Lincoln -- In a blog last month I noted how too many Democrats who style themselves as progressives forget (or never knew) the rural roots of the progressive movement. Democrats ignore progressivism's rural heritage at their own peril.
Now it's time to look at Republicans who fashion themselves as conservatives. Today's Republicans are anything but. I look at my Nebraska congressional delegation (all Republicans) and see each of them going along with the opposite of what Nebraska conservatives once said they stood for.
The current Republican Party leadership, holding the Presidency, the Senate, and the Supreme Court (increasingly a political institution) is now leading the country into:
• unprecedented federal fiscal irresponsibility, with no regard for the national debt;
• tariff policies the likes of which have not been seen since Smoot-Hawley, and which are especially destructive of Nebraska agriculture;
• the unravelling of treaties with our allies, the very treaties paid for with the blood of the WWII generation;
• letting down our national defenses by allowing international adversaries to meddle in our democratic elections;
• weakening our constitutional checks and balances by undermining Congressional powers such as the power of the purse and the power to investigate;
• countenancing outright indecency as the norm for the conduct of public affairs.
Have I overstated any of the above? It's all understated, if anything. Whatever happened to conservatism in the Republican Party? What exactly is the platform of the Republican Party on which the Nebraska delegation will run for re-election in 2020?
I am embarrassed for my good Republican friends in Nebraska. Not all of them, because there were always too many who acted like know-nothing third-graders who wanted to burn down their schools and never outgrew their delight in dirty and racist jokes. But most of them, who sincerely believed in (and could chide Democrats about) fiscal responsibility, free trade, strong defense, constitutional government, and basic decency. I don't want to think that this was just a veneer that would warp away when exposed to right-wing heavy weather. Please, Nebraska Republicans, return to what you formerly said you stood for.
I am embarrassed for my good Republican friends in Nebraska. Not all of them, because there were always too many who acted like know-nothing third-graders who wanted to burn down their schools and never outgrew their delight in dirty and racist jokes. But most of them, who sincerely believed in (and could chide Democrats about) fiscal responsibility, free trade, strong defense, constitutional government, and basic decency. I don't want to think that this was just a veneer that would warp away when exposed to right-wing heavy weather. Please, Nebraska Republicans, return to what you formerly said you stood for.
