Robert L. Terrell

I am generally predisposed to vote for the Democratic Party, and I am always pleased when its candidates win at the polls. Nonetheless, I am becoming increasingly alarmed by the condition in which the Republican Party finds itself these days. Nothing better symbolizes the Grand Old Party’s virtual collapse as a coherent political force in this nation than the significantly challenged current crop of candidates seeking to represent it in the next presidential election.

At a time when the nation is in dire need of competent leadership, the Republican Party is struggling mightily to identify a person to present their case for regaining the White House. I need not spend time or space here presenting the manifest shortcomings of the candidates currently vying for the honor. Given the fact that all of them oppose the notion of global warming, and the science on which it rests, it is easy to understand the nature of the Party’s dilemma.

But it not just the matter of their anti-intellectual, don’t-try-to-confuse-me-with-facts rejection of science that leaves one slack-jawed and stunned that engenders the sense that something is seriously awry with the Republicans. It is the Party’s overall rejection of reason, coupled with its seemingly obsessive commitment to protecting the best interests of the elite minority while ignoring those of the vastly larger group of middle-class and poor people, which has convinced me that something is seriously amiss where Republicans are concerned.

This is highly unfortunate for the nation because the Democrats desperately need intelligent, organized, politically aware opposition. Without it, they will continue to muddle about in a mediocre fashion, timid, confused, and largely directionless regarding the nation’s most important problems. Thus, with no significant change in the Republican Party, there’s a good chance the nation will be stuck in the same rut we are currently enduring, even if Obama is re-elected.

The Tea Party partisans tried to subject the GOP to a radical makeover, but their conflicted, anti-intellectualism, has arguably served to make matters worse. This is significantly due to the abject fear that mainstream Republicans (if it even makes sense to suggest that such a species still exists) have of being targeted by the seeking-targets factions deeply embedded in Tea Party ranks. It is also due to inherent shortcomings in the Tea Party’s overall political agenda, which, kindly speaking, is more about hate and fear than it is about inclusion and solidarity.

Having deliberated on the matter, I have a recommendation that could constitute a brilliant solution to our collective need for a new political order. The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) should take over the Republican Party, and transform it into a powerful Liberal antidote to the Democratic Party. This would solve numerous problems. For example, it would empower the currently unfocused potential of OWS. Most important, if OWS takes over the Republican Party, it will provide a stunning, historically significant, transformation in the existing balance of power of the sort necessary for enacting fundamental reforms supportive of the best interests of the 99 percent of the population going down slow under the current social, economic and political regime.

Think about it…