The Next American Civil War

Earlier this week, I called the office of Senator Marco Rubio – one of two senate representatives from my home state of Florida - to express concerns over the ‘Dear Tehran’ letter signed by 47 ‘unguided’ missiles of the GOP.

An aid to Senator Rubio took my call.  When I mentioned the Logan Act and the word “sedition” in due course, the conversation ended - with an abrupt disconnect.  Apparently, the aid did not like my drift and hung up the phone. How rude!  Do we wonder why citizens no longer believe their so-called “elected” representatives represent them!

Let's face facts:  The GOP is now an insurgency that no longer knows how to participate in a two-party system of government.  Republicans have crossed constitutional boundaries - with reckless disregard for centuries of tradition and protocol.  They disdain the free exchange of ideas and information in a democracy.  They are openly intolerant of any viewpoint and utterly contemptuous of any opposition.  They disrespect the parliamentary art of compromise and consensus and choose legislative hostage taking over governance.  In short, the GOP has morphed into a sovereign entity hell-bent on domination and suppression.

Between 2003 and 2005, three European allies negotiated a deal that would have frozen Iran’s nuclear breakout capacity at a very early stage.  At the time, Iran operated 164 centrifuges with a nuclear breakout capability at least ten years away.  Acting through the British government, the Bush/Cheney administration scuttled the deal.

Unbound from treaty obligations and a regimen of inspections, Iran has expanded its nuclear program to 19,000 centrifuges with a breakout capability of less than a year away – no thanks to a neoconservative administration that failed to seize an opportunity under far more favorable conditions. Right now, P5+1 negotiators have one more chance to freeze Iran’s nuclear ambitions.  Yet again, GOP neoconservatives are hell-bent on sabotaging this last and final opportunity (source).

In this debate, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.  In a single ‘Dear Tehran’ letter, the GOP shredded the Constitution and upended American diplomacy.  From this day forward, our nation will no longer be considered a trustworthy partner in world affairs.  Every international accord may be held in doubt – held hostage to the whims and caprices of partisan politics.  Shall we dismantle NATO?  Nullify the non-nuclear proliferation treaty?  Scuttle all trade agreements?  The fallout is already clear:  Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany described the letter as “not very helpful.”  Having been burned by American duplicity in the past, the Supreme Leader of our implacable adversary has concerns: "Of course I am worried, because the other side is known for … backstabbing" (source). 

Backstabbing, indeed!  Republicans have been backstabbing the American public for a very long time - holding us hostage to partisan ambitions with deception, defamation, demagoguery, legislative trickery and treachery, and blackmail.  The government shutdown of 2013 compromised the creditworthiness of the nation.  In failing to fully fund Homeland Security, the GOP left us vulnerable to terrorism.  In states across the land, GOP legislators have sponsored bills to:

• Suppress voting rights and disenfranchise citizens along partisan lines;
• Enlist the powers of government to serve as Enforcer of religious doctrine;
• Impose religious teachings and taboos upon the general population;
• Legalize discrimination and deny citizens their full rights under law;
• Assert the sovereign right of states to violate human rights.

Of all enemies, foreign or domestic, today’s Republican Party is by far the more dangerous of the two.  As a result, we are less safe and less free.  In a landmark essay originally published in 2011, former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren exposes the hidden agenda of his party:

“It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe …

If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America’s status as the world’s leading power.”

I consider the ‘Dear Tehran’ letter our Fort Sumter moment – the first shots fired in a second American Civil War. Consider this post a wakeup call.