WHY I DESPISE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY – NOW, MORE THAN EVER

Donald Trump claims that the vote is rigged against him. One can only hope it is. Just as the world would have hoped the vote would have been rigged against Adolf Hitler.

In view of the fact that the Republican Party has seen fit to nominate something called Donald J. Trump as their candidate for President of the United States of America thus validating everything I have ever thought, or felt, about this party, I am re-posting this piece. I am doing so because, by this nomination, this party has now outdone themselves in their blatant cynicism and disregard for any pretense of governance, civility and the welfare of our country. Here is the piece first written in 2011 and revised in 2016.

Donald Trump is so enamored with the sound of his own voice that, in his blind need for applause, he does not care that his actions and words are destroying the fabric of our society – and, hopefully, The Republican Party.

The other evening I saw a wonderful documentary on Hugh Romney aka Wavy Gravy, and it got me to questioning as to why I harbor such an animosity against the Right-Wing of this country, and, since they are usually all Republicans, why I harbor such a deep dislike in general of the Republican Party.

Firstly, let me say that I know now for certain that after being exposed to the way Wavy Gravy has lived his life of “protesting” for world peace and sanity that I am far from enlightened, and far from wise. Were I so, I would not have this abiding anger towards this political party.

I am a product of the 60’s born in the late 30’s. I grew up idolizing FDR and The New Deal. In that world, where all was far from perfect, government still managed by presidential and cooperative congressional action to actually provide for the common good. Compromise between parties was a reality and our government was actually the guardian of the welfare of all its citizens, actually creating jobs by the millions.

I am an idealist, and, as the right-wing would label me, a bleeding Heart Liberal. I am proud to wear that union label. In my youth I had such high hopes for my country. I believed, as did my contemporaries, that peace in the world was an achievable dream, and that people, in this country at least, and perhaps in the whole world, could live in peace, free from want, from need, be educated, be productive…in short, I imagined what John Lennon imagined.

In the 50’s, like others, I managed to not go to war in Korea, a war presided over by Democratic President Harry S, Truman I might add, realizing it was a part of the cold war’s trumped up “Domino Theory” and, as such, didn’t pass the smell test. It wasn’t my fight, and I believed that if the politicians thought that killing people in Korea was so important they, and their children, should strap on a rifle and go kill them themselves. (There’s a lesson here in that we now see all the many Korean products on our roads and shelves.) In the 60’s I marched for peace, and was arrested in Washington D.C. during the May Day protest against the Viet Nam war, and was part of a class-action lawsuit brought against the government for false arrest – which we won. So yes, in many ways this is an amazing country.

But that was then, and this is now. Now the country I love is much less amazing. Now my constitution has been violated by people who’ve no clue as to its real intentions, and instead use it to further their mean-spirited agendas. Not only has peace not been achieved, but we now fight three wars at once. I will stipulate that President Obama was, and is, wrong to have given in to continuing the Middle East policies of his Republican predecessor. Be that as it may, the current George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld desired and designed wars in the Middle East – beginning with the illegal invasion of Iraq – and their terrible waste of people and treasure, all which have given rise to Isis, are ludicrous in their transparent lust for hegemony and oil. And, all the while as Republicans thwart every effort at alternative energy sources.

Also, as far as “terrorism” is concerned, I’ve always thought of it as a criminal case and a job for Interpol – not whole armies. But of course Dick Cheney, he of Halliburton stock profits, would strongly disagree.

The case for where we now find ourselves as a country can be made against the Republican Right vis-a-vis the accumulated product of the callous, mean spirited, greed inspired, Right-Wing Republican policies over the course of the last half-century. If you check the statistics of job creation by Administration over the last 40 years you’ll find that the most jobs were created in descending order, by Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy, and the least amount of jobs were created by Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and, worst of all, Bush II. This alone speaks volumes as to where the Republican bread is buttered. To put it in a nutshell; the chief agenda of the Republican Party is not governance, but to abolish any and all regulations that keeps it from amassing wealth by any means including onerous voter registration laws and rape of the middle and lower classes.

This is the party that voted against The New Deal, (which brought us out of The Great Depression), voted against Social Security, against Medicaid and Medicare, and, in the last 8 years, has voted down every Obama and Democratic backed jobs bill – including seven jobs bills for veterans – while overwhelmingly voting for defunding Planned Parenthood.

This is the party that denies Global warming and science. The party that has always sought to bust the working people’s unions since, of course, that cuts into corporate profits.  Republicans have, however, given us Citizens United which allows their corporate sponsors to plow vast sums of money into their campaigns. This is now a party made up largely of the one tenth of one percent ultra rich white men and women – both young and old, fairly affluent suburban whites – young and old – and angry lower class “poorly educated” white men, as cited by Donald Trump in all his glorious verbal diarrhea (and who haven’t a clue as to who their anger should really be directed at). Can you see the common denominator here?

I know that there is enough in this world for everyone never to go hungry, or go without shelter, or medical attention, or an education. Nor is there any rational reason for someone who wants to work to go without a job because they are uneducated or untrained. I know this. No one can tell me otherwise. (I did tell you I am an idealist) And perhaps this Utopian vision is unreal…yet there are people in this country – I speak of The House Republicans – who would make it impossible to even begin to approach achieving these ideals. Who believe that providing whatever training, or education, or help that is available, to all of us is somehow against the “spirit” of laissez-faire Capitalism. Against the “spirit” of the free market because, being the pirates that they are, they view the world as a dog eat dog place. They have an “I’ve got mine now you get yours” mentality. And, these same people profess without the least trace of irony, or shame, or embarrassment, to be Christians. This is surely a joke.

Please understand, I have no quarrel with wealthy people who are not greedy, who are philanthropists, generous and giving of their time and money – as many are. My brief is against the wealthy and connected who can never have enough, and who use their power and position to the detriment of the public at large. Witness their current attack on our working class. Of course, the poor never enter into their metric at all. How these people can bear to see so many in this country go without and continue in their selfish pursuit of power and money above all other things is obscene, and, to me anyway, convincing evidence that they are the most worthless humans among us, and worthy of my abject contempt.

Of course these same Right Wing “Christians” who decry Socialism as “dangerous” are not above receiving bail-outs from the Government i.e. Wall Street, and AIG. To the contrary, that form of Socialism – Socialism for the rich – is quite alright in their minds, but paying off people’s mortgages with that same money, or using that money to re-build our infra-structure, and in doing so provide jobs – that would be a kind of Socialism they never could abide to this day. They are the biggest of hypocrites whose only objective is to “game” our system, which laws they have rigged to make it easier for them to do so, in order to amass, and protect by any means necessary, including whole armies, that which they have gained in too many cases by immoral, illegal, or borderline illegal, means.

These selfish criminals, who would go to the illegal lengths of pre-emptively starting a war to protect their positions, and profit by this war as well, without the slightest twinge of conscience as to its bloody consequences, have managed through the years to turn Socialism into a dirty word. These people persist in their mad uncaring lust to amass more than they could ever need in four lifetimes, and not only amass, but take away from others less fortunate than they by continuing to thwart the chances of people who are in need. And children go hungry; families go without homes, without work, without an education, without hope, just…without.

But wait, the Right-Wing does care…they care if gays get married, they care if workers can bargain collectively, and they care that women should not have the right to determine what to do with their own bodies, even in cases of incestuous rape. Of course, these are truly large concerns when placed in juxtaposition to silly things like jobs, homes, education, basic necessities, etc.

One of the richest, fattest Republican pigs, one Newt Gingrich – the very name makes my skin crawl – was being bruted about as a running mate for the Republican’s presumptive candidate for President of this country (and more about this obnoxious fraud later.) Gingrich has been quoted saying of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, “go get a job, after you take a bath.” This person, who, by the way, had a million dollar Tiffany charge account, had the sensitivity to say this to a nation whose unemployment number at the time stood at 13.8 million and which, thanks to President Obama, and no thanks to The House Republicans and their “Tea Party,” currently stands at 7.4 million people. Another prominent Republican, Tim Pawlenty has said “suffering is not only necessary, it is essential.” I would have to be forcibly brought to the table in order to ever sit down to dinner with people like this…and then, I could not be civil. As I said above, I am far from enlightened enough to be nice to people of this ilk.

There are many reading this who will disagree with me, and that, of course, is their right. I am only trying to explain to you all why I detest the odious Republican Party with all my heart and soul.

Consider: the super committee charged by President Obama with coming up with a plan to reduce the deficit stood at an impasse over three major points. The Democrats are unwilling to seriously revamp Medicare and other health plans, and want extensions in unemployment benefits, and the Republicans insist on a deal that will extend the Grover Norquist Republican pledged Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (which repeal would automatically reduce the deficit by $3.9 trillion  over the next ten years). Can you see the difference in priorities here?

And now let us turn to the Republican candidate for the presidency of these United States. Besides 91% of his statements being proven to be lies, besides his incoherent rhetoric revealing how erratic he is and how little he knows of global politics, besides his declining to offer any specifics as to how he will do what he claims he will do, besides refusing to release his tax returns, besides being sued for fraud by over 5,000 former students of Trump U., besides denying the things he says – even though it’s on video, besides changing his positions – often within 24 hours, saying of women who violated a theoretical ban on abortion, the “answer is that there has to be some form of punishment, yeah.” Besides all that, he advocates for torture as a method of interrogation saying: “I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” and wants to change the laws to legalize, at minimum, waterboarding, besides wanting to build a wall between the USA and Mexico and deport the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants with the help of a “deportation force,” including the Dreamers – young undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country by their parents as children.

He is a racist, who, because he is so unconscious of his words isn’t even even aware he’s a racist, advocates for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,”except for “his Muslim friends.” He wants to repeal The Affordable Care Act which would likely cause 21 million people to lose their health insurance and cost about $270 billion over 10 years – without offering any clear alternative, besides saying “having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country.” He is pro death penalty, pro racial profiling, against a President’s Constitutional duty to appoint a Supreme Court Justice (this president anyway – but not against his own Presidency if elected), pro cutting the corporate tax rate to 15%, and pro fracking.

Besides all of the above, which is scary enough, he has effectively advocated the spread of arms so destructive they haven’t been used since their horrifying debut over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Remarking that the United States would be “better off” if nations like South Korea and Japan had nuclear weapons. Are you scared yet? We all should be.

Besides all this, according to developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Trump is “remarkably narcissistic,” while clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis used the term “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” referring to Trump. Here are the markers of a person with narcissistic personality disorder:

• Takes advantage of others to reach his or her own goals
• Exaggerates own importance
• Exaggerates achievements and talents
• Entertains unrealistic fantasies about success, power, beauty, intelligence or romance
• Has unreasonable expectation of favorable treatment
• Requires constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
• Disregards the feelings of others, lacks empathy
• Has obsessive self-interest
• Pursues mainly selfish goals

Does the above list call to mind anyone currently in the news? “He’s very easy to diagnose,” psychotherapist Charlotte Prozan told Vanity Fair. “In the first debate, he talked over people and was domineering. He’ll do anything to demean others.” He has since continued this ugly boorish behavior – and much worse – in the debates with Hillary Clinton.

And, make no mistake – many of these Republican politicians who were all for Trump until recently as a week ago – despite all his obvious shortcomings – his racism, xenophobia, narcissism, his blatant lies, his lack of knowledge in foreign affairs, his insulting manner,  are now deserting Trump.  However, they are doing so not because they disagree with him, no – they are jumping The S.S. Drumpf because they now see that power – the only thing they are interested in, not governance, not the betterment of their constituents, not even fair elections – this power is now in danger of being pried from their cold dead hands.

In short, this horrible textbook case of narcissism, this thin-skinned insecure schoolyard bully, this hate-mongering monster, is the Republican Party’s idea of someone fit to be the President of The United States of America and by extension the leader of the free world. This pathological liar, this psychopath, this sociopath, and yes – this would-be fascist dictator – is within a single election of having his finger on the nuclear button.

Hmm…there was something else…if only I could remember what it– oh, did I mention? In his own bragging words captured on video, he is a serial misogynist and sexual predator.

Only one political party in this country could possibly nominate as their candidate for the highest office in the land a grotesquerie such as this.

Only one!

Let us hope this monster does not destroy whatever civility we have left in this country – but does destroy this heinous ugly political  party of flag pin wearing pretend-patriots.

© tony powers and Barking in the Dark, 2011, revised 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to tony powers and Barking in the Dark with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.