It is usually best to call things by their right names. There once was a political party in the United States called the Republican Party, which proudly nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. That party would never have considered nominating a bird-brain like Sarah Palin. It was called, affectionately, The Grand Old Party. It made mistakes, of course, but it was the essentially the party of the North, of development, of education, and of fairness, notably in the politics of Teddy Roosevelt. TR was far from perfect, but he did attack corporate monopolies, he often took the side of labor, and he believed passionately in conservation.
The so-called Republican Party of today is not at all the party of Lincoln or of Teddy Roosevelt. It is an angry party, a party of negative campaigning, a party that courts religious fundamentalism, a party that nominates candidates with extremist views. I strongly doubt that Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt would have voted for their candidates in the 2010 election. They were too modern in their thinking.
The truth is that the Republican Party has become the Christian Capitalist Conservative Party, or CCCP . However, that abbreviation refers to the Communist Party in Russia. So we cannot use it. This new party has its power base is in the old confederacy. Get out a map showing where the slaves were most numerous, and it coincides perfectly with the states that are most staunchly Republican. I am not saying they are racists or that they are Bible beating yahoos, but they are strong in the areas where such people are to be found.
Indeed, if one looks at a map of the election results for the nation as a whole, broken down by county, it is immediately obvious that the Republicans are strongest in the countryside. The Democrats win Chicago, New York City, LA, Philadelphia, and so on, but they lose all those rural counties where people confuse socialism with any form of public services.
So let me propose a new name for the Republicans, one that expresses their true nature:
Christian Rural American Conservative Party of Tea:
CRACPOT
The name CRACPOT is accurate and descriptive. It is much needed in order to clarify who we are dealing with.
I therefore propose that CRACPOT be used from now on.
