{"id":1163,"date":"2012-11-18T11:49:42","date_gmt":"2012-11-18T19:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2017-08-20T12:05:47","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T19:05:47","slug":"fiction-and-the-republican-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2012\/writing\/fiction-and-the-republican-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction and the Republican Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just finished reading, John O\u2019Hara\u2019s Ten North <\/a>\"\"<\/a>Frederick<\/a>, the national book award winner (USA) for 1956. In it, the character, Joe Chapin, wants to run for president in the mid-1930s. He\u2019s a Republican, rich, prominent and respected. What struck me about this novel were the ideas of the Republican base at that time, as described by the author. The ideas were the same as the ones espoused today. Nothing has changed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Fiction continues to fuel Republican dreams. It\u2019s a well-known fact that many high profile politicians, like Paul Ryan, follow the writings of Ayn Rand<\/a>. She believed strongly in capitalism without the handouts and praised individualism over collectivism in her bestsellers, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She believed that anyone who works hard can get rich. It\u2019s the individual and his pursuit of excellence that needs to be applauded. She also believed that big government got in the way and that taxes were bad.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Ten North Frederick\u2019s lead character, Joe Chapin, a rich WASP attorney, found the ideas of the the Democratic party<\/a> distasteful. \u201cWhat fools these mortals are. Every day I pick up the paper and it\u2019s getting so that if there isn\u2019t some new socialistic scheme, I\u2019m surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fear of government interference was a key part of the the Republican platform<\/a>. And yet, after the mess the GOP left America in when Obama was first elected in 2008, big banks and automakers came to the government with hat in hand<\/a> after their greed had blinded them to good economics and they had fallen into a hole so deep they needed collectivism to get them out.<\/p>\n

We saw the tragedy of Hurricane Sandy, and how<\/p>\n

\"\"

Hurricane Sandy, photo from bloomberg.com<\/p><\/div>\n

important it was to have a coordinated government effort<\/a>. The hurricane did not discriminate between the rich and the poor, black or white, gay or straight. It hit everyone equally. Nature knows.<\/p>\n

Ayn Rand<\/a> lived in Russia and she saw how the communist government took over industry and how that failed. She was afraid of communism. That\u2019s what she was railing against. Socialism or capitalism with a heart is entirely different. What Ayn Rand failed to get across was that all men aren\u2019t equal in how they start out \u00a0in life. Many don\u2019t have the connections or the opportunities to get ahead. Many have three strikes against them before they even give their first cry. What has been proposed and blocked by a Republican dominated congress have been programs like health care, programs that would even out the playing field. You can\u2019t work if you or your children are sick. You can\u2019t get ahead if your health bills sink you. You can\u2019t get ahead if you fail at school because your father\u2019s in prison or your mother\u2019s an addict and there\u2019s no food in the house.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Republican party\u2019s recent loss to Barack Obama<\/a> will shake up the GOP. The Republican party lost due to its inability to win support from women, Blacks and Latinos. The GOP\u2019S contender, Mitt Romney<\/a>, famously concluded that the party\u2019s loss had to do with the \u201cgifts\u201d that Obama promised. He was referring to federal benefits like health care, free contraceptives, and forgiveness of college loan interest. As a result of their unexpected loss, Republicans are now scratching their heads and hopefully beginning to examine their outdated ideas.<\/p>\n

To help out isn\u2019t socialism or big government, it\u2019s common decency. For the top 2% to pay their fair share of taxes, is that so unreasonable? What will that mean to them? One less house? A decision to forgo a jet plane or one of the masters? It might mean a better sleep at night, if they have a conscience. Whatever happened to no man is an island<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I’d love your thoughts on this. Although I’m Canadian, what happens south of the border shapes what happens north of it. So far, we have our own fiction happening, but that’s another story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve just finished reading, John O\u2019Hara\u2019s Ten North Frederick, the national book award winner (USA) for 1956. In it, the character, Joe Chapin, wants to run for president in the… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88,4],"tags":[423,25,420,418,78,19,421,419,422,9,390,417,424,5],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-writing","tag-atlas-shrugged","tag-author","tag-ayn-rand","tag-democratic","tag-diana-stevan","tag-fiction","tag-john-ohara","tag-mitt-romney","tag-national-book-award","tag-novel","tag-obama","tag-republican-party","tag-ten-north-frederick","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-iL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5374,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2021\/writing\/virtual-book-launch-of-lilacs-in-the-dust-bowl\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":0},"title":"Virtual Book Launch of LILACS in the DUST BOWL","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"30 \u041a\u0432\u0456\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm very excited about my upcoming book launch of LILACS in the DUST BOWL, biographical fiction and family saga, set on the Manitoba prairies during the Great Depression. 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