Dear Republicans, Behold Your Future!

Texas Senator, and Tea-Party nutcase, Ted Cruz's announced yesterday that he is running for president.

 

I was going to write a fairly detailed analysis of just how nutty Cruz is, breaking down each of his main platform points and then comparing and contrasting them with , you know... reality.   But as I started to write, I realised I just don't care. Ted Cruz in all his glorious wackjob-ness is the embodiment of just why the Republican Party cannot be taken seriously, on any issue



There once was a time, when the United States had two political parties that articulated arguments for their respective political and governing philosophies. Where America's national political discourse was a wide open marketplace of competing ideas.

Contrasting views on the role and scope of Government, were debated side by side along with questions of America's role in the world, and our duty and obligations to own people at home.


It was a time when leaders like Eisenhower, who had seen the horrors of war first hand cautioned us all against seeing war as just another factor of an economic equation.    Where leaders like Nixon, yes,  Richard M. Nixon, even with all his personal faults, sins and demons,  knew America could not  achieve lasting peace and security without actually sitting down and talking with our adversaries.   Where leaders like Gerald Ford,   didn't just wave "country first" around on banner, but rather lived that ideal,  fully aware of what it would cost him politically.

 

It  was a time when leaders like Ronald Reagan, could sit down with a leader like Tip O'Neil.  Understanding that  the heat of political differences can be  the furnace from which broad workable solutions for the country as whole, could be forged.    And it was a time when a leader like George HW Bush understood that a Superpower must live the example of  just use of .military might.   Where military force  is  used within the confines of, and with the justification of,  international  law.

 

Now?  The once Grand Old Party gets Ted Cruz. 

America should have a robust debate on the costs of, and access to Health Care and Health Insurance. Yet how can you have a debate on the issue of health care reform when the GOP go-to talking point is to claim that prohibiting insurance companies from dropping you because you got sick, is worse than slavery, or the holocaust ?

You can't. So it comes as no surprise that when pressed to answer what they would do in place of the affordable care act, NONE of the GOP would-be Presidential contenders including Cruz, are able to give even a coherent answer.

 America should have a robust debate on the nature and scope of our role on the world stage. Yet how can you have a debate on how best to ensure national security,  when the GOP's reflex reaction to America engaging with other nations, is to all but commit treason. Sending letters to foreign leaders to undermine US foreign policy for the sole purpose of trying to politically damage the President of the United States?

You can't. So it comes as no surprise that when pressed to explain how they would ensure peace and security, we have a cast of chicken hawks, all to eager to start yet another war,  that none of them, nor their sons and daughters would ever dream of actually fighting in.

 

America should have a robust debate on taxation, and how we as country can best live within our means. Funding both our obligations and our aspirations. Yet how can you have a debate when the GOP's only economic model is to insist that Robin Hood in reverse will somehow help everyone?  

You can't. So it comes at no surprise that the GOP Presidential contenders embrace the idea that giving the wealthiest of Americans massive tax cuts, and then having everyone else bear the costs for those giveaways,  is a path to magical economic prosperity.  In spite of  clear, irrefutable historical and mathematical proof to the contrary.

So  as the nonsensical , fact free rantings of  Texas Senator Ted Cruz, get their 15 minutes of  fame, I urge my republican  friends to take good  hard look.    This is  your Party's future.   As the  tea party faithful scream about "wanting their country back",  when will you finally  stand up and take your Party back?