What is more important – your party or your country? Powerful friends or the people who depend on you? Whether your candidate wins no matter how they win? Belief in law and order, or not? Are you a person of integrity, or not? These are not metaphysical or abstract questions. They are at the core of what has happened to our beloved nation. It is evil personified. These questions could determine the very future of our country as a republic. Hyperbole? I don’t think so.
To wit: House Republicans not having the courage to constitutionally check the President for emolument clause infractions of the Constitution because he is a member of their party. House Republicans failure to thoroughly investigate and then hindering the Russian interference into our election. House Republicans not having the fortitude to reject the president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation of Russian intrusion in our democracy. Republicans spineless failure to address the accessibility of assault weapons in our country that has resulted in mass murders in our schools and communities by taking the untenable position that any attempt to restrict assault weapons is an attempt to repeal the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Congressional Republicans have supported tax cuts for the wealthy while trying to eliminate health care for thousands of Americans. Congressional Republicans declare that they are advocates of financial responsibility; yet, they passed a tax bill that increases U.S. deficit by $1 trillion every year from now on while expecting Americans to pay for this through reductions in social programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. National Republicans have denied voting rights of thousands of Americans through gerrymandering, voter suppression, attempts to impeach justices who declare their efforts as unconstitutional, and altering Census format to reduce state funding and representation. And worse of all, Republicans in Congress have failed in their Constitutional duty to provide a check on a wayward and unstable executive. An executive that does not listen to any of his advisers, berates anyone who has the audacity to disagree, anyone who he perceives as a threat – real or imagined –to his leadership. An executive that blames the press, the FBI, the CIA, immigrants, people of color, anyone but himself. An executive that will not say one word of criticism to a man who has cyber-attacked and continues to cyber-attack the United States, Vladimir Putin.
The House Republicans, including our own millionaire Greg Gianforte, have abdicated their constitutional duty as a check on the executive. As a result they have enabled a president to become a real threat to our democracy – the firings, the lying, the bullying, the erratic behavior, the failure to protect our elections, the massive corruption and abuse of the public trust by those around him and breaking congressional rules and norms to get what their wealthy benefactors want. Attacking the children who have been shot at in school because they have the audacity to protest. Based on what has transpired in the past year, one has to question what motivates any political party that justifies this kind of behavior?
David R. James
Eureka