Republicans should reflect on their own name change to suit their identity

May 22, 1:09 PMLiberal ExaminerRaymond Gellner

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     Republicans on Wednesday decided not to rename the Democratic Party the Democratic Socialist Party. They of course do not realize the absurdity of the notion that it is within their power to do so. Neither do they realize that by casting the Democrats as socialist, they show just how extremely out of touch with middle-America and liberal-America that they are. Nor do they realize that their efforts to re-label everything they do not like in an unpopular manner say more about them than it does their opponents.

     In their minds they believe they are the sole protectors of what is right and good and proper in America and that any other view has no validity or value and should be cast off as “un-American.” By doing this, however, the GOP is forcing the party in a corner where only a small percentage of Americans reside and it is cutting off any chance at connecting with mainstream citizens. This will in turn cause the party to wither.

     Of course the idea of re-branding to fit their agenda is not a new concept for the Republican Party. Recently they have started using the word “takeover” to describe the proposal by Liberals, Democrats, and Independents to develop a government sponsored health care plan. Granted, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of “wordsmithing” to create positive or negative emotion around a platform respectively, but Republicans have transformed this into an art form.

     Although the GOP continually claims that there is complete unity within its party, there was a huge division on this name change resolution. One half of the party strongly backed this proposal and the other half realized the ridiculousness of the whole affair.

     It becomes very clear that this growing trend represents a seriously deep divide within the Republican Party itself. On one hand, there is the ultra-right wing faction that wishes to have a sweeping conservative agenda covering all aspects of life. While this group does not believe in legislating regulations on business, it most assuredly believes in the legislating of its particular morality, including the intrusion of government into the daily lives of citizens. Then there is the more traditional right wing faction which believes in a laissez-faire approach to all aspects of government including non-intervention, for the most part, in personal life issues. While these two camps have existed more or less peacefully within the GOP since the late seventies, they have been openly battling one another within the media since the election of 2008, most recently in the ideological sparring between Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin. Neither of these two factions, however, has yet to gain the dominance over the other.

     Until such a time as one side becomes dominant, the GOP will not be leaders in the political world, and the most they can hope to accomplish for their platform is to block the platform of the opposition. This is precisely what they have been doing in the United States Congress, which in turn has only served to cripple our nation. If this is the GOP’s best attempted at being constructive in helping our country regain its strength, then it needs to immediately re-evaluate its role in Washington as well as the meaning of the “G” in GOP; for now and for the foreseeable future, both are greatly diminished.