a party underwater

As the Republican party finally sinks into that vast ocean of ill-will it has generated over the past 8 years, it’s worth remembering that the elections of 2008 were simply the latest battle in a broader political and cultural war with historical roots reaching back many decades.

While the modern Republican party is apparently looking for a way to escape the toxicity they so adroitly and perhaps permanently attached to their brand, voters would be wise to remember the precedents in Republican governance that led us to this point and be cautious of any re-invention that does not specifically address the historical positions of the party with regards to these particular events:

McCarthyism and the Red Scare, Watergate and Nixon’s use and understanding of executive power, the Vietnam-era anti-war movement, the civil rights movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1964, the Church Committee and intelligence operations conducted by the government upon its own people, the Iran Contra affair and Reagan’s use and understanding of executive power; and George W. Bush’s use and understanding of executive power and the so-called “Bush doctrine” in consideration of the “Downing Street Memos,” the pre-emptive war doctrine, international law and the Geneva conventions, extraordinary rendition, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless illegal spying, FISA and the granting of retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who knowingly violated the law.

Surveillance vs Democracy

“Watergate and a lot of things around Watergate and Vietnam… served, I think, to erode the authority … the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area” – Vice President and Former Nixon Staffer Dick Cheney

Imagine White House operatives were caught wiretapping Democratic National Committee headquarters during the coming Presidential election season. That according to the head of the DNC, those listening in had overheard the conversations of what the Chairman speculated to be “perhaps every prominent Democrat in America.” Imagine senior White House staff with the help of current and former U.S. intelligence agency personnel conducted illegal break-ins, wiretapping, and espionage against ordinary citizens, journalists, Democratic Party candidates, and even members of its own administration for the purposes of political dominance and electoral victory. Now imagine the President justified it all and sought to conceal its existence with a claim of national security and executive privilege.

It was called Watergate, and it may be more relevant today than it has been at any time since Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace more than 30 years ago.