Cold War Daily

The GOP has moved from the era of the Apostles, bringing a new political gospel, to the Borgias, venal and vain and greedy, in three short generations. (From 1980 to 2025.) This transformation is striking when you consider that GOP ideology has never been able to sell itself on its own merits. The GOP – from the time of Ronald Reagan to now – only functions by discrediting the opposition.

Below is a passage about Marxists and the Soviet Union written by an ex-communist in the 1950s, but reading it, the description brings the GOP to mind.

“Few among the intellectuals in the Party realised at the time that their mentality was a caricature of the revolutionary spirit; that within the short span of three generations the Communist movement had travelled from the era of the Apostles to that of the Borgias. But the process of degeneration had been gradual and continuous, and the seeds of corruption had already been present in the work of Marx: in the vitriolic tone of his polemics, the abuse heaped on his opponents, the denunciation of rivals and dissenters as traitors to the working class and agents of the bourgeoisie.”

The denunciation of the Democrats and liberals has been at the heart of the GOP ideology, which has only intensifed in recent years. Why can’t the Republican Party sell its message that stands on its own merits?

The quote is from Arthur Koestler’s book The Invisible Writing.

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