State Republicans Acting like Nazis
by LEO E. LAURENCE, J.D.
Copyright © 2009 by Leo E. Laurence • All rights reserved
As a lifelong Republican, I see the state party organization using the tactics of the Nazis. And, we know what happened to the Nazis.
The official party organization in Sacramento has become an organization of rude anger. It loves to hate.
It loves anger!
Give some radical Republicans something to get angry about, to complaint about, and they are thrilled.
But it wasn’t always this way.
In 1967, Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, signed into law the most liberal abortion bill in the country to that point. Also, at the end of his career Barry Goldwater had endorsed including Gays in the Civil Rights Act (which he’d voted against in the first place) and lifting the ban on Gays in the military.
Indiana
When I was State House Reporter for the very Republican WIBC Radio News in Indianapolis (owned by the nephew of the publisher of the Indianapolis Star, a stalwart of Republicanism in Indiana); I saw the very active Indiana Republican Party organization as one favoring smaller government and business interests. It was also decidedly media-friendly.
Abortion was not a big issue to the party. While the religious Right was strong, the party had more important issues (like launching a new state sales tax).
Indiana had a smart Democratic governor and a young Republican banker as lieutenant gov-ernor.
And they often worked together.
Both parties were proud, but the dogmatic partisanship we see today from City Hall to Congress didn’t exist.
“Republicans” (purposefully put in limiting quotes) today love to get angry — about abortion, a new City Hall, Gay rights, or something.
The state Republican Party organization has lost the love of the red-white-and-blue, except when they can wrap their obese bodies in it to appear patriotic.
Characteristically, they are still loyal to business interests and the rich.
They are still loyal to the racists.
They are still loyal to Amerikkkans.
Nazis
Really good public relations people provide the news media with facts, hard facts, but no B.S. about their important issues. However, the PR staff of the official state Republican Party head-quarters in Sacramento is regularly cranking out smelly garbage in the guise of “press releases.”
For example, while fully knowing the statement to be false, the Sacramento office issued a long press release calling Obama’s health plan “socialized medicine,” blasting it out in an e-mail to the mainstream media statewide.
When you forced to lie openly to promote your positions, then you’re in serious trouble.
It appears that the state Republican organization — and the national Republican party, which is issuing similar propaganda — is thinking much like the Nazis in Germany: repeat a lie over and over and people will begin to believe it.
It’s good marketing. Drug companies do it every day.
Some say it’s only a radical fringe of the party. Yes, it is the irrational, angry element in the party that is capturing the media’s attention.
But, the tens of thousands who marched in Washington, D.C. on September 12, opposing health reform and the rest of Obama’s agenda, were not the “fringe elements.” They were organized by the radical Republicans, but those masses were ordinary people.
It strangely showed how effective some of the methods used by the Nazis (repeating a lie until it becomes truth) are unfortunately working for the Republican Party.
However, we all know what happened to the Nazis.
