The Republican Party no longer is a viable path for any candidate who wants to serve their community or their country.
Its cancerous demise began 52 years ago when it adopted its “Southern Strategy,” which was the use of fear- and anger-inspiring messages, both overt and covert, to motivate white, Asian and Latino voters to vote GOP. Early successes in 1970 encouraged more intensive use of more refined messaging (e.g., “dog whistles” addressing gun ownership, abortion, taxes, social support programs, public education, sexual mores), and as its base increased in both size and anger, the party continued to evermore increase the fear and anger among American whites.
While Vermont with its almost lily-white population had no need for this sort of campaign tactic, the party of Ralph Flanders (who was the first senator to challenge McCarthy) and George Aiken (“Why don’t we just declare victory [in Viet Nam] and go home?”) slowly but completely adopted the rhetoric, largely because its major donors had enough spare money to see their personal prejudices promulgated by a new breed of candidates willing to say anything for money in any state.
The rhetoric brought in more money, and the financial incentive spurred rhetoric even more incendiary from evermore-unbalanced party members.
The culmination of the process occurred with the election of Deb Billado as state party chair, a woman given to such pronouncements as a ’”hate-crazed” mob of “deranged” liberals in mourning over “crooked” Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election. She has since been replaced, and the dog whistles are now somewhat more muted but nevertheless, anyone running as a Republican will find themselves irreversibly shackled to a dead weight.
The problem is, no matter how intelligent, service-oriented, upright and forthright they are, they will not be able to make the party see things clearly; it has gone over the cliff riding the backs of the base it created, a mob who adore a catastrophically ignorant and corrupt leader.
The GOP is forced to spend its money on candidates the mob wants, to compel its winners not to govern but to obstruct while in office and to curb their desire for service to the country, trimming their sails for a party that has fallen into the abyss.
Despite their underlying conviction they can do good, there awaits for these hopeful Republicans no “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” no climatic moment when evil collapses and they triumph. Instead, they will be told, “If we do what you want, you won’t get re-elected,” and they will obey. They have no choice.
The old guard of Vermont Republicans might realize this but sadly, there is no way they can recover the party they knew, loved and served so well.
Chuck Gregory lives in Springfield, Vt.
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