bizarre and unexplainable acceptance of near anarchism as the new form of “constitutionalism.”
I have heard so-called libertarians decry efforts of this nation to deliver “liberty to all” as the politics of favoritism. And in the process I’ve seen the far left devour its own party by ever more strident demands that all who run under its banner must adopt social and fiscal policies that good solid democrats find morally and financially repugnant.
Then along comes Donald Trump, who oddly enough appeals to democrats, republicans and independents alike. Why? Because “he says what everybody is thinking,” everybody that is except the moderates in both parties who really run the country from the middle.
In other words Trump is beating the drums of political warfare and it is sending shivers up the spine of ordinary folks, who like those on the old wagon trains, are just trying to get to a better place in life.
With one hand Trump bangs the drum and calls out the charlatans who refuse to stand tough against the very real threat posed by terrorism. He chastises the “go along to get along” crowd for economic policies which have weakened America’s ability to compete in a global market. He blames our current mess on everybody who has come before him.
He is an equal opportunity offender.
With the other hand Trump bangs the drum that appeals to the good ol’ boys, making fun of people like the reporter with a disability, announcing that an entire religion is unwelcome in the land of religious freedom, but only until we can sort it all out. He sounds the alarm that those charged with the duty to deliver the news cannot be trusted to deliver the truth, all the while rising to the top in the polls without spending much of his own money as that very same media lays a red carpet out for him everywhere he goes.
Trump is banging war drums that, as Greider suggests, could tear the Republican Party apart. But unlike Greider I don’t think this means the end of the GOP. I think it might mean a new day for the GOP.
Just like Nixon drew out a “Southern Strategy” to bring the segregationist Dixiecrats into the party of Lincoln, realigning the makeup of the party in the 21st Century might just be a good idea.
Let’s make some choices
Let there be a far left party of socialist leaning, gay marriage-supporting, abortion-promoting folks who advocate for free everything from healthcare to tuition to drugs, and let them be known by their own name.
Let there be a party of far right intransigent literalists who refuse to accept any other idea than their own, formed from a non-interpretive reading of the King James version of the bible, a quill penned copy of the Constitution and the collected works of Ron Paul, and let them be known by their own name.
Then let there be a party in the middle that is in favor of balanced budgets, but understands that you can’t get there from where we are in one year. A party that truly favors the rights of various states to represent collections of like-minded people such that if one group of people wishes to legalize gay-marriage, pot smoking, cock-fighting, fox hunting, free tuition, no taxes, high taxes, government paid for health care, self-driving cars, restrictive zoning, no zoning or any other single or combined set of laws or dearth of laws, they should be able to do that within their own borders, battle out the politics of it and if they don’t like the way things work out in that state, move to another place where people are more like minded (all of course pledging their allegiance to “liberty and justice for all”).
This party would give up on trying to make “one size fit all” and in this fashion really make government smaller and get Washington off their backs. Let this be the new Republican Party, formed from disaffected democrats, responsible republicans, liberated libertarians, truly independent independents and the bedrock families of America.
This party of the middle could then compete with the other two in various contests and in the end we get a little of this and a little of that and a real debate and a home for everybody. (Of course I despise labels but in a spirit of the much vilified compromise, I’d be willing to make an exception for the good of the order)
Peacemakers prevail
You see, what I learned from the Tarzan movies, and the Cowboy and Indian movies was more than to fear the restless natives. I learned that it was usually the ones who felt most threatened who were banging the drums. And it was usually those most determined to get their own way who provoked the fights. But I also learned that in the end it was the peacemakers who ended the carnage, stopped the battles and by showing respect, making truce and living together, made the world a better place.
Yes, we are in a tough spot right now, and yes we are on the verge of political warfare, and yes the old makeup of the GOP is hanging in the balance.
But unlike Donald Trump or William Greider, I don’t see this as all bad.
What I see is the need for a true leader to step forward to offer a voice of reason something I truly think “everybody agrees with,” except of course those who make their living in the world of politics, sometimes referred to as “Hollywood for the unattractive.”
It’s those folks who want the war to continue, because they are convinced nobody would pay to see the show unless somebody gets scalped or pulled in half between two bent trees.
Marcus Carey is a Northern Kentucky lawyer with 32 years experience. He is also a farmer, talk radio host and public speaker who loves history and politics. As a commentator, he is “dedicated to honest and respectful comment on the political and cultural issues of our time.”