Brian C. Joondeph – The GOP, as a political organization, stands for “Grand Old Party.” How does it live up to its name?
It’s hardly grand, instead it is a circular firing squad of squabbling principles and interests, with many GOPers sitting on their high horses arguing about government’s role, fiscal policy, or candidates’ temperaments. As for old, much of the elected GOP is young, although Senate Majority Mitch McConnell is 81 years old.
The current GOP now stands for “gladly out of power” as elected Republicans are doing everything they can to commit political suicide, becoming a permanent minority in national, and in many cases state and local, politics.
The GOP’s behavior ever since Donald Trump transitioned from television and real estate impresario to presidential candidate, then president, ex-president, and now candidate once again, suggests a death wish, leading conservatives and Republicans to wonder why we even bother voting.
Trump was not the preferred GOP candidate in 2016. Instead early on it was Jeb! the would-be third president in the Bush family monarchy. We make fun of the British royals, but between the Clintons, Bushes, Bidens, and Obamas, we have our own ruling families. All we need now is a marriage between those families to cement the monarchy.
Trump was surprisingly elected in 2016, catching election riggers and cheaters flat-footed. They said ‘fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.’ The ruling class made sure history didn’t repeat itself in 2020 by guaranteeing that an old, cognitively impaired, creepy grifter received more votes than his young, charismatic, “articulate and bright and clean” running mate in 2008 and 2012.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the weaponized law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the federal government spied on Trump and his associates. This continued during his transition and into his presidency using fabricated opposition from research from foreign sources to illegally obtain FISA warrants, a treasonous effort to bring down a duly elected government.
What did Republicans do? Nothing. So much for oversight by the House and Senate Intelligence committees. They said nothing and played along with the Democrat and administrative state efforts to thwart the leader of their party and the will of the people.
Did the intel community have dirt and leverage on influential Republicans or were Republicans part of the uniparty’s goal of self-preservation?
Trump’s initiatives were mostly met with resistance, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump’s promised border wall was not funded by Congress, the GOP choosing to sell out American sovereignty to appease the big business donor class, telling their voters to pound sand.
Obamacare was not repealed, with a maverick GOP senator siding with Democrats and Big Pharma over Republican voters who wanted it repealed.
The 2020 election was rigged, much like past elections, with the federal government acting as candidate Biden’s campaign arm, colluding with big tech and social media to promote anti-Trump propaganda and suppress anything potentially detrimental to the Biden campaign.
One in six Biden voters would have changed their 2020 vote if they had known the full Hunter laptop story. But 51 former intel officials, lied through their teeth, burying the story, and interfering in the election. Talk about sedition.
The corporate media barked and clapped along like trained seals, abandoning any pretense of journalism in favor of serving as state-run propaganda outlets.
When rigging alone didn’t work, Democrats stole the election by shutting down election night vote counting, without precedent or scrutiny, only to “find” enough ballots overnight to flip a few counties in a few swing states, enough to turn the election from Trump to Biden.
Where were Republicans? Such vote shenanigans likely cost Republicans the Senate and almost the House. Yet any discussion of dodgy elections is labeled as hate speech or insurrection, with elected Republicans staying silent.
A majority of likely U.S. voters believe our elections are fraudulent, according to Rasmussen Reports, including most Republicans and a quarter of Democrats. What have Republicans done to correct either this real problem or the perception of one? Nothing.
Why not perform legitimate audits and scrutiny to fix the problem or reassure skeptical voters? Instead they quickly agreed to certify the 2020 election in the face of an “insurrection,” not of Trump supporters, but of the ruling class assisted by federal agents.
Republicans played along with theatrical January 6 committee hearings, offered minimal resistance to two “Trumped-up” impeachments of President Trump, seven Republican senators even voting to convict Trump and remove him from office.
How’s that for the GOP reflecting the will of the voters? Even so-called conservative pundits like Laura Ingraham want us all to “stop talking about 2020.” Why? So it can all happen again in 2024? No wonder Fox News ratings are in the toilet.
Now Trump is being prosecuted and persecuted by a rogue attorney general and special counsel, accusing Trump of nonsensical crimes while his political opponents get a pass for doing the same or worse.
Classified documents held by a former president with declassification authority, under Secret Service protection, is far different than two former vice presidents of both parties, without declassification authority, holding such documents under no security, and receiving a pass.
Where are Republicans? A few are making noise, but most are silent or complicit. Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck, supposedly a tea-party conservative defends the political hatchet man FBI director Christopher Wray as “just doing his very best.”
How would Rep. Buck feel if he was indicted by his political opponents for nonsensical crimes? Remember how Special Counsel Ken Starr was vilified constantly by Democrats while he investigated then President Bill Clinton? That type of pushback is alien to Republicans. Instead, they heap praise on their political opponents.
Meanwhile the Biden family has been credibly accused by government whistleblowers of accepting foreign bribes in exchange for favorable treatment, treasonous and impeachable offenses, and other than some noisy Congressional hearings, Republicans are doing nothing.
Impeachment and defunding are two powers granted to the Republican majority House yet they only huff and puff. Where is the spirited opposition and defense of the Constitution, equal protection under the law, and common decency? Rep. Jim Jordan just can’t seem to commit to impeachment of Biden or Garland. Instead, he will roll up his shirtsleeves and have more hearings.
Do not Republicans, including the numerous GOP presidential candidates, realize that they are next, depending on how much they advance toward the White House and how serious they are about challenging the deep state, versus going along to get along, managing the decline, sharing in the ruling class perks and power if they follow the playbook? We had two Bushes who played this role brilliantly, as would the non-Trump-like John McCain and Mitt Romney if they were elected.
The American economy is in freefall. Our borders are wide open to taxpayer-funded freeloaders and criminals, cities are ridden with crime, filth, drugs, and homelessness. America is needlessly pushing a hot war with the largest nuclear power in the world. Our children are being trafficked or indoctrinated with woke sexual and gender deviancy. Republicans are either silent or playing along.
There is little difference between the DNC and GOP on so many core issues, making the GOP increasingly irrelevant as a political party. Instead, we are ruled by a uniparty, unified in its goal of self-enrichment and power, with little regard to the well-being of America or the wishes of American voters.
What’s the solution? This election cycle is the perfect opportunity for a third-party challenge to the uniparty. Although an improbable alliance, think Donald Trump and RFK, Jr. Rasmussen Reports finds half of likely U.S. voters with a favorable impression of RFK, Jr. If he can peel off 20-30 percent of Democrats and Trump can keep his MAGA base, this is a third party that could win or at least throw the election into the U.S. House where the GOP may have one last chance to prove their relevancy to voters.
The voters are certainly long on Trump. According to a recent Harvard poll, “Trump tops Biden by 5, DeSantis by 40.” And further, independent voters favor Trump over Biden by 18 points.
The GOP has a death wish, a group of yapping dogs with no bite to back up their bark. From Trump’s booming economy, energy independence, respect around the world, we have America collapsing on the verge of World War III, Republicans seemingly oblivious to it all, highlighting their ineptitude and irrelevance as a national political party representing the will of the people they supposedly represent.
They may have a death wish as a political party, but that doesn’t mean we want to ride into the abyss along with them.