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Publicado: 25 de noviembre de 2012
Lincoln’s Progressive Instincts and
The 21st Century Republican Party
John C. Lungren Jr.
It is President Lincoln’s 200th birthday as I write this critique looking at the progressive founder President and the future of his Republican Party, now an endangered social and political species.
The election of Barack Obama as 44th President of theUnited States challenges the Republican Party to change and transform itself into a viable and vibrant prism of empathy, openness, and emancipation. Empty of new leaders, new ideas, and new constituents, the Republican Party is dangerously close to being consigned to oblivion at the margins of political and social reform and renewal.
Witness the recent behavior of Senate and HouseRepublicans in attempting to thwart President Obama’s recovery plan. Only three Republican senators voted for the “stimulus” legislation; not one member of the
House of Representives voted for it. With the exception of Senator John McCain, Republicans offered no serious alternatives. It was an exercise in negation and futility.
President Obama’s recovery or “spending”legislation was not without the possibility of repair. Yet strong political leadership by Republicans was nonexistent. Searching for
it was like shifting smoke with a pitchfork.
Where is the Party’s conscience? Where in the financial ethos are ethics and justice? Where is the political acumen of the Contract with America? Why are not our northern and southern borderssecure? Why cannot the Party reform the bureaucracies of healthcare for universal coverage? Why is secondary and elementary education mirroring “a nation at risk” rather than “no child left behind”? Why is the American infrastructure in such decline and disrepair? Why is our diplomacy so negated in the world?
Where are the young people ready to replenish the base. Where are the AfricanAmericans, Latinos, Muslims whose rich heritage provides the energy and perspective of minorities?
Where are the prophets of change? Where are the consummate arbiters and actors of consensus? Where are the La Folettes, Vandenbergs, Danforths, Hydes, Dirksens, Goldwaters and Bakers?
These questions are neither rhetorical nor academic. They are the kind of hard-nosed and pragmatic questions theRepublican Party must ask itself if it is to be credible and viable in a political milieu yearning for visionary politics.
The Grand Old Party is something less than “grand” but more than “old” -- more like sclerotic. The G.O.P has
effaced and forgotten its true heritage in the great exemplar of emancipation and perfected liberty, Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party.Historian Harry Jaffe assesses Lincoln’s importance :
“Abraham Lincoln was self-educated, his curriculum included Shakespeare, the Bible, Euclid and the Declaration of Independence-the monument to freedom of the soul, the possession not of Western man, but of a humanity comprised of all color and every condition.
In Independence Hall on Feb.22, 1861, Lincoln asked what it was, above all else,that went forth to the world in July 4, 1776. It was not, he said, the mere matter of the reparation of the colonies from the motherland; but something in that Declaration giving hope to the world for all future time.
The Declaration gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all would have an equal chance. These are the principles fromwhich the Republican Party must stand.”
America is a search for somewhere, a geography of refuge, harbor and communion. America is a quest for sovereign hearth and haven. The American narrative is the pursuit of familial harmony and living space for heart, mind and spirit.
Even after the Puritans arrived on the shores of America, built settlements and places of worship in the...
The 21st Century Republican Party
John C. Lungren Jr.
It is President Lincoln’s 200th birthday as I write this critique looking at the progressive founder President and the future of his Republican Party, now an endangered social and political species.
The election of Barack Obama as 44th President of theUnited States challenges the Republican Party to change and transform itself into a viable and vibrant prism of empathy, openness, and emancipation. Empty of new leaders, new ideas, and new constituents, the Republican Party is dangerously close to being consigned to oblivion at the margins of political and social reform and renewal.
Witness the recent behavior of Senate and HouseRepublicans in attempting to thwart President Obama’s recovery plan. Only three Republican senators voted for the “stimulus” legislation; not one member of the
House of Representives voted for it. With the exception of Senator John McCain, Republicans offered no serious alternatives. It was an exercise in negation and futility.
President Obama’s recovery or “spending”legislation was not without the possibility of repair. Yet strong political leadership by Republicans was nonexistent. Searching for
it was like shifting smoke with a pitchfork.
Where is the Party’s conscience? Where in the financial ethos are ethics and justice? Where is the political acumen of the Contract with America? Why are not our northern and southern borderssecure? Why cannot the Party reform the bureaucracies of healthcare for universal coverage? Why is secondary and elementary education mirroring “a nation at risk” rather than “no child left behind”? Why is the American infrastructure in such decline and disrepair? Why is our diplomacy so negated in the world?
Where are the young people ready to replenish the base. Where are the AfricanAmericans, Latinos, Muslims whose rich heritage provides the energy and perspective of minorities?
Where are the prophets of change? Where are the consummate arbiters and actors of consensus? Where are the La Folettes, Vandenbergs, Danforths, Hydes, Dirksens, Goldwaters and Bakers?
These questions are neither rhetorical nor academic. They are the kind of hard-nosed and pragmatic questions theRepublican Party must ask itself if it is to be credible and viable in a political milieu yearning for visionary politics.
The Grand Old Party is something less than “grand” but more than “old” -- more like sclerotic. The G.O.P has
effaced and forgotten its true heritage in the great exemplar of emancipation and perfected liberty, Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party.Historian Harry Jaffe assesses Lincoln’s importance :
“Abraham Lincoln was self-educated, his curriculum included Shakespeare, the Bible, Euclid and the Declaration of Independence-the monument to freedom of the soul, the possession not of Western man, but of a humanity comprised of all color and every condition.
In Independence Hall on Feb.22, 1861, Lincoln asked what it was, above all else,that went forth to the world in July 4, 1776. It was not, he said, the mere matter of the reparation of the colonies from the motherland; but something in that Declaration giving hope to the world for all future time.
The Declaration gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all would have an equal chance. These are the principles fromwhich the Republican Party must stand.”
America is a search for somewhere, a geography of refuge, harbor and communion. America is a quest for sovereign hearth and haven. The American narrative is the pursuit of familial harmony and living space for heart, mind and spirit.
Even after the Puritans arrived on the shores of America, built settlements and places of worship in the...
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