The Republican Party: A Play in the Theater of the Absurd?

When I was studying French at UC Irvine, one of the French modern classics was the dramatist Eugene Ionesco, who founded the Theater of the Absurd.

The Romanian-born French playwright's most famous, and accessible play was called 'Rhinoceros'. In this play, the main character Berenger finds himself in a city where everyone is turning into rhinos: they argue about the nature of these creatures, or they deny their existence, or they ignore the reality that residents are turning into these thoughtless, cruel creatures. ? Anti-establishment plays like Ionesco's carry powerful messages about political conformity, in which man's desires to stand on their own fall away to his deeper need for acceptance and have left a bittersweet taste in modern audiences and literary critics. One may refuse to conform, but how to overcome man's deeper need for acceptance? Where do we get the resolve to stand for something, when everyone else has chosen to go with the flow?

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These ideological conflicts are breaking out in the Republican Party today, where candidates and activists seem to be transforming into RINOs. They endorse Democrats instead of remaining quiet or strengthening Republican challengers. Republicans adopt Democratic talking points (pro-abortion, tax increases, expanding welfare, blanket amnesty, same-sex marriage, race-baiting as political persuasion), hoping that tilting to the left will increase their chances of winning elections. Clearly, Republicans in California are succumbing to rhinoceritis: Chairman Jim Brulte has taken union money from two of the most corrupt and left-leaning groups: the CTA and SEIU. Vice Chair Harmeet Dhillion is pro-abortion and same-sex marriage. CA GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashari supports the same illiberal social values along with driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Local assembly candidates have wavered on expanding food stamps. One special election winner voted for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. How can anyone clamor for a safe and secure border, yet at the same time support allowing people to drive legally in the state of California. Not only are California Republicans infected, but the political disease is spreading to anyone who wavers on one or two points from the party platform. A blatant example took place in Washington last year, when US Senator Ted Cruz, during his twenty-two hour non-filibuster, inadvertently insinuated that anyone voting for cloture was voting to fund Obamacare. US Senator Tom Coburn bristled: "So, I'm a RINO now?" (He has the highest conservative voting record rating, by the way). Why is this happening, and what can be done about it? Politics is about unity as well as values, about acceptance as well as clear principles. For too long, the backbone of these values -- individual liberty, limited government, constitutional rule -- have become separated from the biblical narrative which defined and supported them. The issue is not about forcing religion on people, but even the deist Founding Fathers acknowledged that a free people is a moral people. When the basis for these morals is removed, there is no strength to stand against the winds of change. There is no resolve to withstand attacks against established institutions. Debate cannot end when there are no fixed parameters. Certain values are not open for debate, yet when people seek to debate them, right away their value as eternal verities gives way. Is the Republican Party becoming another installment of the Theater of the Absurd? Are all California Republicans destined to become Rhinos? Or will members of the California Republican learn from the failures of "Big Tent Outreach" which has made an empty tent, and seek clear borders and defined principles? ? Not if Republicans learn some key lessons from Ionesco's play, encapsulated in these quotes: "I sometimes wonder if I exist myself." Republicans needs to start asking key questions: why does this party exist? What are the core values which define this party? Former Congressman Allen West asked Rhode Island Republicans that question last year in Kingston. "There are certain things which enter the minds of even people without one." Nature and politics abhor a vacuum, and Democrats have been reaching to neglected communities who would embrace Republican values, but for the onslaught of distortions and conflict promoted by Democratic Party operatives. Think Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall machine, for example. "I'm not capitulating!" The main character shouted this line at the end of the play. While his forlorn solitude might elicit pity from the audience, one man standing on principle does not shape the culture, nor define a new trajectory. Calvin Coolidge stood his ground and implemented sweeping cuts to Washington waste, fraud, and dysfunction. Ronald Reagan refused to give up the dream that the world would be rid of Communism and the Evil Empire. The Republicans who protested slavery, who fought for women's rights, and who have agitated for fiscal prudence did not give in. While the mainstream media would call such stalwarts "extremists", Ionesco died having no idea where he (or his plays) were going. Hopefully, the Republican Party and the silent majority of conservatives in the United States will not have to suffer a similar fate.