{"id":2150,"date":"2014-08-19T13:09:28","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T18:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=2150"},"modified":"2014-08-19T13:18:20","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T18:18:20","slug":"ej-dionne-on-the-character-of-todays-republican-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/ej-dionne-on-the-character-of-todays-republican-party\/","title":{"rendered":"EJ Dionne on the Character of Today’s Republican Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m catching up on EJ Dionne’s recent columns<\/a> – a task that’s always worth whatever time it takes. \u00a0If you’ve ever read any of his books<\/a> or heard him on the radio<\/a>\u00a0or seen him on TV<\/a>, you know how level-headed and even-handed he is. \u00a0So it’s striking to me that so many of these recent columns are openly exasperated with today’s GOP and its\u00a0refusal to engage constructively with the challenges facing our country.<\/p>\n

\"tea-party-crazy\"<\/a>

Today’s GOP. Nuts Enough yet?<\/p><\/div>\n

Take a quick look at Plain Vanilla Bipartisanship<\/a>, The Republicans’ Lust for Impeachment<\/a>, Paul Ryan’s Stale Ideas on Poverty<\/a> and A Conservative Judiciary Run Amok<\/a>, all from\u00a0the last month, and then ask yourself why this country needs a Republican Party at all if this is all\u00a0they have to offer.<\/p>\n

This fall the Illinois GOP has given us a ballot\u00a0full\u00a0of candidates who will push the GOP even further to the right. \u00a0Jim Oberweis and Darlene Senger and Bruce Rauner and the rest are Tea Party darlings who illustrate perfectly the\u00a0observation (quoted in another recent Dionne piece, Can the Voters Change the GOP?<\/a>) that the Republican Party has been “‘hijacked’ by a ‘radical right wing’\u00a0that is not simply ‘anti-government’ but also ‘anti-governance.'”<\/p>\n

The thing to remember is that, however fringe they may get, they can still win if we don’t do our job. \u00a0If the only voters who come out in November are the angry, myopic GOP base, then their candidates win and they\u00a0get to deepen\u00a0the incoherent, cruel\u00a0mess\u00a0EJ Dionne is describing.<\/p>\n

The antidote is straightforward: Vote! \u00a0and Vote Democratic!<\/p>\n