Why we, the silenced majority, hate the GOP
Stephen H. Provost
Hate is not too strong a word.
But let me clarify: It’s not that we hate conservatives. We don’t. Many of us share some of the same conservative principles Republicans have abandoned: Support for free trade, fiscal prudence, and personal responsibility. Some of us own guns. Some of us hate abortion. Some of us go to church and have served in the armed forces.
We believe in earning an honest living. But we believe we should apply same standards to corporations that don’t need welfare that we impose upon single moms who do.
We believe in the rule of law. But we think it should apply every bit as much to billionaires and presidents as it does to the distracted drivers and potheads.
We believe in a strong defense; we just don’t believe that we need to spend 10 times as much as any other nation on the planet to achieve it.
We believe in the concept of police protection, not police brutality.
We believe Americans, not Russians, should decide our elections.
Most of all, however, we believe in the concept of majority rule. We understand we need checks and balances, so that an unchecked majority doesn’t run roughshod over the rights of the minority. Believe me, we DO understand this. Many of us are minorities ourselves.
Muzzling the majority
But the more these checks and balances are used to stifle and muzzle the majority for the sake of powerful elites — corporations, the wealthy, etc. — the less democratic we become. In fact, we’ve come to a point where the minority, led by Donald Trump, is consistently imposing its will on the silenced majority by gaming the system.
In recent years, the minority has consistently gotten its way by taking advantage of, or gaming, the system. Here are just a few examples:
Because each state has two senators, regardless of population, Wyoming has 57 time as much influence as California does in the Senate.
The Electoral College has elected presidents who lost in the popular vote twice in the past five elections. In other words, a minority elected the president.
Both times, the beneficiaries were Republicans.
And as if that weren’t enough of an advantage, Republicans are seeking any way possible to depress the vote by discrediting mail-in balloting, because they’re afraid that if more people vote, more people will vote against them. They’re telling people they have to go to the polls and put themselves at greater risk contracting a deadly virus if they want to vote, and that doesn’t matter to them in the least.
Which brings me to health care.
More people have consistently favored the Affordable Care Act than have opposed it, but that doesn’t matter to Republicans, who have consistently tried to invalidate it in court — and may succeed in doing so with the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice.
Speaking of that Supreme Court appointment, almost 6 in 10 Americans wanted the president elected in 2020 to fill that seat, but that doesn’t matter to Republicans, either. They’re hell-bent on pushing the appointment through the Senate before Election Day anyway.
Nearly two-thirds of the country favors stricter gun laws, but Republicans don’t give a damn about that, either. Instead, they insist on equating automatic weapons with hunting rifles and allowing armed militias to carry guns in the streets. Another day, another mass shooting, and nothing gets done. Again. Just more collateral damage in the gun lobby’s quest for profits.
Want more?
Nearly two-thirds of those polled this month said global warming was affecting the weather, and 71% said it would harm future generations, and plants and animals. Republicans, however, continue to deny it’s a problem and refuse to do a thing about it.
On race, a majority say policing in this country is not fair to Black Americans, 10 percentage points more than say it is. But Republicans refuse to support more than token police reform, focusing instead on a “law and order” message that calls on police to get tougher, not smarter: to escalate, not de-escalate.
Divided by what should unite us
We have good reason to hate the GOP.
By “we,” I don’t just mean Democrats. These aren’t, or shouldn’t be, partisan issues.
I’m a political independent. But I don’t want to lose my health care. I don’t want the planet to suffer more than it already has because of global warming. I don’t want to see more victims of police brutality, because I can put myself in the shoes of those whose lives are put at risk. And I don’t want armed militias roaming the streets when I go out for dinner and a movie.
And undergirding all this, I want to believe I matter. I don’t matter to the Republicans; that much is clear. Not just me, but THE MAJORITY OF THIS COUNTRY doesn’t matter to the Republican Party.
Is that majority filled with anxiety? Are we feeling hopeless? Degraded? Oppressed? Enraged? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I feel all those things, because we’re being governed by a minority that’s every bit as dismissive and insensitive to anyone who’s “not like them” as the rulers of apartheid South Africa.
Under Republicans, the democratic institutions that are supposed to define and protect us are being ripped apart at every turn.
And that, my friends, is why we hate the GOP.