When did we get so damned mean?
And so stupid?
Forgive my partisanship here, but I’m not sure the Republican Party could continue to exist without meanness and stupidity.
It always seems to show up at the worst times, whether it was Donald Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico or Ron DeSantis voting against hurricane aid to New York City in 2013 when he was in Congress and demanding aid for Florida now.
Take this with a grain of salt if you want — I am after all a lifelong Democrat — but in the end, there is only one thing that matters to Republican leaders.
Enabling rich people to become richer and richer.
No, they don’t care about abortion, same-sex marriage or any of a half dozen other hot button issues they claim matter to them. Those are simply the tools they use to get votes from millions of people who would never vote for the GOP’s true platform.
They give lip service to being Christians, but expecting Trump, DeSantis or any of the others actually to follow the teachings of Christ is just silly. Many of the GOP leaders say they believe in the so-called “Prosperity Gospel from the book of Acts, and Trump has said his favorite Bible verse is “eye for an eye,” which is from the Old Testament and has nothing to do with Jesus.
In fact, Trump doesn’t even understand that verse. He speaks to hitting back 10 times as hard, but the verse from Leviticus is actually about proportional response.
As for Christ’s teachings on the subject, he openly rejects the Leviticus quote. In Matthew 5: 38-40, he says,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”
Definitely not a Republican.
I was raised in a Protestant denomination. albeit a liberal one, and I converted to Catholicism 30 years ago. One of the primary places this country went off the tracks and never got back on was in the late 1970s, when conservative Southern denominations not only went Republican, but also went right wing.
Ronald Reagan, not a churchgoer, became their hero. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t much of a believer. He gave them lip service on abortion and gay rights, and they followed him on the only two things he cared about — smaller government and anti Communism.
It’s really amazing how cheaply they sold out. Their talk-show messiah, Rush Limbaugh, was divorced three times, had been arrested when he was younger for soliciting gay sex from an undercover police officer and never once mentioned Jesus in 30 years on the air. But he hated the same people they hated.
It got far worse with Trump, to the point where he was actually calling himself God’s “Chosen One.” Since his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, his language has been getting more and more apocalyptic. He speaks of being the only man who can save America, although DeSantis may be far scarier.
Think of him as Trump with a three-digit IQ.
It’s time for the party that has tended to lack a spine to stand up to the party that lacks a heart.
Otherwise, we might be ceding our freedom to people who will never give it back.