GOP Falling Short: Behind the Curve and Way out of Line

One of the most absurd things I have seen in several years of remarkably ridiculous things is Ron DeSantis standing in front of his campaign banner. The banner reads “AWAKE not Woke.”

Apparently, DeSantis does not realize that “woke” is the past tense of “wake.” To be “woke”
merely means you are “awake” and woke up some time ago (to the record of racism in this country) and don’t need anyone to tell you to wake up now. As usually, The GOP is missing the point and is badly behind the curve. Nothing new there!

DeSantis also reached for a new low in modern political practice by shipping recent refugees to his state off to a distant northern state (apparently without telling them what he was doing, where they were going, or why he was playing political games with their lives). It is an exceptionally cruel way to treat people who are already suffering and in distress. That is way over the line and par for the Trumpian course! (And let the “liberals” solve the problem.) It would have been more useful to help his state prepare for hurricanes like Ian.

The other really outstanding thing is that almost across the board, the GOP continues to refuse to offer any real solutions to the nation’s problems. In 2016, Trump was completely vague on specific policies (except for the crowd-pleasing promise to build the “Wall” and his promise to destroy Healthcare…but then replace it with something better). Like his talk about rebuilding American infrastructure, none of that happened.

Now, all Republicans seem to be able to do to is complain about everything without telling anyone how they would do better. Ironic, because one of the things they used to complain about most was a supposed “liberal” sense of entitlement. It is the GOP that is really at the center of the “entitlement” problem. They want more services, but lower taxes. They want no government interference in the economy, but they expect Biden to ensure a supply of baby formula. Perhaps the issue they complain about most now is inflation.

Let’s be real. The fact is, no company wants their profits to go down, no worker wants their wages to go down, oilmen don’t want lower gas prices, farmers don’t want lower food prices, fishermen don’t want lower fish prices. In other words, everyone should make a sacrifice and lower their prices except you. We all want more (always). And we never think about what is enough. So, when you gripe about inflation, remember you are probably part of the problem. (Nothing wrong with you personally; it is just the fix that being mindlessly attached to capitalist ideology leaves us in.) Obviously, if greed, price gouging, and our sense of entitlement only grows greater, things will only get worse. It is hard to understand why Republicans who don’t want government to meddle in the economy think that President Biden should fix this.

But the irony that (for me) totally rules out a vote for any Republican is their really weird reversal on the rule of law. The GOP used to be considered the party of “law and order.” Where are they now? Republicans appear to believe that people guilty of minor drug possession charges should be punished more severely than people who committed armed assault in a conspiracy to commit treason by overthrowing a legitimate election. A lot of Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists are getting a mere slap on the wrist (a few months of prison time at best) for having committed assault and battery on law enforcement officials. At the same time, The GOP wants to ignore Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document theft just as they ignored two previous offenses for which he was impeached, and they are calling for defunding the FBI and DOJ. That isn’t defunding law enforcement, it is an attempt to chop its head off.

It all makes a mockery of justice, the constitution, democracy, and even common sense. These are all things Americans used to take pride in. GOP efforts to ban abortion, suppress or nullify the will of voters, limit the rights of minorities, and ban books are out of line with democratic values. With real problems like climate change, pandemics, healthcare, insurrectionist domestic terrorism, gun violence, and fair policing they are way behind the curve. Overall, the country faces serious challenges, and the GOP has no solutions, only a blueprint for failure.