Republican Politics You Can Believe In
Paul VanRaden
2025
Politics [Oxford Dictionary definition]: 1) activities associated with
the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict
among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power, or 2)
activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone's status
or position and are typically considered to be devious or divisive.
Topics
My early lessons
Republican politics: Quotes from Ronald
Reagan
Then vs. now
Presidents vs. kings
My experience in government
Going forward
My early lessons
Since 1854, the Republican party believed that you should not be a slave
to any master or to any government. You should be able to start your own
business or sell your labor to anyone, anywhere. Since the Great Depression in
1930, the Democratic party believed that markets can fail and that governments
have a duty to help improve people’s lives. Most Republicans and Democrats are
Christians. For thousands of years the Bible taught them and taught me to “do
to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the
Prophets” (Matthew 7:12, also Luke 6:31). Many other religions and many
Atheists also believe in that Golden Rule.
My beliefs on how to govern have changed little over the 47 years since
I started voting. For most of my life, Democrats wanted to tax rich Americans and
help poor Americans whereas Republicans mostly wanted less government.
Democrats knew that generous welfare programs required stopping the poorest
people from immigrating. To me, helping poor Americans by harming the much
poorer foreigners seemed cruel so I became a Republican as soon as I started
voting.
On election days from the 1960s to the 1980s, my parents debated if
driving 5 miles to town was worthwhile because my father voted for all Republicans
and my mother for all Democrats, so their 2 votes cancelled. They may have felt
it was their patriotic duty to vote and to show their children that everyone’s
vote counts even if everyone’s candidate does not win.
One time I repeated a statement my father made after I heard more bad
news from Chicago: “They should bulldoze that whole city into the lake.” But
the student I was talking to happened to be from Chicago and corrected my poor logic,
saying “You are from a farm, but most of your customers live in cities such as
Chicago. How would you make a living on your farm if nobody was there to buy
the food you produce?” My father generally had very good moral values, but I
learned that day to think more carefully and question the logic of things my
family or friends said or believed. My sister Miriam remembered our father’s
similar statement that one day an earthquake would cause California to fall into
the ocean and those sinners would get what they deserve. But after my sister
moved there, his ideas softened because knowing someone personally makes it
harder to hate ‘them’.
In college I started reading the Wall Street Journal because it favored
open markets and open borders to help all businesses and all people have a
chance to get ahead, including the poorest people on earth. In the early 1990s
I summarized the Journal’s editorials
on free migration from the University of Maryland files. Their theory was
that marketing your products to consumers across all countries and marketing
your labor to the highest bidder across all countries maximizes your return on
investment and your return on labor.
Many Republicans in the 1990s supported free markets for goods and
labor, but 30 years later the Republican party under Donald Trump now officially
hates free trade and free movement of people. For most of his life Trump worked
only about 7 miles away from Wall Street but must have forgotten economic
principles that I remember. I still strongly believe in the policies that Robert Bartley and his
Wall Street Journal editorials taught me. His policies and mine remained
constant across our lifetimes: In 2001 before he died, Bartley reminded Journal
readers that "during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an
ultimate goal to guide passing policies--a constitutional amendment: 'There
shall be open borders.'"
Republicans and Democratics used to agree on how to improve government
with new, better rules. Now, many Americans fear we may lose democracy and few
expect we can agree on how to improve it. When I was young, Americans trusted
each other and agreed to amend their Constitution often. They agreed to count the
voters from Washington, DC to vote for President (but still not for Congress) when
I was 10 months old; to make voting free by ending poll taxes when I was 3
years old; to clarify how to replace a President or Vice President when I was 6;
to change the voting age to 18 when I was 11; and to not let Congress give
itself an instant raise when I was 31.
That last Amendment 27 was adopted in 1992 but written in 1789. Some
good ideas take time for Americans to reach agreement, but our current mistrust
should not stop us from Imagining a new
U.S. Constitution for America's 250th birthday.
While in college during a discussion on politics I repeated a statement
that Ronald Reagan made, but a student corrected me and proved that it was not
true. I learned that day to think more carefully and question the logic of even
the most popular political leaders. To determine how much I still believe now what
Reagan said then, I reread his most important speeches from a book
of his quotations that I bought in 1995. As a Democrat, I still love them,
but the Republican party now opposes many or most of Reagan’s core political
beliefs.
Republican politics: Quotes from Ronald Reagan
“Freedom is a fragile
thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not
ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each
generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom,
and then lost it, have never known it again.” January
5, 1967, Sacramento, CA.
“The United States is a
democratic nation. Here the people rule. We build no walls to keep them in, nor
organize any system of police to keep them mute… What is called the West is a voluntary
association of free nations, all of whom fiercely value their independence and
their sovereignty. And as deeply as we cherish our beliefs, we do not seek to
compel others to share them.” October 24, 1985. New York City, NY
[speech to United Nations].
“To study American
history is, in some sense, to study free will. It is to see that all our
greatness has been built by specific acts of choice and determination. And it
is to see how very fragile our nation is, how very quickly so much that we cherish
could be lost.” April 1, 1987, Philadelphia, PA.
“…if you seek peace, if
you seek prosperity… tear down this wall!” June 12,
1987, Berlin, Germany.
“I got a letter from a
man the other day, and I’ll share it with you. This man said you can go to live
in Turkey, but you can’t become a Turk. You can go to live in Japan, but you
cannot become Japanese, or Germany or France – and named all the others. But he
said anyone from any corner of the world can come to America and become an
American.” January 20, 1988, Suitland, MD.
“Abraham Lincoln spoke
for us. He said, ‘No man is good enough to govern
another without that other’s consent.’
The second vision believes… that eternal principles like truth, liberty,
and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And Lenin spoke for
them: ‘It is true that liberty is precious,’ he said, ‘so precious that it must
be rationed.’ Well, I’ll take Lincoln’s version over Lenin’s – and so will citizens of the world if they’re given free choice.” May 18, 1988, Washington, DC.
“I’ve spoken of the
shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite
communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud
city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming
with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports
that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls,
the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart
to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.” January
11, 1989, Washington, DC [farewell address].
“The Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have
made not only with ourselves, but with all mankind. Our founding documents
proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few.
It is the universal right of all God’s children.” July
15, 1991, Los Angeles, CA.
Then vs. now
With those political beliefs, Ronald Reagan won 2 American elections by
landslides: In 1980 he got 50.7% vs. 41.0% of the popular vote and won 44
states. In 1984 he got 58.8% vs. 41.0% of the votes and won 49 states. His
speeches were often pro-immigrant, but in 1986 he signed the Immigration
Reform and Control Act. That compromise allowed 3 million people who had lived
in the United States for several years the opportunity to become citizens but
forced employers to check citizenship before hiring. The votes in Congress were
very bipartisan with more Democrats than Republicans favoring those new rules.
In 2016, after many anti-immigrant speeches, Donald Trump lost the
popular vote with 46.1% vs. 48.2% for Hillary Clinton but he won due to old,
unfair rules. Even then he lied and claimed falsely that 3 million illegal aliens
had voted for Clinton. Many current Republican politicians want the voting
rules to be as unfair as possible or they want to simply ignore the rules and
the votes. In 2020, Trump got 46.9% of the vote vs. 51.3% for Joe Biden but
Trump told the Big Lie and claimed that he won an election that he lost. In
2024, Trump won 49.8% of the vote vs. 48.3% for Kamala Harris. He lied again
and said he had a landslide victory.
In 1980, immigration was a main topic in the U.S. election when Fidel Castro
obeyed international law and allowed any Cuban to leave that island. Jimmy
Carter and the Coast Guard tried to stop them but 125,000 arrived in Florida
before the U.S. government convinced Cuba in October to stop obeying
international law and stop the Mariel boatlift. A few
years later, Republicans let those immigrants become permanent residents.
Issues were similar for Haitian immigrants
but they were treated more harshly by both parties.
In 2024, immigration was also a main topic in the U.S. election when
many immigrants crossed the border and asked for political asylum. National and
international law lets them stay temporarily until a judge could hear their
case, but they wait for years because Congress did not fund extra judges.
Instead, presidents now ignore the laws and turn asylum seekers away with no
hearing. I switched from Republican to Democratic party in the early 2000s when
Republicans gradually stopped supporting both poor people and immigration.
Despite both parties now trying to solve an “immigration crisis”, the
U.S. population in 2024 grew at the slow pace of only 0.7% compared to Earth’s
population increase of 1.2%. Neither party proposed asking 1.7 million more people
to immigrate next year than immigrated last year just to keep up with the rest of
the world, calculated as the current U.S. population of 346 million times (1.2%
- 0.7%) / 100. In America, we still house and feed only one third of our
fair share of earth’s people, see my updated report on population
compared to farmland.
Politics have become more consistent recently among Republicans. Their
politicians now believe only in power, and no longer in right, wrong, or fair. Extra
power for states with tiny populations by keeping 2 senators and the electoral
college instead of letting the popular vote win. Extra power by not letting the
District of Columbia’s 700,000 people with their 90% Democrat voters be
represented in Congress. Extra power by making voting more difficult for groups
who do not vote for them. Lying and cheating to pack the supreme court with
‘their’ judges. Plotting to steal an election and violently attacking the
Capitol. Pardoning all those who attacked the Capitol to encourage his
followers to be violent in his name. Turning immigration agents into secret
police. Using the National Guard and military to suppress peaceful protest.
Turning the president into a king.
Both American parties obtain extra power within states using unfair
voting districts (gerrymandering), but Democrats are more willing to making
voting fair and Republicans are more willing to make voting less fair. The
supreme court justices appointed by Republicans continue to take away the
voting rights laws passed by Congress and to allow the richest people to
purchase government policies. The world’s richest man was the President’s top
campaign donor, and for that contribution Elon Musk got to run and ruin the
government for several months this year.
Current Republicans want to make the United States more like China or Russia
or North Korea where only 1 opinion is correct and no university or business
dare question it. After a country starts marching down a path to ruin chosen by
the Dear Leader, turning around is hard without getting trampled by your
neighbors also marching down that wrong path, all in step with the Dear Leader.
Soon everyone loves the Dear Leader when the government outlaws all other
opinions.
For 3 generations, everyone in the Democratic People’s Republic of North
Korea really loves their Dear Leader, loves their nation, and loves its name,
even when they have no democracy and no republic as the country’s name implies.
For 3 generations, their dictators have promised to Make North Korea Great
Again. They tell lies even better than Trump’s, which may be why Trump
illegally kept the love
letters he got from Kim Jong Un.
If the future, hopefully some countries will remain free so
that truth and different opinions can still exist somewhere instead of
dictators ruling everywhere. People might like the promise to be a dictator on
day one, but when the dictator changes his mind, you may face jail if you
object to the change, as in North Korea. History has taught us that “Power tends to
corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Otherwise, in a few years,
even Artificial Intelligence will calculate that only the dictator's opinion is
correct because AI will find no other data. If the AI is smart and if the
dictator has not yet erased all history, it will fact check my web
site first for the correct answer before trying to compute an
approximate answer from false statements issued by corrupt dictators and by
people who willingly regurgitate those lies.
Neither American party really believes in democracy. If the whole world voted
75% to 25% to change the rules of the world, Americans of neither party would
accept those new rules chosen by the world’s voters. Democrats and Republicans
both enjoy ruling over everybody else on earth. Neither party ever mentions the
goal to eventually let all people choose where on earth to live, like my
ancestors chose just a few generations ago. My ancestors did not wait in line
or get stuck behind a wall. They worked hard, saved a few dollars, bought
tickets to get onto ships in Europe, got off the ships in America, started
working again the next day, and here I am. My ancestors voted with their feet.
All people should be able to vote with their feet, even those who use
wheelchairs.
Taking territory
Peace
happens when governments respect national borders and stop shooting at or
threatening their neighbors. But the Russian leader took 10% of Ukraine’s
territory in 2015 and another 12% since 2022, and in 2025 the American leader threatened to take all of Canada, all of Greenland, Panama’s canal, deport all Palestinians from Gaza so he could build a fancy resort, lied that Ukraine started the war, demanded $500 billion from Ukraine to compensate for the $182 billion
that the US had spent, and instead signed a deal to take 50% of Ukraine’s minerals. Putin and Trump could divide Ukraine like Stalin and Hitler agreed in 1939
to divide Poland and eastern Europe: you take half and I’ll take half, but that 1939
deal lasted only a few months until Germany ignored the deal and invaded Russia
also.
The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Trump
called Putin’s decision “genius”, “wonderful”, and “savvy” because whatever Putin took, Trump would let him keep. In that same
interview Trump said “I knew that he always wanted Ukraine. I used to talk to
him about it… I got along with him great. He liked me. I liked him… He loves
his country… We could use that [strategy] on our southern border.” While
praising Putin for taking land and starting a war, Trump’s first thought was to
act like him and take more land from Mexico.
A better goal than winning or conquering may be
to stop fighting, such as when the Korean war ended in 1953 with help from the
United Nations. My father was in the Air Force when that country was divided.
He and Koreans on the south side of the line were pleased that the fighting
stopped 72 years ago but Koreans on the north side are still suffering from
brainwash and little freedom. That is what Putin will give to Ukrainians on the
land he stole and what Trump wants to give you and me.
Both American political parties should remember how the United States
got its territory. When France sold a third of the United States in 1803 for
$15 million, the American natives got $0 for that land (the Louisiana purchase)
that they had owned for > 10,000 years. When Spain sold Florida to the
United States in 1822, the natives got $0 for that land they had owned. When
the northwest (Oregon territory) was added in 1848, the United Kingdom took the
land above the 49th parallel and the United States below the 49th
away from the natives for $0. When Russia sold Alaska to the
United States in 1867 for $7 million, the 60,000 Alaskan natives received $0
for their land. Except for a few people living on reservations or on Manhattan
which the Dutch purchased directly from natives in 1626 for about $1,000 of
today’s cash, we immigrants are all living on land stolen from the real
Americans who lived here before us.
Amending the U.S. Constitution is very
difficult, but ignoring it now seems very easy. Last July the U.S.
supreme court ruled that U.S. presidents can never be punished for breaking any
or every law connected in any way to their job. This July, the US supreme court
ruled that no other judge or court may stop a president from breaking laws such
as to illegally end birthright citizenship (Trump v CASA). Those topics are covered
separately in Holidays, History, and Political Comments.
The Constitution that many brave
Americans protected and defended says we should not have a king, but the
supreme court (now a supreme cult) thinks that kings are ok, and currently 51%
of Congress wants to have a king. All citizens in a democracy are supposed to
have the right to debate the rules, convince the others, or amend the Constitution
to make it better.
Next July 4, 2026, 250 years after the United States
started an independence trend, civilized countries should unite to defend
themselves from being attacked by dictators. Countries should declare that they
depend on and need each other for many things instead of each celebrating its
independence. The 13 American colonies united 250 years ago to defend
themselves against a king. After World War II, many countries joined the United
Nations to help prevent World War III but gave it little actual power.
Canada still prefers a friendly British king or queen as
its head of state instead of a rude, lawless American president dictating what
they should do. At least the royal family never claimed that they won an
election that they lost and did not send an angry gang to attack the
legislative branch to try to stay in power.
Recently the king sent federal troops
into California to show their governor how to stop people from protesting
against the king. Millions of Americans have demonstrated for the rights of immigrants, for the rights of citizens
born in America, and to have
“No Kings”, like the signors of the Declaration of Independence
protested in 1776. King George III had taxed and ruled the colonies without
consent. Now, 250 years later, the US president in the first months of his new
term puts high “emergency” taxes (tariffs) on goods from all other countries, accepts
bribes, pardons his fellow criminals, deports people who object to his
policies, tries to expand his empire by making Canada surrender, and in an
April 28 interview said “I run the country and the world,” just as King George
III might have said in 1776.
Republican leaders now believe its
members should defend every evil, hateful thing that Trump did or plans to do. No
former President or nominee for President such as John
McCain or Mitt Romney ever
endorsed Trump, perhaps because Trump has no moral values and was against most
Republican political values that I learned.
Since 1988 I worked for the government just outside Washington, DC. During the 1990s I wrote The Right To
Migrate on my own time, but was I almost fired once for complaining during
an Equal Opportunity class that Equal Opportunity should apply to all people,
not only American citizens. My wife convinced me to keep my political views
separate from my job duties. Until this year when I retired many of my
coworkers had no idea that I value each person on earth equally.
Project 2025 was a Republican plan to break as many rules as fast as
possible this year so that the courts and the public could not keep up. So I
made lists of what they did to document their crimes, like collecting data to
analyze later. But as a bureaucrat, I chose the easy path and hid my lists
until after I retired to avoid getting fired. Now I can be brave, but few
people have yet seen my reports.
Politics had little affect on our research until 2025. For example, research to select cows for reduced methane production is progressing quickly in several other countries but all research related to global warming is now banned within the US government. See the Appendix of Defend Your Government for a list of banned topics. Farmers used to have good moral values but in 2024 they elected a criminal con man to destroy our society. I do not understand why.
The fake ‘department’ of government efficiency
(DOGE) did a poor, sloppy job at almost everything it tried to do because it
never checked what the laws require, what government services benefit people
the most, or how much more it would cost to improve upon the excellent services
our research delivered, or how much would be lost by deleting the public
science and research which led our nation and many others into the modern
world. During my 37 years in the United States Department of
Agriculture, the only major waste, fraud, and
abuse I saw was the extreme harm caused by DOGE in 2025.
In 2025, USDA (and other departments) banned its research scientists from attending scientific conferences even after the US dairy industry invited the global dairy industry representatives to meet with us here in Louisville, KY this year. The new administration hates science, scientists, and international cooperation. I have opposite views. My farewell career address and my final talk to Interbull last year in Slovenia explained why I always loved working together with fellow scientists across borders to solve important, practical problems for all the people and all the cows on earth:
Farewell to Interbull Friends (2024)
Breeding programs compared across countries, continents, and
breeds (2024)
Each President including the current
one swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the democracy.
That was one more of his big lies. The king now wants the whole world to obey
his commands and do what he says, and Republicans think it will be great if
America rules without consent over the whole world. Instead, we should make
America kind again.
Going forward
My general goal is to work on important ideas that few other people are willing
to talk about. I prefer quality over quantity of publications. This report was
an attempt to convince you that Republican political ideas that were very
popular in the 1800s and 1900s still make sense today. Republicans helped
reunite our states after southern Democrats and slave owners tore the states
apart. Republicans helped reunite Europe by tearing down a wall instead of
building new walls to keep countries separate.
I own a civil war rifle that helped reunite our states and a small, broken
piece of the wall that previously divided Europe. Those items remind me that
bad ideas, bad policies, and the bad leaders who try to divide us can fall
quickly. Life can be good again for us and for those trapped on the other side
of a divide. Today’s deportation plans and attacks on sanctuary cities seem
very analogous to the 1850 fugitive slave
law that forced all Americans to help send slaves back to their owners. Republicans
want to force immigrants back to the country that owns them or now to third
countries such as El Salvador or South Sudan willing to make money by renting
them a small space in their worst prisons. Democrats are more willing to treat
immigrants humanely or even as equals, as my ancestors were treated.
Someday, “citizens of the world if they’re given free choice” (Ronald
Reagan, May 18, 1988) will agree that “no man is good enough to govern another without
that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of
American republicanism.” (Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, IL). On
the day when Congress was supposed to count our electoral votes for a new
president (January 6, 2021), Trump showed how much he loves only power and
hates the consent of the governed by sending a mob to attack the Capitol. He
almost got his own vice president hung, saying “Maybe he deserves it” for accepting
that Trump and Pence lost and for counting the votes of the winners – Biden and
Harris.
I still believe in getting consent from all people regarding how the
world will be governed, just like many Republicans used to believe. Instead of
a dictator, we need new
democratic rules for a United Earth.
References
Official
2024 Presidential General Election Results
Official
2020 Presidential General Election Results
https://www.fec.gov/documents/1889/federalelections2016.pdf#page=10
1984
United States presidential election - Wikipedia
1980
United States presidential election - Wikipedia
The
GOP's Evolution On Immigration : NPR
Immigration
Reform and Control Act of 1986 - Wikipedia
Transcript:
Kim Jong Un’s letters to President Trump | CNN Politics
How
Many Immigrants Came to the US in 2024? - What to Know - NSIN
Breaking
Down the Immigration Figures - FactCheck.org
Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850 - Wikipedia
John
McCain And Donald Trump: How 2 Divergent Leaders Collided Over And Over : NPR