Mike Bowerbank
Written Aug 11 2016

I'm a writer and a thinker, both playful yet responsible, who prefers people to be authentic. I like to offer advice almost as much as I enjoy reading the advice of others.

I worked for 20 years in law firms - just not as a lawyer.

Published

"The Future Past",
"The Future Present",
“The Future Tense” (all available on Amazon and CreateSpace) and I have more follow-up books on the way.

I voraciously read about current events and yet still remain, at heart, optimistic about the future of the world.

I'm a centrist (politically), agnostic (spiritually), and humanist (generally). I'm a Canadian who thoroughly enjoy all the topics that you're not supposed to discuss in polite company, such as religion, politics, sociology, sex, money, relationships, economics, and the world in general.

This is going to take a long time to answer if I'm going to go all the way back to Nixon's "Southern Strategy" that started the downhill slide. So let's skip that, even though it's important.

Let's instead start at Ronald Reagan. Before you cry foul, yes, I know Reagan won one of the biggest landslide victories in presidential history and I know that he is an icon in the party. I, too, admired his abilities as a communicator. The man had a gift and a simple charm. However, it was Mr. Reagan who embraced the evangelical wing of the party and put the lunatics in charge of the asylum. Barry Goldwater - the man known as "Mr. Conservative" - warned against embracing them years earlier, but Reagan did it anyway.

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” - Barry Goldwater

Goldwater nailed it.

The GOP went wrong when they became the party of God. (Thus becoming the American Hezbollah.) No compromise. Stand on principle. Claim to have God's blessings. Attack your opponents as doing evil. It started when the evangelicals took over and it's only gotten worse.

A letter To The United States Of America

20/20 Interview with (R) Senator Barry Goldwater (July 1993)

The-real-reason-for-the-GOP-s-all-out-war-on-Obamacare

Add in a 24-hour-a-day outrage-generating machine like FOX News, and you have the recipe for the rise of Trump. FOX News was created to keep the base angry - and they're good at that. Angry people get out to vote. However, FOX created a voting bloc monster that they can no longer control. This bloc put Trump on the national ballot.

In the days of Eisenhower, the GOP was a party of sanity and balance, aside from a few very bad ideas (Wetback, intervening in Iran). Every president makes bad decisions, but lately, the entire GOP is like a laundry list of everything that is wrong with the United States. That's my opinion, anyway.