Wake Up the Sleeping Elephant

John Rogers laments “I Miss Republicans” at his blog, Kung Fu Monkey:

No, seriously. Remember Republicans? Sober men in suits, pipes, who'd nod thoughtfully over their laterst paen [sic] to market-driven fiscal conservatism while grinding out the numbers on rocket science. Every one of those serious-looking 1950's-1960's science guys in the movies -- Republican to a one.

[…]

How did they become the party of fairy dust and make believe? How did they become the anti-science guys? The anti-fact guys? The anti-logic guys?

I read the whole post not long after I had written about the shame of Republican Senators who scrounged up the courage to lambaste Rumsfeld only after a soldier had made any lesser reactions disgraceful. The issues are one and the same. The Republican Party is being lost to blind partisanship, which includes loyalty to a President who represents none of values of the traditional Republican Party. And it’s not just their elected officials; it’s the people of the GOP, too.

Far too few traditional Republicans (which I will use as shorthand to refer to the Republicans of yore John describes) echo the same sentiment. I'm not sure why it seems to be only people on the Left screaming bloody murder about how the Republican Party has been hijacked by total fuckwits. It’s akin to the moderate Christians I know who seem relatively unfazed by the radical element that, if left unchecked, will forever define American Christianity as a religion of intolerant zealots. No one on the Right appears moved to try to prevent this steady slide into political and religious extremism.

I was disgusted by some traditional Republicans I know who held their nose and voted for Bush, simply because they wouldn't vote for a Democrat. No matter how much you pointed out to them that - as bizarre as it may have seemed - the party of fiscal responsibility, smaller government, states' rights, and conservation (particularly environmental) was, this time, the Democrats, they still cast a vote for Bush.

Their party is slipping (has permanently slipped?) away from them, but they say nothing, do nothing. When America has fallen into the inevitable morass that is its unavoidable destination with Bush at our helm, I won't blame the Democratic voters, and I won't even blame the wingnuts on the Right, who at least voted as they believe, foolish as it is. I will blame the large swath of traditional Republicans who refused to acknowledge that their party had left them, and made no noise about its failed leadership, choosing instead to keep handing new strings to Nero for his fiddle.