Republican Disconnect

Is it possible to have seen the Republican National Convention and not realize how spectacularly divided we are as a nation? It speaks volumes of a campaign and Party that is morbidly out of step with the rest of the country, and might I add the world. Flashback only a week ago to the Democratic National Convention and the difference is mind blowing. Simply put, the DNC looked and felt like the America many of us so desire. How frightening is it that despite the enormous failures of this administration during these last eight years, there are still so many people who are zealously gun ho about this Party and its policies?

Desperation is a tragic thing to watch. As if drowning aboard a sinking ship, the Republicans and their minions seem to be flailing away ferociously in hopes of staying afloat. Last week Senator Barack Obama quipped: "When you have nothing to offer, you make a big campaign about small things." How astoundingly prophetic? Every single speaker at this Convention merely regurgitated the exact same rhetoric as the other: John McCain's a war hero... Obama is a liberal...John McCain's a war hero...watch out Obama is going to raise your taxes...John McCain's a war hero...Obama has no experience...Oh, yeah John McCain's a war hero. Not one word on the economy, not one word on healthcare, not one word on the housing crisis, just a vehement vitriol of smoke and mirrors.

I am convinced that the Republican Party is banking on the stupidity of the American people. The same stupidity that led us to elect George W. Bush to a second term: fear and good ole' heart warming tales of small town American values. That's where Governor Sarah Palin comes in. An obviously competent woman, whom the McCain campaign hopes will somehow dazzle women to rally behind his otherwise pointless third run at President. "She's just your everyday hockey mom from Alaska...with a knocked up teen daughter and her self described 'red neck' baby daddy, soon to be husband via shotgun." (Oops, I forgot the kids are off limits, save when they're being exploited by their mom and the Republican Party). Truly its all so heart warming, especially, how a Party which reads like a misogynists Hall of Fame is actually howling sexism at every turn, while wearing their: "The hottest VP from the coolest State" pins. Think McCain will enter her into any biker "beauty" contest?

However, if her much heralded speech was any indicator, Sarah Palin is officially a GOP superstar. She gave her supporters and the entire GOP some much needed excitement. She was personable, she was tough, and she was funny. Sure, she kept up the lies that previous speakers had uttered: "Barack Obama has never authored any legislation¹ and he's going to raise everyone's taxes²." But, hey those are just formalities. More than anything though, she more than anyone else summed up exactly why the GOP and this campaign in particular are so grotesquely out of touch with the very people they hope to continue misleading.

Apparently, Gov. Sarah Palin and her Party don't see the value in community organization. Apparently, no one informed Mrs. Palin, that had it not been for community organizing, she would likely not be where she is today. Apparently, Gov. Palin didn't learn that the Women's Rights Movement was birthed by community organizers. Perhaps no one informed her that community organizers spear headed Slave Liberation and the Civil Rights Movement. Maybe, the so-called "patriots" of the GOP didn't realize amid their jubilation that it was bands of community organizers, who, you know organized the blue print that would become, AMERICA. People like John Adams, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Harriet Tubman, Marin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and a slew of ordinary people, who did extraordinary things to make this country into the beacon of light that it is all over the world. They didn't offer empty proclamations of patriotism, they lived it. They didn't need to empty make exclamations of Country First, they're very lives were evidence of it. It is no wonder that a certain Democratic Senator who got his start as a community organizer said of the Republican ticket, "they just don't get it." But, I reckon come November 4th, they most certainly will.

¹ Obama introduced the Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission Act of 2006; considered the greatest ethics reform bill ever passed. Obama co-sponsored the Katrina Emergency Relief Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Harry Reid; Obama co-sponsored the Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Russ Feingold. This is why the nation finds itself better prepared to deal with present day natural disasters.

² Obama's tax plan, promises over $80 billion in tax cuts for the middle class.

© JLI 2008