Rusty's Blog

I’ve always eschewed being an official supporter of any political party, and still do to this point. I don’t like the idea of sending someone a message that they don’t have to work for my vote. But my resolve is waning.

While I’ve mostly voted for Democrats the past four elections or so, I’ve never been totally comfortable with it. I have voted for the stray Libertarian, and there have been a few stray Republicans I at least considered voting for.

I’ve always attributed my votes to the circumstances of Georgia’s bizarre politics, and not to a philosophical bent. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Republican Party and the movement behind it has not for some time, does not, and for the foreseeable future will not have any serious ideas for solving our problems. It is a bitter, feckless piddlefart.

When a movement is out of power, it is presented with an opportunity to articulate its vision for how things should be without the consequences of having to implement that vision. Let’s review how the conservative movement has spent that time in exile so far:

• The Republican governor of Texas and the Republican-dominated Georgia Legislature toyed with seceding from the Union over policy decisions
• A conservative movement protests wasteful spending by buying hundreds of thousands of tea bags it has no intention of brewing. This after years of silence about unprecedented government expansion by the prior Republican administration. Bonus points to the Atlanta edition for asking its members to take mass transit to an event protesting government spending
• One of the movement’s leading commentators, who runs a site with an audience of millions, calls a Supreme Court justice a goat-fucking child molester
• Another of the movement’s leading commentators declares that he hopes the President of the United States will fail
• Yet another of the movement’s leading commentators uses his platform of millions of listeners to discuss the pressing issue of the mustard President Obama spreads on his sandwiches
• One of the leading candidates for governor in Georgia openly endorses secession, takes illegal contributions from PACs, waxes poetic about how he is inspired by the Confederacy, and feels no need to apologize for any of this
• In a breach of decorum, the Vice President from the last Republican Administration refuses to disappear from television.

The list goes on, but I think you get the point. If this is the conservative movement’s thought leadership, explain to me why I shouldn’t just dispense with formalities and become a Democrat. What will the Republicans and their movement ever be able to offer me?

I’m a little scared at the rate the current administration and Congress is going through money. They have at times disappointed me and done other things I’ve disagreed with. But that’s always been par for the course with any government in session.

I am much more scared of the prospect of the current crop of Republican astropopulists ever gaining power again. They are not fit to run anything of any importance at all.

And I find myself agreeing with more ideas every day that are more likely to happen with Democrats running things than they are with Republicans running things. Mass transit. High density development. Decriminalization of drugs and prostitution. Equal rights for gay people. Rejection of ignorance as a point of pride. It’s not just my nausea with Republicans.

So am I just keeping up a pointless charade? What’s holding me back?

Update May 15, 2009: Ooh, now I remember why I’m not a Democrat.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm. It was tagged david souter, erick erickson, georgia politics, john oxendine, Politics and Media, rick perry, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, tea parties, tea party, You're shitting me right?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.