Not too many years ago, General Motors tried to sell their Oldsmobile brand (nee 1897) to a younger generation.\u00a0 The slogan was \u201cthis is not your father\u2019s Oldsmobile.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, Oldsmobile was not designed for elderly suburbanites who drove to the country club and discarded their cars after a couple of years.\u00a0 Eventually, most wound up in the hands of\u00a0 poor people who sometimes souped them up.\u00a0 The \u201cnew Oldsmobile\u201d was supposed to be a \u201chip car\u201d for a \u201chip generation\u201d and stay fashionable forever.\u00a0 It croaked on April 29, 2004.<\/p>\n

One of the good things about the \u201cgood old days\u201d of dad\u2019s Oldsmobile was that that their Republican party earned credit for participating in the advancement of civil rights,\u00a0 as well as basic civility in our political process.\u00a0 Young people who wonder what the Republican Party was like before it became the\u00a0\u201cparty of no\u201d may recall learning about Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.<\/p>\n

Actually, the Republican and Democratic parties collaborated quite a bit well into the 20^{th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 They had to, because both parties were populated by both liberals and conservatives.\u00a0 Republicans and Democrats crossed party lines to advance their causes.<\/p>\n}

Arthur Vandenberg was a Republican senator from Michigan who opposed most of FDR\u2019s New Deal.\u00a0 On foreign policy he was largely an isolationist up until World War II.\u00a0 Then he saw the need for international collaboration.\u00a0\u00a0On January 10, 1945, he delivered a celebrated “speech heard round the world” in the Senate chamber, publicly announcing his conversion from isolationism to internationalism.\u00a0 In 1964, Illinois Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen joined with President Lyndon Johnson to pass a landmark civil rights bill.\u00a0 Johnson had the burden of twenty-two Democrats (so-called Dixiecrats) representing the eleven states of the old Confederacy.\u00a0\u00a0He was not going to get any of their votes.\u00a0 When the actual vote took place on June 19, 1964, 66% of Democrats voted for it.\u00a0 But that amounted to only 44 votes.\u00a0 The Republicans put national interest ahead of partisan politics and actually beat the Democrats at their own game, with a whopping 82% of their 33 members voting for the bill.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the bill passed only a month before the GOP nominated highly conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona for president.\u00a0 While Johnson soundly defeated him in November of\u00a01964, Johnson predicted that this election would be the beginning of the end of Democratic dominance of the southern states.\u00a0 He was right: Now eighteen of the twenty-two seats from the old Confederacy are occupied by Republicans.\u00a0 This is not \u201cyour father’s (or grandfather\u2019s)\u00a0 GOP.\u00a0\u00a0In 1964 Republicans joined Democrats in saying \u2018yes.\u2019\u00a0 This was just about the time that the James Bond movie, \u201cDr. No\u201d came out, and that seems to have become the mantra of the Republicans in recent years.<\/p>\n

When we hear Republicans now claiming that the Democrats are not interested in bi-partisan cooperation, they are simply forgetting the history of the last half century.\u00a0 The parties used to be amalgams of individuals seeking office, and the leaders of each party had to be especially skillful in fashioning majorities.\u00a0 The battles were not so much based on party identification as they were issue oriented.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many in today\u2019s Republican Party have discarded real interest in issues in favor of promoting partisan polarity and demonizing the Democrats.\u00a0 This is easy to do when your agenda essentially consists of obstructing.<\/p>\n

While some Americans prefer a government agenda of doing nothing, most want services provided to them that promote their personal welfare as well as that of their family members, friends, and society as a whole.\u00a0 This requires robust government action that not only follows people\u2019s needs, but anticipates them in advance.\u00a0 Your father\u2019s Republican party clearly had members who could do that; the present party is like the dads who become \u201cgrumpy old men.\u201d<\/p>\n

We welcome a Republican Party that wants to participate in the solutions to today\u2019s and tomorrow\u2019s problems.\u00a0 But first it has to go through a self-examination and cleansing process.\u00a0 Democrats: Please be respectful to Republicans who are looking for opportunities to help.\u00a0 As for the others who have little interest in governance, then govern without them.\u00a0 This will be good for the Democratic Party, ultimately for the Republican Party, and most importantly for the American people and other citizens of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually the Republican and Democratic parties collaborated quite a bit well into the 20th century. They had to, because both parties were populated by both liberals and conservatives. Republicans and Democrats crossed party lines to advance their causes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,128,172,16],"tags":[298,153,208,2494,205],"yoast_head":"\n