Republican Party in USA and NDP in SVG

Fri, Nov 16, 2012

Editor: The startling similarities between the right-wing Republican Party in the USA, including “the Tea Party” faction, and the New Democratic Party (NDP) in St Vincent and the Grenadines are there for all discerning people to see.{{more}}

First, let us establish “context”, then we will move to “the text”. The Republican Party and the NDP are ideological soul mates; they both belong to the right-wing, neo-liberal International Democratic Union (IDU). The IDU’s subordinate in the region, the Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU), to which the NDP belongs, once had the NDP’s founder, James Mitchell, as its Vice President. Both the Republican Party and the NDP were in power continuously for a long period of time before they were booted out of office. Both the Republican Party and the NDP have gone through, and are going through, four stages of political responses after their defeats. Indeed, some of the stages combine simultaneously. These stages are:

Denial, Anger, Grief and Depression. Sometimes they enter a fifth stage, “Acceptance,” only to snap out of it and go back through bouts of denial, anger, grief and depression.

The Republican Party has gone out of its way to demonise President Barack Obama; the NDP has done the same to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. Lies, falsehoods, innuendos, misleading statements, and underhand conspiracies, have been the currencies of choice against Barack and Ralph respectively.

The Republican Party, from the first day of Obama’s victory in 2008, asserted that their mission is to make him a one-term President. They were at it for four years non-stop. The NDP has said and done the same thing to Ralph. Remember “One Term Papa”. Respectively Barack and Ralph were interlopers; their political opponents felt that they had a mission “to take back” what they believed was theirs by right.

The Republican Party called President Obama “the food stamp President” in his attempt to help poor people. The NDP has been saying that Ralph is “a Poor Relief Prime Minister” in his efforts to strengthen the safety net for the poor.

The Republican Party falsely denounced Obama as “a communist” in office; the NDP has been dishonestly doing the same to Ralph.

The Republican Party left Obama a “bad hand,” but puts the economic woes of the USA at the feet of Obama. In SVG, the NDP has done the same to Ralph.

The Republican Party is financed by the wealthy American elite and is unconcerned about the ordinary Americans or “the 47 percent dependent on the State”. The NDP has been financed by rich Americans and British in the Grenadines, especially from Bequia, and is unconcerned about the bulk of the people whom Ralph’s policies are helping. Both the Republicans and the NDP are “dancers for money”.

The Republican Party denies, and attacks, officials and their statistics which favour the Obama government. In SVG, the NDP does the same in respect of statements, statistics and persons who favour the ULP administration.

The Republican Party dishonestly presents its leadership as paragons of virtue, only to have the real world unmask them. In SVG, no matter the application of “political botox” to Eustace, Leacock, Cummings, Lewis, Ferdinand and the others, they cannot be remade from who they really are, unsuitable for a progressive SVG.

I am sure that the general public can add more similarities between the discredited Republican Party and the NDP.

Hans King
Press Secretary to the Prime Minister