The Self-Destruction of the Republican Party

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m sitting in my room with the Depeche Mode music video anthology in the DVD player blaring through my television speakers. After a week of not drinking, as I’m taking a break after my two week birthday and holiday binge, I find it almost necessary to pour myself a bourbon and light up a cigar in an effort to center my thoughts. But as the music blares and my mind races, I feel the need to just get right into this and just crank it out. Trust me, there are more productive ways I could be spending my Friday night. Last week, I drank eight shots of Kentucky Gentleman on the beach, which were chased with three or four rather large tropical drinks, a few other shots, a couple of beers and half a bottle of Old Crow. My friends and I are pretty sure we saw a UFO over the Gulf of Mexico. Anyway, maybe I can get into all that again once I type up these thoughts. I should probably stop procrastinating through words and get to the point of this piece. So here we go..

There are several reasons why I am not a Republican and can’t really ever see myself as being one. Technically my voter registration card has an “REP” on it but that is only there for about another month. Once the Republican primary for president is over, it is going back to “IND”. You see, I always used to be of the belief that I could be involved with the party and like some of the great organizations within it, such as the Republican Liberty Caucus or RLC, I thought I could somehow work within it to change it and shape it so that it went back to resembling what it once was. I thought that in time and through the hard work of several people, the Republican Party could return to being fiscally responsible and pro-Constitution. Over the last year or so, I have come to the realization that this just isn’t possible.

When the Tea Party came along, everything changed. The rhetoric was different and not just Republicans but people from all different walks of life with varying ideologies banned together because they were tired of the careless spending in Washington and extremely sick of being taxed to death. I never really considered myself a Tea Partier but I did have a lot in common with them and frequented several events. The reasons I attended were to experience the movement and to talk with the people there. Another reason why I went was because the energy was incredible and everyone seemed to truly be in unison. It’s as if people were waking up to a lot of the tyranny and finally banding together to vote the bastards out and put a stop to it all.

Realizing that the Tea Party was pretty much a movement stolen from Ron Paul supporters, who were having their own Tea Parties in 2007, I should have realized what was going to happen. Suddenly, Sarah Palin showed up and the Tea Party people welcomed this big government “mama grizzly” with open arms. Hell, it’s like the Tea Party was a pageant and she was immediately awarded the crown. Then people like Michele Bachmann came along and sunk their talons in. The Tea Party then got in the business of backing candidates because the 2010 midterm elections were on the horizon and guys like Marco Rubio and Allen West seemed like real fiscal conservatives that were going to change things on a real level. This is when I started to see that the Tea Party had been hijacked by the Republican Party and I didn’t like where things were going. Unlike Occupy Wall Street, who successfully kept themselves separate from party politics, the Tea Party was co-opted and turned into the greatest grassroots force the GOP has probably ever had.

Going into the 2010 midterm elections, it wasn’t a big surprise that the Republicans were going to win a shitload of elections and take the House of Representatives back. They did, people cheered, everything felt kind of good at the moment and those of us who are conservative or libertarian had a lot of hope for what was seemingly on the horizon. Believe me though, I was ready and willing to put every one of those Tea party candidates on blast if they faltered. As time passed and most of these candidates didn’t live up to the hype and the promises they made, I wrote about it.

I went after Marco Rubio, Allen West and others and in doing so, it really started to sink in that all the Tea Party really was was a vehicle to get Republicans back in power. As I looked around at those in the fight beside me, I noticed that none of them were paying attention anymore. The passion was dead. Sure, there were still a few solid groups thriving and meeting monthly, if not weekly, but overall participation in the Tea Party and other pro-Constitution groups after the 2010 midterm elections dropped off significantly. I understand that there were no elections in 2011 but the mission was far from accomplished. In fact, it had really just begun.

The truth is, once they got their guys in, they stopped caring. When most of these Tea Party candidates went to Washington and either did nothing or went in the wrong direction, the Tea Party wasn’t there to check their asses. Marco Rubio turned into a big piece of shit, all of which I discussed in Tea Flavored Kool-Aid, Part II: The Fall of Marco Rubio and most of the other big names immediately started supporting very bad legislation. The only two Tea Party people that have kept their promise and continue to operate on a policy that encompasses fiscal responsibility and the Constitution is Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Justin Amash. Hell, look at how many of these Tea Party darlings just voted for the insanely tyrannical NDAA law!

We should all be pissed off because the Tea Party was a force that was going to change things, especially the Republican Party. However, it only served the purpose of changing the rhetoric of the party to appease those who were dissatisfied with its direction. In the end, the rhetoric may have changed but overall the action remains the same. I guess a lot of these Tea Partiers were full of hot air and just wanted to bitch. Maybe it was all a ruse and the real objective was to be hijacked by the GOP and to get their boys back in office. Either way, it is incredibly disheartening to those of us who truly believe in the message and who strive, every-fucking-day, to make sure that Liberty’s torch will still be burning for future generations.

Getting passed all the midterm bullshit, let’s look at right now. Let’s look at the 2012 Republican primaries and see how far this resurgence in real conservatism has gotten us. Apart from Ron Paul, a true constitutional conservative, the frontrunners are Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich! These guys are huge big government guys that are the furthest thing away from Tea Party candidates that one can get without labeling them liberals. Wait, many people do label them liberals and truth be told, these neo-conservative RINOs are really just progressives of the right. So how the hell did this happen?

How is Ron Paul, the guy that inspired the real Tea Party back in 2007, not blowing these statist shitcocks out of the fucking water in this race? How is this even a competition? I guess all the passed around literature and pro-constitution rhetoric of 2010 is just being completely ignored now. I guess the Republican Party has recovered from their 2008 John McCain hangover and just like any alcoholic, is back at the bar ready to drown in the same goddamned devil rum that got them hooked to their trickster demons in the first fucking place. It’s a pretty pathetic display but it just goes to show us all what is truly at the core of the Republican Party.

I’ve met too many young people in my travels that feel exactly the same way that I do. I, like several of them, have been involved with the Libertarian Party. As much as that party is a pretty close match to my political ideology, I am just so burnt out on political parties. Maybe it is because third parties never get a fair shake, as we are all forced to participate in this two party system where both parties aren’t that far apart anymore. Both are big government bullies that have monopolized the political landscape and do whatever it is they can to maintain their power and the illusion that we actually have a choice between the two of them. Trust me, it’s hard as fuck to stay motivated when you’re up against this giant rabid two-headed sasquatch creature.

I wish I had some real answers on how to combat this but I don’t and that’s the toughest part. How can we continued to battle it out with the old guard? How can we continued to stay motivated against a cheating leviathan that holds all the cards and picks who gets dealt what? I think the closest thing to an answer that I can give is that we just have to keep fighting, we have to stay aware and be vigilant and truly understand the system and what is going on around us. We have to call the mainstream media and the lying bastards in office out on their bullshit. Fuck, more of us need to write! Not to sound like a fucking commie zombie but through each other we can find Liberty’s torch still burning. The system and the political process have failed. All the warnings from history have been ignored and we are more or less stuck in this overly complicated mess. It’s time to move forward regardless of the barriers and to never stop, take a step back or move to the side. I think one thing we can do is to really know these candidates, not just through their words, but through their records and their history. We need to know who we are voting for and we then need to hold them accountable. We can’t win if we take our fucking eyes off of the ball once our guy gets in office.

However, considering that so many people who I thought were of the same mind and spirit as myself have now fallen off, maybe I’m just wasting my time writing this. Maybe my words will fall on deaf souls and we’re all fucked. Truth is, it’s not just up to me to make a difference and even if this inspires someone else to get fired up that probably still isn’t enough. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but there is a lot of work ahead and a handful of people can’t do it themselves.