Laws Don’t Apply to Us

 

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements 

with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign issue is all about.” 

The late Honorable John McCain, war hero, Republican Senator from Arizona, responding 

to a racist supporter lambasting Obama at a presidential campaign rally in 2008.

I may not have agreed with a significant portion of his political platform, but I always respected Senator McCain. Some called him a “maverick,” but whatever else people may have thought, he was a true American “patriot,” a world that today is used to describe seditionists, scofflaws, and those seeking autocratic rule by an angry and self-righteous minority. I am beginning to chafe at the term “Grand Old Party” and the “Party of Lincoln” as descriptors for the Republican Party. There is no question that the Democrats of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras were the party of white supremacy and gerrymanderers par excellence, but the political winds shifted beginning in the 1920s effectively blowing former GOP human rights concerns to the Dems, while racism slowly became a powerful undercurrent with the Republicans; the parties effectively changed places.

I think the Republicans need a new name, one that reflects their rather complete and total domination by one of the greatest scofflaws in American history: The Trump Party. Forget the “Lock Her Up” cry when Hillary Clinton’s private email server and missing emails became a political issue. Ignore the government documents flushed down the White House toilets or torn into shreds by the President of the United States, the presidential documents illegally removed from the White House. Pretend two impeachments never occurred. Hide your eyes from the “legitimate political discourse” set in motion by Trump’s inciting words (“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore”) at a pre-Capitol assault rally on January 6, 2021. Cover your ears at the recording of Donald Trump’s asking the Georgia Republican Secretary of State to “find” thousands of votes to reverse the election or the Trump cabal effort (led by Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani) to seize voting machines. Instead look at the efforts to insure that a clear minority white Christian dominated constituency – the Base – runs the country without meaningful opposition. Trump is their Golden Calf. 

These Trump Party efforts include voter suppression laws, now causing utter chaos in Texas where no one really knows how to vote anymore, gerrymandering but, perhaps worst of all, the complete domination of one of this nation's two major political parties by a dictator wannabe. Fear of upsetting Donald Trump and his propaganda arm, Fox News, has sent elected Republicans scurrying to the alter of Donald Trump seeking absolution of their sins. “The landscape is littered with major GOP figures who once disrespected the 45th president and then had to crawl on their bellies into his presence to avoid his wrath and possible excommunication from a MAGA-dominated party. Ted Cruz, for example, cannot possibly have any pride left after forgiving Trump’s nasty slurs on his wife and his father during the 2016 primaries and becoming one of his chief defenders in the Senate.” New York Magazine, February 10th.

Recently – AGAIN – Ted Cruz, having called those attacking the Capitol “terrorists” immediately groveled at the feet of Trump Propanda Doge, Fox New’s Tucker Carlson, begging for forgiveness for this “misstatement.” Cruz’ mouth is well-stretched from constant foot insertion, which included his statements after vacation to Mexico during a Texas winter power failure that killed hundreds of people and has now gravitated to his recent slamming Canadian law in support of truckers paralyzing Ottawa (one bridge to the US was at least temporarily unblocked by a Canadian court order): “They’re defending Canada, America, and they’re standing up for freedom! The government doesn’t have the right to force you to comply to their arbitrary mandates.” Who knew that Ted Cruz was an expert in Canadian law? Oh, Teddy was once a Canadian citizen.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Cruz’ published manifesto stated: “If I were to be elected as your President, it would not be according to how it should be but would be according to how it became with the unconstitutional election of Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro.  You see, I, like him, am not a ‘a natural born citizen’ as the Constitution requires of a President.” But under Canadian law, since Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, he was a Canadian citizen, albeit born of an American mother, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson Cruz. Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship on May 14, 2014. He claimed he actually did not know he was considered a Canadian citizen, since his family moved to Texas when Teddy was a toddler. 

Government officials in Canada basically want American right-wing contributors to the trucker blockage movement to butt out…  and for American politicians, like Ted Cruz, to keep out of their internal affairs. By the way, these Ottawa (and now few other) truckers are a very small group (their trucks are big, however). 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. Almost all Canadians are a. believers that COVID is a medical not a political issue and b. that the American polarization and politization of vaccines is shocking and disturbing. 

Cruz is a big player in the Republican political scene. He was one of the most virulent opponents to congressional certification of Biden’s election and continues to support the Big Lie, that Biden’s election was fraudulent. But little politicians, like South Carolina freshman congresswoman, Nancy Mace, are feeling the power of Trump’s threat to decimate Republican candidates who have in any way opposed him or his core policies… by supporting their opponents in the primaries. Poor Nancy. She incurred Tsar Donald’s wrath. 

“[Mace] has now taken the cake a day after Trump called her an ‘absolutely terrible’ and ‘very disloyal’ candidate, and endorsed her primary opponent, Katie Arrington. Mace’s original sin was to criticize Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021 even as she battled to substitute a censure resolution for the House impeachment measure that was ultimately approved. But she probably guaranteed a primary opponent by getting into a scrap with Trump’s buddies on the House Freedom Caucus over her criticism of Islamophobic comments by Colorado MAGA firebrand Lauren Boebert, whose friend Marjorie Taylor Greene called Mace ‘trash’ and a ‘RINO.’” NY Magazine. In a humiliating tweet, pictured above, Mace stood in front of Trump Tower in NYC, embraced Trump’s most extreme views and effectively begged Herr Trump for forgiveness.

As two very conservative traditional Republican representatives – Liz Cheney and Adam Kizinger – have effectively been purged-by-censure by the RNC for seeking the truth about the Capitol invasion, the replacement Trump Party is clearly defined by shame and autocracy as the Constitution they swore to uphold unravels. We need to help John McCain’s body stop spinning in his grave. This new political incarnation should no longer be called the “Republican Party”!

I’m Peter Dekom, and if rising younger voters – the majority of whom oppose this move to autocracy, mendacity, intolerance and issue denial – don’t find a way to vote their way back to democracy, we will only be able to look at American democracy in our rearview mirror.