Today’s radical, right-wing MAGA Republican Party is the quintessential picture of the dog that caught the car. Except it’s not just a car, it’s a bus loaded full of suburban women, moderates, and independents. And that dog just made the bus run off the road and into some trees and they’re all stumbling out of the bus now bruised, shaken, and pissed off. The rabid dog had better start running.
From women’s health and reproductive rights, to public safety in our schools and other places of mass gathering, and finally protection of our democracy and voter’s rights, today’s GOP leadership is grossly out of step with what the majority of Americans want for their families and the future.
From the halls of the US congress and state legislatures entrenched by gerrymandering schemes to our current ultra right-wing Supreme Court, the far right have pushed and forced a backward leaning and ultra conservative agenda that has eroded personal freedoms and democratic participation. Let’s highlight three of their biggest recent victories and simultaneous overreaching missteps.
On Women’s Reproductive Rights: The overturning of Roe vs. Wade is the granddaddy of all conservative blunders. Although most conservatives wouldn’t see it that way, they would say it is a glorious victory. But it will come at a very high price in the short and longterm. Despite all the arguments that have been made over the years and despite the fact that almost everyone would rather abortion not have to happen, an overwhelming percentage of Americans realize that it is a necessary procedure sometimes and that women should be able to access legal and safe abortion options.
Furthermore, women should have control over their own bodies and pregnancy, fundamentally, should be a private health issue. Decisions should be made between patients and doctors. A vast majority of Americans when asked do not think that the government, state or federal should be forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies. Also most Americans feel it is a violation of personal liberty to be interjecting generic blunt force legislation into the delicate and intricate equation of everything from cases of rape and incest to situations of infertility treatment and the health and safety of the pregnant woman. This real-world Handmaid’s Tale SCOTUS decision, essentially over night, has made women 2nd class citizens in their own country. It has also rendered doctors criminals for providing health care services to women and promoted a vigilante culture to report and hunt down anyone providing assistance and aid to women now forced into dire and dangerous positions.
Women are pissed off, and somebody is going to pay for it. Women in this country and for that matter the men that support them in their fundamental right to body autonomy thought it was settled law. Then they woke up on June 25th, 2022 to a slap in the face, a gut punch that will have devastating and immediate implications for hundreds of thousands of willingly and unwillingly pregnant women.
On Public Safety and Common Sense Gun Restrictions: Everyone has seen the poll numbers. Again and again, the American people, after every new mass shooting, have called for more action from lawmakers to pass laws to make our public places safer for families and children. And time and time again, a cowardly minority beholden to the gun lobby and right-wing extremist positions have prevented meaningful national gun legislation from being passed. Well what about the recent bipartisan gun legislation that was passed and signed into law by President Biden on June 25th? It does represent some improvement. While it does enhance background checks for 18-21 year olds, bolster red flag laws in most states, and increase funding for mental health, what it does not do is more telling. It did not ban the sale of semiautomatic pistols or rifles to those under 21, which is needed. If you can’t buy a can of beer in a convenient store then you shouldn’t be able to buy an AR-15 (even if you’ve passed a background check) and go shoot up a grocery store or school. It does not ban high capacity ammunition cartridges. It did not ban the sale of AR-15 style weapons of war. There was an assault rifle ban that was passed in saner times and in effect from 1994 – 2004. It did have some impact on gun violence but unfortunately lapsed before it had enough time to start to have a significant impact.
An overwhelming majority of Americans agree on the measures above but like most sensible proposals they are being held hostage by far right members in Congress and those just too cowardly to stand up to right wing extremists broadly and the gun lobby. On top of that then the radical out-of-touch Supreme Court rendered another body blow to public safety and takes us back. Their decision nullifies the right of densely populated places like New York City from passing and maintaining their own gun restrictions. This will most certainly result in more violent altercations and murders on the streets of our nation’s cities. Defenders of the SCOTUS decision will undoubtedly point to occasional scenarios when a brave armed civilian takes down the attacker, but will ignore the overall increasing rate of gun incidents and mass shootings.
On Defense of Our Democracy and Voting Rights: All one has to do to know that the wheels have come off the Trump Republican Party bus is to look at the election certification vote count that occurred in the early morning hours of Jan 7th, 2021. Formal objections were raised by members to the certified results from Arizona and Pennsylvania. In the case of Arizona 121 Republicans voted to decertify those results showing Biden had won and in the case of Pennsylvania 138 GOP members voted against certification. All of this only mere hours after a deadly mob riot had occurred on the grounds and in the halls of congress, incited by their shameless, sore loser leader Donald Trump. They rejected democracy and most ironically they spit in the face of States’ Rights, their most holy grail of all. Those two states run by Republicans had investigated any allegations of fraud, found none and had certified the results. There was no evidence for any of them to hang their hats on, just a baseless lie, The Big Lie, that has come to define the only real policy position of the Republican Party since the election of November 2020.
These cowardly members of congress along with their co-conspirators the talking heads and corporate heads of right wing media, have since only seemed to double down on the violence-inciting messages of misinformation to the masses. Many of these supposed leaders of the conservative movement, know that the truth, that Trump lost the election fair and square, have continued to perpetrate the lie for their own short term political gains at the expense of the stability and continuity of our democracy and safety of its citizenry.
This approach has begun to backfire though. Moderates and independents and even some diehard Republicans have had enough of the dangerous rhetoric. The depths of the orchestrated conspiracy to overthrow our government has been laid bare by the Jan 6th Committee’s investigation. All of America has been able to see and hear from the mouth’s of Trump’s own officials and allies just how close we came to falling off the cliff, and how close we still are. Those continuing to promulgate the lies and conspiracy will pay a price either in the short term or in the long run.
Not all but many of these extreme MAGA candidates will feel the wrath of the voters this fall. Misplaced inflation blame might play a role in some elections but for many progressive, moderate, independent, and swing voters they will be asking whether or not a candidate stands up for and defends democracy; whether they stand for women’s body autonomy and are champions for reproductive rights; and whether a candidate is with the overwhelming majority of Americans who demand that more is done to protect their children and families from senseless preventable gun violence. These GOP failures will be top of mind when Americans enter the voting booth this fall.