Is America's Reign of Republican Terror Coming to an End? Ex-Governor Bush rakes Right Wingers Over the Coals. Is he correct?

America
has always been prone to spasms of attacks on the rights of average
Americans. Several scenarios from the last sixty years come immediately
to mind. One is the McCarthy Era (1950
to 1954) when Communism was the identified boogeyman and thousands of
Americans were falsely accused of disloyalty, treason, subversion, and
sympathy with the Communist Party. The effort was fueled by Republican
U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who famously went on witch
hunts through the use of Congressional investigations that cost
thousands their freedom, their reputations, their careers, and
sometimes, their lives. McCarthy’s excesses were finally brought to a
halt through rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl
Warren.

A second is the Civil Rights Era
(1955-1968). African-Americans endured brutal, enforced subservience
and suppression in this country since before its founding, but the
tactics of terror and control in the South became obvious to the whole
country in the 50’s and 60’s. Thousands of people, black and white,
engaged in civil disobedience of the laws in order to force crises with
governments and law enforcement agencies. They did so at risk of life
and limb. When the images of children being attacked with fire hoses and
police dogs became more than the country could bear, intervention by
the federal government and the adoption of civil rights laws followed.

A third time is our current era, the Extreme Religious Right
Era. Again, the rights and freedoms of Americans are under serious
attack at almost all levels—voting rights, healthcare rights, women’s
rights, the right to freedom from the imposition of religion, the right
to an education, virtually every humanitarian and civil right—coming
from the fringe of Christianity with the aim of subduing and mandating
the behaviors of the entire population. This could also be called the
Tea Party Era, but it has been brewing much longer than the Tea Party
label has been around.

The earlier Eras eventually came to an end when Americans emerged
from the shock of watching the feeding frenzy of extremists and took
action to stand up against them. There are signs that the current Era is
coming to a close as well. The most obvious, of course, is the Occupy
Wall Street movement, but there are also indications from within the
hotbeds of terror that instigate the oppression—the Republican Party and
evangelical Christians.

Moderate Republicans have stood to one side as the frenzy built and
continued, allowing their Party to be taken over by and ultimately
cooperating with the radical elements. Now Jeb Bush, former governor of
Florida, has spoken out from
the relatively comfortable position of a man not currently running for
office. On Sunday at a breakfast for national reporters, Bush said that
neither his father (George H.W. Bush) nor Ronald Reagan would fit into
today’s Republican Party. Both men would have difficulty with “an
orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement.”

Bush specifically questioned the current Republican approach to
deficit reduction, extreme partisanship, and immigration. He praised his
father’s deal to raise taxes in 1990 in order to achieve deficit
reduction and, on immigration he said, “Don’t just talk about Hispanics
and say immediately we must have controlled borders. Change the tone
would be the first thing. Second, on immigration, I think we need to
have a broader approach.” This challenge is coming from a man whose wife
is Mexican-American, who speaks Spanish fluently, and who is intimately
familiar with Hispanic culture.

Mark McKinnon, a friend of Bush’s and strategist with a bipartisan
group called No Labels, went a step further. “There are a lot of us
still trying to put the compassion in conservatism,” he said, adding
that Jeb Bush was speaking for “a piece of the party that’s felt pretty
neglected lately.” The two men sound like they are emerging from the
Republican Party’s deep sleep. More startling is the fact that
evangelical Christians have started to recognize that their survival
depends on taking a different approach to immigration reform.

The bald fact is that the fastest-growing segment of their
congregations lies within their Hispanic membership. While the National
Association of Evangelicals has been on board with the idea of reform
for several years, holdouts like Focus on the Family, a radio ministry
out of Colorado, have just joined the effort. On Tuesday, a press conference was
called to announce that more than 150 evangelical leaders are taking a
position similar to President Obama’s in supporting immigration
overhaul. They specifically opposed the ideas of Republican Presidential
candidate Mitt Romney, who advocates “self-deportation” and strict law
enforcement measures, such as those enacted in Arizona, to address the
issue.

“This is the tipping point to finally convince Republican operatives
that they must redeem the narrative on immigration reform in order to be
a viable party in America’s political landscape in the 21st century,”
said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic
Christian Leadership Conference. Even though he met with Romney to press
this point of view, the candidate shows no inclination to change his
positions. These developments may ultimately bring relief to our
beleaguered country and is certainly good news for the oppressed
factions within our population who need a path to legitimacy. The
Republican Party, however, has some painful adjustments to make. Jeb
Bush’s remarks make it clear that many in the party are keeping their
distance from the current Presidential campaign out of the knowledge
that they must rebuild their foundation once the election over.