Republicans hate America. More specifically, Republicans hate American democracy. It’s the simplest, and most consistent, explanation as to why, in story after story, we see Republicans in open revolt against the democratic rule of law in this country.
They don’t believe in an independent judiciary, and have been undermining, and outright threatening, judges for years. They don’t believe in elections, and thus either gerrymander them when possible (like they’ve now successfully done with the House), or outright attempt to steal them, like they did in the 2000 presidential, and like they tried against Al Franken and others.
Look at the Clinton impeachment. I always say that the Republicans launched a witch hunt and they eventually caught a witch. My point being, they were out to destroy Clinton from day one, with zero evidence to justify their jihad against the man. They didn’t like the way the election went, so they tried to reverse by nearly all means necessary.
Democratic electoral victories, progressive court victories, are not legitimate in GOP eyes. And if Republicans find themselves losing the game, fair and square, they simply change the rules.
Of course, it’s more than simply hating America and the way our democracy is wired. Republicans hate facts, and they loathe reality. Reality, you see, has a liberal bias. If we let judges rule, citizens vote, journalists report, students study, and scientists research – all independently – for some strange reason they keep coming up with conclusions that, more often than not, go against the GOP.
US flag, via Shutterstock.
So, Republicans try to intimidate the judges, steal the vote, create their own faux news network, and then brither, truther, and climate-changer any and every scientific result possible. That’s why a GOP state official in Missouri is trying to redefine, by legislative fiat, the word “scientific theory” to include “faith-based philosophy.” This way, priests can call themselves “scientists,” and creationism immediately becomes “science.”
Hell, GOP president wannabe Marco Rubio couldn’t even admit that the earth was 4.5 billion years old a few months back, lest he inflame the flat-earth base of his own party.
Look at the GOP position on education. For some reason, when people go and get an education, they start to disagree with a lot of Republican positions (this is related to the GOP’s judge, journalist and scientist problem). So, rather than conclude that maybe people with educations don’t like Republicans because, you know, they’re now better informed about the world – Republicans have concluded that college “brainwashes” kids to become liberals, and thus education is bad. As a result, you have people like GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum criticizing the notion as “elitist” that an American parent might want their kid to go to college.
The Republicans must destroy any institution that guarantees, any result that comes from, an objective assessment of the facts.
And that’s why more than half of the Republicans polled, in various recent polls, want to see President Obama impeached and removed from office. HuffPost concluded, “More than anything, surveys finding support for impeachment show just how divided Americans are today along party lines and how strongly rank-and-file members of each party dislike presidents from the opposing party.”
But it’s far worse than that. America isn’t divided. Republicans are seceding. There’s a difference. It’s a bit like me walking down the street minding my own business, you decide to mug me out of nowhere, and an observer says “the boys are divided.” The boys aren’t divided. One boy was walking quite peaceably minding his own business, while the other boy attacked him. Such is the state of our democracy.
The GOP is in 24-hour attack mode, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. And their victim isn’t just Democrats, it’s democracy itself.
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