Like millions of Americans today, I am sick, I am angry, and my rage is off the charts, matched only in intensity by election night in 2016. Because Trump said exactly what he would do.
There is a disconnect between Republicans’ purported claim to be the moral party at the same time their poster boy, Trump, personified every vile characteristic, including but not limited to; philanderer, tax cheat, draft dodger, sexual predator, liar extraordinaire.
His Christian Nationalist following is not an aberration but panders precisely to what they embody; the Republican platform of domination and retention of power at the expense of human life.
They hate kids. Hate them. Unless they are straight and white and can be indoctrinated into their cult. And don’t read Harry Potter.
They claimed an entire first grade class didn’t exist when there was a mass slaughter in Sandy Hook. Nope, never happened.
They harass kids when they protest their right to attend school without having to dive under their desks during a shooting and being forced to watch their classmates die a slow and painful death. Can’t imagine what David Hogg felt when tormented by Majorie Taylor Greene.
They fight universal health coverage at every opportunity despite the fact that maternal mortality rates in America rival that of third world countries, most especially among women of color.
They place roadblocks to funding Head start and daycare programs that would not only promote kids’ optimal development, but also ensure their moms can go to work assured of their kids’ wellbeing. And forget job protection and maternity leave. One would imagine their investment in this critical bonding period, but nope!
They love their guns and ‘absolute’ right to them more than they love Jesus, despite the fact that guns kill more children and teens than cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, HIV/AIDs, and opioids combined.
They really hate the forgotten kids in foster care, don’t even mention them. This despite the fact that kids in foster care are about four times more likely to be sexually abused than other kids and in group homes, that number jumps to twenty-eight times the risk.
They claim to embrace adoption and yet make every effort to deny same-sex couples the right to be parents. Better a child suffer and be raped in a group home then allow them the unconditional love and acceptance that comes with a forever family.
They are invested only in the embryo, not the child. And they are only invested in politicizing the embryo because it restricts the freedom of women, economically, politically and socially. Limiting women’s reproductive autonomy restrains us all in their twisted Christian Nationalist racist narrative. By doing so, we are a not a democratic nation, not a republic, but something much more akin to a theocracy that worships the power to destroy with impunity what is not them.
How else can you describe their devotion to guns, and mass incarceration and the death penalty? For a wealthy nation we have disgustingly high maternal death rates, only to worsen as access to reproductive health care is greatly limited and state governments will control this most personal of all health care decisions.
Those Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump under the guise of morality support a pro-death agenda; guns, execution, anti-choice, anti-healthcare. And have no compunction lying during confirmation hearings to achieve these ends.
As much as I despise Trump, he was effective with messaging. So it’s time we call out the Republican party for what is empirically supported by the evidence; they are the Pro-Death party. Make them own this title.
