My Grandma was a self-made, hard-working, red-blooded American Republican. She even owned a handgun. Her proudest moment was serving Ronald Regan coffee.
My grandma Maloha was a card-carrying Republican all her life.
She grew up under the shadow of Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, and (her hero) Reagan. Her proudest moment was serving Ronald Regan coffee while working as a waitress.
One of Maloha’s most difficult trials was watching her son (my dad) leave the United States and come up to Canada to protest the Vietnam War. It was hard for her to watch him leave, but she still loved him and she loved the family he eventually raised (despite being a family of Godless Canadian Liberals. I think I just invented a new term for Ann Coulter to use: “GCL.” I want residuals if she uses it). She knew my dad acted out of deep principles, and even though she wished he had stayed in the U.S., she understood his decision.
Maloha defined the word “feisty”; she was loud, outspoken, direct, and tough. She went through four (at least) marriages, including her first marriage to my grandfather Babe (an alcoholic jazz musician who spent most of their relationship on the road). Maloha worked hard. She waited tables, temped in offices, and ran her own wooden roller exercise machine “slenderizer” parlour. She was a self-made, hard-working, red-blooded American Republican. She even owned a handgun.
Maloha’s principles fell fundamentally along traditional Republican lines: She believed in hard-work, in taking care of yourself and your family, and in being a good neighbour. She pitched in to help her friends, and she wasn’t afraid to speak out when she felt there was an injustice.
Maloha, like millions of seniors, valued the right to vote; when she was a child, not all women could vote. She valued her rights as an American. She lived through the Depression and the Civil Rights Movement, and multiple wars. She took her freedom seriously.
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I’ve been left-of-centre all my life, but I have also always had family and friends who were conservative, or who have held at least some conservative principles. Even I have some conservative principles (I am more fiscally conservative), and I’m a GCL. We live in a world where there are a multiplicity of views, and it behooves all of us to consider every view out there rationally and with an open-mind. I might debate an issue I believe in, but I’ll go home and consider it from both sides. My grandma was the same way.
Watching the last few years of American politics from my side of the fence, I am absolutely flabbergasted by how deeply entrenched and polarized the two parties have become. In particular, I am appalled at the actions of the Republican party and the Conservative movement, both federally and at the State level. From voter suppression to media distortion to stalling the economy for political reasons to dismissing 47% of Americans to attacking science and education, the list goes on and on. And I didn’t even mention the Birthers.
I’m not flabbergasted because the Republican Party has different political views than I do. We can respectfully disagree with one another. That’s what it means to live in a democracy.
I’m flabbergasted because a party that is supposed to stand for individual freedom, family values, and good neighbourly conduct has seemingly forgotten those core principles in favour of elitism, reactionary social conservatism, partisan personal attacks, and a terrifying dismissal of the scientific method and fact-based research. The Grand Old Party has lost its way, and has become mean, bitter, and hard-line.
Maloha was a Republican, but first and foremost she was a neighbour, a friend, a mother, and a grandma. She loved and respected her family, even when we disagreed about politics. She believed in individual freedom, and the value of hard-work. She moved all over California, living in L.A. for a while, then eventually moving to the tiny rural town of Rail Road Flat. She respected her friends, her family, and her neighbours. Even when they disagreed.
My grandma may have been a Republican, but she would be so disappointed in a party that has forgotten what it means to respect each other, even when you disagree. For her, it was a matter of principle.
—Photo cliff1066™/Flickr
About Josh Bowman
Ronnie and HW look so handsome here!
The Republican Party needs its base to stay energized and active and committed to the cause… and they also need their base thoroughly distracted from the issues that really affect their lives, like wages and mortgages and healthcare, because the GOP’s on the wrong side of those issues. (That’s a drawback of being the party of big business.)
The result is a media campaign that focuses on ‘social issues’ to keep the base stirred up, angry, and voting with their guts rather than their heads. Co-opting the evangelical movement was a brilliant tactic–keep talking about gay marriage and abortion, and they’ll never notice their rights being whittled away as their standard of living drops. It’s no coincidence that the rise of talk radio–fact-free outrage, all day every day–coincided with the resurgence of the extreme right wing in the 80s.
In fact, the GOP may now be a victim of its own success; they’ve pushed their constituents so far to the right that loons like the Tea Party are now in the driver’s seat, and those guys are not at ALL under corporate control the way they’re supposed to be. Perhaps the Republican leadership will find a way to sort this out, but it’s a fair bet they won’t be returning to the sensible, moderate conservatism of your grandma’s day.
I’m a little weary of pieces like this, where a clearly biased author claims to have some sort of magical “insight” into the problems of the world.
I’m not going to defend the current Republican party; they lost me when they decided that Gay Marriage was a problem.
However, as someone who tends to be right-of-center, I think it’s important to point out that the American left has become every bit as irresponsible as the right.
The author here is obviously disturbed by “Birthers.” I can only hope this mirrors how disturbed I am by 9/11 conspiracy theorists, whose ranks include at least one former (thankfully) Democrat congresswoman (seriously, look up Cynthia McKinney).
As for other policies, I am consistently shocked by Democrat positions. There is no attack on Freedom of Speech so insidious as the movement to ban so-called Hate Speech, and there is no doubt that this effort is being led by the left. Those on the left consistently claim that they do not believe in the “prison industrial complex” and yet suddenly decide that we need ultra-long sentences for both sex offenders and those who commit hate crimes. The left claimed for years that there needed to be a focus on improving American education, yet when they had the opportunity to help shape No Child Left Behind, they chose obstruction over collaboration. Is there any doubt that current Republican efforts to stall Obama nominees are anything more than a mirror of the consistent Democrat efforts to prevent George W. Bush from nominating judges during his second term?
There is a real problem with division in this country, but it’s not going to be solved by both sides claiming that the other is at fault. It is no longer sufficient to point fingers: both sides must acknowledge their faults if we are to move forward.
Indeed, that would be something I would welcome with open arms: conservatives calling out conservatives and liberals calling out liberals. Maybe I’m too much of a dreamer to hope that I will get to see that happen.
I believe your grandma is a liberal Democrat then , but there is no way to be sure, although you are one yourself probably & you are wishing your grandma never was a Republican.