Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, second from left, speaks as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich listen at the Republican presidential primary debate at Fox Theatre, March 3, in Detroit. (Paul Sancya, The Associated Press)
Re: Republicans caught in identity crisis, Feb. 29 news story.
Growing up with a staunch Republican father, I remember the party of once was. Republicans then had two primary concerns: keeping government small (except for defense) and out of our lives, for the most part; and fiscal responsibility. Deficits and debt, other than that incurred during World War II, were anathema to the party.
Somewhere along the way the Republican Party got itself hijacked by the gun lobby, the right-to-lifer, climate-change deniers, the wall builders, the religious right and others.
Lost in all of this are former core values that used to spark intelligent debates among potential Republican candidates on how the country should be governed and how it can stand, despite our differences as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Recent televised debates say it all. This is a new type of reality TV Republicanism. Perhaps it will succeed with voters. Or perhaps Republicans will become irrelevant, with extinction to inevitably follow.
Don Roll, Englewood
Rather than being in the midst of an identity crisis, I think what the Republican Party is currently experiencing is much more along the lines of the chickens coming home to roost.
For the past 50 years, the party has nurtured the anger of some segments of the American public, have made unkeepable promises to the most socially conservative members of their party and have created a strong, damaging sense of us vs. them. They have laid their eggs, they have hatched, the chicks are grown and the chickens are now roosting.
Unfortunately, the Republican Party and our entire country are finding the taste of these chickens is far from appetizing.
Gary Riskin, Evergreen
This letter was published in the March 8 edition.
