![]() ![]() Every four years at their convention, Republicans adopt a new party platform - but not this time. The Republican Party held a truncated convention in Charlotte last month because of coronavirus restrictions on gatherings and concern for the safety of convention attendees. ![]() Far more difficult is answering the question of what, quite specifically, has filled it.” Identifying this intellectual vacuum is easy enough. Writing in Politico Magazine, chief political correspondent Tim Alberta hit the nail on the head: “The supposed canons of GOP orthodoxy - limited government, free enterprise, institutional conservation, moral rectitude, fiscal restraint, global leadership - have in recent years gone from elastic to expendable. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.Since this is a presidential election year, and the Republican Party wants Americans’ votes, it is fitting to ask the question: What do Republicans stand for? is a Miami Herald columnist. ©2022 Miami Herald. How much of this can a democracy absorb and continue to function? We careen toward a moment of truth.Īnd America better have a red line of its own. Hence, Trump.Īnd hence, existential threat. To the contrary, the GOP has pioneered a dangerous conceit: that high office, once held to be the proper province of the serious, the learned and the prepared, has now been democratized till it can be fulfilled by any unremarkable twit with the gumption to seek it and the ability to convince the average Joe or Jane that ignorance, immaturity, hostility toward liberal values and lack of impulse control constitute authenticity. He is hardly the only loose cannon in their arsenal. ![]() In ridding itself of Cawthorn, however, that party provides itself, at best, temporary relief. The Republican Party stands for the Republican Party. That this turned out to be the red line tells us all we need to know about GOP values. But apparently, it threatened the brand, so something had to be done. After all, no one will die because of Cawthorn’s accusation. Not to minimize how stupid it was for Cawthorn to make such an incendiary claim with zero evidence to back it up, but it says something about GOP priorities that this is what it took to get them to make a stand, as opposed to, you know, issues with actual impact on people’s lives. ?’” Even at that, Tuesday’s rejection by voters was narrow he lost by just 1,300 votes out of 88,000 cast. It was when one member of the House Freedom Caucus told Politico anonymously about reactions “across the political spectrum. That, said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, was when Cawthorn “lost my trust.” It was also when Thom Tillis, a senator from his state, endorsed his primary challenger. Not so a March podcast wherein he inexplicably claimed to have been invited to cocaine-fueled orgies by his colleagues. His controversies ranged from kink to outright sedition, touching several bases in between, yet none of it raised more than mild intraparty reproof. Consider Cawthorn’s catalog of impolitic behavior: He twice brought loaded guns to the airport he was shown on one video thrusting his naked genitals in another man’s face and on another partying in lingerie he was accused of sexual harassment he issued an apparent call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. ![]()
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