Johnson speaks

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs summarises his feelings about the Republican Party:

The Republican Party … well, if you’ve been reading the site for the past couple of years you know what I think about them. They’re lost in cloud cuckoo land in so many ways and on so many levels, there’s just no doubt that they represent a serious danger to the future prosperity of this country — not just for their magical thinking on economics, but in their denial of many areas of modern science (based on either religious fanaticism or cynical political calculation for personal profit), their continuing, relentless attempts to roll back progress on women’s reproductive rights, and the shockingly prevalent racism and xenophobia that have bubbled up to the surface in a highly disturbing way since the election of our first black President.

At this point, it’s not even really about Mitt Romney, although he’s an especially cynical example of the Republican brand.   Nobody the GOP could prop up and nominate would ever convince me to vote for a Republican in the foreseeable future, because of what the party as a whole represents: reactionary paranoia, manifesting as authoritarian rule whenever they gain power.

In my life, I’ve voted twice for Republican presidents, and Democrats every other time — and the second time I voted for a Republican (John McCain) it was with grave misgivings.

I’ll have no misgivings at all about casting my vote for Barack Obama.

 I didn't recall that he had voted for McCain.  That's funny, given how despised he is now on the wingnuttery side of the blogosphere.

Regardless of where he has been in the past, most of what he says now sounds about right.  (Well, OK, the bit about authoritarian rule is a bit over the top, and if Americans want to have laws that discourage abortion, that's up to them, although if the same pro-lifers are against reliable contraception being readily available, then I have no patience with them.)  The Republicans need a thorough clean out of the Tea Party side, and come back to common sense, moderate right wing views on science and economics, and compromise for the common good.