The Republicans Have Left Me No Choice

Traditionally, I have found myself in agreement with much of what Republicans have done. They were in favor of civil rights before it was cool. It was President Eisenhower who sent in the 101st Airborne to enforce the law when the state of Arkansas went full-on white-supremacist in 1957. It was Nixon who signed the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. It was Nixon who signed SALT-I and Reagan who signed the INF Treaty.

But the GOP has become the party of hate, the party of ginning up bullshit culture wars. You can trace that back to Nixon's "Southern Strategy", Reagan's kicking off his campaign in a town best known for murdering civil rights workers and then demonizing "welfare mothers", Bush41's Willy Horton ad, Bush43's pushing Repubicans to change their states' constitutions to outlaw gay marriage in order to turn out the bigot vote in 2004, and Trump's demonization of immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Now, the latest group to be targeted by the Party of Racism and Hatred are transgendered people. Just like they did over sixty years ago, Arkansans are leading the way on this, inserting the state's big foot into medical care issues. The state's governor, a Republican, called GOP's transphobia as "..trying to address the fear of something that does not exist in reality."

As far as I can see, the GOP's become the party of hate. They have to find some "other" in order to gin up the far-right and the Evangelicals who are their only base these days. They're trying to drag the country back to the 1950s, when white men ruled everything, women knew their place and those people wouldn't have dared to come out and vote.

Hate is all that the GOP has left in its quiver.

So, unless you're a personal friend who is running as a Republican because maybe your county is a one-party county, then don't bother asking me for support or my vote. You're not getting it.