a Repugnant? Nah, I don’t think so…
We’ll forgive the newly constituted Park County GOP (the Repugnants) and the South Park Outsiders for separately publishing an invite to their October Lincoln Day dinner in Fairplay that misspells one of their keynote speakers’ names. Of course, the Park County Repugnants and the South Park Outsiders are now one and the same, so I guess it doesn’t matter to whom we point in highlighting their error.
Dave Williams, the Colorado Repugnant Chair, is one of the speakers, and Thomas J. Baker is the other speaker. Not Booker, as advertised by the Repugnants and the SPO.
Baker, who lives in Basalt (Boebert country), retired from the FBI over twenty years ago. His career was spent as a legal attache to American embassies in France, Australia, and Canada. He served in the public affairs office as a public relations agent. And, it appears his only experience with what most of us perceive as the nitty-gritty of the FBI was in the early ‘80s when he was Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the DC field office. He has a consulting company based in Basalt. His book, “The Fall of the FBI,” is a three-part tome that devotes about 75% of the chapters to his first-hand experiences while employed by the FBI and addresses the title’s subject matter with the remaining 25%.
I don’t doubt Baker is proud of his 33 years with the FBI. And he should be. Undoubtedly, the last 25% of his book will appeal to those like the Park County Repugnants, who will giddily consume the horrors Baker perceives the FBI has perpetrated against America and the Grand Poobah of Mar-a-Lago. I have no doubt they’ll believe every word he says.
Baker’s book is published by Bombardier Books, which also publishes Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.
Let’s talk about the Repugnants embracement of Abraham Lincoln.
The Republican Party has embraced Lincoln as their torchbearer since his election to the presidency in 1860. Whether or not Lincoln’s administration established the core principles for which the GOP would forever be known is disputable. Disputable because history does not support the notion. The historical record certainly provides no support to the suggestion that today’s so-called Republicans are beholding to Lincoln for anything. That the Park County Repugnants will celebrate Lincoln Day in October bespeaks of something anathema to history and enforces a kind of WTF are they doing from those who know better.
By necessity, Lincoln undoubtedly expanded the federal government’s reach. He imbued the Constitution with extraordinary executive authority to fit the moment to save the Union. He corrected much of what the original framers had not anticipated. Or had they?
Following what I would consider the high point of the Republican party, the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution, the party gradually gave up on the practical necessity to enforce the amendments while embracing the fruits of capitalism—the rich get richer—with the concomitant insistence, the government must get out of the way of business. Fat Cat Robber Barons became the face of the Republican Party. At the same time, the Democrats hustled to deny black folk any voice in their own destiny.
Over time, Southern Democrats realized their national fortunes lay not with the Democrats but with the Republicans. Their “small government,” states’ rights, Christian zealotry, and pine for a bygone time when black folks knew their place moved them to the Republican Party. Their self-interests were at stake. And the Republican Party was glad to gather them in.
Lincoln was assassinated before he could see his unflappable dedication to denying the destruction of not only the Union but the Constitution itself would reap unintended consequences. Most notably, the eventual absorption of the political party he became a member of (he was not a founder) that would, by 2023, boast the likes of the Potentate of Mar-a-Lago, DeSantis, Boerbert, Gaetz, Taylor Greene, Amy Mitchell, Dave Wissel and a bunch of yahoos who called themselves patriots while violently seeking to obstruct a Constitutional process.
Reconciling the South Park Outsiders’ celebration of Lincoln Day with their dissemination of Tactical Civics lessons, which include the characterization of Lincoln as a member of the Unholy Triumvirate (Marx, Lincoln, Darwin) who, according to TC, transformed America into a communist, ungodly, debased society of evildoers cannot be done. It defies logic.
The vast majority of what used to be called the Republican Party is conservative; they believe in small government, are religious, and can legitimately harken back to Abraham Lincoln as an exemplar of the American spirit, the salt of the earth. Not so the Repugnants who have coopted the GOP. They are loud, righteous, a minority composed of Christian Nationalists intent on imposing their will upon the republic, whether the republic likes it or not. And anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor.
And, finally, if the Park County Repugnants and the SPO believe they should be taken seriously, they really ought to take care in spelling the name of their keynote speaker correctly.
Let me rephrase that: If Park County Repugnants and the SPO can’t even get the name of their keynote speaker right, what else have they got wrong?
