'“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin
Here’s what we’re not going to do.
We are not going to indulge the lazy rationalizations, false equivalence, cheap gaslighting and other forms of rhetorical chicanery that have become so common to political discourse in this era. Our country is in crisis, and we owe it better.
The warning is for those who claimed offense at the following observation, made in this space a few days back: “What Americans have lost — to be painfully accurate, what Republicans have trashed in pursuit of power — is the willingness and ability to share a common national identity.” It would seem to be self-evident truth. But not everyone agrees.
“Constantly blaming Republicans,” griped one respondent.
“You ONLY blame the Republicans,” complained another.
“You exclusively blame Republicans,” grumbled yet another.
Well, there’s a reason the Republicans get the blame for destroying any sense of common American narrative. It’s because — pay close attention here — they deserve the blame for destroying any sense of common American narrative.
Sorry, but Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t do that. Black Lives Matter didn’t do that. Whatever thing Fox “News” last told its audience to fear did not do that.
The Republican Party did it by a campaign of demonizing dissent, shredding norms and boundaries, embracing a politics of white resentment and fear and, perhaps most corrosively, delegitimizing the very idea of knowable fact, so that an ordinary birth certificate becomes an object of suspicion, an ordinary election a seedbed of distrust and the sacking of the U.S. Capitol an innocent visit by tourists.
Is it mere partisanship to hold the party accountable for this? Or are we not talking about something bigger and more foundational than political gamesmanship? Note how many of the GOP’s ardent defenders — George F. Will, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Kathleen Parker, Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Mitt Romney, Jonah Goldberg — have become, to various degrees, estranged from it in recent years. None of those worthies may be credibly accused of being anti-Republican.
But what they are is conscientious enough that they cannot deny self-evident truth when it is right before them. Some of us prefer to peddle misguided both-sidesism, to spew non-responsive non-sequiturs or stick metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears going “la la la la la la la” until the truth safely passes them by.
Meantime, one party steers the ship of state toward jagged rocks.
Political scientists Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein once observed that, “The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
They wrote that in a 2012 book called “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.” Ten years later, it’s even worse than that.
It’s important to be clear on that, not to “blame” the GOP but because James Baldwin was right. You cannot fix what you will not face. And what America needs to face is the simple, chilling fact that the Republican Party is a clear and present danger.
Confronting that does not make you a partisan.
It makes you a patriot.'
* * *
So, from what this radical agitator claims, the GOP is to blame for everything that the Democrats have done. Indeed, the GOP, according to this radical sleazebag, is to blame for all the failures of both Joe Biden and the Democrats. He might as well say that the GOP is to blame for the multiple damages done to America by Joe Biden and the Democrats. Frankly, I have never heard anything more radically ridiculous in my entire life.
If anyone is to blame for the recent high inflation and the skyrocketing prices of gas, food, and other commodities, it is Joe Biden and the Democrats. If anyone is to blame for our failures abroad, namely the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the weak response to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is Joe Biden and the Democrats. If anyone is to blame for the incoming economic recession that is likely to affect this nation, it is Joe Biden and the Democrats. In fact, the GOP has absolutely nothing to do with these disasters that are plaguing our country, for it is the Democrats who control both Congress and the White House, and therefore whatever blame is to be had for these and all other disasters which befall our nation lay on their hands, not that of the Republicans.
And as for the so-called 'Republicans' that feel so 'left out of the party'--Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and Adam Kinzinger, to name some--for all intents and purposes, these traitors to their own constituents are already being handed their hats by voters as we speak, largely because they have ignored the will of their constituents for quite some time. Plus, they act as though they are not part of the GOP, given their own public statements. So, in my opinion, and that of many other Americans, why don't they just cut their losses and join the Democrats? After all, to quote Liz Cheney, her 'colleagues on the other side of the aisle' need to 'see the justice of their cause against Donald Trump.' Apparently, Cheney has made it clear as to what side of the political aisle she is on, and it obviously is not the side of the GOP. And as for Adam Kinzinger, he himself has claimed that he 'feels uncomfortable sitting next to his fellow Republicans.' So again, it is obvious that he also has switched his political allegiance. As for Mitt Romney, his recent support for Ketanji Brown Jackson--Joe Biden's radical nominee to the Supreme Court--as well as his own behavior when she was confirmed to the Court by the Democrats in the U.S. Senate--reveals all one needs to know about his own political loyalties, which are obviously not aligned with the mainstream GOP.
So, with all due respect, just what exactly does Mr. Pitts blame the GOP for? What could the GOP be blamed for as of now? Certainly, the GOP could not be blamed for the recent foreign policy failures and economic failures of the Biden administration, nor for the tremendous damage, both nationally and economically, that the Democrats alone have inflicted upon this nation with their failed radical policies.
It would appear logical to assume that Mr. Pitts has a great deal of explaining to do as to what exactly he blames the Republican Party for, because so far, he has produced no credible reason, even in this recent diatribe, as to why the GOP should be blamed for anything which has recently afflicted this nation.
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