NPP Is The Republican Party Of Ghana?

I have seen references made that seems to suggest that the NPP is the Republican Party of Ghana. Nana Akufo-Addo has himself quoted Ronald Reagan. I do not belong to any party in Ghana but I would probably be more sympathetic with the NPP than with others, but if the NPP is the Republican Party of Ghana, then they have written me off.

I watched as Ronald Reagan ran for office against Jimmy Carter and watched all 8 years of his presidency. I did not see anything so spectacular about him. He was a man who frequently lost his trend of thought in the middle of making a point. Jesse Jackson once counted on his fingers on “Saturday Night Live” (an American comedy show) as they showed Mr. Reagan trying to remember the point he was trying to make in a debate. I saw a man who used code words and phrases like “Welfare Queens” to get votes to the detriment of the African American population in American. Today’s hate that has taken hold of American politics has its roots in Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” was not a command that moved anyone nor did it get anyone shaking in his boots. It was a gimmick that just preceded history. When the Berlin wall was torn down, George H. W. Bush was President. I don’t think Reagan himself ever thought it would come down. Republicans needed a hero and they made a hero of him: their reason being he increased defense spending to draw the Soviet Union into arms race that left the Soviet Union broke and causing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why would anyone in Ghana be so infatuated with Reagan?

Today’s Republican Party is nothing like Lincoln’s Republican Party. It is a party that became a party after the racists in the Democratic Party walked away from the Democratic Party because of their opposition to the civil rights legislations that gave value to African American vote. If you don’t know, local election officials employed tactics like asking black voters to count the number of grains of sugar in a jar of sugar before they could vote, and those who grew today’s Republican Party are the same people who opposed getting rid of tactics like this. It is a party of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. The Republican Party is a party in which David Duke feels comfortable running for office in. Many immigrants, including immigrants from Africa and Ghana, vote for the Democratic Party. In case NPP didn’t know, many Republicans oppose immigration reform because they say they will only be creating more Democratic votes. Why would we sit in Ghana and admire them to the point that we want to be them?

Today’s Republican Party is a party of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Ted Cruz. The party is comfortable with their elected officials spitting on other elected officials for the simple reason that they are black. This should give anyone in Ghana a pause. Elected officials of the party have drawn Barack Obama as a monkey and circulated racial literature about him, and leaders of the party like John Boehner are afraid to say anything about it because it may cost them their positions. This is what NPP feel comfortable likening themselves to? NPP can count me out then.

Ron Paul said yes when asked in a primary debate if people who do not have money for health care must die if they get sick; saying, “We all make choices.” Too many people have died in Ghana because they could not afford health care. We are hoping to have a government that will use our nation’s resources to help us stay healthy and alive. If NPP is the Republican Party of Ghana, is this what we should look forward to? For a party often branded as a tribal party, this is not so smart a move, is it? It won’t take too much to draw parallel to looking down on other tribes. At least I will find it easy to do. Many Ghanaians living in the US vote for Democrats. It is only a matter of time before there is a backlash if this continues. If you are NPP, this is the time to caution your party leaders instead of leaving comments to condemn me for writing about this.

Republicans have sold the idea that if the rich get richer, they will invest to create jobs so the rest of us will have jobs. They have cut taxes without assessing the country’s needs. This idea started with Ronald Reagan and was called Reaganomics during his days as President. George H. W. Bush who became Reagan’s Vice President called it voodoo economics. Voodoo economics won the day and has become the only mantra of each Republican. The result of this is that rich people have become richer and the jobs have never come since Reagan’s days. In my home state of North Carolina, the Republicans just cut income tax giving high income people more money in their pocket and increased the number of items that you have to pay tax on at the store. In effect, the poor pay as much tax as the rich. If someone scrapes up enough money to buy something he needs, he has to come up with even more to pay as much tax on the item as a rich man will pay.

I will sign off with a story I heard. A town in Texas has decided to turn some paved roads to gravel roads because they don’t have money to maintain them. They have cut taxes so much that the only way they were going to maintain roads was to sell bonds to raise money. When voters voted down the bond proposal, they were left with the option of turning some paved roads to gravel roads. Is this what we have to look forward to if NPP is the Republican Party of Ghana? In Ghana, we need to build roads how does NPP proposal to do this? Republicans cut the budget, you know. You are free to wish to be the Republican Party of Ghana. We have the right to tell Ghanaian voters what we know about the Republican Party that you want to emulate.

Tony Pobee-Mensah

tpmensahr@yahoo.com