The 3 Things the GOP Will Fight and Die For
The only thing more sickening than the assault on the Capitol building is the spinning and finger-pointing happening right now on Conservative television, radio, and podcast shows, attempting to rationalize the attendee behavior and deflect any blame whatsoever away from Republicans or even Trump in some cases.
There are no words for the repugnance of this, but I’m trying to come up with some. “Shameful” applies but is not strong enough.
If you still believe there was election fraud; if you still believe public schools and public roads are “socialism;” if you still think not wearing a mask is a personal choice and possibly against your Constitutional rights; if you still believe following a madman, bully, and gang leader is cute and rebellious and justified; know that YOU HAVE LOST YOUR DAMN MIND AND MORAL COMPASS.
And you are complicit. Your vote and continued allegiance are responsible for five deaths (maybe more?) at the Capitol, damage to our beautiful Capitol building and contents, threats to our election workers, conspiracy to injure, kidnap, or kill elected officials, and the thousands of deaths due to this pandemic.
Mob Daddy lost the election because Democrats, 3rd parties, and many, many Republicans saw the horrendous damage this deranged individual and his family had caused and continue to push. Logical and balanced-thinking voters are determined to see this unfit psychopath removed from office. It isn’t rocket science — more people want him out than want him in.
But for sure, the amount of Americans who think this guy is a great leader is mindboggling and beyond disturbing.
He showed and told us who and what he was in 2015, but some of you voted for him anyway. He continued to divide and conquer the citizenry throughout his four years. This alone isn’t leadership. If you voted for him again, I don’t buy that you are “disenfranchised,” not any more than anyone else anyway. I chalk it up to where you live, the friends you surround yourself with, and the fear of losing some combination of your white, conservative Christian, patriarchal status no matter how much you say that isn’t true. It IS true. The Party might think it's supporting fiscal responsibility — but the numbers don’t shake out. The Republican Party’s ideology filters down to personal values that many people grew up with, think are American, think are ideal because it has worked for them, and don’t see a reason to change. Unfortunately, these values in a political party equate to racism, sexism, and religious narcissism in their worst incarnations, leading to someone getting hurt or killed. We have grown as a nation and don’t do that stuff anymore because we learned these are the values of White Supremacists, chauvinists, pro-lifers, anti-Semitics, and those who identify as “Patriots.”
The day the Capital was raped, I could only see this as the cartoon it was, with the honesty and insanity finally rolling out in full bloom — something I witnessed brewing since the anti-choice movement began taking over the GOP in the late 70s and completed by 1980 — a brilliantly well-funded and desperate attempt by judgmental, self-righteous, religious busy-bodies who had no interest in facts or statistics (or the actual reason abortion became legal, to begin with) but were determined to keep women from being in charge of their own bodies and decision-making (or power over the population) even if it meant the continuation of unhappy and dangerous lives for women in the form of domestic violence, poverty, back-alley abortion, more children or pregnancies than a woman could cope with, sexual harassment, sex trafficking, rape culture, and inequality in every direction.
Domestic terrorism is not new to the GOP. It’s just that the everyday harassment of women about their reproductive decisions, along with the killing of doctors and the bombing of clinics, are accepted as debatable “differences of opinion” in the United States.
Fast forward to the 90s when Fox News came onto the scene, and Rush Limbaugh’s show escalated to prominence to reinforce this by introducing the term “Femi-nazi,” referring to any woman who voiced, for herself and her gender, the desire to have equal respect, equal pay, or personal sovereignty. These broadcasts were not “context-checked” news reporting but opinion “entertainment” expressions that could spew whatever darkness dressed in sugary patriotism one desired, speaking loudly to the lowest common denominator in any (mainly) white person who was open to it. All of this equated once again to white patriarchy and religious conservatives’ values. The status quo must be kept in check. Those who don’t subscribe to this form of patriotism have always been identified as traitors or Communists or some such nonsense. Name-calling and made-up terms are the conservative crowd’s specialty — an age-old bullying and marketing tactic to maintain control.
While George W. satisfied the Christian Right, he was sincere in his naivete and didn’t have the killer instinct. Donald Trump, the dynamo of name-calling and revenge politics with no conscience, boundaries, or core moral values, was just the guy to push political norms so far to the extreme right that the Conservative Christians didn’t and don’t care what sins he commits. Once, when discussing domestic violence, a female cousin of mine, a born-again Christian, said, “Well, Eve ate the apple, so this is our lot in life. Women must pay the price.” It’s that simple. Eve sinned so females are Temptresses, “less than,” and are therefore incapable of making moral decisions. As long as Trump put everything in place to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the religious extremists would give him the adoration he needs.
Though their reasons vary, misogyny is what Trump voters and Republicans have in common. It is the Temptress excuse by the religious right. It is the hatred of women’s power by the Proud Boys. It is pro-choice Republicans thinking that the harassment of reproductive-age females is not a big deal or problem. Or the worst — female Republicans waiving their right to make their own decisions or thinking the whole thing doesn’t apply to them. At the end of the day, all of these folks are good with throwing women under the bus and making society worse for it. However, they will fight and even die and kill for white, Christian, patriarchy.
What these folks didn’t see coming (while the rest of us did) came next.
At the rally before the march to the Capitol, Don Jr., referring to the GOP members inside the Capitol counting electoral votes, excited his dad’s disciples by exclaiming, “This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”
There it is.
Donald Trump expects loyalty but is loyal to no one or thing. It should have been enough for even the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” GOP leaders and pundits to realize who and what they had been following finally. It should have been a come-to-Jesus moment. But it wasn’t — not enough anyway.
Republicans went back to the sidelines, leaving Dems to make the louder call for resignation — again, on their own. One or two more GOP Senators have now finally spoken out as of this writing, but the numbers are nowhere near what they should be. After the unrest, Pence did a great job of bringing care and focus to the Chamber when the Senate reconvened, showing how leadership and integrity work. I actually liked and appreciated him at that moment. But the next day — nada. Even after he was the main target of the lynch mob, his unwillingness to step in to do the right thing by enacting the 25th Amendment feels unconscionable. I’m trying to trust he has a wiser plan in mind. However, the clock ticks on.
The week was traumatic for everyone (I think) for different reasons. I went from laughing at the spectacle to feelings of horror to pure rage and finally crying two days later.
What broke me down was the picture of Congressman Andy Kim at the Capitol rotunda at midnight, a Democrat (and no GOP in sight) cleaning up the upsetting and nauseating mess left by Trump’s Republicans.
And there we have it. The photo says it all.
