Republicans “Ain’t Your Little Friends”

The Grand Old Party died. The GOP of your parents and grandparents passed away some time ago, with little fanfare and no eulogies.

You don’t remember going to the republican funeral but you were there.

Well, you were there if you were alive in 1980 when Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign in a racist stronghold of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where he championed “states rights” in the city where the infamous mass murder of Civil Rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner happened. The Black and Jewish champions of Civil Rights were murdered by the Klan in that very city, and Reagan and the GOP thought that was the perfect place to call out to southern racists to support his candidacy.

And he won, twice.

Or you may have been there when Bush Sr. replaced Thurgood Marshall, an American champion of civil rights, with the first (known) Supreme Court sexual abuse candidate, Clarence Thomas, who was unqualified but they knew he would serve their longterm purposes we are seeing play out today. But at the time, they also were excited to stick it to Black democratic voters and white Democratic Party leaders by forcing them to publicly go against a Black man by forcing him to defend sexual abuse charges before the senate and nation. The GOP’s plan to siphon away Black male voters had started.

You were there when the GOP attempted to destroy Hillary Clinton when she championed healthcare, when she wouldn’t stand by her cheating husband, and when she had the audacity to raise a strong, confident daughter. You were there when the GOP attacked Chelsea’s looks when she was a child.

You were there when the GOP cheated Al Gore in Florida and at the Supreme Court. You were there when the GOP swift boated the military record of John Kerry.

You were there when the GOP said President Obama wasn’t American, wasn’t Christian, and when they said all the vile things about Michelle and their two daughters.

You saw the GOP burn Obama in effigy and start a racist organization called the “Tea Party” that was the precursor to today’s insurrectionists, qanon, 3 percenters, and oath-keepers.

You were there when the Republicans decided to go after Hillary Clinton, again, this time for emails, even though she won the general vote by over three-million votes.

You then supported a man who was credibly accused of rape, who was friends with pedophiles, who hated you even if you were white and poor, and who has so many ties to criminals and foreign interests he probably should have been in prison long before you decided his racism wasn’t enough to stop you from voting for him.

You then watched the former president lie, cheat, break off international relations, damage the economy, mismanage covid resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and continue to be racist, homophobic, and antisemitic throughout his presidency.

And during his time in office, you watched as republicans decided that Black people and our allies who were protesting police brutality should be harassed, attacked, beaten, shot with rubber bullets, pepper-sprayed, and run over. And you watched uninterested in how he and republicans left Puerto Rico to suffer from natural and man-made disasters.

And finally, you watched as trump’s front line soldiers, furious after being fed the lie from their president that he was cheated, attacked the Capitol of the United States, smeared shit on the walls, destroyed desks, broke windows, and brutalized and killed police officers.

But despite all of that, you watched as the former president received more votes during his reelection campaign because you thought, well, he’s racist, but that is not a dealbreaker for me.

Allowing all the aforementioned to thrive has led directly to….

You watching as republicans have made VP Kamala Harris the most attacked women on social media, and President Biden receive a continuous stream of vile and ageist attacks.

You have watched the Republican Party damage the nation from the highest levels of government for so long that maybe you’ve forgotten what this nation stands for, what politics are meant to be, and what your duty is as an adult charged with maintaining democratic institutions.

Who are the “You” this piece is referring to?

Every voting demographic in America votes at a majority for Democrats, except white Americans. That simple fact is rarely if ever explored on cable or network news, beyond the trope of interviewing white people in a diner in Nebraska or Ohio every four years.

What is it about the party that strips away rights, makes it harder for Black and Indigenous folk to vote, refuses to acknowledge gender differences, and who want to force their religion on everyone that appeals to white people?

Maybe that sentence answers itself.

If you are a white person who consistently votes for democrats, good and thank you, because you, like most Black, Asian, and Latino voters decided that progress matters no matter how incremental it may be. You decided that healthcare matters, access to clean drinking water, stable international relations, funding for pre-k -12 schools, college debt relief, clean air, electric vehicle charging stations, infrastructure, and fair taxes are what you prefer your elected leaders to legislate into law.

Now go tell your friends, family, and neighbors who are white that they, too, need to vote for democrats because no matter how kind your friends and neighbors are to you, they have decided that insurrections, financial malfeasance, and racism isn’t enough to prevent them from voting for the grand old party.

The republicans of your parents and grandparents died long ago and you witnessed it happening even if you for some reason failed to realize it at the time.

There are no excuses for any former “normal” republican to continue to vote with the party that isn’t what it once was.

The republican party ain’t your little friend, if it ever was, and now it is time for you to move on and leave the past in the past.

The America that you think exists doesn’t and hasn’t for a long time. And the only way to get America back on track is for you to divorce yourself from the abusive republican party. If you value your rights, freedom of speech, freedom from religious tyranny, freedom to control your body, and the freedom to be private and to keep the government out of your lives then your only option is to vote for democrats.

Just think of it like you are leaving the bad friend who works hard to influence you to do the wrong thing, make bad decisions, and put yourself in harm’s way. Leave them.

There are better more accomplished friends just down the street and around the corner who will welcome you into friendship with open arms.

© by Myron J. Clifton and Dear Dean Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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Myron J. Clifton is slightly older than fifty, lives in Sacramento, California, and is an avid Bay Area sports fan. He likes comic books, telling stories about his late mom to his beloved daughter Leah, and talking to his friends.  

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