They say they are anti-corruption. Yet two months into this presidency republicans have literally, without even putting any effort into a believable explanation or hiding their internet company payouts, sold the personal and sensitive internet data of everyone in this country to the highest bidder. One of the first acts they did in this presidency was sell our drinking water to coal companies who now get to dump their sewage into nearby streams. They sold out our healthcare for billionaire tax breaks. They sold our prison system to private companies willing to profit off of slave labor. They sold our public education system to companies willing to profit off our children’s education. They sold out the health of our planet, the health of our children and our ability to reduce the fourth leading cause of death worldwide (air pollution) to dying fossil fuel industries. They sold out our bald eagles to lead bullet companies. They even sold out our Alaskan wildlife to big game hunters who get off on shooting bear cubs sleeping in dens. And they’re getting ready to sell out our economy to people on Wall Street who, when unregulated, are capable of getting insanely rich by using strategies that intentionally and purposely wreck our economy, often into recessions, like the one that happen literally less than a decade ago.
Republicans often invoke the political Reagan slogan, “Drain the Swamp”. But they are the reason the Citizen United’s Supreme Court decision, which removes any limits and transparency from political donations, won’t get overturned. One of the first things the new 2017 Republican House did was vote to remove the only independent committee that monitors their corruption. I know there’s corruption in the Democratic Party too, but the main difference between the two is Democrats actually vote to keep transparency, political donation limits, and third party ethics watch dogs, while republicans fight to remove all of it.
They say they are for fiscal responsibility. But in the same speech they’ll talk about drastically increasing the military budget while drastically cutting taxes on the rich, cutting funding for our ability to collect taxes, and deregulating institutions that have repeatedly caused economic disasters on our economy when unregulated. All of these things are not only unnecessary but drastically increase our debt and threaten our economy, while making republicans and their rich backers super rich.
Republicans say they are for protecting gun rights. Great! Except for there is NO ONE COMING FOR ANYONE’S GUNS! Current gun reform efforts are about closing background check loopholes and preventing people with mental illnesses and people on terror watch lists from getting assault rifles. Anything else is NRA/GOP/Fox News/Info Wars/Ted Nugent propaganda used to increase political votes, increase gun sales and increase political lobbyists influence.
They say they are pro-life. Yet they are constantly fighting to defund the things like sex education and women’s access to healthcare, which has in every credible study I’ve read proven to decrease abortions more than abstinence education.
They say they are for justice and the police. But the injustices perpetuated by our legal and police systems, which they not only fight so hard to protect but even instigate for political gain (Blue Lives Matter), is the main driver for increasing the hostile and dangerous divide that puts both our communities and police at increased risk.
They say they are anti-crime, yet they are fighting to turn our prison system into a private business that is incentivized by huge profits to continue economic injustices that increase crime, like attacking education, social programs, community investment programs, any effort for social justice reforms in our criminal and policing systems and increasing the ICE crack down on illegal immigrants who have to be stored at private prisons at huge profits.
They say they are for fighting the war on terror. Yet, instead of focusing on all forms of terrorism that threatens Americans, they only focused on foreign Islamic terrorism, ignoring domestic terrorism, which has actually killed more Americans than foreign Islamic terrorism since 9/11. They ignore domestic terrorism for several reasons such as it is not as effective of a fear mongering political tool compared to International terrorism, some of the domestic terror groups, like white Supremacists, are actually part of the Republican voting base, and because Bannon, our top presidential advisor, literally made several movies stating the need for a new world order to emerge after our next big war with Middle East Islamic Terrorism. Also Republicans are the main advocates for allowing people on terrorist watch list to be able to legally buy assault rifles.
They say they are for Christian values yet they are constantly fighting to cut funds and programs that help people who are poor, sick, disable, homeless or refugees. Either you have to admit that Jesus was a self-center jerk or admit that conservatives Christians aren’t following what Jesus taught.
They say they are for protecting American jobs against immigrants, yet they have opposed every jobs and economy stimulus bill for the last 8 years, are fighting to remove regulations that prevent economic recessions that destroy millions of jobs, oppose any “Bring Jobs Home Act” that remove tax breaks US companies get currently for shipping jobs overseas”, and are union busting, which makes it easier to ship jobs overseas. The “immigrants are taking your jobs” myth is a distraction against republicans support for outsourcing, decreasing labor rights and Wall St’s ability to get rich from economic disasters.
They say they are for protecting the constitution and government integrity. Yet one of the most important parts of the constitution is Article II of the U.S. Constitution which gives the president the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court, subject to the “advice and consent” of the Senate through confirmation hearings. When Justice Scalia died in February 2016 the Republicans refused to even hold a hearing on Obama’s nomination for 293 days until the nomination expired allowing Trump to pick the next seat, which when that nominee was filibustered the Republicans eliminated the filibuster, one of our most important checks and balances to our most important judicial system, allowing any party with a simple majority can now confirm with ease the most extreme and partisan judges onto our Supreme Court, a court at least “meant” to be neutral or at least moderate as possible, as it deliberates on the most important human rights cases of our country. The Republicans only care about the constitution or the integrity of our government when its in their favor. When its not, they will disregard anything for partisan politics.
What the republicans truly are for is not issues but selling misinformation, playing on people’s fears, rigging the election system through voter suppression and gerrymandering, and dehumanizing and scapegoating the most vulnerable people in this country, because it not only keeps them in a job while being super profitable, but it also is a lot easier than running a political party that fights for issues that help people. I’m all for a multi party system that includes parties that I may personally disagree with like a fiscally responsible, common sense politics, Christian value and market base political party. The Republican Party is not any of those things.
For a complete list of actions the Republicans have done since Trump’s election please visit the Timeline of GOP Corruption and Human Rights Violations starting Nov 2016
The Responsible Consumer 