US - The Grand Old Party Next Door - #2

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US - The Grand Old Party Next Door 

Hello, I’m The Epistolist, and this is a commentary based article also known as a rant, about attempting to re-realize and re-visualize this damned single issue / two party voting system we hold so high and dear; and how the term Republican has become one of America’s oldest, wash-your-mouth-out with Lava soap bad, bad f-words. You hear the word Republican, you hear the word bully.

Back in the day in the mid 1800’s, The Republican Party was created and composed by a group who ironically called themselves ‘Democrats’, the 'Free Soil Democrats’ to be exact, a short lived party that lived in the North, in New York, and along with the ‘Conscious Whigs’, all of whom were strongly opposed to slavery. The GOP, AKA, The Grand Old Party, AKA,  The Republican Party consisted of a large, majority of Protestant Christians, professionals, businessmen, business owners, long term farmers and farm owners, factory workers and black folks due to its anti-slavery, semi-pro-black status...You know, like how it is today, except for that ‘black folk’ part.

The ‘real’ Democrats greatly opposed The Republican, Grand Old Party. At the time Dems came across as anti-freedom fighters, ironically made up of worker bees, poverty level farmers, urban and Irish-American immigrant workers who wished to divide and separate themselves from the ‘cursed’ chocolate people riddled freedom GOP party. Much hasn’t changed in the Dem party either, except the Irish folks being replaced with Black folks and millions of free-er thinking, sometimes dreadlock baring, usually hand holding ‘Kumbaya’ yupster lefties and fellow progressives.

With America’s tremendous dips, trips and falls, AKA, the Great Depression, AKA the collapse of FDR’s New Deal Coalition, along with Southern Democrats opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the majority of backward thinking middle America, AKA the ‘Bible Belt’ lost control of their upper hand on ‘their’ Democratic Party. Which at the time was their party. This ‘reverse’, ‘Freaky Friday’ Democratic Party pursued the larger, more powerful GOP, The Republican par-tay for themselves. It was the more fruitful party, juicier, meatier, patty of a party, it was the one-party that tasted great, and was more fulfilling. The Dem party infiltrated the GOP by expanding through the South, under their new guise of white conservative Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. These conservatives, vanilla Jesus Freaks claimed the Grand Old Party for themselves and black folks and forward thinking liberals literally switched sides of the political boxing ring and became Dems. Repubs turned into Dems, Dems turned into Repubs. The tentacles of this insidious transitional switch-a-roo, this dramatic flip flop can be seen clearly from the ending of the Kennedy Administration into the Reagan Administration.

With all that being said, Repubs weren’t always the deplorable, crooked bad guys. Like every villain their origin story begins with them being birthed in the purity of American truth and freedom. I can almost hear a bald eagle calling for my country in the distance. "Cacaw!" Not! Nowadays when you hear the word Republican Party, a lot of us wish to run in the opposite direction. Two words that used to evoke a sense of pride and a better tomorrow, are now synonymous with some of the worst words. A term that describes racist, sexist, macho chauvinist pig dudes, pigmently and cultural challenged people, the savagely, selfish wealthy, narrow minded, ignorantly hard headed peon people, the ‘oh so wrong’ right, and those fat cats that wish to gobble up our beloved, bald tweety bird eagle. You hear Republican and you think white bully. Bully. Republicans are today’s bullies.

Now, I loathe generalizing, I know there are some gooood Republicans out there, and I salute you, with an eagle call, "Ca-caw," but as you know it takes only one rotten, poisoned apple to spoil the bunch. Those greedy, big butted, smiling, spoiled rotten, historicly poisoned apples, are to blame, the ones we should be shamefully, infinitely friggin’ wagging our sausage-esque middle fingers at, are the ones that have soiled this once ‘pretty okay’ party; Lil’ busters like Regan, Coolidge, Eisenhower, James Knox Polk, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Friggin’ FDR, Johnson, Jungle-fever-loving Thomas ‘T.J.’ Jefferson, Monroe, Andrew Jackson, The Bushes, W. Bush and Lil’ Bush, and more recently, WWE's Gianforte, and the full on bigoty cho-mo representing Alabama, Roy Moore, and who could forget our current racist, selfish President Trump, welcome to the club jerks. Anywho, that is a list of politicians that wish to go number two all over the little guy. If you are broke and not generationally wealthy, they poop on you, if you’re not of the same class, color or religion, they poop, poop on you. And if you add a sprinkle of LGBTQ-ness to the mix, you are straight up operating through their diarrhea.  

‘Children of Diaspora’ American-humans like me, are beaten down, by those red states, attempting to keep us out of the positive, and it is their wish to expel us back to a country that we were ripped from, that we no longer have souls, an identity or a zip code in. They wish to eradicate and go full metal jacket genocide on us, they wish to see our bodies in mass graves, alive, ‘Walking Dead’ in the ditches. That’s harsh, and of course, perhaps, untrue, but that’s certainly how it feels sometimes for us. Like they, are attempting to crush us. Yet our only crime is being black in America. Even those of us who have ‘made it', feel under fire, sometimes even more. Our success is seen as a target on our backs.

All of that being said, we could quite simply, put the arms of our political parties down and just treat each other as equals, as human beings, as brothers, sisters, each other's fathers and mothers, we could be each other's family, and evolve past the peaceful notions of our other, other forefathers like Buddha and Siddhartha and Mother Gaia, and maybe if we did that we could become the life-like characters from illustrations in a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet. Transform into a ‘United Colors of Benetton’ ad world of an ultimate melted crayon box, of peach-flesh and sienna multi-colored children, petting Lions and Unicorns and shit. And perhaps then we could all live in harmony. Ok, that is too far, but what’s wrong wanting to live in a world of peace, and chillness, in a world where can actually enjoy the fruits of our labor, and finally basque in this abundant, fantastic place that our ancestors created with our sweat, our tears, and our blood, on our tender yet mighty backs. A new home, one of safety and pride, where I don’t feel as if I’m being hunted as game, for my sun kissed hyde and power...one where I can happily pet those many maned, teddy bear-esque lions or sparkling magical unicorns. Ok maybe I enjoyed my creative writing tools too much this eve, AKA, I had too much to think, drank and smoke.

To be honest, it’s sad to think that this Grand Old Party, before the dudes I mentioned, is grand no more. Old yes, but no longer grand. It’s swiftly becoming the lame old party nobody wants to go to, be a part of...or make great...again. Whatever that means, as multiple dog-whistle racism themes play in my head. It’s time for us to reconceptualize our one issue / two party system that needs to be able to accommodate multiple views, positions and parties and people; such as the ever-growing, progressive parties, like the Freedom, Green and Independent parties, parties that are forced to vote Democratic to battle the madness of today’s bully Repubs and alt-right. We need to reconfigure the realistic world we want to live in, the one where we heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me...and the entire human race. I’m pretty sure, I just quoted Michael Jackson’s ‘Heal the World’ lyrics, nevertheless, it can still be done, and it starts with US,  by doing whatever we can to better our communities and taking accountability for this place we live in; by promoting a positive dialog with fellow supporters and even the folks from the other parties, as well as with our local and distant decision makers. We all need to do better and do what we can, to demand the change we deserve, and be more like our neighbors, The Grand Old Party Next Door Upstairs. Friggin’ Canada. We need to be more like friggin' Canada, there I said it.  

Feel free to click the link below to complete the petition / forward to your squad to get our current bully, um...I mean Repub President Trump out of office. Go to change.org to create your own petition, and get more details.  
Petition To Impeach The Donald

True, a petition may not save the world, but it’s a start. We must continue to do what we can with what we have.

Thanks for Reading, Now Let’s Start Doing.

Peace.