The nation is moving beyond the Republican Party. Right-wing conservatives in the party know this. The math doesn’t work for the party. It is why we are seeing the hysteria and xenophobia over immigration, the attacks on the LGBQT community, and the many efforts to minimize the political participation of African-Americans, while at the same time witnessing the emergence of a more progressive and outspoken Generation Z. The America of tomorrow is forming today, and it has little patience or tolerance for racism, gender inequality, homophobia, religious bigotry, and anti-immigrant rhetoric. All of the behaviors the Republican Party embraced over the last 4 decades. The Republican Party is frozen in time, having chosen the wrong side of history.
It is important for the Republican Party to be held accountable for the lies it supports and to aggressively expose and refute their race baiting. The only antidote to the GOP’s bottomless pit of lies is to counter them with truth. It’s an exhausting but necessary exercise because when we allow lies to fester, they take on a life of their own, as we witnessed during the January 6 Trump-MAGA riot at the Capitol. For months Donald Trump peddled lies, instigated violence by suggesting the presidential election was fraudulent unless he won, and time and again, fabricated instances of voter fraud when none existed. Republicans knew for months that Trump was simply lying to stave off defeat, but they shamelessly supported him anyway and are equally to blame for the deaths and injuries that occurred as a result of the violent riot at the Capitol.
We must confront the lies of a political party that seems hell bent on imposing a cultocracy upon the American people. In Texas, Senator Ted Cruz managed to reach a new low when he attempted to flee to Cancun to escape the winter storm damage his state experienced while residents of the state fought for their very survival. If that were not shameful enough, Senator CanCruz had the audacity to suggest his children asked for the trip. It was revealed to be a lie when The New York Times produced the text messages of Mrs. Cruz that indicated the getaway was the Cruz’s attempt to spare themselves the agony being experienced by their fellow Texans. The senator, who has been a ‘build the wall’ champion, fled to Mexico the first chance possible to avoid assisting the people he was elected to serve. It was typical Trump-style hypocrisy.
Cruz is not alone. Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson seems intent on pushing a false narrative of the Capitol riot as a non-violent event that had little to do with White extremist groups. Johnson is parroting other conservatives who are pushing the lie that the rioters were really left-wing adherents of antifa and the insurrection was a ‘false flag’ operation of the so-called ‘Deep State.’ Where these lies hit a wall is the mountain of video evidence showing Trump flag carrying MAGA fanatics and White extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia members destroying property and beating police officers on the grounds of the Capitol. As well as the many eyewitness accounts of police officers on duty that day and the confessions of some of the rioters who point the finger directly at Donald Trump as being responsible for their actions that day in the nation’s capital. Johnson, and many of his Republican colleagues, have no credibility and must be called out for their lies.
We have been far too polite and forgiving of these charlatans who parade around the Capitol as if they are patriots. These people are con artists who will lie through their teeth to maintain power and enrich themselves. The Republican Party is now the party of White extremism, populated by racists, bigots, and fascists whose only purpose is the maintenance of White privilege and supremacy. They must be unceasingly called out as such. Republicans serve no purpose in our nation’s capital except to preserve White power and marginalize the lives of Black and brown people. The GOP is no longer a political party. It is a cult. It will continue to undermine American democracy unless we aggressively counter the noise and lies of its legion, and exercise our political and economic power to crush the Republican Party. It will only foment violence if we fail to rid ourselves of this evil cult.
Walter Fields is Executive Editor of NorthStarNews.com.
