The new GOP ... cry 'woke!' and point yon

March 6, 2023

By Mike Weland
Publisher

While Donald J. Trump's influence on our nation's mores may be waning except among the most fervent of his cult, our nation's governance, both electors and elected, remain in thrall to the worst traits and morals of a former president who has few, if any, that are good or decent. That he's considered a highly viable candidate for president in 2024 is but one sign of the existential threat he poses to this nation's democracy, but it's not the only one.

Worse is that we are seeing so many "conservative" candidates who worship at the altar of "Make America Great Again," elected and now serving in offices of public trust in offices and states near and far, all showing their abject fealty to Trump by emulating his worst traits, eschewing logic and common sense in favor of fear mongering, hyperbole and false narrative.

Each support their biases and points of view by parroting Trump's not-so-witty pejoratives, a dead give away, and echoing his easily refuted lies as meanly and loudly as they can ... paving the way for either the return of their king or the chance to out-Trump Trump and so usurp his throne. Just look at all the GOP "anti woke" legislation nationwide; non-solutions to problems that barely exist

As with nigh all indebted sycophants, those statesmen are marching in lockstep with Corporal Bone Spur and don't seem to realize their tactics and bluster don't make them strong. Far from it. More like the kid who flunked four times to reach fifth grade, bullying the far smaller third grader endowed with a bit more intelligence than they. They hold that as power ... and cling to weakness, making up names and insults, improving the quality and audacity of their lies so as to impress the bigger bullies manipulating their strings.

They hear and believe; "Fake news." "Woke." "Demoncrat." "TDS." "CRT." "Stolen election." They buy most of the 30,573 lies Trump told during his four-year tenure.

Trump's behaviors, which would once have disqualified any candidate before they even got their name on the ballot, are apparently now considered apt and appropriate. To hear national leaders such as Kevin McCarthy, Paul Gosar, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, et al, tell it, Trump is the golden calf. The idol to be emulated.

I exhort those who consider me a leftist liberal, look at what they do, not what they say. From official sources, not the media. You don't need a reporter's credentials to access public records.

Why, many ask, would I, a long-time and once respected local news reporter, waste my reputation writing such drivel as this, especially here in this exceedingly conservative pro-Trump community?

Because deliberately repeated lies offend me. Because those who would abuse the trust of others ... con artists ... offend me. Because I no longer recognize the political party I once served so proudly. It has become a cabal of con artists. A confederacy of dunces.

I hear Republicans call Democrats enemies, accuse them of threatening their privileged ways of life with insinuation rather than evidence, insisting that the laws and constitution must be upheld while in the same breath working to limit voting rights, legislating morality, proposing secession and the establishment of a Christian nation.

No United States political party is perfect, but each makes possible the expression of different ideas that can be considered and synthesized so as to form a more perfect union.

To hear Republicans express grievance of being oppressed by the evil Democrats (especially when the GOP is in the majority), is ludicrous and very much in keeping with the Trump legacy; insist only your ideas matter, lie, cast false aspersions, lay blame no matter how specious and when confronted with reasoned facts, cry "woke!" point yon and change the subject.