Do We Need The Republican Party? No. We Don’t.
Let me begin this comment by reminding my readers that I am a gun nut, I will always be a gun nut, I will be a gun nut ‘till the day I die.
That being said, the picture above was a campaign ad run by Marjorie Taylor Greene, and if you look closely, you’ll note that the reason she’s such a ‘nightmare’ to three members of the House Democratic caucus, is because she happens to be holding an AR-15.
This ad has to be the single most offensive, disgusting, and vicious political ad I have ever seen. And I have been looking at political ads for 60 years.
That’s right. I first got turned on by politics and political campaigns in 1960, when a bunch of us from my high school skipped classes and went down to the big rally for JFK in Herald Square.
How many political ads have I seen since then? Thousands, maybe more. How many political ads have even come close to representing the crazy and dangerous message posted by Marjory Taylor Greene? None that I can remember — that’s for sure.
For all the talk by members of the GOP caucus about how the Democrats want to promote ‘cancel culture’ using poor Ms. Greene as their scapegoat, here’s the bottom line: If there hadn’t been a riot at the Capitol on January 6th, nothing that the Democrats have said about Marjory Taylor Greene would attract any attention at all.
And even after the riot, not one member of the House GOP caucus had the decency to stand up and publicly call out this racist, violence-provoking woman for what she has done. In fairness, it should be added that 11 GOP members joined all members of the Democratic caucus in giving gun-toting Marge what the British would call ‘the chop.’ Good for them.
I listened to member after member of the GOP House caucus avoid condemning Taylor’s behavior and at a certain point, I said to myself, why do we need any of them around? What do these Republicans do for the country that a centrist bunch of Democrats couldn’t do better or at least just as well?
Fiscal integrity? Yea, right. Border security? Yea, right. An equitable tax policy? Yea, right. Affordable medical care for all Americans? Yea, right. Oh, and let’s not forget all those Constitutional ‘rights’ — civil rights, gender rights, so on and so forth. The only Constitutional ‘right’ that means anything to the GOP is the ‘right to bear arms.’
Right now, the GOP has to tread a little carefully because memories of January 6th are still fresh in everyone’s mind. If the Republicans could somehow blame the Democrats for inciting the riot, believe me, they’d run it up the old flagpole. So, they figure, give it some time and everyone will forget.
But the truth is that the GOP has been casting doubt on the value and necessity of government since Barry Goldwater first talked about welfare ‘fraud’ back in 1964. How far away are Donald Trump’s lazy, good-for-nothing immigrants from Ronald Reagan’s ‘welfare queen?’ Not far at all. And by the way, all those conspiracy theories about the ‘Chinese flu’ and election ‘fraud’ happen to be attacks on government as well.
Every time a Republican runs for elective office in my state, he claims that his sole agenda is to ‘clean out the swamp.’ Know what that means? It means cut food stamps, cut Medicaid, cut any and all programs which aid the disenfranchised, the communities of color and the poor. After all, the poor will always be with us anyway, so why should we pay more taxes to help them out, right?
If you’ve begun to get the feeling that maybe Mike the Gun Guy doesn’t like Republicans, you happen to be correct. And I’m not about to somehow soften my stance because of the virtue or value of a two-party system, okay?
As far as I’m concerned, the word ‘democracy’ means that everyone can vote. That being the case, I have no problem choosing which Democrat to support.
