First of two pieces of why I miss the Repbulicans of my yout.
There are times when I miss the old-fashioned Republicans of my youth, in the small-town America in which I grew up, about 40 miles over the Pennsylvania border in rural New York. Those mostly Protestant Republicans were the bankers, the insurance agents, the ministers, as well as many of the older doctors and lawyers. They didn’t like taxes. But they believed in the common good – in schools and parks and good sidewalks. In roads and bridges, in water system and sewers.