The usual job of opinion columnists is to craft arguments that influence the views of our readers. We’re taught to always welcome readers who disagree with us because those are the folks whose minds we want to change. That’s usually how it goes. But not today.
Today, I’m only writing to Eastern Echo readers who agree with me that it’s the Republican Party – not socialism, communism or terrorism – which is now the single greatest threat to American national security. We have met the enemy, and they are the GOP.
Republicans hate government in general, but they will do anything to dismantle an administration run by a mixed-race Democrat named Barack Hussein Obama. We understand the GOP’s true mission is nothing less than the destruction of Obama’s America.
Okay, fine. I’m glad we agree. Republicans really are evil. But when state and federal elections roll around again next year, will you vote against them? Because yeah, it’s really that simple. There’s no other way to beat them.
You have to register to vote, find your precinct, get to the polls on time, and cast your ballot for anyone who can beat the Republican candidates. That usually means voting for Democrats.
It’s not that Democrats are all that great. The Democratic Party has had its problems over the years, to be sure. Kwame Kilpatrick and Anthony Weiner are just two recent examples of the many Dems who have embarrassed their party and swindled the American electorate.
In fact, it’s tempting to view all government as nothing but a rogue’s gallery of corrupt and contemptible con artists. But that easy dismissal of the political class leads us down a dangerous rabbit hole. After all, in a representative democracy like ours, someone has to govern.
So while I might view politicians as among the lowest forms of pond scum, right down at the bottom of the moral food chain with us journalists, I still recognize the Republican species of American political scum as being especially toxic. I call it the Red Menace.
Of course, Democrats don’t have the answers to all our problems. But in most U.S. elections, Democrats are the only candidates who can beat Republicans. And Republicans are the problem.
Republicans have argued for decades that cutting taxes on the rich will bring torrents of wealth trickling down to the rest of us. They call it supply-side economics. But it has never worked because it’s a gigantic lie. And lowering taxes has never increased tax revenues. Ever.
The GOP claims America is a Christian nation and that religious tolerance is just the moral relativism of godless liberals. But it’s our Constitution, with which Tea Party Republicans seem so pathologically obsessed, that demands the separation of church and state.
And Republicans continue to spew so much venomous hate-speech at foreigners, poor people and minorities that they sound like fascists when trying to debate issues like immigration reform, income inequality or civil rights.
But can the American electorate vote these voodoo-economic theo-fascist Republicans back out of office next time around. Sure we can. We just have to do it.
In 2010, the Red Menace took control of the U.S. House of Representatives and of virtually the entire Michigan state government. That happened, not because the GOP had better ideas for governing, but because a vast red horde of Republican voters, fanned by the flames of fear and hatred, swarmed to the polls in record numbers while Obama voters mostly stayed home.
Evil triumphed because good people did nothing, and now this wildly destructive Republican elephant has come home to roost, so to speak.
So when Election Day arrives next year, please remember to ask yourself who poses the greatest threat to America. It won’t be illegal aliens folks, and it won’t be Al Qaeda – it will be the Republicans. That’s when I hope the rest of us will feel some fear and hatred of our own.
