Opinionated Woman

Has the Republican Party become the party of subversives?

Flabbergasted. That’s how I felt when I heard 106 U.S. Republican congressmen and women signed a brief supporting a Texas lawsuit which aimed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by throwing out millions of votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin–states that Joe Biden won.

I was just as bewildered when I learned that 74 million people chose to vote for an infantile, narcissistic, mean-mouthed, lying blowhard-bully-poor loser (seven million votes less than Biden received, but still).

But what really shocked and saddens me is that seventy-nine percent of Republicans buy Trump’s claims that the election was stolen from him; that there was widespread illegal voting; that Biden was and is not the legitimate President elect.

Why do they believe it? Because Donald Trump told them so.

I’m not really into name-calling, but I’m stupefied that so many Americans are that, well, stupid. There is no evidence of large scale voter fraud (I’m not naive. After all, I’m from Illinois, hence I believe there could have been some small-time shenanigans here and there–on one or both sides, but no comprehensive fraud that would have changed the results of the election).

If there was, why did the U.S. Supreme Court–including Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, the three justices whom Donald Trump appointed–reject the Texas lawsuit challenging the election results?

Why have Trump and his lawsuit-happy lawyers lost over 50 lawsuits disputing the results of the election?

Why have prominent Republicans, including soon-to-be former (hmm, I wonder why that is?) Attorney General William Barr, saying there is no evidence, telling the Associated Press, “… we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”

Closer to home, why did Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican call Trump’s claims of voter fraud “baseless conspiracy theories”?

Why did Republican governors, including Arizona’s Doug Ducey and Georgia’s Brian Kemp, along with officials in other states, say the elections in their states were free from irregularities?

Why did Republican Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, in a better-late-than-never move, six weeks after the election, acknowledge that Biden is the winner of the presidential election?

“I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden,” McConnell said. “Many of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result. But our system of government has the processes to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20. The Electoral College has spoken.”

Why did Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), whom Trump appointed and later fired after Krebs said there was no evidence of voter fraud, call the 2020 election “the most secure in American history”?

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” according to CISA’s Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC).

Even Geraldo Rivera, Fox correspondent and Trump’s longtime pal, said, “It’s over.”

I get that you might agree with most of Trump’s policies. But Trump’s sins go waaay beyond the politics of the right or left. The most unforgivable thing about Donald Trump is not the bragging and the bullying and the nastiness, it’s that Trump is the most unAmerican of American presidents.

While filing dozens and dozens of lawsuits is certainly Trump’s right, constantly lying to the public is morally unacceptable. It’s the thing that dictators do. According to Bill Moyers, Adolf Hitler was the first to describe the technique of repeating a lie so often that people would come to believe it.

Whether Trump berates a reporter who is only doing her job, or constantly crying “FAKE NEWS!” every time he doesn’t like a question being asked of him, he undermines our confidence in the free press. A free press, I remind you, is guaranteed to us in the constitution.

I think most people are not extremists. They’re pretty close to the center politically, and I’m no exception. If you fancied me a lefty commie, let me make myself clear. I happen to be just to the left of center on most issues.

I’m not over the moon over the “The Squad.” I certainly don’t believe in defunding the police (although there are big problems within the police departments, especially racism, which absolutely must be addressed).

Human beings have flaws. They are not perfect, including Joe Biden. I voted for him in spite of his imperfections, and he won the election.

If you like Trump, you obviously don’t like the election results (just as I, along with millions of others, didn’t when Trump won in 2016). But if you consider yourself a patriot, if you love the flag, the country and the freedoms it grants you, you must, absolutely must, accept Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. To do otherwise is not only unpatriotic, it’s the height of hypocrisy.

Filed under:
Uncategorized