Republican Party 2020

Presently the Conservative media of the US and the Republican leaders are branding the Democrats as ‘Socialists’ and ‘Communists’. Am not sure whether the policies of Democrats are that of Socialism or Communism. But this short essay of mine is on the evolution of the Republican Party.

The Republican Party (or the GOP) started as the Party in the 1850s having Abraham Lincoln as first President. It was under this very Party, slavery was banned.

Then in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement, the core of the Party started shifting towards the Southern State. And today it is a Party of the Rural areas, white evangelists, and a base having mostly non-college-educated males.

Under Trump, the Grand Old Party seems to have evolved into a Party of environmental denialists, ultranationalists, evangelical Christians, militarists, xenophobic, racist, and white supremacists. That is why, the fact that more than 70 million Americans voted for this Party last month, does not seem to speak well for United States nor for the world.

I would like to mention that still many within the Republican Party do not fall in the categories mentioned above but their silence has been deafening. There have been strong warnings coming from leaders like President Bush, Late Senator John McCain (who I considered as a friend), President Obama and few more leaders.
On other hand, it is quite clear, that the Party under Trump and Mitch McConnell have nearly nothing in common with the visions of its founding fathers nor does it follow the grand ideals.

Presently the Party controls the presidency, the Senate, has majority in state governorships, state legislatures, and has 6 of the 9 justices appointed in Supreme Court. Thus their ongoing attack on all US institutions last four years and now on the democratic right to Vote has been unprecedented. It has dismantled arms control regimes, alienated its postwar allies, decapitated institutions like EPA, dismantled regulations constraining fossil fuel, opened natural areas for fossil fuel exploration, attacked media, purged the executive branches of the government of independent voices, …. And the list goes on and on and on.
Under this party at present, the US government has increased the threat of nuclear war and, environmental catastrophe and deteriorated democracy. And the ongoing mismanagement of the Covid19 pandemic is another Medal on its chest.

In conclusion, I am not surprised looking at the above chain of events when an renowned American Scholar and Philosopher Prof. Noam Chomsky, mentioned that the drift of the Republican Party has been so significant that now it can be ranked alongside the Parties in Europe with neo-fascist origins. 

Ben Banerjee, 8.12.2020