I mentioned in the last post that generations of Southerners and Democrats libeled US Grant as a butcher. I found a 2013 post about how my Grandfather corrected my Fifth grade teacher who made that assertion to our class in the integrated Topeka, Kansas, elementary school I attended. That post also contains some more historical tidbits from the Civil War era. The post has the catchy Title GOP = GHASTLY ORGANIZED PUTRESCENCE PT 2
After my last Reader column “Juan Percent” challenged me on the Reader site asking:
JP Jun. 17, 2019
“Wasn’t Bush president in 2002? Harry, if you haven’t been a republican in 20 years, can you still call yourself a republican? BTW, the last time I checked, we weren’t in a depression… so maybe timing is important when you use tariffs? Harry, If now is NOT the time to play hardball with other countries who are cheating, when is?
You too may wonder how I could possible want to be part of a Ghastly Putrescent party. Here’s my Reply to JP Jun. 17, 2019
“JP
It was a largely Republican Supreme Court that handed down Roe v Wade. I approved. But the tacticians in the party recognized the abortion issue could be turned into a new abolition movement to win votes. Minnesota’s GOP had a pro choice state platform in 1972. Not long afterwards I started getting called a baby killer at GOP conventions. I began describing the GOP as a version of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.So that makes me an irredentist. Those are the folks who become estranged from their countries after they are taken over by different people. Think Tibetans angry about being overrun by Han Chinese by Beijing’s demographic policy of settlement redistribution.
I haven’t changed. Ironically the people who made the GOP ripe for Donald Trump feel the way I’ve felt for two decades now that he has made them his pimps and hos.
Is Trump’s assertiveness a two edged sword internationally? Yes it is. But he’s a one trick pony. Tariff, tariff, tariff. I wasn’t at the blitzkrieg of Poland either but I get the general idea of how it and history works. Ditto the Smoot Hawley Tariff.
If your idea of dealing with a pick pocket is to shoot him you better make sure he doesn’t carry a big gun too.”
And to answer more of JP’s question I added this:
Jun. 17, 2019
“I hung in the GOP intermittently until 2006. Then I spent about 5 years going to DFL precinct caucuses. They at least said nice things about Lincoln. But I don’t feel like a Democrat and what the GOP has become is an insult to my family’s Republican history. That’s my message. Old Testament prophets did the same thing by calling out the leaders of Israel who were beginning to worship foreign gods. Ridicule me for my stubbornness if you will but I won’t prostitute my ideals.”
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