LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Republican Party No Longer Responsible

Here is a great quote from Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein's book "It’s Even Worse than It Appears":

“However awkward it may be for the traditional press and nonpartisan analysts to acknowledge, one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”  

The Republican Party used to be a responsible party. Now that it has been taken over by Tea Party extremists, it is well on its way to destroying America. Think carefully about each of the five elements of Mann/Ornstein’s criticism. If any of the five informs a government’s policy, it is harmful to our nation. All five become a disaster.

If you vote for any Republican these days, you are de facto strengthening this know-nothing element of your party. It is too late: you cannot take the party back from these hard-line extremists. Our country’s only hope is for those of you who are reasonable Republicans – who used to support reasonable people such as Ed Brooke, William Weld, and even the 2002 version of Mitt Romney — to abandon your party and establish a new one.

Don Chauls
92 Blueberry Hill Lane