Post-Election Thoughts on The Failure of The Republican Party and The Tea Party: Part 1 Religious and Political Extremism

If you want to talk about the failure of The Republican Party -- and one of its main derivatives -- i.e., The Tea Party -- a good place to start is this question here: Should politics and religion be connected at all? 

If we were to canvas all the different opinions and beliefs of the American people relative to their religious and/or non-religious viewpoints, we would undoubtedly get a very wide spectrum  of viewpoints indeed.  

So when a politician comes out and espouses one particular religious viewpoint, he or she is probably going to get 'the agreement' a particular 'subset' of 'believers'; and probably, at the same time, get an equally, or much larger, subset of 'non-believers'.  The more radical the politician's religious viewpoint is, the more likely he or she is to alienate a high degree of potential supporters -- and civilian voters. I would not suggest that any politician use the words 'God' and 'rape' in the same sentence. That is likely going to be morally repulsive for most people to listen to -- not to mention political suicide. 

My belief is that, from a pragmatic political perspective, it is probably best keeping the subject of religion out of politics altogether. However, herein lies the Catch-22 for The Republican and The Tea Party: they are built on a strongly religious base that, when taken too far, can alienate The Republican and The Tea Party from a huge chunk of potential American voters who might otherwise like many of The Republican/Tea Party's political ideas. Like bringing down the deficit. And balancing the budget.

The Tea Party could have been a huge success if its philosophical and political principles had been fused together by the right group of modern day political philosophers who were significantly basing their ideas upon the ideas of The American Constitution (which was put together by another group of very smart American and European political philosophers).    

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The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected--directly by the people or by the state legislators. The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise. constitution The article "A More Perfect Union" is an in-depth look at the Constitutional Convention and the ratification process. "Questions and Answers Pertaining to the Constitution" presents dozens of fascinating facts about the Constitution. constitution Page two of the U.S. Constitution was unveiled in its new encasement on September 15, 2000. Read remarks issued at the ceremony by John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States, and Dr. Michael Beschloss. Constitution ..............................................................................................................................................................

Unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, The Republican-Tea Party never successfully put a full -- and highly reasonable -- political platform together, branded and marketed it, but instead, eventually became negatively stereotyped and branded as a party of religious extremists and Republican hard-liners. Down goes The Tea Party. And with it -- The Republican Party too. Religious extremism and hard-line Republicanism will never win an American election any time soon. The American people have already experienced the effects of that type of Republicanism at least once in recent memory -- Bush's Regime -- and will probably not be in a hurry to vote into office any brand of Republicanism that smacks or smells of 'Bushism'. 

More flexible, intelligent, moderate, creative, democratic Republican voices need to be more loudly heard. The hard-line Republicans will continue to lead the Republican Party to their collective demise -- like lemmings over a cliff -- until they are basically silenced and no longer seen to reflect or represent the interests and principles of The more 'centralist and moderate' Republican Party as a whole, both in the eyes of the American people, and before that, in the eyes of The Republican Party. Extremism rarely takes you to anywhere other than your own self-destruction. In fact, this is a Hegelian principle. Paraphrasing Hegel....Every idea, theory, principle, characteristic, platform...carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction. And this self-destruction usually arrives at 'the extremist fringes of the original idea'....

My theory of quasi-mythological-deist-spiritualism includes at its core....the idea of...

'Dialectic Divinities'....

When dialectic opposite parties engage each other in creative, synergetic, respectful, humanistic-existential, debate....the outcome can be a 'dialectical divinity'...

Like 'yin' and 'yang' in harmonious balance with each other....

Apollonianism and Dionysianism in harmonious balance with each other...

Like men and women in harmonious balance with each other...

Like Republicans and Democrats in harmonious balance with each other....

Like The United States of America...

United....and not divided....


-- dgb, Nov. 9th, 2012, 

-- David Gordon Bain, 

Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

Are Still in Process...