2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I had a conversation with my GOP cousin on facebook after Paul Ryan's Speech [View all]Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)The modern GOP has become the party of Gordon Gecko who was (let's remember) the villian in Oliver Stone's film "Wall Street."
But modern Republicans are so in love with their own "getting and spending" that they've completely lost sight of the concept of community. The pay a certain lip service to "small town values" but forget that those values are about communities that support each other. They forget that there is such a thing as the common good -- there's only MY GOOD.
It really started with Ronald Reagan in 1980. "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" he asked. Note that he didn't ask if the nation was better off or if your neighborhood was better off. Those don't matter. What mattered what you. Your personal wealth. And let others be damned.
So when people like your cousin say "I did this" and ignore everything else that went into their success, they've simply bought into the Republican/Randian philosophy of greed.