Party down

GOP’s least moderate, most out-of-touch to convene in OKC

I was going to let this one go by without comment—I swear on my desk-sized mock-up of The American—for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference¹ has a right to hold an annual convention anywhere it wants—and better the SRLC hold it here, in Oklahoma, dropping large sums of money, than doing so in Charlotte or Dallas. Leave them alone, I thought, and let this loose affiliation of millionaires and Tea Partiers and global warming deniers stay in our hotels, eat our barbecue, hang with the reps from the reddest state in the land and buy our tchotchkes.

But then I saw this.

Real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump is the latest high-profile Republican to confirm his plans to attend the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City.

And then, like an alcoholic at an open bar, I couldn’t resist.

For the love of P.T. Barnum, how is Trump still considered a “high-profile Republican” and not just a foul-mouthed, thrice-married, failed casino mogul who’s part bigot, part carny? I wrote about him for Esquire a few years back when he trotted out his megalomania² and played the GOP like a substitute teacher. Suffice it to say, he should never be allowed near the White House, even for a visit.

Back in January of 2013, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said, “We’ve got to stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I’m here to say we’ve had enough of that.”³

Great sentiment—except nobody, including Jindal, listened.  

(The Louisiana Governor himself recently boasted about European No-Go Zones—where Muslims forbid others from entering—without being able to cite where any might be, and once told the American Family Association, “Our God wins.”)⁴ 

Not for nothing, but the first rule of decrying the stupidity in your party: stop saying stupid shit. 

Bizarre is as bizarre does, Forrest.

State Representative Sally Kern:

“We are a separate, independent state,” Kern said. “We are not controlled by the courts.”⁵

Welcome to Oklahomastan. No gays allowed. 

Senator Jim Inhofe: 

“[M]y point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”⁶

Stay thy carbon dioxide emission, in the name of Jesus!

But Inhofe and Kern—along with our own Bridenstine, Mullin, Ritze, Bennett and Lankford—are GOP role players, providing an occasional facepalm and cringe-worthy quote. The crazy we see in Oklahoma is usually laughed out of sub-committee (or court, or “The Daily Show”). But in May, the mothership lands at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City with its A-team—much of its 2016 presidential field—and they bring with them some serious crazy.

There’s Rick Santorum, who once again reminded us that the debate is not about abortion and/or the life of the unborn, but sex itself. 

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”⁷

How things are supposed to be?

Oy.

There’s Dr. Ben Carson (and what is it with Republicans and crazy doctors?), who said this: 

“You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,” Carson, who is African American, said Friday in remarks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control.”⁸

Right. During slavery, families were ripped apart, men were humiliated, women raped, children abused, and the Affordable Care Act expands healthcare to poor people—so, of course, that’s exactly the same thing. 

If Jindal was right in his assessment—and he was (even if, as mentioned, he can’t help but drink from the stupid trough)—what do we make of this GOP, an almost uniformly anti-science, anti-choice, pro-gun crowd, beholden to big business and its own sepia-toned America?  Where are the moderates on May’s list of speakers? At the moment, speakers also include failed California senatorial candidate and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who has as much chance of being the GOP presidential nominee as I do, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is cutting spending on Medicare and increasing taxes on businesses but lowering them for the top 1 percent⁹. Find me one who will decry voter suppression, trumpet a sane position on guns and insist on the health of public education.

I’ll wait.

What will ultimately be on display at the Cox Convention Center in May is a robust party— confident, greedy, sanctimonious—yet, like its minor league affiliate here in Oklahoma, astonishingly clueless. 

1) srlc.gop: Welcome to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference

2) esquire.com: Would God be so good?

3) nydailynews.com: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal tells GOP: ‘Stop being the stupid party.’ 

4) thedailybeast.com: Bobby Jindal Wants to Fistfight Your God

5) tulsaworld.com: State Rep. Sally Kern says anti-gay bills are an effort to support traditional values

6) newrepublic.com: Why Do Evangelicals Like James Inhofe Believe That Only God Can Cause Climate Change?

7) salon.com: Rick Santorum is coming for your birth control

8) washingtonpost.com: Ben Carson: Obamacare worst thing ‘since slavery’

9) crooksandliars.com: Gov. Scott Walker Cutting Medicaid To Fund Tax Cut For Rich