The moral disintegration of the Republican Party continues apace. The puzzlement is that party faithful still spout slogans trying to claim moral high ground in the political arena.
Family values?
Their everlasting endorsement of the lying, adulterous, misogynistic, racist Donald Trump would be enough to refute this claim. (These same folks who condemned Bill Clinton’s disgusting behavior unflinchingly support the guy who brags about his own debauchery.)
And these flag-wavers also embrace this same guy who tried to overthrow the republic. (Well, yes, many of them are waving confederate and nazi flags at their public gatherings.)
But, consider, too, that family value Republican-controlled states Iowa and Arkansas have embraced child labor. In Iowa, a meat-packer was fined by the Feds for having kids as young as 14 cleaning dangerous machinery in their slaughterhouses. Gov. Kim Reynolds said once-heralded child labor reforms posed “unnecessary restrictions” upon industry.
And we can look to “family-value” Republicans for the insistence those receiving federal assistance get to work – taking single mothers away from children for jobs that won’t pay for adequate child care. I guess hungry children come from the wrong families; they have less value.
The North Dakota Senate (GOP-controlled) killed a bill to provide free lunches to more poor students – and then upped their own per diem meal money from $35 to $45.
“Local control” Republicans implement top-down restrictions on towns and school districts every chance they get. Micro-managing autocrats preach against micro-managing bureaucrats on a regular basis. They must not own any mirrors.
Any time a racist gets booed off a college campus – or an exposed liar, racist and hate-monger gets booted off the airwaves – Republicans cry out for free speech and against “cancel culture.”
Yet, we find Republican-controlled states banning stage performances (drag shows), censoring textbooks that speak unwelcome truths, attacking libraries for their inclusiveness and, infamously in Florida invoking a “don’t say ‘gay’” policy for its schools.
No one is exempt from Republican censorship. Three Tennessee lawmakers protesting their legislature’s lack of action on gun control following a Nashville school massacre were kicked out of that body. (Locals sent them right back.)
A transgender Montana legislator was similarly booted from her assembly because she opposed anti-transgender legislation and reminded her high-minded colleagues that they would be responsible for the negative consequences their law could have on transgender youth. (Her constituents remain unrepresented.)
Exemplifying an irony likely beyond his ken, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ required presidential campaign book is titled “The Courage To Be Free.” For starters, this guy seems to be afraid of everything: good sense science that could have kept more Floridians alive; the weapons of war that he wants everywhere in the state – except when he is in attendance; anyone who disagrees with him.
In a page straight from a Marxist manual, DeSantis tried to seize control of Disneyworld, when that organization countered his anti-LGBTQ rants by assuring the public that everyone was welcome at its establishment.
Yes, yes. Republicans are pro-business, anti-regulation.
What needs to be canceled is GOP hypocrisy.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries summed up Republican values on MSNBC last week: “The Republican Party under Donald Trump and Trumpism has three basic philosophical pillars. One, facts don’t matter. Two, hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior. And three, they actually believe that shamelessness is a superpower.”
(Gary Edmondson is chair of the Stephens County Democratic Party: <scdpok.us> or <facebook.com/SCDPOK/>. )