I must be a slow learner because it took me almost 35 years but I finally understand Republicans!
Republicans just want to be loved. They are like the boyfriend who says: “If I can’t have you, nobody can”. They are like Putin saying to Ukraine: “I don’t mind my country suffering. What I mind is your country prospering.” They want people to love them and vote for them. They think their ideas are great for them and that’s why they want to stay in power at any cost.
NOT ALL OF THEM BUT MOST OF THEM believe in the following. These are not just my opinions. These are facts, which, sadly, can be very easily proven by the preponderance of the evidence that can be found online by anyone with a curious and unbiased mind who cares to read.
– Republicans think it’s ok for women to be refused abortion even in cases of incest and rape.
– Republicans believe that sending the army against civilians is ok.
– Republicans are willing to trade money for Democracy. If you promise them more money, they are willing to sacrifice Democracy.
– Republicans believe it’s ok to defund the Department of Education.
– Republicans believe it’s ok to defund cancer research at universities.
– Republicans believe that Global Warming is a hoax or if it’s real it’s not caused by us.
– Republicans don’t support electric cars and solar panels.
– Republicans believe it’s ok to arrest political opponents for speech including senators, governors, representatives and mayoral candidates.
– Republicans believe in states rights to handle things themselves, unless they are democratic states in which case Republicans believe in sending the army and the National Guard to handle things for them.
– Republicans believe that it’s ok for ICE agents to hide behind masks and not to wear name tags or show warrants before arresting you.
– Republicans believe that Supreme Court justices should not be appointed too close to an election unless republicans are in power in which case there are no such restrictions.
– Republicans believe it’s ok to ban books teaching liberal and democratic values which are defined as anything outside their beliefs.
– Republicans believe it’s ok to have military parades on the streets of Washington like in Russia and North Korea.
– Republicans strongly believe in following the Constitution and following court orders when Democrats are in power but when Republicans are in power – not so much.
– Republicans believe that pushing a senator to the ground and handcuffing him for speaking out of turn in one of their press conferences is OK.
– Republicans believe that it’s ok to send people to prison without giving them a chance to defend themselves in front of a judge first.
– Republicans believe that lowering taxes which lowers revenues will actually increase revenues (so funny!).
– Republicans believe that if a man entered the country undocumented but is married to a citizen and has children born here, he can be deported and the children left without a father and that’s OK.
– Republicans believe that gay and trans people who want to fight for this country and serve in the military should not be allowed to do it.
– Republicans believe that gay people can make the choice to be physically attracted to the opposite sex.
– Republicans believe that drilling and using more gas and oil is not damaging to the environment. Or maybe it is but Republicans just don’t care, somebody else in the future will deal with it.
– Republicans believe it’s OK to cut foreign aid (which was less than 1% of GDP) and thus causing hundreds of thousands of people to die because it’s “Making America Great Again”.
– Republicans believe in political violence because Democrats are “Marxists”.
– Republicans strongly believe in not spending more than the annual government revenues except when Republicans are in power in which case they believe in overspending as much as they can.
– Republicans believe in taking from the poor and giving it to the rich, a reverse Robin Hood.
– Republicans believe in free markets except when Republicans are in power in which case they believe in tariffs.
– Republicans believe in family values except when they hire gay prostitutes.
– Republicans believe in meritocracy except if you are in the Presidential Cabinet in which case mediocrity and yes-men and yes-women are preferred.
– Republicans want Republican districts to vote quickly but they limit voting locations in urban districts so that Democrats can wait in line for hours, they even made it illegal to bring them water.
– Republicans pretty much believe that it is ok for everyone to have a gun at any time and any place.
– Republicans love the poorly educated and pledge to keep them poorly educated.
– Republicans believe that you are on your own if you get sick. They believe that everyone should pay for their own healthcare without the government getting involved. If you can’t pay…too bad. They go to the gym and eat right, why should they have to pay for your fat ass.
– Republicans believe that businesses’ hands should be untied and most regulations cancelled so that businesses can do to the consumer whatever they want without being told by the government that they can’t do this or that.
– Republicans believe that it’s ok to withdraw from or not belong to International Organizations like the International Court, Paris Global Warming Treaty, the World Health Organization, NATO, the UN.
– Republicans believe in not honoring past agreements done by previous administrations (for example the Iran Nuclear Agreement).
– Republicans believe that elections are rigged unless Republicans win.
– Republicans believe that the media is liberal and fake if it criticizes them.
– Republicans strongly believe in “America First” therefore not starting wars, building or bombing other nations like Iran for example, for the president not selling things from the White House like Teslas or phones for example or accepting foreign gifts like a 400M airplane for example unless they are in the White House in which case all of it is ok.
– Republicans are very much against demonstrators like the “Black Lives Matter” hurting law enforcement and local businesses unless demonstrators support republican causes in which case republicans are ok with violence – Trump got the January 6 criminals free from prison.
– Republicans don’t believe in national injunctions by lower courts unless they are in charge. Biden had national injunctions against him for the student loans and other cases and Republicans were supportive of those but when Trump became president they are suddenly against them.
– Republicans are very much against children of presidents like Hunter Biden profiting from their father being the president but they are ok when Trump’s children profit. Donald Jr opened an anonymous private club with a $500,000 entry price plus annual dues which club he cynically called “The Executive Branch.”
– Republicans want to eliminate birthright citizenship even though the Constitution clearly allows it.
– Republicans are upset that Harvard and PBS/NPR by simply educating the masses in History and Science are producing more liberals than republicans. They want those institutions to produce more republicans instead.
– Republicans believe in always increasing military spending. Sadly, Democrats believe in the same thing.
– Republicans don’t believe in safety nets like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. They would like to defund them.
– Republicans believe in the full and unconditional release of “The Epstein Files” unless they are in power in which case they refuse to release them.
– Republicans believe that the equal treatment of minority voters is actually discrimination against white voters.
– Republicans strongly believe that the 2nd Amendment allows a person to bring a legal concealed gun to a protest (see Kyle Rittenhouse) but only when they do it. When Democrats do it (see Alex Pretti) then it’s a provocation and it’s ok for them to be killed by ICE (added 1-26-26).
– and so on.
The problem is that their ideas are less and less popular and Republicans know it. Republicans know that their voters are dwindling. Many of them are dying from old age or died from Covid because they believed that Covid vaccines were more dangerous than Covid itself, Republicans know that black and brown people have more children and tend to vote for the democrats while white men who mostly support the Republicans are having less and less children, Republicans know that immigrants, if allowed to become citizens, tend to vote in greater numbers for the Democrats, Republicans know that colleges and universities are in the business of educating people and it’s a fact that educated people read more and vote more for the Democrats, Republicans know that minorities like gays and trans also vote more for the Democrats, women too. Pretty much Republicans know that their days are numbered unless they do something drastic.
Their defunding and attacks of colleges and universities, science, the press, PBS, NPR, lawyers, minorities, immigrants, women, voting rights are all because Republicans want to decrease the number of people who vote for the Democrats. Republicans want to shrink the opposition at any cost and I do mean at any cost if they can get away with it so they are testing what they can get away with.
So it’s not that Harvard is anti-Semitic, it’s not that Mexicans are rapists and killers any more than Americans are and that’s why Mexicans need to be deported ASAP, it’s not that Republicans are trying to protect the fetus, it’s not that liberal Canada is encouraging fentanyl smuggling, etc. Regardless of the reason Republicans publicly give, the real reason is that they know that in the big scheme of things in 20-30-50 years Republicans will not be winning elections unless they do something drastic to decrease the number of future Democratic voters. THAT’S WHAT’S ALL ABOUT – the mass deportations, the banning of visitors from many countries, imprisoning international students who are activists for democracy as political prisoners, removing the birthright citizenship of all those mostly brown and black babies born here and the whole rest of it…
Mitch McConnell knew that Congress is not capable of accomplishing this Republican agenda, that’s why he used the nuclear option and removed the filibuster on appointing Supreme Court Justices which allowed only 50 Senators plus the VP to approve a Justice instead of 60 which in turn made it so that only extreme ideologues on the right or the left can apply for the job for Justice of the Supreme Court. Before the nuclear option was used only moderates could apply because they needed 60 senators to like them – no easy feat. Now they only need 50 plus the VP which is exactly along party lines. McConnell justified it by saying that when Harry Reid was the Majority Leader he used the nuclear option on lower court judges. But the only reason senator Reid did it was because Republicans were not allowing ANY of the Obama lower court judicial nominees to become judges. This nuclear option might make sense for lower court judges but it doesn’t make sense to do the same thing for the Supreme Court because they are the last word. There is no court above them. We, the people, NEED to have moderates acceptable to both parties occupy those seats. The Republicans knew or should have known that. But they still did it because they knew that due to Demographic changes Congress and the Presidency won’t be able to accomplish their agenda in the future. Their only hope was the Supreme Court, that’s why they fought so hard to stack it with partisan extremist hacks. They knew that was the only way to extend their rule with about 30 yrs even if they do not have control over Congress and the Presidency. That’s why they also used all kinds of excuses not to allow Obama to appoint a Justice when it was clearly his turn. They played dirty to stack the Supreme Court with their people.
And their people on the Supreme Court have certainly delivered on their extremist agenda. They undid Roe vs Wade, decided that Corporations are people and can give as much money as they want to the politicians they support, that the President has absolute immunity for breaking the law while in office and just the other day they decided that judges cannot impose nationwide injunctions against illegal presidential orders. In other words the Republican Supreme Court has consistently made the Judiciary weaker and the Presidency stronger. The same applies to Congress – they have ceded power (like their power to decide to go to war or their power to impose and modify tariffs) to the President. All of this creates a very strong President – much stronger than the Judiciary and Congress and they start ruling by decrees (Executive Orders) like a King. Republicans think they are clever by stacking the courts and giving the President more and more powers. But there will be hell to pay when the Democrats come to power and they have a democrat for President like AOC with the same almost unlimited powers. It will be very good for Democrats, very bad for Republicans and terrible for Democracy. The longer Republicans govern the way they are the more likely it becomes that AOC or somebody like her becomes president. The pendulum will swing hard both ways. Republicans think they are smart but they are not.
However, there is one thing that prevents my vision of Democrats winning easily future Presidential elections and that is the Electoral College – another remnant of the imperfect Constitution. As all these changes are happening – women dying from bleeding because doctors are afraid to be jailed if they performed the needed abortion procedure to stop the bleeding, the lack of nationwide injunctions to stop blatantly illegal presidential orders like for example abolishing birthright citizenship etc, more and more democrats from republican states will move from republican states like TX to Democratic states like MA where their newborn can be born a citizen and where there is no danger of dying because of a refused abortion. So the so called “battleground” or “swing” states like AZ, PA, GA, MI, NV, WI, NH, FL and other states WILL become firmly Republican because enough of their Democratic voters will move to firmly Democratic states like NY, MA and CA where, unfortunately, their votes for President are almost worthless thanks to the Electoral College. So democratic candidates for President might be winning more and more majority votes but ultimately losing to the Republican candidate for President. It’s no wonder republicans do not want to change the Electoral College.
So what do we have here – Republicans who love their undemocratic ideas and want them implemented, a republican president who has authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies, a Congress and a Supreme Court who are expanding the powers of the Presidency instead of shrinking them, an uneducated electorate, an exodus of democrats away from republican states which makes those states even more republican, an electoral college which devalues the votes of anyone who does not live in a 50-50 state of which there will be none in the future thanks to the exodus. Sorry, America, but all of this is a recipe for disaster.
– We need to eliminate the Electoral College. It’s undemocratic.
– I know it’s tempting for Democrats to go down the path of revenge but instead they need to go back to at least 60 or more Senators voting for Justices on the Supreme Court and cement it somehow in law so it’s not easy to change again.
– Parliamentarian Republic might be a better way to go if you want to have more parties and more democracy not the Presidential Republic what we currently have. Examples of Presidential Republics – Russia, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, S. Korea, Kenya, Chile. Examples of Parliamentarian Republics – Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland…The UK is also basically a parliamentarian republic even though it’s technically a constitutional monarchy where the king is the equivalent of a very weak President. I am aware that becoming a Parliamentarian Republic is not something that can happen here in America. So the next best option is doing everything to limit Executive Power.
– Do we need South and North Dakota to have 4 senators representing 1.7M people while CA with 40M people only having 2 senators?
– Why is Puerto Rico not a state? Also what about Washington, DC?
– Redistricting (aka Gerrymandering) should be made illegal. Voters should choose their politicians not politicians choosing their voters like it is now.
– Corporations are not people and they cannot spend unlimited amounts of political money. Citizens United should be overturned by a Constitutional Amendment if possible.