Decent Republicans, harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P.

[GoodTaste]

Does the sentence "Decent Republicans, harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P." have a verb? Does it mean "Decent Republicans, are harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P."?

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Richard Dawkins
@RichardDawkins
·
19h
I’ve just learned of The Lincoln Project. Decent Republicans, harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P. The party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt; Republicans who uphold the US Constitution; truthful, non-corrupt, adult Republicans.

 

[GoesStation]

No to both questions. The headline-style sentence means This is an example of the behavior of decent Republicans. It reminds me of the days when their party deserved the title "G.O.P." ("Grand Old Party").

The second sentence is written in a similarly condensed, verbless style.

 

[GoodTaste]

So it is Richard Dawkins who's "harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P."? [h=2][/h]

 

[GoesStation]

So it is Richard Dawkins who's "harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P."? [h=2][/h]

Sorry, no. "Harking back to" means reminding people of. I probably should have used wording like that in post #2.

 

[TheParser]

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Richard Dawkins
@RichardDawkins
·
19h
I’ve just learned of The Lincoln Project. Decent Republicans, harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P.

NOT A TEACHER


1. This is how this non-teacher interprets that abbreviated comment: "I've just learned about the Lincoln Project, which is an organization of decent Republicans who hark back to (recall) when their party deserved the title Grand Old Party."

a. I am not the best reader in the world, but I assume that the adjective "decent" is Mr. Dawkins's evaluation of the Lincoln Project's members and that it is the members who recall those days.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

So it is Richard Dawkins who's "harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P."?

As Goes says, harking back to means recalling, remembering, revisiting.

To be absolutely grammatical, Dawkins could have punctuated it this way:

I’ve just learned of The Lincoln Project: decent Republicans, harking back to when their party deserved the title G.O.P.; the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt; Republicans who uphold the US Constitution; truthful, non-corrupt, adult Republicans.


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He broke the rules to add emphasis. An important principle in written English: It's fine to break the rules as long as you do it intentionally.