The Party is Over: Longtime GOPer Dissects Modern Political Landscape
Robyn Blumner

In 1939, George Orwell wrote, "We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

Enter Mike Lofgren, today's intelligent man who is fulfilling that duty. His book The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted, is an engrossing autopsy of current political reality -- where one party looks like a freak show and the other barely registers a pulse.

What makes Lofgren unique is his vantage point. He was a once proud Republican who worked in Congress for 28 years analyzing legislation for the House and Senate budget committees. At various times, he worked for Republicans Rep. John Kasich of Ohio and Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. But like many Republicans -- Charlie Crist of Florida, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (who has since changed parties) and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, to name a few -- Lofgren stood still while his party made a sharp turn to the right, leaving him and sanity behind.

Lofgren's story is not one of newfound love for Democrats. To the contrary, he finds both parties culpable for souring the American Dream.

The difference is that Lofgren faults Democrats for their omission as much as their commission. He says, while Democrats don't match the "zanies who infest the Republican Party," their problem is that "most do not appear to believe in anything very strongly."

Democrats are no longer a viable opposition party countering the Republicans, who now work exclusively for the benefit of the rich, according to Lofgren. Their willingness to compete with Republicans for deep-pocket fundraising has transformed Democrats from FDR progressives to pip-squeak moderates who cleave to a "center" that keeps moving further to the right. Lofgren calls Democrats half a party.

As to the Republicans, Lofgren's book is a fog-horn warning, an open-mouthed scream that would even scare Edvard Munch. He says his party has been hijacked by opportunists and true believers who have transformed it from the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower, into one of "crackpots" like Eric Cantor, Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Allen West.

In Lofgren's experience, the new Republican Party wants to remake the country as "an upside-down utopia in which corporations rule; the Constitution, like science, is faith based; and war is the first, not the last, resort in foreign policy."

Lofgren blames the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism for the party's descent into right-wing radicalism, saying it provides a substrate of beliefs for the GOP's three main tenets: "wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war."

He says the party's fierce anti-intellectualism, ethical corner cutting and war mongering, resulted in a range of disastrous policy judgments over the Bush years, including the use of torture, an unprovoked war of aggression in Iraq, military contractor corruption, market deregulation and irresponsible tax cuts.

Behind it all are the country's plutocrats to whom Republican politicos are fully beholden. Lofgren couldn't be clearer that there is only one overriding issue on the GOP agenda: "protect our society's overclass at all costs." Even alleged support for deficit reduction is just "eyewash" to blind voters.

For proof, Lofgren points to Republican-sponsored tax plans, like that offered up by Mitt Romney, which would cut taxes on the rich while raising them on the middle class and do nothing to reduce the debt. He notes that the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, on which Lofgren assisted on an ad hoc basis, offered a plan with $4 trillion in deficit reductions. Yet all three House Republican members of the commission rejected it, including Paul Ryan, because it would have raised some net revenue.

After Lofgren's battery of the sad political turns our nation has taken, the last chapter is titled: "A Way Out?" Note the question mark. As much as anything, Lofgren is putting his hopes in the rising generation of adults. Because those around now -- to restate the obvious -- have really botched it.

 

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The Party is Over: Longtime GOPer Dissects Modern Political Landscape | Politics

 

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