My Webster’s definition for hypocrisy is “pretending to be what one is not.” Republicans are guilty of hypocrisy by saying they are for giving Constitutional Rights to the individuals while restricting what the individual can do.

            An example is telling people they can manage their money better than the government. Republicans then cut taxes and drive up the deficit when they are in total control, blaming the minority Democrats. They quietly raise the debt ceiling when they have total control and fight with a Democrat President. Former President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were reducing the debt quickly but former President George W. Bush cut taxes and started running it back up. Every time the Republicans cut taxes like they did with former President Donald Trump, the debt goes up.

            An example is passing laws keeping women from getting an abortion. Some are even proposing stopping birth control pills. Don’t forget the gays and others being restricted in some states for their ways of life.

            Most Republican States get more government aid than the Democratic states and their citizens depend on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security checks. The current crop of Representatives say they want to cut those programs. They are saying it won’t affect those already getting it so they won’t lose their votes. Still using a forked tongue!

            Those Republican states have been begging for FEMA and financial help after floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other disasters. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis complained about the government wasting money but he pleaded for government help after their last hurricane. Hypocrisy is demanding budget cuts in the parts they want money from for their state.

        Today we now have a national political party that proclaims from every media outlet and highest mountain tops that they are the party of “Family Values”. How could a party say they are staunchly for “Family Values” when they have set aside those values so they can try to overthrow the government, violate their oaths of allegiance, tell lies upon lies, support crooks and fraudsters, and support those who are engaged in criminal activities. They openly cater to insurrectionists, neo-nazis, and white supremacists.

            How can the Republican Party claim the high ground when they don’t seem to have any morals? They claim to be religious but I don’t know of any religion with the tenets they practice. So what are their family values? Is our country in such a divided mess because of their actions and lies and not their phony family values? Which of those values are they really wanting us to follow? The Republicans have a Florida Congressman being investigated for supplying teenagers for sex parties. Some are being investigated for fraud and supporting insurrection among other crimes. Should the Republican Party’s motto now be “Do as we say and not as we do.”? Oops, we must look around the lies and those standing with them.

        I consider myself to be a political independent. I try to vote for a person who says or shows they agree with my ideas. The Republican nominee for Illinois Governor boasted his support for former President Trump, anti-abortion, and insertion of religion into schools and government. I don’t like all the current Governor has done but those three things Republican nominee Bailey wanted to do made sure I wouldn’t vote for him.

            Any person getting the support of Trump or support the “Big Lie” should not be in any office. That rule means I am not likely to vote for many Republicans in the near future. It is beyond comprehension for a person to vote for someone who says the process is fraudulent if they don’t win.

            It is easier to complain about a situation than to say how they would fix it. During the recent election the Democrats did a poor job of playing up their successes and Republicans concentrated on saying what was wrong but offered no clues on how to fix it. They forgot former President Trump killed the economy with the shut down and President Biden had to pump money quickly into the economy to keep us from a disaster. A very minute part was wasted but the rest put money into millions of empty pockets.

            The far right complained about liberal ideology that has been passed by the Democrats. Part of that ideology is the infrastructure bill to fix what’s broken, build an efficient grid to move green power from the Southwest to the Northeast, install 50,000 EV charging stations, and other items to help cut our contribution to global warming. This bill covers things that Presidents have wanted to pass for decades. That bill covers most of my top wants, and the wants of over half of Americans.

            If Republicans ever want my vote again they need to address America’s needs to survive the future economic war with China and Climate Change.

            The Republican Party is putting forth a host of people who say the 2019 election was unlawful, stolen, or many other terms. The question is did they say that because they need the radical right and the deluded conservatives to win the Primary? What will they continue to say in the General Election when the two parties are close to being equal or will they conveniently downplay it?

            “The Big Lie” is getting less and less believers every day. The GOP has pinned their rallying cry on that lie to get through the Primary knowing they may have problems getting independents and a few Democrats to vote for the GOP candidates later.

            They are still praising Donald Trump while hoping any legal problems are either dropped or delayed until after the November elections. He has problems with at least two states and the Federal Government.

            Criminal charges are stacking up and Trump has a habit of not paying his bills so his top tier lawyers for his New York crimes got ten million dollars upfront. Even his lawyers know he is a crook but people and the GOP stand behind him just as many stand behind the January 6 insurrectionists.             How can the United States claim the high moral ground when so many people and their political leaders are so stupid?

            Democrats are far from perfect. In fact their nominees were often a little questionable. The party usually does a fairly deep background check on Federal and High State Office nominees before putting money into their campaigns. They still missed and some wrong people got into office. When problems are found and exposed by the media, why do people still vote for them?

            Now we have the Republican Party supporting the biggest liars, most immoral people to ever be involved in American Politics. We knew Trump was the crooked, sexist, immoral, and racist person to ever run for President yet he got millions of people to vote for him. They have allowed him to surround himself with hundreds of people with the same moral character he has. His choice in Georgia is violent, has been married four times, paid for an abortion he says he is against, and has said he isn’t smart enough to be a Senator. In Pennsylvania they have someone who doesn’t live in the state and made his living secretly getting paid to hawk products on his television show.

            Around the country the GOP is supporting people who they wouldn’t normally support for dog catcher but are too scared of Trump’s revenge. Senate Nominee in Georgia is being backed by Newt Gingrich who said the reason he may have paid for an abortion and not remember is because he had lots of concussions affecting his mental capacity. Mental problems are not an issue in today’s Republican Party. Their last President and many around the country demonstrate their lack of concern over mental stability.         

            I have been a Republican leaning Independent voter for four decades until Trump took over the party and supported militant radicals. Almost all the moderates in both parties are gone. The people who were considered fringe elements of both parties five or six decades ago might be considered a moderate today. Ronald Reagan and his advisors would be considered liberals today. Even Senator Barry Goldwater would be a moderate today.

            Several GOP governors who have supported legislatures are racing each other to the bottom. They are pushing gun ownership, low taxes resulting in few social services and infrastructure maintenance, minimal regulation, gender identification, investigations and many other far right ideologue ideas. What is interesting is these same governors are telling schools and businesses what they must say or do to comply with their demands.

            The new Trump ideologues cater to the militias, gun lobbyists, and a few religious leaders. The Republicans of old used to criticize Democrats for being easy on crime and loose morals. Today the GOP is lead by a person who flaunts his lack of morals and criminal activities. How did the Grand Ole Party get so far from the center of America? They are causing their base to go farther to the far radical right by destroying the government they have sworn to “protect and defend against all foreign and domestic enemies.”

            As Pogo supposedly once said in a comic strip decades ago, “We have found the enemy and they are us.”

What will be the GOP’s strategy for the 2022 election? The old philosophy of all politics being local no longer applies. Political theater showing ones-self to be a disrupter and defender of the super wealthy applies today. Now they promote tribalism and cultural divisiveness.

            After decades of trying to eliminate the IRS, they suddenly want a vast increase in the number of auditors and agents! At the same time, they want to protect legal loopholes so billionaires pay little or no taxes. Biden wants to increase taxes on those over $400,000 incomes, so the GOP calls that raising taxes on working families. It was effective in almost eliminating inheritance taxes on the very wealthy. Making one feel sorry for billionaires when one has trouble paying bills is unbelievable but works.

            The party’s biggest question is whether it continues its fealty to Trump to keep his radical followers. When the many criminal investigations hit him in the coming months, do they continue to back him or put him into some sort of exile? Polls indicate he may not get a person elected but is more likely for them to lose in a primary or general election.

            After going home and telling their constituents infrastructure jobs are coming, how can they face them when they vote no on the bill? Another big lie will be hatched for the gullible.

            I watched a documentary on how the GOP got to be in the morass it has found itself. I am old enough to remember it started with Barry Goldwater. Before, and for some time afterwards, both parties worked together to make the necessary laws and to investigate when necessary.

            Here is where the GOP went off the tracks and put America into the divisive situation we have today. Goldwater was an Arizona Senator who helped to make reading the Constitution a requirement by any brown skinned person. He gave credence to the “Jim Crow” laws used in the South by racists. Lincoln may have been the first Republican President but the party spawned the Ku Klux Klan and kept racism going. When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the XXIV amendment and other voting laws the racist Democrats went to the GOP swinging the South to Republican.

            The Republican governed states are once again scared black and brown people might flip their states so they are passing laws designed to keep them from voting. The state’s officials claim it is to prevent voter fraud but they certified after the election there was no fraud and Trump lost.

            The Republican Party has become a racist party in fact, and no longer is trying to hide it. Their choice is to keep blacks and browns – oddly not Asians – from voting or leave their racist radical supporters. We know which they have chosen.