RINO?

 

Positively 4th Street

You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
You've got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winnin'

You got a lot of nerve Lauren Boebert, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell!

Some bona fides first.  I was appointed by to a minor executive position by then Republican Massachusetts Governor William Weld.  My son’s youth soccer coach was the then wife of the Republican State Senator and Chair of the Republican Party in Massachusetts.  After leaving the legislature, her husband and I worked in the same building and I enjoyed chatting with him while we walked to catch the commuter rail.  Growing up I admired Republicans Ed Brooke, Margaret Heckler, Elliot Richardson, Margaret Chase Smith,  Everett Dirksen, Howard Baker, Nelson Rockefeller, John Chaffee.  Each of these individuals placed the interests of their country above their party.  While the Republican standard bearers have included such men of integrity as Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, John McCain and Mitt Romney, the standard bearers have unfortunately also included the corruption of Warren Harding, the indifference of Herbert Hoover, “Tricky” Dick Nixon, the madness of Barry Goldwater, the voodoo of Ronald Reagan, and Donald “The Con(fidence Man)” Trump.  I realize now that had I been alive at the end of the Nineteenth Century, I would have been a Mugwump, an anti-corruption Republican.

When the Republican party was founded, its major issue was the noble ideal of the limitation, if not the abolition, of slavery.  As such it welcomed those self-serving former Whigs ( mathematically they would be described as User Optimalists), and the Know Nothing Party exclusionists who also supported abolition. After slavery was abolished, this led to the  internal  battle for control in the Republican party that has raged since that time and today is no exception.

The self serving and exclusionists are today in ascendancy in the Republican Party.  Those who believe in the importance of  integrity;  that as long as humans must run the government/system, there is a danger that those serving in the government would seek their own interests and not the nation/system’s interests and thus government should consist of the smallest number of individuals possible with the most constrained power; and that any actions by the government should be carefully considered such that good intentions are not overwhelmed by unintended consequences, are being labeled as RINOs, Republicans In Name Only.  Those being castigated are the only the ONLY Republicans worthy of the name.  It is those who are casting stones who bring disgrace when they call themselves Republicans.