Is the Republican Party Dying?

     As a citizen fulfilling my duties as a citizen, it occurs to me that something has gone horribly wrong in our country. People are voting by emotion rather than ruminating and digesting what they are voting for or against. 

    I have other blogs/memoirs ready for upload, but I feel compelled to write about the current political environment from my perspective. I know that many will stop reading right here, because there aren't many who care about another's perspective. That is fine, of course, because the purpose of this isn't to change your mind but only to show you different vistas with how I view this election and why I voted the way I did. 

    My life has taken me to some very interesting places during very interesting times. I've seen the Middle East floundering and I've seen it flourishing. I've seen Ground Zero in New York thanks to some great friends that I met in the Navy. I was raised in the rural north, but have been to the deep south. I've been immersed in different cultures, not only overseas, but right here in The United States. 

    The politics of my life see me growing up with Ronald Reagan running the country and battling communism. As a young man, I viewed Reagan as someone who was passionate about ending communism and, on the same token, a man who wanted to coexist in space exploration. I can't say that the '80s was a time of prosperity, because if it was, I didn't get to experience prosperity. My first enlistment in the Navy was under the presidency of Bill Clinton. I met Clinton twice; first time was at the 1996 Republican Convention 1996. Bob Dole was running against Clinton. Air Force One used Naval Air Station North Island and many of us stationed there at the time got to hear impromptu speeches from President Clinton. He sounded like he was on the side of the US military, but we didn't see it. He fought pay raises for the military and was behind a huge amount of base realignments and closures (BRAC) which affected my first duty station on the island of Guam. There was an organization on Guam that wanted to take back the land that NAS Agana was on. BRAC came out and capitulated by closing that air station and moving the squadrons back to the US, VQ-1 went to Whidbey Island Washington and my squadron, VQ-5 was moved to San Diego. Aside from having lost two forward deployed reconnaissance squadrons, the move took with it, the air traffic control of Guam and an annual stipend that was in the millions for the operation of the international airport on Guam. This was my first real taste of politics and how it can adversely affect an entire US territory. I, too, witnessed Clinton's botched attempts at battling terrorism by targeting an pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan. 

    Those actions by Clinton formed my disagreement with his presidency. The second time I met him was actually in Havre Montana 2008 when he was stumping for Hillary Clinton. He blew smoke up everyone's butt about free healthcare and the possibility of cheaper college costs and even tuition forgiveness. Yes, even back then these were the issues, even in the middle of a deep recession. This speech was directed at the younger college students, because as an older college student, I didn't buy any of it. I went on and received my bachelors in science. 

    To back up a little bit, I never really thought about my political leanings until the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on this country. Political affiliation seemed to become something that we had to know before moving forward after such a massive crisis. We needed to know, because it was vital in who we elected to take America to war and to rebuild our national defences towards terrorism. Namely how would the largest federal organization, Homeland Security, be created and managed. 

    Up until that point, I never really knew what political party I would fit into. I always liked Reagan, but I was young and after seeing how Bush grew the federal government, I was still on the fence of being a Republican. I was the "silent majority". I viewed the silent majority as those who didn't box themselves as one party or another. 

    Let me tell you how I viewed the presidency in the time of crisis. I backed the Bush presidency. I met him, too, onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln after a 10 month deployment to two theaters of combat. He truly supported the US Military and anyone who was around him when he was around service members could clearly see he embraced the military. He, however, received so much flack for a banner that hung on the island of the Lincoln saying "Mission Accomplished". Being there, I can tell you that the banner was a message from our admiral to the battle group, not a message from Bush to the world. He even says right in the speech he gave that day that the work against terrorism is far from over. 

    I supported him because he was always saying the right things. He gave a campaign speech in Everett Washington with both the Lincoln and Vinson aircraft carriers behind him, pointing to those ships and saying, If you work aboard these ships, rest assured I will make your careers worthwhile. Military life was good under Bush, even though we were smack dab in the middle of the war on terrorism. Where things began to sour for me is when, on that same campaign trail, he promised that more people would be able to purchase a home, even for the first time. That sounded great to people like me who have not purchased a home. The problem was that his solution wasn't to suppress home prices, it was a change in how mortgages were approved. This was the beginning of subprime lending. 

    I'm a business major and I'll try to explain the subprime mortgage crisis as best I can and as pithy as possible. The deep recession was, possibly, the death knell of Republican economics, combined with the growing anger over the wars in the Middle East, was a death knell for Republican foreign policy. The Republican party was blamed for all of these things and with good reason, except for the whole truth in the recession. Yes, subprime lending gave way to a large number of foreclosures that saturated the housing market, driving all home prices down, even below original purchase costs. However, I found what triggered that collapse while studying it in business statistics. In macroeconomics there are models for supply and demand in the aggregate. All of these models work in similar fashion. For example an increased demand leads to deficits in production. The labor force is subject to the same laws. If you increase wages, you'll see wage shocks that lead to a labor supply in the aggregate, this labor supply is the number of unemployed in the labor market. Congress passed the 2007 Fair Wage Act on February 1st 2007. This legislation raised the minimum wage from $5.85 per hour to $7.25 per hour. This act was sponsored and co-sponsored by democrats and passed by a democrat-controlled congress. It was a 3-step increase in wages, meaning that there were going to be 3 different wage shocks into April of 2008 where foreclosures peaked. My data in a scatter plot, proved the wage shocks directly increased unemployment all three times. The layoffs would have been those who were already working for wages in between the old and the new minimum wage. This group of laborers were also the same group that purchased homes as subprime borrowers. This led to the housing collapse and I have my suspicions as to why it isn't mentioned as the progenitor of the recession, namely, congress wants to raise wages again to $15 per hour. 

    After seeing that for myself, I became disenfranchised with both the Republican party and the Democrat party. They work so hard against one another, that nothing gets done for the American people. There were so many reasons for Democratic voters to like the smooth-talking junior senator out of Illinois, that they voted for him twice. I often feel that the biggest reason they liked Obama was that if anyone voiced their disdain for his policies, those people would be marginalized as racist. There was so much of that, Obama just became enabled to do whatever he choose to do through executive orders. That's a dictatorial pattern based on race that I could never agree with. 

    Now, down to the current administration. I saw the Republican candidates whittled down from 12 to just one nominee. When I look at Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, I think to myself; "Why didn't any of those prestigious candidates win the nomination?" There was nothing in Trump's past that could be displayed as an example to why he would be good for the presidency. I was a Republican and I couldn't vote for Hillary or for Trump. I voted Gary Johnson, who by the way won more votes than any third party candidate before him. That tells me, there were a lot who just couldn't vote Hillary or Trump out of good conscience. What I saw in Trump, is a history rubbing elbows with democrats. He's even on record saying he sways Left on the political spectrum. He was asked why the Clintons were at his wedding to which he responded they are really good friends and "if I call them [Clintons] and tell them to come, they come." My gut, my intuition, told me he was controlled opposition. The way he acts like a child, by purposely agitating any and all opposition, just doesn't get anything done. Leaders should unite not divide. I've heard Trump outright say he'd like to take guns now and deal with due process later. I've heard him brag about North Korea's nuclear ambitions ending, which they have not. The lies and the facades are just horrendous. He is not who he claims to be, he may even be an agent for destroying the Republican party from within. 

    And that, my friends, is why I voted Joe Biden. I'm not alone. Nearly 80 million votes. This country wants Trump gone. But the remaining question is, do we want the Republican party gone? I'm seeing lots of rhetoric on sites like Twitter and Facebook that this could very well be the end of the Republican party. That thought goes back to what I felt about Trump being controlled opposition, he has completely destroyed the Republican party....on purpose and for the Democrat party. My vote for Biden will, hopefully, be the last time I ever vote Democrat. The Republican party, GOP caucus better understand what is happening here. We are not Trump Republicans.