The End of the Republican Party

New Struggles - After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave - a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. - And we - we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science 108

Could the irony be any more striking? With the swearing in of Barack Obama on the bible of Abraham Lincoln, the age of the Republican party has all but come to an end. As the last foolish utterances ring out in the radio station studios, and those wise enough among the members move to join the blue dogs and centrists or welcome the new president into their states, I can see the future of the Grand Old Party and it is grim. It will be said that bitterness and self interest in the end did them in. Their frantic babble screeching over the airwaves, demanding that their sophistry be heard as truth. Ah how satisfying it is to finally see the people of America awakened by the double dealing and dirty deeds of their Republican masters. Finally aware of having been lied to and misled they seem to have awakened from some ill gotten unconsciousness.

Could this in fact be the final days of the Republican party? Their extensive free market habitat has been decimated by mismanagement and human nature. The range that once supported herds of unbridled capitalists is now populated with advocates of sensible trade policy and even a few rare specimens willing to nationalize banks. Yes, I think it will not be long before the now ancient belief in a ‘center right’ America is seen to be false, and the country is understood to be ‘center left’ as it is. Thus the fraud that has enabled the persistence of the radical ideology of Republicanism, wrapped in the guise of conservativeness, will lose its enabling mythology and drift into oblivion.

There can be no question about the associations between right wing media and rabid capitalism and exaggerated fear of foreign enemies and the amplified uncertainties of society. What was it after all that provided the Republicans with one final age of significance but foreign revolutionaries driven by religious zealotry and urban unrest in America fueled by incongruities among the people based on race and means? What was provided the capitalists if not an opportunity to exercise rampant greed and self interest? The American people, concerned for their safety fixed their eyes on uncertain enemies and entrusted the country to the Republicans. In the intervening years of corruption and unscrupulous governance, American wealth and influence has been drawn into the pockets of the sleek suited millionaires of Wall street assisted by the dimwitted nationalists of the airwaves. Their age of influence is now drawing to an undignified close.

What then is it that finally vanquished this enemy of rationalism? This counter to progress? This impostor who feigns piety and scruples in order to win the praise and loyalty of the naive devotees of the ancient religions? This murderous and despicable assemblage of compassionless and hard-hearted self interested villains of the modern age? I will answer this uncomplicated question with the most complex answer imaginable. Hope. What lies beneath this hope and elevates it to the status of dragon slayer? Courage. What bolsters this courage and enables its steadfastness? Rationalism. What fuels this rationalism and builds it into a sound and unfailing footing? Transparency. What capacitates this transparency and imparts its almost magical power to build hope upon courage and courage upon rationalism? Truth.

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners, and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science 125