Correspondence: Open Letter to the Republican Party

Dear party members,

I am an independent voter who nearly always votes Democrat because your party has offered me little to no reason to vote Republican, and the Democrats have usually run a less evil candidate. Less obviously evil, at any rate. I don’t particularly like having to vote for one party just because the other fails so badly, so I’m going to offer you some advice, in hopes that one day your party may actually live up to the moniker Grand Old Party.

1) Quit treating me like an idiot. I and most people I know have at least some capacity for reason and clarity of thought, and your appeals to baser instincts like fear will get you nowhere with me—unless you want me to vote out of fear that the other candidates are less intelligent or ethical, and even then you must prove to me that your candidate has more to offer in that regard. It just so happens I’ve been exposed to many criminals, cheats, and cons over the years, and it seems every Republican candidate reminds me of them, with their fake smiles, disdainful eyes, contemptuous opinions and half-assed attempts at playing dumb when confronted. Voters are not sheep, and you are definitely not shepherds.

2) Stop talking about less government, or cutting taxes. The government did not shrink at any point under President Reagan or either of the Bushes, and certainly never did while Republicans had control of Congress. No one I know wants more or less government, we just want a government that works. I happen to know many wonderful, self-sacrificing people who work for the government and are hamstrung by sloppy legislation and uninterested political appointees at the top of the hierarchy. Start talking about what it will take to make things work the way they were intended. Reward competence over ideology or party loyalty.

3) Start thinking long-term instead of short-term. Like so many CEOs and board members these days, the Republican party does not seem to think about far-reaching effects of today’s decisions. What good is showing a profit this quarter if the company will be bankrupt in the next? The government, like businesses, must be set up with care to ensure long-term viability. I can think of no more egregious example than of Ronald Reagan tearing down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had so thoughtfully installed in the White House. Fossil fuels will not last forever, and we need the White House to take the lead in having alternatives ready. Think of all the money that could be made in the process! And think of how crippled our country will be if we are not ready to move on to something new. For that matter, think of how weak we are now, having to depend on other countries for our energy. (And we call ourselves a superpower!) It would be easier to not need so much oil than to bully the rest of the world into giving it to us for “cheap.”

4) Stop telling me how to live my life. For a party supposedly all for less government interference, you folks sure have a proclivity for telling me what to do. I’m quite happy without God in my life, thank you, and even if I was a believer, I wouldn’t want you forcing him down my throat. (You believers never could agree on which church or God was the “right” one, anyway!) The founders of our country were fleeing the rule of royalty who claimed to be ordained by God. Thus the calls for liberty and separation of church and state. Supposedly you’re the party of history and tradition, so get off your collective butt and read some books and appreciate what we’ve had for so long before you throw it all out the window to get a few cheap votes.

5) Quit blaming Democrats for everything. Seriously, you’re like two little twin brats who keep picking fights and pointing fingers instead of looking out for each other. The sooner you two start getting along, the sooner our country will be out of the crapper. There’s no need to propose outrageous bills in order to force “no” votes on campaign issues, because nobody believes those moronic ads you run anyway. Quit posturing and get to work already, or we’ll come up there and kick both your little butts! We don’t care who started it!

6) Don’t mistake a win against a lousy candidate as a vote of confidence for cheap tactics. Too often Republican candidates have won because of Democrats’ wishy-washy campaigns. They don’t want to be as sleazy and cheap as their Republican counterparts, yet they’re not willing to put the effort into taking the high road, either. They come off as a “lite” Republican and subsequently lose the election. But a competent, well-spoken and intelligent candidate will win over an angry windbag in any race, and the sooner you learn from President Obama’s election, the better. The Democrats stepped up their game, and McCain sat back and expected an automatic knee-jerk response from so-called conservative voters, failing to realize those voters are actually the minority. Most voters aspire for better things, and the Democrats finally offered that. You had better find within your party some good debaters, and I don’t mean the smug ones who rely on cheap tricks.

Many so-called conservatives are now calling for your party to position itself even further off the deep end, demonstrating yet another tragic flaw of reasoning. The populace didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he was more conservative than John McCain. They voted for him because he instilled the most confidence, and it certainly did not hurt that he was very, very different from the worst “President” ever, George W. Bush. If you want my vote, your candidates will have to start doing their homework and stop being such obvious hypocrites. And it wouldn’t hurt if you stopped handing out illiterate, paranoid, racist propaganda at your meetings. There’s good reason for the Ku Klux Klan being moribund; keep it up and your party may meet the same fate. As much as I may detest what your party has been up to in recent decades, I really hate to think what kind of trouble we will get into if the Democrats don’t have someone to keep them honest. The only thing worse than a two-party system is a one-party system.

Good luck,
Andrew Lee Hunn