A One Party System
Tags: GOP, Democratic Party, Coronavirus, Republican Party, Election 2020

We will soon get the stories, the quotes, and the scoops that, all along, most Republicans hated Trump. I implore both the average American and the press to do their utmost to ignore this attempt to save-face. While the last five years have seen an increasingly hostile and destructive Republican Party, their hatred of American ideals and the American people started much earlier.

When I first got interested in World War II, the thing that made me wonder the most was, “How?” How did a man like Adolf Hitler come to power? How did Stalin so completely remake a massive country purely for his own benefit? You may choose to ascribe to the Great Man theory of history but that alone could never account for the undertaking. You would need help in a situation like that. You would need people so blinded by the prospect of more power that sacrificing millions of lives would be worth it for even an iota more influence.

The GOP is not the party of small government or personal responsibility. It is not the party of religious liberty or the pro-life movement. It is the party of vindictiveness. The overall theory of the GOP is, “For thee and not for me.” The historic shamefulness of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and the invention, out of whole cloth, of voter fraud are just two examples. In a system already rigged towards rural whites (consequently, the same group of people least likely to actually be affected by people of color or immigrants), they can’t comprehend the idea of a fair fight.

While cranky whites will gladly wear the cloak of victimhood (while claiming everyone else is “playing the victim), Republican Party officials see the gold in the hills. Someone from the Midwest, like me, is not in any way affected by drag queens doing a story hour at a library in California. In practical terms, it means nothing to me. And yet, this is the crux of conservative messaging.

Identity politics is politics. White, black, Asian, gay, straight, rich, poor, gun-owning, college-educated, first-generation, WASP, cop. These are all identities and all play a part in how people see and move through the world. When a white guy in rural Ohio votes for the GOP, he is no more rational than a black woman in Georgia — he merely has the presumption of rationality.

Without these disparate identities, the Republican Party would have no hope of electoral success. Rather than marketing ideas, they market fear and disgust. Poor black people moving into your white neighborhood, dangerous MS-13 gang members living in your city, terrorists sneaking across the border. All bogus and all completely vital to their messaging. You are more likely to die from a right-wing white terrorist than a Muslim terrorist by astronomical proportions.

The true GOP message is simple: hypocrisy now, hypocrisy forever. Let’s look at Republican hypocrisy, lest we lose track:

Pro-life to protect the children yet actively put children in cages Pro-life yet not wearing masks and directly contributing to people dying Free speech warriors yet indignant at kneeling at the flag Small government, unless, of course, you are talking about someone’s uterus Nominating and confirming Amy Coney Barrett and stonewalling Merrick Garland Claiming voter fraud is rampant yet being the only ones to actually perpetrate it Derision of millenial and liberal “snowflakes” while claiming persecution at every point on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc. Refusal to accept the outcomes of free and fair elections if they don’t like the results Personal responsibility yet refusing to hold the President of the United States responsible for a single thing. This one is just for the Congresspersons: refusing to acknowledge efficacy and veracity of the benefits of universal healthcare while having universal healthcare

Those are just ten things. And, you may notice, few of them have to directly do with Trump. The Republican Party is rotten. It’s every tendril carrying a seed of corrosion and evil that has the potential to infect everything it touches. We will soon be inundated with feel-good stories about kindly Republicans, secret anti-Trump Republicans, Republicans who just want to get back to normal. But what normal?

We need another party in order for this government and political system to work. They don’t believe that. They see their route power blocked and obscured by democracy and freedoms. They will continue to oppress those who would otherwise see them out of office. Ask them where they were and what they did as hundreds of thousands of Americans died because their partner in all of this was too busy golfing and tweeting. They deserve nothing but to be relegated to history.