The deleterious inspiration of today’s GOP

I remember reading a review of Farlie’s book, Bite the Hand that Feeds You,” because it was such a great title. In 1980 he wrote this about the new conservative drift of the GOP under Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority:

“The America which Europe fears is the America of the Reaganites. The America once of the Scopes trial; the America of prohibition; the America of ignorant isolationism. The America then of ‘better dead than red;’ the America of McCarthyism; the America of the last fundamentalists of the 1950s. The America now of the new evangelicals; the America of the Moral Majority; the America of a now ignorant interventionism; the America which can see homosexuals as a conspiracy; feminists as a conspiracy; perhaps even women as a conspiracy.

The America of fear. For it is in fear that the ungoverned and the unfree are doomed to live. And there was this America in control at Detroit. It is time that we reminded ourselves, and said aloud and more often, that it is from these people that nastiness comes. It is time that we pointed out to the neo-conservatives that democracy has never been subverted from the left but always from the right.

No democracy has fallen to communism, without an army; many democracies have fallen to fascism, from within. The Reaganites on the floor were exactly those who in Germany gave the Nazis their main strength and who in France collaborated with them and sustained Vichy. If the neo-conservatives cannot sniff danger, surely the rest of us can be alert.”

The GOP that is currently attempting to take down war hero and Republican dove Chuck Hagel is simply an amped up version of the party Farlie described thirty years ago. It is the deleterious inspiration for my latest snow sculpture which I should be able to finish tomorrow.

It’s not done but I can show you the little modeling clay model I perched on top of the Rebel flag to guide my sculpting.

I can’t guarantee it will even make it through the night since I’ve just given my detractors a head’s up. The sun will decompose it in a few days although it should be cold enough to remain through the weekend. I can imagine an ignorant Republican knocking it down as an insult to the Party. It is. I can also imagine an ignorant person knocking it down because they are too dimwitted not to realize it in no way exalts the Confederate battle flag.

A dozen cute titles have occurred to me. The GOP whistles Dixie is one. That’s ironic because one of the last wonderful anecdotes about Abe Lincoln is telling a jubilant crowd that he instructed a band to play Dixie at War’s end. I could also call it the Ascension of John Wilkes Booth – Republican martyr.

This year I have sculpted my two most meaningful sculptures. The Angel was deeply felt and this one reflects the frustration of my adult life. Forty frustrated years of working towards and pining for a rational Republican Party.

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