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Bernie Evans: The GOP is not the party of life
Bernie Evans.jpg
Bernie Evans

RE: this pandemic. Obviously, people need to get back to work. 

It’s ridiculous to think we can do this “lockdown” thing for more than a couple of weeks. At least, with a failed government response.

I won’t pretend I don’t appreciate how the “protesters” are pulling back the curtain on so many Trump-supporters: the sexist attacks shouting obscenities about female governors; the swastikas; the long gun-toting white men spit-shouting in the faces of police officers (imagine if those were Black protesters, or even LGBTQ); and signs indicating COVID-19 is a “Chinese virus” (the fact that hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise means nothing).

All the while, these morons of mayhem are waving “Trump 2020” banners and sporting those mad-red hats.

 Jeez, big surprise.

Of course, maybe the citizenry could handle this crisis better if President Donald Trump’s joke of an administration wasn’t hijacking the lion’s share of stimulus monies for cronies and the politically-connected (not that this excuses such behavior). Still, if working folks were getting the funds allocated to us by the Democratic House of Representatives, we might have a fighting chance.

Get this: In the midst of all this suffering and death, the GOP Lt. Governor of Texas was on Fox “News” recently talking about how, “There’s more important things in life than living.”

Do what?

He’s not alone. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says, “The good news is the coronavirus will only kill about 3.4 percent of our population.”

That’s more than 10 million American citizens.

Never again can the Republicans call themselves “The party of life.”

It’s over.

Not that they ever were; more like the party of “opportunism.”

The Republicans never gave one thin whit about terminating unwanted pregnancies until president Richard Nixon was impeached and collapsed the party and they needed a comeback scheme in the 1970s.

Party operatives including Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie got together and brainstormed for a wedge issue to restore the party’s fortunes; preferably something to generate outrage to drive voter turn-out. 

Abortion would be perfect.

“Baby murder!” 

And the Supreme Court had just issued Roe v. Wade.

There were some flies in the ointment, of course. Anti-abortion fervor had always been mostly relegated to Catholics.

And worse, two years earlier, in 1971, the Southern Baptist Convention had put forth a resolution endorsing abortion as “legitimate family planning.”

But with enough money and advertising the Republicans could make abortion the wedge issue to trump all wedge issues. And what a success it’s been.

Without a doubt, it has been a rollercoaster of hyper-hypocrisy, what with this notion of “protecting the unborn”, but then, once it’s born, well, all bets are off.

That baby is on its own.

At any rate, joining Johnson we have Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), he’s been firmly against abortion but when it comes to the born, the already living, and COVID-19, he says, “We need to pay attention to what’s going on in Sweden, kids are in school, none of this lockdown…and nobody is crying that they are having an unacceptable outcome.”

Sweden currently has the highest death rate in Europe.

 I wonder if Republican leadership cares little about this insidious virus because it’s mostly killing the poor, people-of-color, people with pre-existing conditions, and the elderly in nursing homes? 

And if all this total disregard for the living isn’t enough of a horror show, now Trump fires, er, “transfers”, the man in charge of vaccine-making, a doctor known for his prodigious gifts for creating vaccines.

It seems Dr. Rick Bright resisted Trump’s nudging to put all efforts into studying and clearing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. 

Dr. Bright made the mistake of telling a reporter that, “Science, not politics or cronyism, has to lead the way…we must invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress into vetted cures and legitimate therapies, not organizations that are politically connected.”

This greatly angered Mr. President.

Internal White House documents show the administration wanted to “flood New York and New Jersey” with the stuff. Prescriptions skyrocketed and…well, the rest, as they say, is history.

The New York and New Jersey dead that is (R.I.P.).

 Those two states have been hit the hardest.

(NOTE: A recent Veterans Administration study found that patients taking hydroxychloroquine died at a faster rate than those not taking it.)

 So much for Republicans and their “party of life.”

Bernie Evans is a local writer whose opinions have appeared in local publications, TIME and The Nation.


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