Oh! How the Mighty has fallen!

The Republican Party appears to be in a moral free fall: a high velocity plummet from its Christian values, its moral beliefs, and its democratic principles. It’s like a falling star descending down to Hell on a crash course. And it saddens me and worries me, because I always regarded this party of Lincoln to be the moral conscious of the United States. I think most Americans, including the ones who disagree with republicans on many issues, felt that this was the party that stressed the importance of faith, and emphasized the importance of having God in our lives. This was the party that preached the principles of our democracy, and the principles by which a Christian nation must live. It taught us that character education about honesty, respect, responsibility, integrity, fairness, tolerance, trust, etc. should be taught in schools, because, in many ways, they are more important than science, math, reading, language arts, and social studies. I don’t think that I would be overstating the case if I say that the core beliefs, values, and principles of the Republican Party once made it the Blue Collar Party or the Party of the Middle Class. Most working men and women felt that the Republican Party leadership truly understood their dreams and aspirations. The high point of this close relationship between the Republican Party and the Middle Class occurred between 1968 – 1974, when Richard Nixon successfully argued that the country, aided by liberal Supreme Court decisions, (like Roe v. Wade and Miranda v. Arizona), was moving to far to the left; and pot-smoking, sexually permissive, long hair liberals were assaulting traditional Christian and American moral values with their non-traditional behavior and their rock and roll music. Nixon suggested that he was going to be the voice of the middle class or “the silent majority,” whose traditional Christian and American beliefs were under assault.

This plan worked so well for Richard Nixon that it got him elected to two terms. And his “silent majority,” which later encompassed more religious organizations (the Christian Coalitions) became the moral center of the Republican Party and our nation until the end of the Reagan years (1981 – 1989).

During the years of George Bush Sr. (1989 – 1993) a new type of republican leadership emerged. This new leadership no longer spoke for the “silent, middle class majority,” but instead it decided to speak for the “loud and very rich minority.” In so doing, it has separated itself from its traditional Christian and American moral values, and it has made the big loser, not only the Republican Party, but the entire nation!