T.S. Eliot described the Republicans very well in the last section of “The Waste Land”, “What the Thunder Said”:
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
I do not question that prudence has its time. But is this hour the hour of prudence, or principle? I have often been so rash and radical in my thoughts and expression, but I fear today was a day on which to fight the battle of principle and we have indeed fought, but lost. Bitterly.