This morning Senator Bob Corker was questioned on a couple of the morning talk shows about his less than enthusiastic endorsement of Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee for the Tennessee Senate seat he is retiring from. Compounding the problem was Corker's more glowing comments regarding the major Democrat running for that seat, former Mayor and Governor Phil Bredesen at a private conservative get together that prompted a rebuke from Senate Majority Leader McConnell. That Corker, who used racially questionable campaign commercials in his 2006 race against Harold Ford, is getting blasted by Republican insiders for subtly pointing out that Blackburn is out of touch, further illustrated how the Party of Lincoln is rotting away to the point where its members who have used less than stellar campaign tactics are pointing how low the party has fallen.
On the Fareed Zakaria GPS show this morning, conservative pundit Mona Charen recounted how she was chastised, even threatened, at and after the annual CPAC meeting this year for criticizing the invitation of the niece of France's racist, xenophobic and Holocaust Denying National Front leader to speak and for daring to say that Republicans could not turn the cheek on Donald Trump's and Roy Moore's behavior towards women and children because they had an R next to their names
This process where the Republicans are tolerating out of touch idiots, science deniers, Xenophobes, racists, sexists, and pedophiles did not occur overnight. This is the result of a Faustian bargain the Republican establishment made in the 1960's to win largely white communities who felt shunned by Civil Rights Legislation and thought the War on Poverty did not include them. While time showed they were on the wrong side of history, this did not stop politicians like Strom Thurmond, Jessie Helms, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and yes, the Bushes, from using their fears to con them to leave the Democratic Party and join the Republicans. History's cruel irony that the party that launched the civil rights and progressive movement has now evolved to what figures like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower would find abhorrent should not be lost on students of history and public affairs.
To those people in the Republican Party who feel their party has left them, consider bringing your ideas and love of our country to the Democrats. There is much that can be accomplished for the good of the country by merging the conservative and progressive views together and forging compromise solutions that can take the country forward. It does not have to be a "my way or the highway" approach to governing anymore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/04/18/retiring-gop-sen-bob-corker-calls-democrat-seeking-to-replace-him-a-very-good-governor/?utm_term=.c569ee31a8eb
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/22/politics/bob-corker-marsha-blackburn/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/23/trumps-gop-is-morphing-into-frances-far-right/?utm_term=.d8384ee50783
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pundit-mona-charen-blew-up-cpac-even-she-was-stunned-by-the-vitriol-that-ensued/2018/03/12/e85f6150-1db3-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.890e4692606b
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