Politics with Richard Bleil
The Republican Party is filled with cowards and criminals. There, yes, I said it. Is this opinion? Yes, I suppose it is, and yet its based on behavior that I cannot fathom interpreting in any way other than those of cowards and criminals.
The impetus for this post is an article I read in which the Republican National Convention (the RNC) has forbidden any Republican presidential candidate from participating in national debates by the independent Council on Presidential Debates (the CPD). The CPD is the group that works with both the RNC and the DNC (Democratic National Convention) to set up the series of live broadcast debates from which most of us learn of the positions and platforms of the presidential nominees. They propose the guidelines and find compromises with all presidential candidates before the debate begins, including the rules, format, location and moderators. And now the RNC is claiming that the CPD is not playing fair.
There are a couple of things about this news article that, frankly, shocks me. I know that in 2020, then-President Trump was unhappy with the CPD because they asked questions about his policies, and rather than taking the opportunity to explain his thinking, he feared it was simply an attempt to make him look bad. Biden was unhappy because Trump kept talking past his allotted time, shifting topics and interfering whenever he spoke. The behavior was childish but did cut into the time Biden had on the given topics. Because of Trump’s history of doing this, there was even the prospect of a “kill button” being installed for the candidate’s microphones.
So, today’s news struck me for several reasons. Considering Trump’s continuing influence on the RNC, including many Republicans who are simply afraid to disagree with or upset him, it’s not really a surprise that the RNC is now complaining that the CPD is biased despite the fact that they always come to agreements with both candidates, including the RNC, prior to the debate. What truly shocks me, though, is their statement that they will literally forbid any RNC presidential candidate from participating. The convention is holding tremendous power over the candidates, including with whom they will allow these candidates to speak. I do not know if the DNC holds this kind of power over their candidates (although their treatment of Bernie Sanders in the primaries against Hillary Clinton seems to indicate that they do), but to me this indicates that within the RNC, nobody is truly voting for the candidate of their choice. The convention is set up to find mouthpieces to echo the policies and opinions of the convention (and whoever is pulling their strings from behind the curtain).
The Republicans of late have truly turned into spineless criminals. Their interference with the investigation of the Capitol Insurrection is a clear indication of their knowledge of at least complicity as a party if not as individuals. Today they’ve taken to calling the committee “illegal”, even though they pulled out of the original committee even though the Democrats had agreed to all of the Republican demands for participation. Once they realized that they had no grounds to complain, they simply pulled out. Now they insist that the committee, even with participating Republicans, is illegal even though they, too, were cowering in fear from the rioters they themselves had inspired.
It’s no wonder that the party as a whole is corrupt. President Trump used strong-arm tactics to get his way through threats and even aligned himself with some of the most brutal dictators in the world, often speaking their praises and admiration for their murderous tactics. Mitch McConnell has demonstrated his spineless nature by withholding votes on anything that he personally didn’t like even when the Republicans held the majority. I always found it interesting that rather than having the vote and simply announcing that it failed, he actually didn’t even have the courage of the debate. I cannot imagine anything more cowardly than that.
And yet the Republicans still have enough support that they seem poised to re-take the House of Representatives this year. I don’t understand what has to happen for people to wake up and see the nature of the current incarnation of the RNC. The Supreme Court refused to take up the Texas law restricting women’s health and turning its people into vigilantes in support of the law, and now half a dozen or so additional states have passed or will pass legislation based on their example. The “big lie” of election fraud has been proven false many times and even with some Republicans quietly acknowledging this under their breathes, most are still touting the same blatant lie. Maybe, when the Republican Party successfully launches the new civil war to overthrow the US Constitution they might lose a few supporters. In the meantime, Republicans seem gleeful about marching into the flames.
Bleil's Banter 