THE REPUBLICULT

Mike Forbes was a Republican Congressman from Long Island 11 years back. One day he caught everyone by surprise and switched parties. Why did he do it?

Was he one of that vanishing breed of moderate Repubs? No; although pro-labor, he was a typical pro-life conservative who had voted to impeach Bill Clinton.

Then did he just want to get into the majority, where you can get things done? Again no; he transferred out of the majority. So it was a puzzlement.

The truth is that Forbes was turned off by Newt Gingrich and the Repub leadership. The Dem caucus was more accepting and tolerant; you didn't have to agree with the other members to get along in it. He was a rightist Repub intellectually but couldn't be one emotionally.

(Forbes lost the Dem Congressional nomination by 35 votes the next time out, to an elderly woman librarian who then lost the election. But he's still around. He was in Pennsylvania in '08, for one thing, campaigning for a Dem Congressional candidate.)

It was probably unprecedented for a member of Congress to give up on his party not because of disapproval of its outlook or from opportunism but because he couldn't take the atmosphere of ill will and coerciveness, the assumption that unanimity could be commanded of the caucus. It was no longer the party he had joined. The Mike Forbes defection signaled the GOP's transition from party to cult.

Political parties are run by glad-handers who want everybody to join. If you're not typical of the pack, they're tickled that their party appeals to you. But if you join a cult, the members will keep a narrowed eye on you to see if you're somehow different. If you are, then, depending on how powerful the cult is, they will freeze you out, kick you out, or take you out.

I would not be coining the term "Republicult," accurate though it is, if Republicans had not for decades pushed the title "Democrat party" on their opposition. It was done maliciously and to inculcate disrespect. It was all too typical of their tactics, which have recently reach a new low.

The Republicult is a Gideon's army, excluding more and more members before it fights. As its numbers dwindle, the chances increase that it will also split in two because of the growing shortage of reasonable, tolerant members who could reconcile and compromise its differences.

So one day we may see the Religious Righters excommunicating and anathematizing the teabaggers, and the teabaggers threatening the Religious Righters with death on the polling place steps.

Harry Truman once offered the Republicans a deal whereby the Democrats would stop telling the truth about them if they would stop telling lies about the Democrats. Now more than ever we should tell the truth about the Republicans. The truth is that they're a cult.