Sixteen years ago, I fled the GOP when it became clear that the party's brand of conservatism increasingly had nothing in common with my own.
That was back in the day when you could find moderate conservatives or folks who were registered Republicans who were conservative on some issues, progressive on others. Before purity tests were required to certify sufficiently rigid ideology.
Sixteen years ago, the GOP was on its way to being the party of jaw-dropping hypocrisy, but it wasn't even close to today's mark.
My thanks to Newt Gingrich - whose 1994 Contract for America (which I always have to point out even my apolitical husband tags the Contract ON America) set the stage for the rigid partisanship of the past 20 years - for making a totally over-the-top statement that defines & shouts from the rooftops the blatant hypocrisy of a GOP that literally expects it can say ANYTHING that flies full in the face of facts & people will accept it as true.
In describing President Barack Obama, the former Speaker who's currently jockeying to be Donald Trump's VP choice, said, "We’re in the eighth year of a president who could have brought us together, a president who could have worked in the African-American community to make people feel better about themselves, a president who could have offered visionary changes in the policies that have failed for the last 50 years. And he didn’t do any of that."
It doesn't matter if you are Republican or Democrat, Independent or politically apathetic. That statement goes beyond absurd to "insults our intelligence."
The Senate Minority Leader made it clear from literally Day One of the Obama administration that Republicans would block block block anything that smacked of White House support. Republicans glorified gridlock as the way to keep the president ineffective. Mitch McConnell made it clear that he & his party would do everything possible to make Obama a 1-term president. When that didn't work, they've done their best to keep him hog-tied by the Republican-lead House & Senate.
That's not opinion. It's fact.
And imagine how Republicans would have responded to the president paying special attention to the African-American community. I can hear the wails of "But he was elected president of ALL Americans!"
As for President Obama not offering "visionary changes in the policies that have failed for the last 50 years" - well, that one has me stumped. 50 years? Is Newt referring to the Voting Rights Acts? To Medicare? To Medicaid? He doesn't reach back to Social Security? Or forward to the ADA? Like the president who passed the ACA is going to suddenly become a conservative Republican & overhaul Medicare, privatize Social Security or gut voting rights (SCOTUS did that last). Riiiiiiiiiggggghhhtttt....
Newt, only the most hardcore conservative, the sort who short circuit their brains when it comes to politics, would be able to not choke on your absurd, insult-my-intelligence words. Sir, time & again you are portrayed as one of the great conservative minds. Yet your words often portray you as closer to a great mime than an intellect worth my admiration.
But I do thank you for your statement, which so clearly & concisely clarifies the blatant - possibly oblivious, but maybe not - hypocrisy of today's Grand Old Party.
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