Republicans, here is how to save your party!

[PurgedVoter]

Here is your guide to strong leadership, Republicans! Don’t look for your current leadership to fix anything, they broke it. It is up to you to take over your party and make it a strong force to protect your family, community and nation. Here are a few tips that will insure your victory!

To become the real agent of change, you must be the change. To be the party of truth and honor, there are a few requirements. First off you need to treat your opposition with honor. You need to keep to facts and be the first to correct your mistakes. If you make a mistake you should immediately try to repair that mistake. If you made a decision or held a position that you cannot support with the truth, then you must come clean and change. Otherwise you will be just like the Republican Leaders that got you into this mess. Never again make unsupportable wicked accusations, lie about or try to cheat your opposing party. Don’t support those who lie, cheat or steal. An unfairly won election means a cheater is in charge. You can’t trust a cheater. Even if he says he is on your team. Sadly your current leaders never tell the actual truth. They have managed to fool a lot of the people a lot of the time, but now the chickens have flown home. It has gotten so bad that people not only distrust Republican Leaders, they don’t even trust Republicans. Holding onto the lies that your leaders have used to manipulate you with will not help you restore your party to the greatness it once held high. This was the Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower. Two truly great men and great presidents.


Hillary blatantly lied during her campaign and people hardly cared. If the Republican Leaders had ever told the truth, they might have been able to gain ground there. Instead, despite that blatant set of lies, people still like her more than any of the Republicans. She lied, they never told the truth. Big difference there. Her lies helped Obama, but didn't do a thing for Republicans. If they were actually honest, then they would have gained tons of voters that hate lies. Despite being covered with fleas, the voters were not about to jump to a dog that was black with them. Sadly most Republicans know deep inside that lying, hatred and cheating are wrong. Yet they have proudly supported men famous for lying, cheating and stealing. Sadly when you go to a Republican Function, you are going to hear the sexist and racist comments, from leaders and from supporters. This stains this once great party.


Drop the partisan bit. When Republicans scream about the Democratic Party being partisan they gain no respect. The only ones they fool are their blindest supporters. Try instead to cooperate on something that helps the majority of Americans. Right now it is pretty obvious who the extreme partisan party is.


Expect your leaders to show some respect for your opposition. Your leaders call the Democratic Party the Democrat Party. This makes them seem petty and stupid to independent thinkers. It gains Republicans nothing. It is like constantly getting a persons name wrong. It does not help you make friends and it does not make you look honorable.


It is fine for your lower end to call us things on occasion or twist our name every now and then, but when a leader calls all who disagree with him socialists, communists, fascists and traitors, he is not going to make a lot of friends. It really makes you the followers seem a bit less intelligent for following them.


At the time of this writing, the official elected Republican Leaders of our nation are considering a resolution to start calling the Democratic Party, “The Democrat Socialist Party.” This may make you titter and laugh, but in the end it will make you, the supporters of these men look stupid and reactionary. I do not think that the leaders of the Democratic Party should start calling the Republican Party, the Republic Fascist Party. Nor should they start calling it the Republic Medieval Party or the Republic Medieval Fascist Party. Not in public anyway.


I laugh when people come up with a good insult. When a person makes it a constant speech mannerism it gets annoying. It makes them seem rather mean spirited When they start to believe their exaggerations to be the literal truth, It becomes clear that they are indeed mean spirited. At every turn your leaders are showing this level of charm. It is stupid when we do this sort of thing, sadly your side never misses doing it. Try for once to lead by grace, not by insinuation.

Drop the extreme character assassination. Your arguments have been getting more savagely partisan and divisive every year since the great Republican, Eisenhower. You never really mention him much since your policies are directly opposite his. If he was alive today, you would call him a communist, fascist and a surrender monkey. It is pretty clear historically that he is the opposite of all of these, but that really would not stop you. This is the first thing you need to change. You need to start respecting democracy. You have used insults so freely that you don’t even know what the insults mean anymore.


Stop using the Confederate Flag. Entirely. The folk that fought and died under it showed more respect for the Union than you do. When you wave this flag, you offend quite a few people and you are waving a flag of division. You are not a patriotic member of the United States when you wave it. You are at best stupid. At worst, treasonous. This flag represents rebellion against the United States of America. When you fly it, you cannot really call yourself a loyal citizen of the United States. If you are a secessionist, then you may possibly be a patriot to the people and territory of your state. If you are a secessionist then you are not a patriot or loyal member of the United States or your state. If you are a secessionist and you serve as a leader in this fine nation and have sworn to uphold the constitution and protect it from all enemies then you are forsworn and a traitor to the United States of America.


Now that I have explained simple manners let me give you a few tips on politics. First off, the selfish business men are starting to run from you in droves. They used you, made you who you are and will now slink away. This is going to hurt, but you can use it to your advantage. You are not going to win anymore by sticking to the low road. The low road is simple enough, if you continue to suck horribly then the wealthy interests will be working hard to insinuate themselves into the Democratic Party. All you will have left is the radicals that pretty much represent your party now. The end result is that the selfish factions with money will be part of the Democratic party struggling for dominance within the Democratic Party.


To gain power again, you will have to make a few major changes. I don’t think you can do it, but we need you to do it. We need two strong parties to remain a strong democracy. Sadly none of your leaders are saying this.


To gain power again, you need to actually stand for something. Something achievable and productive. If you actually pushed for teachers to have smaller classes, better benefits, and higher pay, this largely conservative group would largely jump on your bandwagon in a moment. Instead you have cut them off from having a say in education, stripped them of half their retirement security and managed to reduce their real income substantially. If you actually led the way to giving more protection, money and future to educators, a rather huge demographic would jump to your party and the educators of our children would be pretty well united in supporting you.


You could also do this with unions. Seriously. These folk want to be conservatives. The fact that you have vilified and stabbed the common worker in the back for years, is the only reason these people don’t vote in a solid block with you. Hard workers usually have little respect for the government giving stuff to people who don’t work for it. Yet you have managed to alienate them by trying to prevent people who work hard from being securely rewarded for their hard work.


Every one of your leaders has at one time tried to pretend to be an environmentalist. No environmentalist believes you anymore. We know better. Saying you support something while attacking it at every turn does not lead us to trust you. You might think that a conservationist would be conservative, in fact you are right. We conservationists are conservative. You are not. You may be conservatives, as you define yourselves, but in no way shape or form are you conservative.

Drop the entire prayer in school thing, you are not supposed to pray loudly and try to look holy anyway. Someone I respect quite a bit told you to pray in a closet. Trying to put religion into a science class is disrespectful of religion, ignorant of science and goes directly against the founding principals of our democracy. Science cannot study God and your beliefs are not scientific. Sorry about that, but that is just how it works. If you ignore science then you are ignoring truth and you can never be free.

Your random attacks on minorities also needs to stop. Seriously drop all racist, homophobic, and religious persecution at the door. It is not helping you as much as it is hurting you. It is hurting others and it brands you for all time as selfish, evil bastards. I suspect that if you have read this far, you are going, 'Religious persecution? We don’t do that, ever.' This leads me to my last point.

Get a clue. Gays who have come to terms with their differences and are religious are persecuted strongly and these days exclusively by your party. Do you honestly believe that Muslim children think that you protect and respect their rights to practice their faith?

Before you start sputtering and saying, ‘But the Democrats ….’

Remember this one simple thing. A progressive once told you to remove the log from your eye before you point at the splinter in mine.

The only good way to regain respect and dignity is to deserve it. The Democratic Party has a ton of things wrong with it. Really bad things. The Republican Party, from my position has nothing good going for it apart from being the opposition. Supporting your party as it stands is almost treasonous. We need you in the game, playing hard and fair. Right now you are just not worthy to play.

[opihimoimoi]

1. Good advice but unreceptive ears....denial factor too strong

[DJ13]

2. Be honest, become liberal

Both are like garlic to a vampire for Republicans.

[babylonsister]

3. Why are you posting this here? nt

[PurgedVoter]

5. Why here?

Because there is no point in posting the truth on the Free Republic?

Maybe a planner for the Democratic Party will read this and realize that their best method of maintaining power is to support teachers and workers?

Maybe because our leaders will go all twisty and rotten without decent opposition.

[babylonsister]

6. So FR won't listen? No kidding!

Hey, welcome to DU. There are lots of different factions here, listening, commenting, and agreeing. Or not, but at least you'll hear the whole gamit.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Good advice for members of any party... Looks like they'll have to denounce Rush.

It's like a laundry list of Rush Limbaugh's talking points and attitudes.

Nice composition, I'm sure they won't come around.

[PurgedVoter]

7. Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words.

I agree, I think they are doomed too.

[Posteritatis]

8. Probably the biggest thing I'd like to see happen in US politics..

...would be a political system that saned up to the point where people could go to their polling station on election day and, as often as not, not quite be sure who they should vote for. Note that's not the same as not being quite sure who they should vote against - I've been of the opinion that most sane people in the US haven't exactly had to struggle to find the answer to that one for awhile.

There was kind of a brief, golden moment of that in my neck of the woods provincially for a year or so - the three political parties that stand an electoral chance around here were basically acting like three parties comprised mostly of grown-ups who could behave with maturity and happened to have different, but still thought-out, approaches to how to Deal With THings. They got better, or worse, or whatever you want to call it and are back to acting with a level of civility you'd expect from a US primary afterwards, which was depressing, but it was nice while it lasted. People'd occasionally actually say "hey, that's a good idea" about something The Other Guys said or did, as opposed to the current setup in either of our countries where someone could say "You know? Setting kittens on fire is bad!" only to immediately have the other guys scurrying for their matches. It was disorienting and kind of cool.

I think things like that should be happening more often. It'd be nice to have more people be able to cast a vote on election day, wherever they are, knowing that they were voting for reasonably intelligent and principled people who campaign on what they're going to do and not what the other guy's doing, and who can deal with opinions at variance to their own without humming loudly or twisting words or, as some of the Republicans have done, literally calling for the deaths of their opponents. It'd be nice to see an opposition party show up that acted in a way that, if they did beat the Democrats in a congressional or presidential election, people could feel a resigned "Aw, dammit; maybe next time" instead of the despairing "Noooooooooo!!!" Democrats spent the last several years doing (and which the Republicans are proving to be masters of attitude-wise since).

Do I at all expect it to happen anytime soon? Hell no. The Conservatives up here are unhinged enough, and the Republicans in the States feel like the political equivalent of 4chan's /b/ as often as not. Do I think people would be better off if more countries had a setup where two or more political parties actually stood for something with enough ability, maturity and sincerity to keep each other's head in the game? Definitely.

Of course, while I'm wishing for that, I'd like a million zillion dollars. And a pony. A sapient pony, hewn from a solid block of gold by the proud dwarves of Moria in a single artful blow.

(I should probably get to work on a stable, since that's the more likely outcome...)

[geckosfeet]

9. Super. Now go back and write something about how we can keep them from ever rebuilding.

[PurgedVoter]

10. That is already there!

All we have to do is keep them at bay is to support these groups. Seriously, we go single payer, and the RNC will be dead for 20 years. If we start supporting the middle class instead of banks, the Republicans may never recover.

Right now both parties have a lack of respect for those that care enough to march. If we start to respect that these people have taken the time and expense to show up and protest, we will earn the respect if not agreement of the most active and concerned citizens.

[calimary]

11. I really like that "...the Republicans may never recover" part. The OP is really wonderful!

So wonderful, as a matter of fact, that I hope the republi-CONS never see it. I want them to fizzle into near nothingness to keep them up in the nosebleed section for a long time, so they won't be able to do any more damage. It's going to take Dems and especially liberals and progressives years to fix everything they've broken. I want the grover norquist effect - the shrink-'em-down-so-small-you-can-drown-'em-in-a-bathtub - but on the GOP. We need them to be left out wandering in the wilderness for a long time, so they won't make more trouble while we undo the vast damage they've already done. We have an ungodly amount of work to do.

Sure, I can appreciate the value of a two-party system. As long as one of those two parties isn't hell-bent on destruction, criminality, gaming the system, rigging the game, lying, stealing, cheating, cutting corners, sheltering scoundrels and screwing the poor and middle class. Since that's pretty much all we have on that side, I think they need to shut up and go directly to the far corner of the room and STAY THERE. FACING THE WALL. With NO say whatsoever, until we can get things straightened out. How ever long that takes.

I hope they never see this. I don't want them rehabilitated - and wouldn't trust 'em if they said they had been. They've long since squandered every last benefit of the doubt that I ever could have wanted to give them. They have forfeited any right to be anywhere near wielding any sort of power or influence. I want them to go away.

[RedCloud]

12. To serve republicans...

Maybe some space ship will swoop them up with promises of an after dinner life!

[jeremyfive]

13. Like the Nazi Party, They are History

No one is mourning the death of the Republican Party, except Rush Limbaugh and his cronies.

(Try a few sit-ups once in a while, Rush--tones up the jelly-belly. Could stem drug cravings, too.)

[jeremyfive]

14. Confederate Flag Represents More

As a southerner, I disagree with the content in reference to the Confederate Flag. Yes, it represents pain to a great many, but slavery was an institution worldwide for hundreds of years. Why blame the south in particular?

Also, why is there rarely any mention of the system of "indentures" in the 19th century, when white men and women sold themselves into slavery themselves so that they could feed themselves in this century of hardship and lean times. These white men and women were frequently abused and beaten in the process. Physical evidence supports this, as well as the plethora of legal "indenture" documents from this period--as a manuscript collector, I've seen thousands of 19th century historical indentures.

There were other issues that created the climate for war in the 19th century, as well. Most developed nations of the world had slavery for prolonged periods, so why does the historical memory single out the American South? Could it be the same haughty Northern attitude that reduced the William Styron intellectual protagonist in "Sophie's Choice" to a country bumpkin "Opie Taylor" oaf in the film version? I'm convinced that the perception of some Northernors of the the South does not extend beyond "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Andy of Mayberry".

Beyond this, southern families suffered great losses and hardship in the Civil War, and additionally suffered for years under Northern tyranny afterward as southern cities became the "free-for-the-taking" playgrounds of the northern invaders. My small home town was in fact vandalized and ransacked for at least a decade after the war--and being located in the mountains, it had never ever been suitable for the type of agriculture which drew slavery. Slavery had been near non-existent in this region.

It was legal to draft children in the civil war, so by the end of the conflict, many families were fractured or destroyed. Soldiers and children returned to their homes unable to assume former livelihoods because they had suffered misery, disability and defeat in the battle--and further tyranny at home. These solders represented a region of the country that had been unable to afford to adequately equip and arm them in the first place. Many found solace and comfort in the flag of their region.

The confederate flag represents a culture to some, a region to others, memory of lost family to more, . . . Let's stop the dishonest liberal shorthand perceptions.

To boil the Confederate flag down to "slavery and rebellion" does the nation a disservice. Even Lincoln stated, "A house divided against itself cannot stand". He did not say, "we must crush the rebellions who are traitorous." Even Lincoln himself was fully aware that the Civil War was "brother against brother". The above post gives an unwelcome view of the Confederate flag debate, one which I as a liberal cannot support.

Let's stop the rewriting of history to suit convenient simple liberal stereotypes and try to honor history for all the complexity that it has.