Gstaad, Switzerland - I was a Republican from 1976 to 1981. Ok, I said it. I was then and remain now a moderate with left and right leanings depending upon the issue. There was once a place in that Party for mainstreamers like me.
A recent David Brooks' column reminded me of the fondness I had back then for Irving Kristol, the New York leftist turned neocon. What a gift it was to spend a year with him in New York reading everyone from Galbraith and Keynes to Friedman, Hayek and Weber. This was (and followed) a time when you could admire some reasonable conservatives and moderate Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Jake Javits, Richard Lugar, Mac Mathias, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Anderson and, later, Colin Powell.
These were internationalists who believed in a productive role for government. They were not the nihilistic, nativist crazies in the GOP today who risk relegating the U.S. to a one-party system at the presidential level. These were individuals who believed in the prudent use of military force and would have resisted the neocon rushes to war after 9/11. They were adults in leadership and policy terms - though we'd certainly need to overlook Rockefeller's social life - and they are sorely missed.
I became an Independent when Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency and a Democrat when Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol's son Bill and the latter day neocons perpetrated the war in Iraq. The GOP must exorcise itself of the likes of Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, the Tea Partyers and their re-emerging neocon patron saints if they care to earn the respect of so many of us who recall better days. Our nation needs no less.
A recent David Brooks' column reminded me of the fondness I had back then for Irving Kristol, the New York leftist turned neocon. What a gift it was to spend a year with him in New York reading everyone from Galbraith and Keynes to Friedman, Hayek and Weber. This was (and followed) a time when you could admire some reasonable conservatives and moderate Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Jake Javits, Richard Lugar, Mac Mathias, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Anderson and, later, Colin Powell.
These were internationalists who believed in a productive role for government. They were not the nihilistic, nativist crazies in the GOP today who risk relegating the U.S. to a one-party system at the presidential level. These were individuals who believed in the prudent use of military force and would have resisted the neocon rushes to war after 9/11. They were adults in leadership and policy terms - though we'd certainly need to overlook Rockefeller's social life - and they are sorely missed.
I became an Independent when Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency and a Democrat when Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol's son Bill and the latter day neocons perpetrated the war in Iraq. The GOP must exorcise itself of the likes of Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, the Tea Partyers and their re-emerging neocon patron saints if they care to earn the respect of so many of us who recall better days. Our nation needs no less.
Twitter @jessicamcwade