The Republican Party shuts down…

…didn’t have the energy to finish that sentence, being without a government today and all, but makes good enough sense as it is.  Maybe our local Republican friends can weigh in in the comments and clue the rest of us in on what your Party is thinking?

Here in the OC, many of our Republican friends are better than some of our Democratic acquaintances at fighting corporate welfare and other waste and corruption, defending open government, combating police brutality and the War on Drugs, and even protecting the environment.

But in Washington, in recent years and more and more, their Party has become something like a malignant tumor on the nation, which will eventually fall off on its own, but for everyone’s safety should be removed quicker than that.

I’m not so sure the GOP’s inevitable death is going to come quickly enough at this rate.  So many wasted years since Boner took over the House, where we could have got the economy jump-started, gotten so many Americans back to work, passed immigration reform, addressed climate change, the list goes on and on…

But at least these government-hating government officials have managed to once again shut down the government, in order to, among other burning issues, deny Americans healthcare and keep CONTRACEPTIVES away from women.  (Actually is this hara-kiri in the guise of self-defense?  Maybe they realize that things will be even worse for them when Americans experience Obamacare, appreciate it like we do Social Security and Medicare, and begin to recall where it came from and who tried to kill it.)

A much-discussed Quinnipiac poll this morning shows that voters reject this GOP government shutdown 3-1 and aren’t falling for the laughable story that it’s the Democrats’ fault;  this fuels a burgeoning preference for the blue party over the red in next year’s elections.   Even all the gerrymandering that state GOP’s have done across the nation since 2010 won’t help this Party keep their majority in half of Congress.  Or rocket Ted Cruz past Hillary into the White House in 2016.

As California goes, so goes the nation … and the Golden State has already tucked its own GOP down in the manner of a hidden, vestigial tail.  Scott Lay identifies three vulnerable California Republican Congressmen who should be praying this is over soon,  starting with the Inland Empire’s loathsome Gary Miller (dissed by little girls here), Modesto’s Jeff Denham, and Bakersfield’s David Valadao.

I understand you guys’ quandary:

Stop hating on latinos, embrace reasonable immigration reform … and you will lose all your racist and nativist voters (and members like Dana Rohrabacher) who will no longer see your Party as worth supporting and either stay home or make their own racist nativist party.  And you’ll become even smaller of a minority.

Get over your obsession with contraceptives, Gaiety, and other good sexiness, stop making it harder and harder for poor women to get abortions when they need to … and you’ll lose a bunch of your “religious” base, who will either stay home or form their own Godly Party … and you’ll become even smaller of a minority.

It seems that President Obama’s fairly muscular foreign policy has robbed you of your status as the Warmongering Party; hence the entertaining and dizzying spectacle of you-all running around in circles on FOX News whenever it looks like there may be conflict.

I’ve always said, I don’t really want to be in a one-party country, like Mexico under the PRI, I don’t trust the Democrats THAT much!  But what are we going to do?  And what is our system going to look like in twenty years?

Damn – that’s right – I’m still registered Republican myself!  (Long story short – I wanted to be able to vote against Romney twice.) I guess this is a good day to switch to independent.

Thoughts? Bueller?


About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.