Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower are spinning in their coffins. What still goes by the name of their former Republican Party is poised to nominate for president in 2024 a man who staged a failed, violent insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021, so as to reject the will of the voters and remain in office. And it plans to renominate that man even though Article 3 of the 14th Amendment denies him the right to hold office again.
Donald J. Trump is already promising to use dictatorial powers as the next chief executive to achieve retribution against those who are attempting to hold him accountable for his 91 alleged felonies. Meanwhile, he spouts Nazi slurs against immigrants (“poisoning the blood in the U.S.”) and his perceived enemies (“vermin”) to dehumanize them. He never advocates efficient governance and administration of the people’s business or even consider them desirable – only to use them for his personal ends. In this series of essays, I am attempting to explain how a once-respected party has descended to the level of a fascistic personality cult.
Newt Gingrich, minority whip of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives (1989-1995), became a major leader of the New Right who opposed compromise with the other party and escalated the anti-government rhetoric espoused by Ronald Reagan. Gingrich and the New Right were obsessed with opposing any tax increases on the wealthy. All of this, of course, defines most of the party members today and helps make the current political polarization and the increasing rarity of bipartisan legislation more understandable.
A case in point: George H.W. Bush at the Republican nominating convention in 1988 promised “Read my lips, no new taxes.” However, in negotiations with leaders of the Democratic majorities in both houses and leaders of the Republican minorities, he agreed to tax increases in a deficit reduction plan within the annual national budget to fund the government. While Bush got most of what he wanted and many Democrats didn’t like many aspects of the bill, it was Gingrich’s opposition to the tax increases that led the House to reject the bill. (He was able to get enough Democratic help for different reasons.)
(Grover Norquist, supposedly at the request of Ronald Reagan, founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985. Its goal was to reduce government revenues as a percentage of the GDP. Ostensibly, it “opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle.” However, its anonymous contributors appear to be mostly wealthy individuals, right-wing foundations, and corporations. Steve Kroft of CBS’s 60 Minutes on November 20, 2011, claimed that Norquist, more than anyone else, has been responsible, “for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party.” Gingrich was a natural product of Norquist’s anti-tax ideology.)
Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep funding the government, but Bush vetoed it, causing the Government Shutdown of 1990. It lasted for only three days (Saturday Oct. 6 through Monday Oct. 8). The reason it was so short was that the public mistakenly blamed Congress for the shutdown, so Congress scrambled to reach another compromise. The final product was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. In return for allowing cuts to the capital gains tax rates that mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans, the Democrats were able to prevent many cuts to Medicare that the Republicans wanted.
However, Democrats did achieve an increase in the top income tax rate. Gingrich wasn’t happy about most of this, except that the government was up and running again. Gingrich was still aware at that time that funding the government was one of the House’s primary reasons for existence. Nevertheless, cutting taxes for the rich was the ideal because it would increase the deficit and thereby increase the national debt, giving Republicans the false claim that the richest nation in the world could not afford programs such as universal health care and improved infrastructure.
The 1990 compromise bill passed in spite of only 47 of 176 House Republicans voting for it. As minority whip, Gingrich was supposed to “whip” his delegation into line in support of what the leadership had negotiated – and he was part of the minority leadership. However, he seemed to influence 129 to oppose. This was embarrassing to Robert Michel (R-IL), the House minority leader (1981-1995) who was known for bipartisanship and being friends with many Democrats. Gingrich and the New Right were about to change all that. And defunding the national budget and debt, opposing any new taxes without equal cuts to vital programs, and threatening government shutdowns were going to be increasingly common issues.
Michel was under attack from the New Right as being too nice and willing to work with Democrats, so he decided not to seek reelection in 1994 and retire (without ever becoming a majority leader). Michel represented the last of the “Old School” GOP who considered collegiality, collaboration, civility, and courtesy to be political virtues. In the Elections of 1994, Gingrich “Khan” led the Republicans to their first House majority in 40 years. When Gingrich took the speaker’s gavel, the days of considering the other party as being a loyal opposition came to a resounding end.
Democrats are the enemy, traitors, socialists, irrelevant. Don’t fraternize with the enemy. Don’t get to know them. Don’t try to understand their constituents. Ignorance is bliss. There’s only one side to any issue. Don’t take your family to the home of an enemy and his family for dinner on the weekend – and don’t invite them to dinner at your house either. Refrain from those late-night poker games with the enemy. To hell with democracy; compromise be damned. It’s been that way for thirty years and getting worse.
To be continued
High Noon 
Leave a comment